Economy
Opinion
Russia makes big investments in Venezuela page 7
International media hate fest on Venezuela continues page 8
Friday, February 1, 2013 | Nº 144 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve
Murders down in Venezuela
ENGLISH EDITION/The artillery of ideas
Latin America and Caribbean show unity and diversity
Security
Prison evacuated to end violence
Culture
Venezuela’s film industry flourishes
The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) closed its summit in Santiago, Chile last weekend after strengthening multilateral ties with the European Union and creating the conditions for greater integration in the Americas. CELAC, which includes every country in the Americas except Canada and the United States, has become the region’s most important integrationist organization, incorporating 33 nations and more than 591 million people. Pages 2-3
School opened in Chavez home
A National Day of Cinema was celebrated with more film productions. page 6
Venezuela has lowest inequality Statistics show Venezuela has the lowest inequality in Latin America. page 6
Municipal elections in Venezuela scheduled for July 14 T/ AVN
This week the Venezuelan government announced the murder rate is down by 15% across the national territory. Kidnappings, previously a serious problem based in economic inequalities, are also down. The figures, explained Interior and Justice Minister Nestor Reverol, go to show that “the supervision, control, and security measures which are being applied have produced positive results”. page 4
Venezuela’s penitentiary services ministry deals with prison rioting. page 5
INTERNATIONAL
Venezuela’s government opened a new preschool Tuesday in the hometown of ailing President Hugo Chavez, who remained in Cuba receiving treatment seven weeks after undergoing cancer surgery. Vice President Nicolas Maduro attended the inauguration of the preschool in the rural town of Sabaneta in the western state of Barinas. It is named “Mama Rosa,” after the grandmother with whom Chavez and his brother, Adan, lived during their childhood. Children sang in a classroom while Maduro toured the school along with Adan Chavez, who is the governor of western Barinas state. Adan Chavez said the school was built on the land where the home of their grandmother with a palm-thatched roof once stood.
Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) announced yesterday that elections for mayors and members of municipal and metropolitan councils will be held on July 14 of this year. CNE President Tibisay Lucena announced the official date of the elections and said that candidates may register from April 11 to 15, while campaigning will occur from June 12 to July 11. The CNE decided to extend the period during which citizens may register to vote, which was originally January 30, but will now last until February 15. Lucena clarified that the registration period is for those registering to vote for the first time, and urged young people who will turn 18 before the election to approach one of the CNE’s 150 locations throughout the country. The CNE projects that almost 40,000 more men and women will run in the municipal elections, either through political parties or independently. Citizens who have been selected to act as poll workers for this election cycle will be notified about the training workshops they should attend. Voting in the municipal elections can be more complicated, Lucena said, as some voters will have to mark up to 10 choices on four different ballots. However, all the steps have been reviewed and tested by the CNE to ensure that the process is as easy as possible and that voters have the information they need ahead of time. “We are going to have, as we had last year, laboratories and many tests of the Integrated Authentication System to determine the time it takes to vote”, she said.
2 Impact | . s Friday, February 1, 2013
The artillery of ideas
Celac moves forward with European cooperation, praises role of Venezuelan in promoting unity T/ COI P/ Presidential Press
be Hugo Chavez”, said the President of the Dominican Republic Danilo Medina, explaining the enormous benefits his country has received as a result of the Petrocaribe initiative promoted by the Venezuelan leader. For his part, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera quoted Chavez, calling the Celac organization “the second great opportunity for the construction of the Patria Grande, the unity and the independence of the region”. “I’m sure that [Chavez] was referring to the first opportunity that our founding fathers and liberators had. His visionary commitment to Latin American unity, has, without doubt, been very important for the birth of Celac”, Pinera said of socialist Chavez.
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he Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) closed its summit in Santiago, Chile last weekend after strengthening multilateral ties with the European Union and creating the conditions for greater integration in the Americas. The encounter, attended by 60 international delegations, produced a 48-point Declaration of Santiago that lays out the framework for what Chilean President and host of the summit, Sebastian Pinera, called “less vertical and more horizontal” relations with Europe. “We reaffirm our commitment to adopt policies that promote commerce and investment between the countries of the Celac and the EU, convinced that such policies will contribute to sustainable development and can encourage economic growth as well as job creation in both regions, especially for the youth”, reads the declaration. Such policies must “be based on cooperation and complementary relations, solidarity and social inclusion, and environmental responsibility”, the statement continues. Celac, which includes every country in the Americas except Canada and the United States, has become the region’s most important integrationist organization, incorporating 33 nations and more than 591 million people. The EU represents Celac members’ greatest single economic partner, accounting for $518 billion in foreign direct investment in the region in 2010, more than Russia, India and China combined. According to Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, while differences between the two blocs exist, the Celac represents “an important partner in the international community, not only economically, but also politically”. “This shared conviction that we depend on each other is what forms the base of our relation”, Van Rompuy said. A simultaneous People’s Summit also took place in Santiago during the Celac meeting which
CUBA TAKES THE REINS
saw members of progressive social movements and political parties from the Americas and Europe discuss strategies to link different struggles for social justice across national boundaries. In a closing declaration, the parallel summit expressed it’s support for the peace process currently being carried out between Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels and the Colombian government as well as its “full solidarity for the Palestinian people and all those oppressed by colonizing powers and imperialism”.
CHAVEZ PRESENT The Celac’s founding conference took place in Caracas in December 2011 under the leadership of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Although Chavez could not attend the proceedings in Chile last weekend, the head of state sent a letter of solidarity to the summit, which was read aloud by the South American country’s Vice President, Nicolas Maduro. “As you all know... I am fighting once again for my health in revolutionary Cuba”, Chavez wrote. “For this reason, these lines are the way for me to
make myself present in the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. They are to reaffirm, today more than ever, the active commitment that Venezuela has with the historic cause of unity”, he stated. Chavez, who is recovering in Cuba from cancer-related surgery performed on December 11, made a call in his missive for a common energy agenda and increased social spending as a way to stave off the type of economic crises that have afflicted Europe and the United States. “The only answer to the crisis being offered by the first world has been the cutting of social spending and public investment. The Celac can sustain economic growth with heavy social investment, agreeing on a common agenda for equality and the recognition of the universal rights that each one of our citizens has to receive free health care and education”, the head of state wrote. During the summit, various representatives of the different Celac member states praised the Venezuelan President for his vision and efforts in forging the new integrationist organization. “If the word solidarity needs a synonym, I believe it should
Cuban head of state Raul Castro took over the pro tempore presidency of Celac during the summit’s closing last Sunday, strengthening the centrality of the Caribbean Island’s presence in the region’s integration and further isolating the United States from the political trends of Latin America. “The fact that Cuba is taking over the presidency of Celac marks the change of an era”, said Argentine President Cristina Fernandez. “The fact that Sebastian Pinera, President of Chile, is handing over the pro tempore presidency to Raul Castro of Cuba is an indication of the times”, the Argentine head of state said, praising the tolerance and cooperation that now characterizes the region following the antagonisms of the cold war. While addressing the summit, the 81 year-old Castro affirmed the need to maintain the focus of the alliance on stamping out poverty and improving education as a means of achieving development. “We are obliged to obtain considerable progress regarding education as the base of economic and social development. Nothing that we propose, from reducing inequality and the technology gap, will be possible without it”, Castro said. Per Celac rules, Cuba will retain the one-year presidency of the organization and will pass it to Costa Rica in 2014.
. s Friday, February 1, 2013
The artillery of ideas
Latin America and Caribbean aim for “unity in diversity” T/ Marianela Jarroud - IPS P/ Presidential Press
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penly conceding the differences in their ideological, economic and geopolitical views, leaders and high-level representatives of the 33 member countries of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) committed themselves to integration at their second summit. Celac “definitely” empowers the region’s voice in the world, said the executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac), Alicia Barcena, at the conclusion of the summit in Santiago on Monday. “I am convinced that this new mechanism is a strong signal, first of all, that Latin America and the Caribbean are no longer what they used to be”, and have experienced “very significant changes”, she said. Designed in 2010 in Mexico, and created in November 2011 in Caracas, Celac represents about 600 million people and is the first regional bloc in five decades that leaves out the United States and Canada and includes Cuba. Right-wing Chilean President Sebastian Pinera said it is “an inclusive (process), because it
reaffirms convergence in the same common space, while it has projected itself strongly abroad”. The host president’s words were along similar lines to those written by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, his complete opposite ideologically, in a letter that was read at the summit. Chavez is convalescing in Havana from his fourth cancer operation, which took place on December 11. The summit was marked by an air of expectancy about the contents of the letter, read out by Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro. Celac “is the most important project of political, economic, cultural and social unity in our contemporary history”, Chavez said. The presence from afar of the Venezuelan leader, one of the promotors of Celac together with then presidents Felipe Calderon (2006-2012) of Mexico and Luis Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2011) of Brazil, silently stalked the corridors of the summit and breathed suspense even into the meeting that Celac leaders held January 25-26 with the European Union. “We have every right to feel proud: the nation of republics, as Simon Bolivar the Liberator called it, has begun to take
shape as a beautiful and happy reality”, he wrote. Chavez condemned “the shameful imperial blockade of the revolutionary Cuba of Marti (the Cuban independence hero and writer)” and “the continued colonization and now the progressive militarization of the Malvinas (Falklands) Islands”, the British overseas territory in the South Atlantic that Argentina claims as its own. He also called for support for Cuban President Raul Castro, who took over the temporary presidency of Celac. Barcena said, meanwhile, that countries in Latin America and the Caribbean “are in a
better economic situation, are more resilient from the economic point of view, and also from the social point of view, although there are many pending debts”. She said the region “is well aware of the gaps that need closing internally, and afterwards, if we are more connected, we will be able to relate to foreign countries with greater strength”. Barcena said the region has become conscious of the importance of promoting trade between countries. She added, “If regionalism and integration are dynamized, (production) chains of greater value can be created in the region, and with better articulation, we can (enter into more advantageous) relationships with the Asia-Pacific countries, Europe, or the United States”. The governments represented at the summit reached convergence on Argentine sovereignty over the Malvinas/Falklands Islands, rejection of the US blockade of Cuba, and the need to reduce the enormous inequalities in the region. But they expressed divergence when it came to debate on foreign investments in the region and on historic geopolitical demands. Castro said that “transnational corporations, primarily from North America, will not give up control of energy, water and strategic mineral resources that are becoming scarce”, while he stated that his taking over the Celac presidency was “a recognition of
| Integration
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our people’s selfless struggle for independence”. For his part, Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino called on the Organization of American States (OAS) to “make reparations to Cuba”, which was suspended from the body in 1962. When it was the turn of Bolivian President Evo Morales, he insisted on his country’s historic demand for a sovereign outlet to the Pacific Ocean, which it claims from Chile. Pinera replied, and an extended discussion took place between the two in the forum. Morales also called on the “brothers” of the insurgent Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) to come to a peace agreement. They must “understand that in these times, revolutions are not made by bullets but by voices, in democracy, without violence, with awareness and not by vote-buying”, said Morales, in words that earned him the thanks of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. Barcena said that the countries of the Americas marching towards unity in diversity is part of the new impetus that Celac brings. The three realities, made up of the Caribbean and Mexico, Central America and South America, “can dialogue in a much broader and I would say much more pragmatic environment, each with its own model”, she said. In her view, “there is more convergence than before, and I would say that the guiding principle here is the fight against inequality, because all the countries have realized that inequity conspires against technical progress, security, democracy and, above all, against productivity”. In contrast, international analyst Raul Söhr held a more cautious and less optimistic view. He said, “integration does not happen because mechanisms are created, but because there is political will, and when it comes to that there is still great divergence” within the region. “The mechanisms keep proliferating, with the creation of the Pacific Alliance (Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru), the Union of South American Nations (Unasur), Celac, and the OAS, but at summits like this one, only generic declarations can be made in favor of what is good and against what is bad”, the Chilean expert said. The third Celac Summit will be held in 2014 in Havana, at a date yet to be announced.
4 Security | . s Friday, February 1, 2013
The artillery of ideas
Reverol: Murders down 15% in Venezuela T/ Paul Dobson P/ Agencies
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inister for Interior Affairs and Justice, Nestor Reverol, issued a series of reports this week, which show the government, alongside organized communities, are successfully combatting the major problem of crime. Speaking in Altamira, Caracas, Minister Reverol said the murder rate is down by 15% across the national territory. The Minister also commented that kidnappings, previously a serious problem based in economic inequalities, are also down. The figures, he explained, go to show that “the supervision, control, and security measures which are being applied have produced positive results”. Reverol explained that the Ministry has recently purchased 4,000 new motorbikes and 2,000 new walkie-talkies that will be given into the police forces during the first semester of 2013 in order to continue improving the fight against crime. Crime and criminal culture are problems that the current administration has inherited from the social neglect and high poverty levels of the pre-Chavez governments, and are problems that until now have failed to be successfully addressed by the current government. Last year, the launch of a new social pro-
gram for security ‘A Toda Vida Venezuela’ aimed to finally resolve one of the most dogged social problems that remains in the country. The organization, paying, and equipping of police forces is a semi-devolved issue in Venezuela, with individual state governors responsible for their autonomous state police forces. These forces are now being gradually integrated into the recently formed National Bolivarian Police force, which works across the entire national territory, though there has been reluctance by corrupt elements within the regional police forces to integrate into this new body. Reverol revealed priority measures in the two states with
the highest levels of crime this week: Zulia and Miranda. In Zulia, which borders Colombia, the police forces will undergo a process of modernization, adaptation, and restructuring. “We are going to check to see what are the causes which provoke the sensation of insecurity”, explained Zulian governor Francisco Arias Cardenas. In Miranda, which encompasses parts of greater Caracas and has been ruled by right-wing governor Henrique Capriles Radonski since 2008, Minister Reverol unveiled over 2,000 extra security forces who, on behalf of the Chavez government, are going to be patrolling and working in the worst hit areas of the state.
The state of Miranda suffers from the most acute crime levels of all of the 23 States in Venezuela. Reverol went on to explain that the Ministry’s intervention in Miranda was forced upon them by the inaction of the governor when it comes to dealing with the security issue. Miranda, Reverol explained, has fallen into a pit of crime and violence with Capriles as governor. Capriles, he stated, “hasn’t, in any concrete way, assumed the issue of citizen’s security”. Furthermore, “the state has a police force which is demoralized and badly equipped; the only equipment which they have is that which we (the National Government) gave to them last year”. Reverol highlighted certain statistics to back up his claims that governor Capriles is failing in his responsibilities: in 2008 there were 1,477 murders, 1,046 vehicles robberies, and 17 kidnappings in Miranda; yet in 2012, after 4 years of Capriles’ governance, there were 2,576 murders, 4,200 vehicles stolen, and 156 kidnappings reported. Reverol explained that in one of the most populated municipalities of Miranda, the Sucre Municipality, “we see that 30% of the murders are concentrated”. Because of this reality, the majority of the 2,000 extra security personnel which the national govern-
ment is sending to Miranda, bypassing the State Governor, will be concentrated in that municipality. “The Bolivarian Government is committed to the people of Miranda, to guarantee security in the absence of any plans by the regional government”, he stated. Furthermore, “we are designing a strategic plan which is unique and exclusive to the state, with the aim of guaranteeing the peace and tranquility for those who live in Miranda”. Minister Reverol also unveiled the security operation that will take place during the upcoming national holiday to celebrate Carnaval from February 8-13. He explained that nationally, 201,000 security personnel will take part in the operation, which is 5,000 more than in 2012. Furthermore, there will be 25,000 vehicles used by the security forces, well up on the 9,430 used in 2012. They will be covering the entire country, but especially the 406 beaches and 26 National Parks in Venezuela, favorites of the expected 19.7 million Venezuelan and foreign holiday goers who will be taking part in the festivities. “We have determined that thanks to these security personnel, criminal incidents decreased considerably. This is why we, all of the government, are attending in a direct way this great deployment to guarantee the peace and tranquility of the Venezuelan families and of the foreign tourists who have chosen our country as their tourist destination”.
GUNS DESTROYED In other related news this week, it was announced that the quantity of firearms destroyed by the Armed Forces, who, alongside the National Bolivarian Police force, are applying the policy of national civilian disarmament, has risen to 303,000 since 2003. Director of the National Bolivarian Police force, Luis Fernandez, explained that “this important figure for the destruction of firearms puts us at the vanguard of the process in the region”. “The weapons”, he went on to say, “are being taken out of circulation and brought to a place where they will never be able to leave from, where they will never again be able to destroy a human life”. He called on regional governments, governors and mayors, to throw themselves behind this policy for the good of the country.
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The artillery of ideas
T/ COI P/ Ministry of Penitentiary Services
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enezuela’s Minister for Penitentiary Services, Iris Varela, announced the complete transfer of all inmates incarcerated in the Urbina prison in the state of Lara last weekend after acts of violence led to the death of 57 on Friday. The relocation is intended to “close this chapter of violence”, Varela said, and entails the temporary evacuation of 138 women as well as 111 men, all of whom have been moved to different facilities throughout the region. Family members of the incarcerated have been notified of the decision and have been kept informed on the new location of their relatives. According to Varela, the violence began at Urbina on Friday after private media stations disclosed information regarding a government inspection of the prison intended to confiscate illegal arms inside the correctional facility. The seizure is part of a campaign to disarm the prisons and confront the kind of gang activity that continues to hold a grip on many of the nation’s penitentiaries. “With absolute rigor, we will carry out the plan to eradicate the mafias inside the penitentiary centers. [The prisons] must be ruled by the law and
Venezuelan government orders evacuation of prison
be spaces for the recovery of people who have had the misfortune of falling in to a life of crime and violence”, Varela said on Saturday. Venezuela’s Ministry for Penitentiary Services was created in 2011 to specifically deal with the conditions of the nation’s overcrowded prisons by pushing for greater efficiency in le-
gal proceedings and a humanization of the penal system. Since it’s founding, the ministry has engaged in a number of reforms including introducing greater rehabilitation programs for inmates, engaging with prisoners to evaluate problems inside the penitentiaries, and taking a leading role in the construction of more modern facilities.
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enezuelan President Hugo Chavez has beaten his respiratory infection and his recovery continues to be favorable, the Venezuelan government has reported. Chavez is in Havana, Cuba, recovering from an operation in the pelvic region last December to remove a cancerous lesion. The operation was his fourth for cancer in eighteen months. The latest official update on his recovery, released Saturday, said, “At present the serious respiratory infection has been overcome, although a certain grade of respiratory insufficiency persists, which is being duly treated”. The statement also reported that given Chavez’s continued “favorable” clinical progress, “systematic medical treatment for the base illness [cancer] has begun to be applied,
as a compliment to the surgery undergone last 11 December”. The medical section of the update concluded by stating, “The Commander Chavez has been fully complying with medical treatment and has always been active in his process of recovery, which has not concluded”. The statement was read by the Venezuelan Minister of Communication, Ernesto Villegas, from Santiago de Chile, where a summit between the European Union (EU) and Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) was underway. Villegas further confirmed in the statement that Chavez has continued to exercise a level of decision-making power while in his process of recovery by reviewing documents and meeting with leaders of his government.
REACTIONS In a subsequent interview with Venezuelan private channel Venevision, Ernesto Ville-
gas stressed that while the positive developments in Chavez’s recovery had “brought happiness”, the Venezuelan government “doesn’t want to create false expectations about [the timing of Chavez’s] return”. The Venezuelan opposition has maintained a hard line during recent weeks. Many opposition figures argue that there has been a “violation” of the constitution and a “state coup” because Chavez was unable to attend his presidential swearing-in, even though the Supreme Court had previously ruled that a delay in the ceremony was legal.
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Minister Varela condemned the portrayal of violence in the Urbina prison by the private media, calling the coverage of the acts “biased” and in some cases “fabricated”. The official pointed specifically to the television station Globovision and the newspaper El Impulso for their sensation-
alist treatment of the violence with aims of sewing “anxiety “ in the population. “Those who today are clamoring around the violence are the same who in public and private, and in social media, have advocated that the ideal policy [for the problem of the prisons] should be the complete extermination of the inmates”, the minister accused. Varela highlighted the use by media outlets of outdated photographs displaying cadavers attributed to the Urbina prison but which were actually taken some six years previously. Such use of fabricated materials, the minister reminded, is not something new to the private media. A similar situation occurred in 2011 when Globovision was fined by the national government for violating the nation’s Social Responsibility in the Media Law after violence shook the Rodeo prison in Caracas. At that time, the opposition news channel aired the testimony of inmates’ families 269 times and added the sounds of gunshots in the background for greater effect. “The way that the media has handled things has been like a macabre party. People act without scruples and it would seem that their thirst for blood is never satiated”, Varela said.
Opposition leader Henrique Capriles claimed that the government was “shamelessly lying” about Chavez’s health. In reference to Chavez’s absence from the public light since his operation, the former presidential candidate argued, “Someone can sign documents and make jokes and can’t speak to the country? Someone is lying to you…they [the government] only care about defending their power”. The opposition also continues to claim that Venezuela is being “run by Cuba” in the current situation, with leader of the right-wing Popular Will party,
Leopoldo Lopez, declaring yesterday that, “It’s the Castro brothers who are making the decisions in Venezuela”. Such charges have been strongly rejected by the government. Vice President Nicolas Maduro declared in a recent interview that “we have advised our public continually and truthfully” on Chavez’s state of health, while also respecting his privacy as a patient. Meanwhile pro-government journalist and political scientist Nicmer Evans said in his weekly column today that “the return of Chavez is imminent, after a highly risky operation and complicated convalescence. This return, still not officially set, could be in no more than four weeks”. He further argued that while various scenarios are possible upon Chavez’s return, the Bolivarian process would likely assume “a more shared or collective leadership” and that “Chavismo and the Venezuelan people should prepare themselves for a change in the political dynamic in comparison with the last fourteen years”.
PRIVATE MEDIA AGENDA
Venezuelan govt: Chavez overcomes respiratory infection T/ Ewan Robertson P/ Presidential Press
| Politics
6 Culture | . s Friday, February 1, 2013
The artillery of ideas
Venezuelan film industry beginning to flourish
T/ Ewan Robertson P/ Agencies
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ith community film showings and the opening of a new movie theater, this Monday 28 January Venezuela celebrated its National Day of Cinema. The day marks 116 years since the first fragments of Venezuelan film were shown in Maracaibo in 1897, and comes as the national film industry is experiencing a renaissance. According to figures in the Venezuelan film industry, this year between 28 and 30 locally made feature length films will be premiered, an increase on the 20 shown last year and an average of 15 over the last few years. Jose Antonio Valera, president of the Venezuelan government’s division for the promotion of national cinema, the Villa del Cine Foundation, said on Monday that so many Venezuelan films had never been premiered in one year. “We can say that from this week every time a Venezuelan goes to the cinema they will have two or three options from national cinema to choose from, apart from the hegemonic options. This is unique and makes us very happy”, he said in an interview with public television VTV. One of the new Venezuelan movies to be premiered this year is “Breaking the Silence” which deals with structural abuse against disabled people. “The film tries to break the chains of daily abuse”, said director Andres Rodriguez, who added that up to now disabled
people hadn’t played an important role in national cinema. Another of the films, produced by the Anaco Audiovisual Community, will be the first community-made feature length film in Venezuela.
THE FALL AND RISE OF VENEZUELAN CINEMA The rise in the quantity and profile of Venezuelan films comes after a spectacular collapse in the industry in the 1990s. In the “golden decade” of the 1980s, a peak was reached in 1986 when over four million people went to see nationally produced films.
Yet in the 1990s, according to national cinema spokespersons, a mixture of economic crisis, neoliberal policies and industry instability caused a collapse in Venezuelan cinema. This reached a disastrous low in 1994, when only 77,000 box office seats were filled by national productions. According to Victor Lucker of the national private distributor Cine Amazonia Films, governments of that period contributed to the decline, as “there weren’t clear policies” towards the industry. However this trend has been reversed in recent years, in part due to policies adopted by
the Chavez government. The reform to the Cinema Law in 2005 and the establishment of the Financing and Promotion of Cinema Fund boosted the increased production of Venezuelan film and gave a concomitant stability to the national industry. Meanwhile the government founded the Villa del Cine in 2006, complimenting the already existing National Autonomous Centre of Cinematography (CNAC), to support and directly participate in the production of Venezuelan film. These efforts have played a key role in the industry’s current renaissance. Of the 28 – 30 new Venezuelan movies to be shown this year, 22 enjoy the participation of the Villa del Cine. Villa del Cine president Valera commented on Monday that, “the fruits of a strong, coherent and sustained policy are being harvested, that aims to make Venezuela a player in the cultural and cinematic spheres”. The Venezuelan government is also in the process of opening a network of new cinemas through which both Venezuelan movies and a range of world film not usually available in
commercial cinemas will be shown. Venezuela’s Experimental University of the Arts will participate in both the programming and policies of this alternative cinema network. Due to greater industry stability and the establishment of a new worker’s fund, film industry workers also enjoy greater labor benefits than before, said Victor Lucker, such as social insurance and vacation plans for kids. Along with the greater number of movies being produced, box office figures for national cinema have also shown a resurgence. In 2012 over two million Venezuelans went to see nationally produced titles, not counting street projections and attendance at community theatres. As the popularity of Venezuelan cinema seems set to continue rising, government and industry figures are also looking to make a larger regional and global impact. “We live in a moment of splendor for [Venezuelan] cinema that obliges us to be ever better…and to grow in this sense. We have a great commitment with the audience we’ve recovered”, said Lucker.
2009 and 2010 to 3.5% and 1.2% respectively. The social sector includes education, and schools have been improved dramatically. “Before there were 350,000 children that received free meals in schools and now there are 4.1 million children receiving two meals and a snack each day. They’re also distributing “Canaimita” laptop computers to continue a
program in public elementary schools that is offering important training to our young people and allowing them to work at a different level”, he said. In the second half of 2012, extreme poverty fell to just 6.5% of all households, and for 2013-2019, the goal is to reduce that rate to 3-4%. Regarding structural poverty, which is calculated based on five sets of unsatisfied basic needs regarding housing, education, and services, Eljuri said that the rate has fallen from 11.36% in 2001 to 6.97% in 2011. One government program that is helping reduce poverty is the Great Housing Mission, which provided homes to 200,080 needy families throughout Venezuela in 2012 alone. Another 300,000 homes are projected to be built and given out in 2013.
Venezuela has the lowest inequality in Latin America T/ YVKE Mundial P/ Agencies
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he president of Venezuela’s National Institute of Statistics (INE), Elías Eljuri, said Tuesday that, by lowering poverty, Venezuela has become the country in Latin America with the most equitable distribution of wealth. In an interview on Union Radio, Eljuri emphasized the current government’s commitment to fighting hunger, poverty, and inequality. “Venezuela has an inequality rate of 0.39, when almost all of the rest of the countries are above 0.45; Brazil and Colom-
bia are at 0.56, Chile is at 0.52, that means there are countries even with the same rate of extreme poverty as Venezuela, but where inequality is much larger”, he said, citing the Gini coefficient which measures inequality on a scale from 0 to 1. Eljuri indicated that lowered poverty is a product of government policies in recent years that have increased the level of social investment. “More than $500 billion has gone to the social sector”, he said. That social investment, he noted, was sustained even as Venezuela’s Gross Domestic Product growth rate fell in
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The artillery of ideas
| Economy
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Venezuela strengthens foreign reserves, gold mining
Russia to invest big in Venezuela, Putin sends Chavez letter T/ Agencies P/ Presidential Press
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osneft’s investment in the current projects in Venezuela will total $10 billion, the Russian state-owned oil company’s president, Igor Sechin, said Wednesday. Sechin met with several high level members of the Venezuelan government, including Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez and Vice President Nicolas Maduro. In the meeting with Maduro, Sechin presented a letter from Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed to President Hugo Chavez, wishing him a full recovery from the cancer surgery he underwent in December. Vice President Maduro thanked the Russian delegation for visiting Venezuela, affirming, “This visit is timely, and very useful for the interests of our common development and has been very beautiful from a spiritual point of view”. Maduro showed the press the letter sent from Putin to President Chavez. “The letter summarizes the love felt by the Russian people for an extraordinary man born in this land”, he exclaimed. In declarations to the press, Sechin said it was his “honor to bring the missive from President Putin to Vice President Nicolas Maduro” and he underlined that in Russia, “President Hugo Chavez is deeply respected and loved”. Russia’s share in oil industry production will amount to 15 million metric tons annually. Russian companies currently take part in five production projects in Ven-
ezuela, including the Junin-6 and Carabobo-2 oil blocks. Rosneft said Tuesday it will lead the Russian consortium that runs Junin-6, a project developed jointly with Venezuela’s state energy monopoly Pdvsa. Rosneft said earlier in January it has signed a deal to acquire private oil firm Surgutneftegas’s stake in the National Oil Consortium developing the Junin-6 oil field. The deal was signed during a meeting between Sechin and Surgutneftegas head Vladimir Bogdanov in Moscow on January 25. Before the deal, the National Oil Consortium comprised Russia’s large oil companies Gazprom Neft, Rosneft, TNK-BP, Surgutneftegas and LUKoil, each holding equal stakes. Surgutneftegas announced in November 2012 that it planned to sell its stake in the consortium. There were reports that TNK-BP might also quit the project. The National Oil Consortium holds a 40 percent interest in the Junin-6 project while Venezuela’s state oil and gas company Pdsva owns 60 percent. The 447.85 square kilometer Junin-6 block is located in the Orinoco Belt, and has geological reserves of 52.6 billion barrels of oil, with 10.96 billion barrels of recoverable reserves. Total development costs for Junin-6 are estimated at nearly $25 billion. At peak production, the field is expected to produce up to 450,000 barrels per day (about 22.5 million tons of oil per year), according to information on the Gazprom Neft website.
T/ COI P/ Pdvsa
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enezuelan Oil and Mining Minister, Rafael Ramirez, announced the restructuring of the state oil company, PDVSA’s, contribution of foreign exchange to the national bank last Monday and reported that the public firm will also be taking over the country’s gold mining operations. Ramirez, who is also President of Pdvsa, made the announcements during a televised broadcast on the state television channel VTV, explaining that he had met with Venezuelan head of state Hugo Chavez in Cuba to inform the convalescing leader of the proposals. Chavez, the Minister affirmed, has signed off on the changes that will involve an increased amount of Pdvsa’s foreign exchange being directed to Venezuela’s Central Bank in order to relieve speculative pressures as a result of a rising demand for US dollars. The sale of the foreign exchange will translate to an increase of $2.4 billion in the bank’s reserves but will be accompanied by a reduction of $2.9 billion in Pdvsa’s contribution to the country’s National Development Fund (Fonden), a
financing body used for a variety of social programs. Over the past 10 years, PDVSA has provided Fonden with over $59 billion. To facilitate the modifications, the Venezuelan congress must ratify a reform to the country’s hydrocarbon law which details the allocation of oil profits when those revenues exceed the prices stipulated in the fiscal budget. As it stands, the South American nation’s budget has been calculated on a $55 barrel or oil while the current market for Venezuelan crude is over $100. During his presentation, Ramirez additionally discarded the possibility of making available new bonds on behalf of the state oil company, something that marks a break with past debt policy. “We are not going to emit any bonds and, above all, we are not going to continue contracting debt in dollars. This is not planned”, he said.
DEVELOPMENT OF GOLD SECTOR Addressing the press, Ramirez announced the creation of a new firm, the Venezuelan Mining Corporation, a subsidiary of Pdvsa that will take control of gold exploitation in the Southern Orinoco region of the country.
The initiative follows a law passed in 2011 that grants the Venezuelan government the right to manage the gold mining industry throughout the national territory. According to officials, the law was passed to put a halt to the anarchy that has reined in the mining sector where illegal activity has damaged the environment, put workers at risk and stripped the country of strategic resources. “This measure will allow us to delimit the [mining] areas in order to increase gold exploitation and avoid contraband. It will also allow us to bring order to a sector that was in the hands of private interests who have made great fortunes off the market without exploiting the resources”, Ramirez said. Venezuela currently owns gold reserves totaling 133 million ounces. As part of a move to insulate the nation from the European economic crisis, the Chavez administration began a repatriation of the nation’s reserves held in foreign banks in 2011. Approximately 160 tons of the precious metal were brought back to the OPEC member state in a process that ended in January 2012.
Friday, February 1, 2013 | Nº 144 | 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
T/ Mark Weisbrot
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ast week there was a real media hate-fest for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, with some of the more influential publications on both sides of the Atlantic really hating on the guy. Even by the hate-filled standards to which we have become accustomed, it was impressive. It’s interesting, since this is one of the only countries in the world where the reporting of the more liberal media - NPR or even the New Yorker - is hardly different from that of Fox News or other right-wing media. The funniest episode came from El Pais, which on Thursday ran a front page picture of a man that they claimed was Chavez, lying on his back in a hospital bed, looking pretty messed-up with tubes in his mouth. The picture was soon revealed as completely fake. The paper, which is Spain’s most influential publication (and with a lot of clout in Latin America, too), had to pull its newspapers off the stands and issue a public apology. Although, as the Venezuelans complained, there was no apology to Chavez or his family. Not surprisingly, since El Pais really hates Chavez. The New York Times, for its part, ran yet another hate piece on its op-ed page. Nothing new here, they have doing this for almost 14 years - most recently just three months ago. This one was remarkably unoriginal, comparing the Chavez government to a Latin American magical realist novel. It contained very little information - but being fact-free allowed the authors to claim that the country had “dwindling productivity” and “an enormous foreign debt load”. Productivity has not “dwindled” under Chavez; in fact real GDP per capita, which is mostly driven by productivity growth, expanded by 24 percent since 2004. In the 20 years prior to Chavez, real GDP per person actually fell. As for the “enormous foreign debt load”, Venezuela’s foreign public debt is about 28 percent of GDP, and the interest on it is about 2 percent of GDP. If this is enormous - well let’s just say these people don’t have a good sense of quantity. The authors were probably just following a general rule, which is that you can say almost anything you want about Venezuela, so long as it is bad - and it usually goes unquestioned. Statistics and data count for very little when the media is presenting its ugly picture.
Opinion
Media hate fest for Venezuela keeps on keepin’ on This is especially true for Jon Lee Anderson, writing in the January 28 issue of the New Yorker (“Slumlord: What has Hugo Chavez wrought in Venezuela?”). He mentions in passing that “the poorest Venezuelans are marginally better off these days”. Marginally? From 2004-2011, extreme poverty was reduced by about twothirds. Poverty was reduced by about one-half. And this measures only cash income. It does not count the access to health care that millions now have, or the doubling of college enrollment - with free tuition for many. Access to public pensions tripled. Unemployment is half of what it was when Chavez took office.
Venezuela’s poverty reduction, real (inflation-adjusted) income growth, and other basic data in the Chavez era are not in dispute among experts, including international statistical agencies such as the World Bank or UN. Even opposition economists use the same data in making their case against the government. It is only journalists like Anderson who avoid letting commonly agreed upon facts and numbers get in the way of their story. Anderson devotes many thousands of words, in one of the US leading literary magazines, to portraying the dark underside of life in Venezuela - ex-cons and squatters, horrible prisons: “A thick black line of human excrement ran down an exterior wall,
and in the yard below was a sea of sludge and garbage several feet deep”. He draws on more than a decade of visits to Venezuela to shower the reader with his most foul memories of the society and the government. The article is accompanied by a series of grim, depressing black-and-white photos of unhappy-looking people in ugly surroundings. I am all in favor of journalism that exposes the worst aspects of any society. But what makes this piece just another cheap political hack job is the conclusions that the author draws from his narrow, intentionally chosen slice of Venezuelan reality. For example: They [Venezuelans] are the victims of their affection for a charismatic man... After nearly
a generation, Chavez leaves his countrymen with many unanswered questions, but only one certainty: the revolution that he tried to bring about never really took place. It began with Chavez, and with him, most likely it will end. Really? It sure doesn’t look that way. Even Chavez’s opponent in the October presidential election, Henrique Capriles had to promise voters that he would preserve and actually expand the Chavez-era social programs that had increased Venezuelans’ access to health care and education. And after Chavez beat him by a wide margin of eleven percentage points, Chavez’s party increased its share of governorships from 15 to 20 of 23 states, in the December elections that followed. In those elections, Chavez was not even in the country. But it’s the one-sidedness of the New Yorker’s reporting that is most overwhelming. Imagine, for example, writing an article about the United States at the end of President Clinton’s eight years - interviewing the homeless and the destitute, the people tortured in our prisons, the unemployed and the poor single mothers struggling to feed their children. Could you get away with pretending that this is all of “What Clinton has wrought in America?” Without mentioning that unemployment hit record lows not seen since the 1960s, that poverty was sharply reduced, that it was the longestrunning business cycle expansion in US history? As for the media, it is a remarkable phenomenon, this outpouring of animosity towards Chavez and his government, from across the western media spectrum. How is it that this democratically elected President who hasn’t killed anyone or invaded any countries gets more bad press than Saddam Hussein did (aside from the months immediately preceding invasions of Iraq)? Even when he is fighting for his own life? The western media reporting has been effective. It has convinced most people outside of Venezuela that the country is run by some kind of dictatorship that has ruined it. Fortunately for Venezuelans, they have access to more information about their country than the foreigners who are relying on one-sided and often inaccurate media. So they keep re-electing the President and the party that has improved their lives - much to the annoyance of the major media and its friends.