Analysis
Opinion
The real importance of Maduro’s victory in Venezuela page 7
Obama’s legacy: secrecy, drones, prisons & kill lists page 8
Friday, May 17, 2013 | Nº 158 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve
Venezuela & China fortify ties Venezuela and the People’s Republic of China took a further step forward in strengthening their bilateral relations last Monday when Vice President Li Yuancho visited the Caribbean country as part of his recent tour of South America. Four new accords were signed between the governments of Caracas and Beijing during the visit involving hydrocarbon, petrochemical, telecommunication and mineral development in Venezuela. page 3
ENGLISH EDITION/The artillery of ideas
Nicolas Maduro: a President for the workers
Mercosur Advances President Nicolas Maduro underscored the importance for Venezuela of his recent South America trip. page 3
Economic war Food shortages in Venezuela are due to sabotage from private companies, says government. page 4 Interview
Muslim in Venezuela
Venezuela’s muslim community speaks out about the nation’s diversity. page 6
FAO praises Venezuela’s commitment to food security T/ AVN
Integration
Economy
INTERNATIONAL
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro met with the workers of a socialist brick factory last Saturday in the central state of Miranda as part of his government’s push to boost productive enterprises and expand grassroots democracy around the South American nation. During a “popular assembly”, Maduro praised the workers of the February 27 brick factory, a joint enterprise founded with Venezuelan and Belarusian capital, for their productivity and contribution to nation’s holistic development plan. page2
Protest New York Times Bias A group of prominent US academics including Noam Chomsky are calling on the New York Times to improve its coverage of Venezuela by using less biased language, outlined in a petition to the newspaper’s public editor on Tuesday. The petition laments the NYT’s disproportionately negative portrayal of the late President Hugo Chavez and the country in general. It states that despite the fact that Venezuela is a democracy, “In the past four years, the NYT has referred to Chavez as an “autocrat”, “despot”, “authoritarian ruler” and a “caudillo” in its news coverage. When opinion pieces are included, the NYT has published at least fifteen separate articles employing such language, depicting Chavez as a “dictator” or “strongman”. The petition points out that Venezuela has held numerous and fair elections in recent years, and that observers including former President Jimmy Carter have praised Venezuela’s elections as “the best in the world”. “We urge you to examine this disparity in coverage and language use”, the academics conclude.
On Monday, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) representative in Venezuela, Marcelo Resende, praised “the behavior, positions and commitment of the government of Venezuela in the area of food and nutritional security, not only in terms of rhetoric, but as a comprehensive component of its policy of international cooperation”. A press release published by the FAO notes that Resende highlighted a quote by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who, during his swearing-in ceremony on April 19, said: “FAO ambassador, in my government we will continue with Chavez’s legacy: ‘zero hunger.’ We will do what needs to be done”. Last week President Maduro toured Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil, all member countries of the Common Market of the South (Mercosur), where he signed new accords related to food and nutritional security. “This demonstrates the Venezuelan government’s commitment to the topic and strengthens cooperation in the matter”, Resende said. Moreover, he highlighted “the strengthening of technical capacity for the development of agriculture in the country, as well as the supportive commercial trade in food between sister nations”. “The agreements undertaken by the government prioritize food sovereignty through two methods: improving domestic agriculture production by promoting an exchange of technical expertise with neighboring countries; and promoting fair and supportive international trade of food from family and small [farmers]”, the press release stated.
2 Impact | . s Friday, May 17, 2013
The artillery of ideas
Venezuelan government expands presence in Miranda, approves new public works
Critics of the Miranda Governor have accused that Capriles’ campaign to sully the national government has led him to abandon his legal duties in his state.
TRANSPORTATION & OTHER SERVICES
T/ COI P/ Presidential Press
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enezuelan President Nicolas Maduro met with the workers of a socialist brick factory last Saturday in the central state of Miranda as part of his government’s push to boost productive enterprises and expand grassroots democracy around the South American nation. The gathering marked the closure of 10 days of meetings in Miranda that saw high ranking officials dialogue with activists, residents and workers over how to improve government efficiency at the local level. During a “popular assembly”, Maduro praised the workers of the February 27 brick factory, a joint enterprise founded with Venezuelan and Belarusian capital, for their productivity and contribution to nation’s holistic development plan. The factory, named after the date in 1989 when major cities around Venezuela rose up against the neoliberal austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund, has contributed over a million bolivars ($160,000) in 2012 profits to the government’s Socialist Efficiency national development fund. “[The monetary contribution] is a product of the efforts that all of us workers have made
to maintain this factory”, said Mirla Echeverria, the manager of quality control at the plant which employs 228. President Maduro informed that the funds received would be directed towards new schools, medical centers and “public works for the homeland”. In addition to funding other programs, the bricks produced in the February 27 factory are supplying the government’s Mission Housing Venezuela, a far-reaching social program that has constructed over 200,000 new homes for low income residents since its inception in 2011. Production capacity of the plant is currently 25 million bricks a year, a number that will increase by an additional 15 million as a result of greater state financing approved by the Maduro administration on Saturday. Of the increased public funds, $34 million will provide the factory with new machinery and the ability to amplify its production to meet the needs of the government’s housing push. President Maduro referred to the February 27 facility as “one of the miracles left by Comandante Hugo Chavez here on earth” and hailed the progress being made in the construction sector as a result of similar initiatives. “This is possible because [former] President Hugo Chavez left
Maduro’s government reinforced his commitment to Miranda by allocating more than $2 billion to the construction of new mass transit projects that will cover parts of the capital Caracas that share territory with the central state. The works will include cable cars to join outlining areas with downtown, additional metro lines, and the construction of a railway to link Caracas with the suburban region of Guatire in Miranda. Environmental Minister Dante Rivas, also present for Saturday’s meeting, reported that waste collection in the shantytowns of Petare, one of Latin American’s largest slums, is a priority for the socialist government. “We are committed to cleaning all of Petare in the coming weeks and we’re going to convert it into a healthy and ecological city”, Rivas said. As a result of the government’s Plan of Immediate Action, 780 tons of solid waste were already been removed for the streets of the barrio. Rivas informed that 130 community workers and 30 dump trucks with be deployed to carry out further mass sanitation efforts.
GUARANTEEING SAFETY a perfect system of collection and distribution of resources at different levels to finance our works”, the successor of the recently deceased socialist leader asserted. The Venezuelan head of state commented that it is through concrete, productive enterprises that government supporters are combating the violence recently employed by right-wing activists in the country. “We’re defeating fascism by constructing factories, hospitals, strengthening education for children. We’re defeating their hatred with love”, he declared.
COMMITMENT TO MIRANDA As part of his visit, Maduro signed a document called the Miranda Commitment that articulates his administration’s dedication to improving living standards for residents of the central state.
The document is the product of the different governmental work groups that, through street assemblies and workshops devised an extensive plan to tackle the problems of insecurity, public health, and education in the region. “Each minister, each governmental team, each municipality knows what the tasks are in their respective areas”, Maduro said of the document, which outlines 135 directives. Miranda is currently governed by opposition leader Henrique Capriles, the losing candidate in the nation’s presidential elections on April 14th, held after the passing of Hugo Chavez. Since his electoral defeat, the head of the Justice First political party has been orchestrating an international campaign to not recognize the popular vote that resulted in Maduro’s victory.
With respect to security, President Maduro affirmed the assistance of the country’s armed forces in helping to combat the crime that continues to afflict the impoverished neighborhoods of Miranda. “Our special plan Secure Homeland begins on Monday. It’s the plan of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces taking to the streets to protect the people, all of the people, as a civic-military union”, the head of state declared. Some three thousand security officers will be put at the disposition of the plan in the two areas of Miranda that have become the “most dangerous in the country”, Maduro said. Following its work in Miranda, the security strategy will be expanded to other parts of Caracas to ramp up public safety and assist community members by guaranteeing access to basic services, the Venezuelan president explained.
. s Friday, May 17, 2013 | Integration
The artillery of ideas
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Venezuela-China relations grow following VP’s visit Maduro highlights Mercosur advances, food security initiatives T/ COI P/ Presidential Press
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uring an exclusive interview with Telesur last Sunday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro underscored the economic advances that will benefit the Caribbean nation as a result of his recent tour to Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. The socialist President’s visit to the member nations of the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) alliance yielded 51 new trade pacts that, according to the head of state, will triple Venezuela’s productive capacity. Key among the accords are deals that will see Venezuela strengthen its agricultural and food processing infrastructure. “This tour has succeeded in advancing our cooperation so that Venezuela becomes a country that produces its own food, guarantees stability and food security from Venezuelan land”, Maduro said during the interview. The comments came as Venezuelans face shortages of certain basic products, which the president has attributed to private sector hoarding and “sabotage from the Venezuelan bourgeoisie”. In order to combat the scarcities and panic shopping that exacerbates the situation, Maduro announced new government initiatives that will assist in the distribution of products like corn flour, a Venezuelan staple, to supermarkets around the nation. Part of these measures will include addressing the failure of the company Empresas Polar, the largest food supplier in Venezuela, to adequately ensure the distribution of staple products in the country. “[Empresas] Polar had its warehouses full on Friday and didn’t distribute during the
weekend”, Maduro said, adding that the head of the company, Lorenzo Mendoza, “has no excuses” for withholding basic commodities. In addition to the food security measures, the Venezuelan government signed a series of agreements that will increase energy, technology and media cooperation between Mercosur members. These include pacts that will see collaboration on the manufacturing of electric transformers with Uruguay and the construction, with Argentina, of 200 new factories that will further the presence of agricultural machinery in Venezuelan. Argentina will also provide technological assistance necessary for the diffusion of digital television in the Caribbean nation. Maduro pointed out that trade pacts between his country and Mercosur members currently total $11 billion in activity, with Brazil representing the greatest commercial partner at $6 billion. The head of state’s meeting with his Brazilian counterpart Dilma Roussef on May 9th advanced this relationship by laying the groundwork for the construction in Venezuela of a coke processing plant and a fertilizer factory. The fertilizer factory will be built by the Brazilian firm Odebrecht and will have the capacity to process 1.5 million tons of urea a year. “Mercosur is one of the emerging regions of the new world. Together we’re the fifth largest economy in the world and by the end of this decade we’ll be the fourth”, Maduro said of the growing alliance. “What binds us is a relationship of brotherhood and the our concern for the future of all of our nations’ people”, he affirmed.
T/ COI P/ Presidential Press
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enezuela and the People’s Republic of China took a further step forward in strengthening their bilateral relations last Monday when Vice President Li Yuancho visited the Caribbean country as part of his recent tour of South America. “We have come to amplify our political similarities as well as our areas of cooperation, reciprocal benefit, and shared profits”, said VP Li upon arriving at the Presidential Palace of Miraflores in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. Li was met by President Nicolas Maduro and his executive cabinet in order to advance projects that will “satisfy the essential needs of our people”, wrote Venezuela’s secondin-command, Vice President Jorge Arreaza via his Twitter account. Four new accords were inked between the governments of Caracas and Beijing during the visit involving hydrocarbon, petrochemical, telecommunication and mineral development in Venezuela. Importantly, the two allies agreed to a proposal for the construction of a new port in the central state of Carabobo near Venezuela’s Pequiven
chemical plant that forms part of the nation’s publicly owned oil company Pdvsa. A contract outlining the financing of the project by the Import and Export Bank of China was signed by the two leaders in order to define the terms of the port’s construction. “Our industry will have a new maritime port to provide services to the ammonium and urea [Pequiven] plant. As such, we will continue to project growth in our petrochemical [sector]”, the Venezuelan President said. Further agreements were penned that will tighten Venezuela-China collaboration in telecommunications and technology, including the manufacture of cellular phones and circuitry for computers. “This visit has been very fruitful. We will never forget the loving support that China gave to our Comandante [Chavez]. We will be loyal to the work that has been done”, Maduro said after the dialogue. Chinese-Venezuelan relations have been growing steadily since 1999, when the President Hugo Chavez began to implement a new foreign policy for the South American country that seeks to expand trade partners internationally and move away from dependency on the United States.
This policy shift is slated to continue under the Maduro government following the former Foreign Minister of the Chavez administration’s victory in Venezuela’s April 14th elections. According to the recentlyelected President, his country’s relationship with China is “a strategic alliance for shared development which began at zero and now passes $10 billion in commercial trade”. Apart from trade, Maduro also informed that intellectual exchanges form an essential part of the alliance. As such, a group of 50 Venezuelans will be sent to China to study economic initiatives in key areas “to encourage development of [our] productive forces”. Members of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela will also travel to the Asian nation to receive social and political training from members of the Chinese Communist Party. The move is meant to promote dialogue and fortify the push for a new breed of socialism in the OPEC member nation following the example set by Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez. “We are convinced that Socialism of the 21st Century is the path to social, economic, educational, cultural, human and holistic prosperity in Venezuela”, Maduro declared.
4 Economy | . s Friday, May 17, 2013
The artillery of ideas
Venezuela’s President Maduro assures food shortages are due to “economic warfare”
many millions of dollars are being given to the private sector to import food because we are confronting an economic war”, said Maduro. “It is painful to give the country’s foreign exchange to a group of shameless companies that steal people’s money”, he said. Government officials said that there would be dialogue
with the Venezuelan private sector in order to combat the problem. Representatives from the private sector point to government price controls and the bureaucracy that surrounds currency exchange controls as the root of the problem. The government has said it is working to speed up the process for companies to access the foreign exchange they need to import goods. “We are going to discuss the problem of foreign exchange and price controls this week and we hope to give a report to President Maduro on the measures needed to resolve this problem”, said Food Minister Felix Osorio. The Venezuelan government maintains price controls on a range of basic goods in order to assure the poorest sectors can afford them. Many of these prices have not been adjusted for more than a year, creating complaints from the private sector that claim it is increasingly unfeasible to produce the regulated goods. The price controls in Venezuela also have created a problem of smuggling food into neighboring Colombia where it can fetch higher prices. Minister Osorio assured, however, that the problem would be solved in the coming months. “We will be resolving the problem in less than 60 days. A dialogue has been opened with the private sector”, he said.
The products, which include cooking oil, powdered milk, meat, tuna, sugar, and flour, and cost the government over $600 million, will contribute to the stated goal of raising the current reserves of food products to 2.3 million tons, which is equivalent to 3 months of consumption. Increasing such reserves will allow Venezuela to feed it’s population regardless of future cases of economic sabotage or decreased production levels, stockpiling, or artificially created shortages.
Vice President Jorge Arreaza also unveiled numerous economic measures that will stimulate agricultural production “for the coming years”. Such measures include the investment of $317 million to finance production of over 1,000 hectares of vegetables and a large state subsidy to sugar producers worth $122 million. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) recently commended Venezuela on its agricultural policies and advances made in combatting hunger.
T/ Chris Carlson P/ Presidential Press
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uring a speech on Saturday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro blamed food shortages on an “economic war” from the Venezuelan private sector, and assured the government is taking measures to resolve the issue. Shortages of basic food items have been felt across the country in recent months, with Venezuela’s Central Bank reporting for the month of April the highest level of shortages since 2009. Economists cite a lack of foreign exchange, price controls, and a fiscal deficit as the primary causes for the shortages, while the government cites high levels of consumption and economic sabotage from Venezuela’s private sector. “We have many indicators that [Venezuela’s largest food company] Polar has been reducing their production and hoarding products in order to create scarcity”, said Maduro on Saturday. Maduro demanded to know why the company has been reducing their production and publicly called on the owner of the company, Lorenzo Mendoza, to a meeting with him on Tuesday to explain the situation. “He has to demonstrate that they are producing in line with the law and the constitution, because otherwise we will take firm action”, he said. The government has sought to resolve some shortages by increasing food imports from Mercosur countries like Brazil. Food Minister Felix Osorio assured on Saturday that Venezuela would be financing the import of 700,000 tons of food from Mercosur countries in the coming days. President Maduro’s recent visit to several Mercosur countries included the signing of several agreements to import food from within the trade block, as well as to acquire aid in improving Venezuela’s domestic production. “Our goal is to produce the food that we consume and transform Venezuela into an exporting powerhouse. To do that we are going to try new models and methods of production with the help of Brazil”, said Maduro while in Brazil on Thursday.
Maduro announced that Brazil would help Venezuela set up various food and fertilizer plants in Venezuela, but in the short term Venezuela will import a greater amount of food from its southern neighbor.
DISAPPEARING DOLLARS Opposition representatives assure the shortages are due to a lack of foreign exchange,
a product of excessive spending in 2012 that left the government without enough dollars to meet the growing demand for imports. But the government claims that the dollars that are approved for food imports are being stolen by private sector speculation. “The government has to be very careful and evaluate how
Government addresses faltering food production levels T/ Paul Dobson P/ Agencies
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enezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his cabinet unveiled numerous measures to address one of the issues which is considered to have accounted for an increased vote for opposition forces in the recent elections: food shortages. Measures were unveiled to address the problem both in the immediate, medium, and long term. President Maduro explained that his cabinet has “made a superior plan to continue advancing… with a combination of economic actions which we are working through, many of which are already on their way, we are going to see economic growth and a control of inflation, as well as the full stocking of (food) products in the second semester of this year”.
In recent months Venezuelans have seen a sharp increase in food shortages on market shelves, including vital goods such as cooking oil, flour, margarine, toilet paper, toothpaste, and milk. The government has repeatedly cited stockpiling and artificially created shortages, caused by the private sector, which continues to dominate food production, and which is tightly allied to the political opposition that exploits such problems. Numerous private warehouses have been found full with such products, stockpiled for months, while obvious shortages on the shelves have hit the population. Minister for Alimentation, Felix Osorio, announced this week that 760,000 tons of basic food products will arrive from Brazil and Argentina to reinforce the alimentary reserve stocks of the nation, which currently sit at 20,000 tons.
. s Friday, May 17, 2013 | Politics
The artillery of ideas
Sino-Venezuelan relations: not business as usual T/ Ryan Mallett-Outtrim P/ Presidential Press
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enezuela’s growing relationship with China isn’t just commercial- it’s also a cornerstone of the struggle against US imperialism. After meeting with Vice President Jorge Arreaza, on Monday Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao told the press that his government remains committed to increasing cooperation with Caracas. During Li’s visit, a number of new agreements were signed between Venezuela and China; mostly in the areas of energy and technology. Petroleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) and the Export-Import Bank of China agreed to pursue the development of a new industrial port in Carabobo state, while the Ministry for Science and Technology signed a series of new deals with Chinese telecommunications company Huawei. Chinese experts will also provide economic advice to Venezuelan officials looking to raise productivity. During his visit, Li also proposed a four-point plan for developing bilateral relations in the long term. According to Chinese state news agency Xinhua, Li urged for greater cooperation in strategic areas such as energy, agriculture, construction and technology. He also spoke of the need for more cultural and political exchange between the two countries, as well as a greater focus from Beijing on regional stability and the interests of the developing world. Li’s proposal reflects Chinese global ambitions. Throughout much of the global south, China is becoming an increasingly significant player. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Africa, where Chinese investment mushroomed over the last decade; according to Africa observer Chris Alden, China overtook the US as the continent’s largest trade partner in 2009. “China’s engagement with Africa is arguably the most momentous development in the continent over the last de-
cade”, according to the spokesperson in Kenya’s Chinese Embassy, Shifan Wu. However, while China has benefited from increased trade
with Africa, in recent years Beijing has become more vocal of the need for greater representation of developing nations in international bodies.
Venezuela’s election system holds up as a model for the world T/ Eugenio Martinez
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ne month ago Venezuelans went to the polls to elect a president after Hugo Chavez’s untimely death. Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s chosen successor, and his opponent, Henrique Capriles, had spent 34 days campaigning as they attempted to woo voters and guide Venezuela’s future. Maduro, representing the Chavista movement, was expected to win easily, and few anticipated that his margin of victory would be a narrow 1.83%. The slim margin propelled Capriles on a quest for lost votes, a crusade to try and prove electoral irregularities and cast doubt on the outcome. Venezuela employs one of the most technologically ad-
vanced verifiable voting systems in the world, designed to protect voters from fraud and tampering and ensure the accuracy of the vote count. Accuracy and integrity are guaranteed from the minute voters walk into the polls to the point where a final tally is revealed. The system Venezuela uses has some of the most advanced and voter-friendly security features in modern elections. Voters use a touch-sensitive electronic pad to make and confirm their choices. After confirmation, the electronic vote is encrypted and randomly stored in the machine’s memories. Voters audit their own vote by reviewing a printed receipt that they then place into a physical ballot box. At the end of Election Day, each voting machine computes and prints an official
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Not only is China supporting African voices in the international arena (The new $200 million African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa was entirely funded with Chinese cash), but it’s also backing regional alternatives to US hegemony in Latin America. When the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) was founded in December 2011, former Chinese president Hu Jintao was the first head of state from outside the hemisphere to congratulate the organization’s founders. According to a 2012 study from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Latin America is drawing more Chinese investment than ever before. Since 2008, Chinese investment in the region has surpassed that of the World Bank, Inter-American Bank and US Import-Export bank combined; Venezuela being one of the largest recipients. China’s increasing investment in Latin America, and support for regional alternatives to US dominated bodies like the Organization of American States (OAS) is evidently perceived by Washington as a threat to its hegemony. Since announcing its “pivot to Asia” last year, the Obama administration has undertaken to transfer 10% of its naval assets from the Atlantic to the Pacific. When he announced the pivot, then US Defense Sec-
retary Leon Panetta denied that the policy was “some kind of challenge to China”, though China’s defense white paper (released last month) indicates Beijing isn’t convinced. The pivot will put six US aircraft carrier battle groups on China’s doorstep- not exactly a placating overture. The policy indicates that the Obama administration views China’s rise as a threat- and rightly so. As the Embassy of Venezuela in China stated last June, both China and Venezuela “oppose imperialism, hegemony and colonialism... and encourage multi-polarity”. However, as US Secretary of State John Kerry indicated last month, Washington continues to view Latin America as its “backyard”, rather than as a region charting its own destiny. Just like Kerry’s vocabulary, Washington’s treatment of its southern neighbors remains mired in imperialist notions of superiority and righteousness; a stark comparison to Beijing’s calls for multi-polarity. For now, China is beginning to pose threat to imperialist hegemony in Latin America. As President Nicolas Maduro stated, “relations between China and Venezuela are ... on equal terms”. For a continent that has been subjugated by colonialism for five centuries, this isn’t business as usual.
tally, called a precinct count. It transmits an electronic copy of the precinct count to the servers in the National Electoral Council’s central facility, where overall totals are computed. By mutual agreement between the contenders, 52.98% of the ballot boxes are chosen at random, opened, and their tallies compared with the corresponding precinct counts. This audit step ensures that no vote manipulation has occurred at the polling place. The extent of this audit, the widest in automatic elections, leaves little room for questioning. The series of tests before, during, and after a Venezuelan election is thorough and intense, conducted in the presence of election officials and political parties to ensure proper functionality and full confidence in the system. When it comes to elections, Venezuela has become a highly advanced nation of auditors, with the most advanced audit tools at its disposal and a voting process
that is as transparent as any in the world. Even though the election to succeed Chavez was announced with only 34 days to campaign and organize the election mechanics, the National Electoral Council and Smartmatic, the company that developed the highly-sophisticated voting machines and the technology supporting them, managed to perform more than 12 audits on the voting platform, many in front of both Capriles’ and Maduro’s representatives. Like any candidate who suffers a narrow defeat at the polls, Mr. Capriles is entitled to keep his dream alive. He can continue trying to prove that somehow the outcome was affected by a corrupt electoral ecosystem. In a nation of auditors and entirely transparent election mechanics, that quest is certainly his right, but his chance of changing the election’s outcome is very slim.
6 Interview | . s Friday, May 17, 2013
The artillery of ideas
T/ Jody Mcintyre P/ Agencies
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he Sheikh Al-Ibrahim Mosque, situated across the road from a Lebanese church in the Caracas neighborhood of Colegio de Ingenerios, is the second largest in Latin America. The dome and minaret tower way above surrounding buildings, visible against the sky from miles away. For Muslims, the Friday midday prayer is obligatory to be held in congregation, and many hundreds gather at the Caracas mosque to listen to the khutbah, or weekly lecture, before praying together. Muslims are still a small minority in terms of the Venezuelan population, but the Chavez government’s, and now Maduro’s international policies have often touched issues of major importance to Muslims across the world. I am sitting with Ahmed at the bottom of the steps which lead up to the mosque itself, and he is eager to talk. “I have a story to tell”, he says, grinning enthusiastically, running his fingers through a full beard. “My mother’s family are from Venezuela, and my father’s are originally from Iran, but me... I’m Venezuelan! My grandparents were in the war of independence here, which always fills me with pride”. There is much more to Ahmed’s story than I had first expected. He spent the years of his early adulthood working in the Venezuelan navy, but wants to go back further. “I remember, during the caracazo”, Ahmed begins, “I was 18 years old. I know how old I was because at that time I was secretary of the Youth of the Venezuelan Communist Party. We were struggling for the education of the people. This isn’t a joke or a lie, because at that time there was little possibility of studying, and it was difficult to get access to a job. However, we were living in a country that had been exploiting petroleum resources since the 1960s. They called us Venezuela Saudita. I will never understand how, at that time, this country had a debt with the IMF. They said it was to “oxygenate” the economy. In fact, all the basic companies were being sold off; Veneluz, Cantv, as well as the air company Conviasa. International companies were coming and taking the petroleum for a very cheap price. It was like a gift back then. But the government wasn’t investing in agriculture or health. So, the caracazo happened because of an
An interview with Venezuela’s muslim community economic crash. There were people profiting, yes, but only a select group, a sector who had studied at the Central University of Venezuela or outside the country. Poor people just had to accept it; we didn’t have the right to be recognized. So, a critical point arrived”. I meet a man I have known as Rafik at the La Bandera metro station, and we travel together to a shopping mall situated just off of Avenida Los Proceres. “This used to be exclusively for people in the military”, he tells me, “but now, it’s open to everyone”. Rafik goes to the mosque every single evening, despite his old age and the distance he has to travel. “Of course I do”, he says, by way of explanation, “I see it as a gift from God”. We sit down in a restaurant to speak, and within minutes, I can see tears falling from the eyes of Rafik, or Rafael as he was born. He has to pause for long periods on several occasions, as he is overwhelmed with the emotion that comes from reflecting on an eventful life.
“My name is Jose Rafael Ortez”, he begins, “I’m from Caracas, and I’m 69 years old. Four years after I was born, in 1948, we were living under the government of Marcos Perez Jimenez. Venezuela was a country of potential. In 1958, when he was defeated, Venezuela was on the path to be a country free of the oppressions of other countries. It was supposed to be the arrival of participatory democracy, when AD and Copei took possession of the country. It was a very strong change for the people with little resources. The people in economic power took everything from the country. I served two years in the military service, from ’64 to ’66. We were with the guerrillas, trying to paralyze the government of Raul Leoni. There were many conflicts in the mountains. From 1968 until 1997 I was living in the United States. In those years I didn’t pay much attention to Venezuelan politics, because I was working and trying to live. But when
I returned to Venezuela, and started working here as an English teacher, I met up with Chavez, and I felt that he was a great man. A person with good intentions for the country and its citizens. When he was elected in 1998, I was in the US again, but I came back for his inauguration. Many of his efforts were for the people who didn’t have resources, or education. In the past, it was difficult to go out and buy trousers, or a pair of shoes. The people of the field might just have a second-hand pair, because it cost too much otherwise. President Chavez brought things people never had before. President Chavez worked for peace, but President Obama in the US doesn’t appear to have done the same. There are many examples of this; in his first mandate, he promised to close Guantanamo Bay, but he never achieved that. The US have launched so many wars in recent years, and Obama has done nothing to stop this mad-
ness. The Empire always wants to make situations worse, and even my own country is an example of this. They attacked Chavez for his entire fourteen years in power, simply for the fact that he didn’t deliver the Venezuela they desired. The continent of Africa is another example, where there is such richness, but also such misery, because some of the leaders have been bought by the North American economic power. There is a small group there who never see the poverty of their people. The opposition in Venezuela, in their majority, are the children of the people of those who had a lot of economic power. That is why the majority of us, the people, voted for Maduro, so that we can continue living in a better way”. Ahmed also feels that the rise of the Chavista movement signalled a profound change in Venezuelan politics. “All of the governments before Chavez were repressive and excluded us”, Ahmed tells me. “So when Chavez arrived, he began to get rid of the old politics. The enemy is much bigger than Capriles. We are fighting against a huge monster, the beast of neo-liberalism, and Capriles is just one tentacle. There’s a great call in the world where people are saying, ‘we have the right to self-determination’. Twenty-first century socialism is about universal, humanistic principles. In fact, more than being a President, Chavez was a history professor. He spoke about how our independence was won; who were our heroes; who was Bolivar? In the sense of believing in peace, and believing in equality, there are similarities with the principles of Islam. In fact, it was Simon Bolivar himself who once said: ‘It would be better, I think, for South America to adopt the Qu’ran rather than the United States form of government’”. “In 1999, when I returned to Venezuela”, Rafik tells me, “I met a woman who was a music teacher, and who is now my wife. We met a friend of hers, a Muslim man from Pakistan. The same year I met another Pakistani man called Said, and he gave me a book which I read. I went to the mosque during Ramadan, and it appeared to me to be something different to other religions. I met many Muslims there, I read the Qu’ran, and it was sincere... truthful. That same year, 1999, I became Muslim. Thanks to God, I became Muslim”.
. s Friday, May 17, 2013 | Analysis
The artillery of ideas
Babette’s feast with the refugees at Pdvsa: The real importance of Maduro’s victory in Venezuela T/ Asa Cusack P/ Agencies
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his weekend the legacy of Hugo Chavez has been raked over the coals one last time, but the same old stats on poverty, inflation, and crime miss the real story. Chavez’s success is as much about how the poor feel about their place in society as it is about improvements in their material conditions. According to pollster Oscar Schemel, these days “it’s not enough to present a discourse offering food and employment; people want dignity”. Depictions of Chavez supporters as wacky, warm-blooded stooges overlook this factor, yet it underpins the remarkable longevity of Chavismo, most recently reflected in the victory of Nicolas Maduro.
INSIDE THE BARRIO, OUTSIDE SOCIETY To really understand the impact of Chavez’s election in 1999 we have to go back in time. The former missionary Charles Hardy spent eight years in the pre-Chavez barrios (shantytowns), and his memoir Cowboy in Caracas provides a striking account of what life was like for Venezuela’s majority urban poor. It’s a grim picture of everyday humiliations like throwing parcels of excrement down the hillside, mounting tension as water trucks fail to materialise, and shoot-to-kill repression of unrest. Within the barrios the state was an absence or a threat;
within the state the barrios, entirely absent from official maps, didn’t even exist. Under Chavez the barrios were charted and formalized, the title deeds going to their inhabitants. While problems with basic services persist, they are reduced, and crucially there exists the will to tackle them. One lesser-known social program (Barrio Tricolor) beautified poor areas by repainting houses in the colors of the Venezuelan flag. Past governments liked to pretend the barrios didn’t exist. On the other hand, Chavez said, “we know there are problems, but these are your homes and they are nothing to be ashamed of”.
CULTURE, EDUCATION & ASPIRATION Just as Chavez made it acceptable to live in a barrio instead of the gilded-cage apartment blocks preferred by the wealthy, his own unlikely ascent validated “Venezuelanness” itself. In pre-Chavez Venezuela as in wider Latin America, model states and societies were to be found across the pond in Europe or across the Rio Grande in America. The more western ideas, diplomas, brands, and affectations you could get your hands on, the better you were doing. For the same reason, the barrios were seen as a thirdworld urban stain, whereas grand boulevards and futuristic skyways represented progress; they now make Caracas a sprawling, gridlocked hell. Politics was dominated by nice men
in suits who cordially agreed to share power at every election, in line with the terms of their pact (of Punto Fijo, 1958). This was no place for a poor, afro-indigenous soldier with a habit of getting angry about things or breaking into llanera folk songs. And yet, in 1999 there he was slipping on the presidential sash. This in itself would be enough to make Chavez a folk hero and inspiration, but there is more to it. Aside from revelling in Venezuelan culture and reviling cultural imperialism, he was committed to nurturing intellectual development and political consciousness. The bizarre antics and fiery speeches that made it into the foreign press were less common than his musings on whatever philosophical, historical, or literary text he happened to be reading (for he was always reading something). In a country that’s not afraid of a bit of self-aggrandizement, he explored and explained without condescension. Articles about Chavez routinely fixate on his fixation with The Great Liberator, Simon Bolivar, but he was equally fond of Bolivar’s Rousseau-loving tutor, Simon Rodriguez, and it showed. It is a commonplace to note that illiteracy was taken to the verge of extinction by another social program, Mision Robinson. Less well-known is the fact that in Latin America books are prohibitively expensive, and literacy will only do you so much good if you can’t afford a book. Successive Chavez administrations used subsidies and state
publishing houses to democratize access to the materials of culture and education. Taking from my shelf comparable texts purchased in Venezuela and Ecuador, I find that the Venezuelan one cost less than $1.50, the Ecuadorian one nearly $8. This is not unrepresentative, and Ecuador’s lower GDP per capita makes the real difference even starker. In a society more accustomed to hyper-consumerism and rumba (partying), Chavez tried to provide the example, the encouragement, and the means for people to educate themselves. Babette’s Feast with the Refugees at the State Oil Company One bizarre moment from my time in Venezuela illustrates perfectly these changes in the state’s posture towards the disadvantaged, from distance and disdain to acceptance and advancement. Before Chavez, the state oil company Pdvsa operated as a “state within a state”, run for their own benefit by the economic, managerial, and technical elites that populated its imposing headquarters in Caracas. As any old article will tell you, after the top brass were removed for orchestrating a strike that wiped billions off the country’s GDP, Chavez made Pdvsa the executor of wide-ranging social program that have greatly improved health and education. But devastating floods in late 2010 revealed that the shift was cultural as well as operational. With thousands made homeless the Pdvsa HQ - like other government buildings, including the presidential palace -
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was turned into a temporary shelter. State institutions that would once have gone to great lengths to intimidate through studied cultural distance were put into the service of the most vulnerable. Beyond putting a roof over refugees’ heads, they hosted meetings, workshops, and cultural events. And so it was that after interviewing some oil official or other I found myself in a cavernous Pdvsa auditorium watching foreign-language cinema with as ragtag a sample of Venezuelan society as you could hope to see. With the best equipment money can buy, in plush surroundings once reserved for well-oiled executives, I sat down with a lowranking soldier, an old man or two, and a handful of riotous, track-suited refugees to watch the Franco-Danish rumination on sensuality Babette’s Feast. And so what? Did the screening change their lives? Perhaps not, but it was not a one-off and it certainly had more impact than no screening at all. More significant than the event itself was the fact that the state considered this audience worthy of access not only to “high culture”, but also to the literal corridors of power. Symbolically it was saying “the arts and institutions from which you were excluded are yours and you are worthy of them”. This is fundamental to the socio-political inclusion that really could make a difference long-term. It would have been inconceivable before Chavez.
TROPICALISMO, RATIONALITY & DIGNITY The foreign media have remained blind to these changes, simply supplementing the usual “populist buys votes of the poor” line with a new “Maduro plays up spirituality to Chavez-obsessed electorate” trope that trivializes support for Maduro while appearing to explain it: “Y’know, it’s those wacky, warm-blooded, and irrational - if not downright stupid - Venezuelans!” The prosaic reality, in Venezuela as in every other country, is that political affiliation is a fuzzy mix of self-interest, ideology, and emotion. After years of being tolerated at best, at worst ignored, is it any wonder that Venezuela’s poor revere the first president to care about them and give them confidence in themselves? As a presumably serious, coldblooded, rational European atheist, educated, and entirely disinterested too - I’m also glad that Chavez’s project will continue. Whatever the faults of Chavez, Maduro, and their party, they have been a vast improvement on the bad old days.
Friday, May 17, 2013 | Nº 158 | 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 - Audra Ramones
Opinion
Obama’s legacy
Secrecy, drones, prisons and kill lists T/ Alyssa Rohricht
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n Monday, the Associated Press revealed the US Department of Justice used subpoenas to obtain phone records of its editors and reporters from April and May 2012. The records were obtained due to the investigation and supposed leak to the AP last year that the CIA had ”thwarted an ambitious plot by al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen to destroy a USbound airliner using a bomb with a sophisticated new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden”. The piece also notes that AP had received information regarding the thwarted plot the week previous to publishing, but had agreed per requests by the White House and the CIA to hold the information because the “sensitive intelligence operation” was still in progress. The story was co-written by reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman along with contributions from Kimberly Dozier, Eileen Sullivan and Alan Fram. They, along with their editor, Ted Bridis, had both their personal and work phone records seized from April-May 2012, in
addition to general AP office numbers. But who could be surprised? From the very start of Obama’s presidency, he and his administration have managed to take the Bush-era attack on civil liberties and not just continue them, but in many cases, significantly expand them. The AP phone records story, while certainly significant, is not the first time the Obama administration has acted above the law. What is clear is that Obama’s legacy is shaping up to be one rife with assaults on civil liberties, government secrecy, and broken promises. Here are my top ten: 1. National Defense Authorization Act or NDAA: Signed into law by Obama, it authorizes the U.S. government to carry out “counter-terrorism” domestically and detain INDEFINITELY and WITHOUT TRIAL any US citizen who is suspected of any sort of suspicious activity that could be deemed terrorism or supporting terrorism. 2. Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan: Both US citizens. Both killed in Yemen by a US drone strike on September 30th, 2011. Anwar al-Awlaki was specifical-
ly targeted on Obama’s kill list. Neither was officially charged. Neither given a trial. Neither convicted of any crime. 3. Abdulrahman al-Awlaki: Just two weeks after al-Awlaki and Khan were killed, al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, was also killed in a US drone strike in Yemen. 4. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA): In 2008, then-Senator Obama voted for FISA, which allows for warrantless wiretapping of international communications by the NSA. In December of 2012, Obama extended it for another five years. 5. Patriot Act: In May, 2011, Obama renewed much of the Patriot Act, including wiretaps and the “lone wolf” provision which allows government surveillance of individuals even if they are not known to be affiliated with a terrorist organization. 6. Drone Strikes: During Bush’s presidency, there were about 45 drone strikes in Pakistan. During Obama’s first year as president, there were 53. Under Obama’s presidency, drone strikes also expanded to Yemen. 7. Whistleblowers: The Obama administration has charged more people under the Espionage Act than all past presi-
dents…combined. Six have been charged under the law thus far: Thomas Drake, former senior executive at the NSA, Shamai K. Leibowitz, former FBI translator, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a nuclear proliferation specialist, former CIA agent John Kiriakou, Jeffrey Sterling, former CIA officer, and… 8. Bradley Manning: Pfc Bradley Manning, the sixth in the list of those charged under the Espionage Act, has now spent over three years in jail without trial for releasing classified documents to the website Wikileaks. The documents he released exposed lies and corruption by US government officials, killings of civilians, torture in Iraq, drone strike cover-ups, and abuse of children by US government contractors abroad. They included the Collateral Murder video, showing a US Apache helicopter gunning down over a dozen people in Baghdad in 2007, including civilians and two Reuter’s employees, photojournalist Namir Noor-Eldeen and his driver Saeed Chmagh. Also released were the Iraq War Logs, chronicling reports from 20042009 of thousands of cases of prisoner torture and abuse filed against coalition forces in Iraq.
In addition, the War Logs added 15,000 civilian deaths to the known body count, totalling over 150,000 people, of which about 80% were civilian. 9. Spying on Muslim Communities: Under the Obama administration, the NYPD and the CIA have joined together to spy on communities of Muslims in the US using “human mapping” or racial and religious profiling, and in 2011, AP reported the use of “mosque crawlers” or informants used to monitor sermons and other areas where groups of Muslims are known to frequent. 10. Guantanamo Bay: During Obama’s first campaign for the presidency, he promised to close down Guantanamo Bay, a promise he quickly abandoned. Now, further controversy is surrounding the prison as prisoners, some who have been detained for over a decade and many who have even been cleared for release, have gone on hunger strike. Of the 166 prisoners at Guantanamo, at least 130 are refusing to eat as part of a hunger strike that began this February. At least 20 prisoners are being force-fed, which the United Nations Human Rights Commission considers torture. This list is by no means exhaustive. I didn’t mention the 11th anniversary that occurred last October of Operation Enduring Freedom, marking over a decade of involvement in Afghanistan. I didn’t mention the past six years of fighting terror in Somalia. I didn’t mention that we have been dropping drones on Pakistan for the past nine years. Then of course, there is the War on Drugs in Latin America – a war that we have been waging to no end for decades, costing the US billions of dollars and an untold number of lives. I didn’t mention that we are militarily involved in an estimated 60% of the world’s nations. I didn’t mention Obama’s record deportations of illegal immigrants that far exceeds the Bush-era deportations. And these things will continue because we ignore them. The right is distracted by the government “coming for their guns.” The left is complacent because a Democrat is in office. Meanwhile, our government continues to act as if it is above the rule of law. If Obama’s legacy is one of secrecy, egregious assaults on civil liberties, and drone strikes around the world, our legacy is one of ignorance, stupidity and complacency. I’m still not sure which is worse.