Environment
Opinion
Children help take care of Havana Bay in Cuba Page 7
US: Whistleblowers & government threats of investigation Page 8
Friday, June 14, 2013 | Nº 162 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve
Diplomatic ties advance with US Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua briefly met with US Secretary of State John Kerry during last week’s Organization of American States (OAS) conference in Guatemala. The encounter marks the first high level meeting between Venezuelan and US officials since late President Hugo Chavez met with President Obama at the Summit of the Americas in 2009. Since then, relations have deteriorated significantly. Now there is hope cordial, respectful relations could get back on track. Page 3
ENGLISH EDITION/The artillery of ideas
Venezuela launches efficient energy campaign
Impact
Affordable housing program The Venezuelan government guarantees accessible homes for low-income residents. Page 2 Politics
Maduro fights corruption Venezuela’s President Maduro tightens noose on corrupt officials. Page 4
Headed off with a stellar perfomance by Venezuela’s youth orchestra, the Venezuelan government launched a new public awareness campaign last Saturday to promote the efficient use of electricity, stabilize the demand for energy, and lessen the environmental impact of consumption in the South American nation. The innovative campaign has been designed “to give a new cultural focus to the use of electricity” and help raise awareness regarding energy waste and excessive consumption in the OPEC member state. Page. 5
Social Justice
Miracle Mission Helps Sight A program for free eye surgeries remains a sign of Chavez’s legacy. Page 5
Paramilitaries captured in Venezuela T/ AVN
Venezuela’s Minister of Interior, Justice and Peace, Miguel Rodriguez Torres, said Wednes-
day that they are continuing to conduct investigations on the case of the two Colombian paramilitaries groups captured in Venezuela last Sunday.
“Everything indicates they were coming on a violent mission in Caracas. We are doing all the work related to further investigations, which is going to tell us exactly why these men were coming to Caracas”, he said. On Sunday, Venezuelan authorities captured two armed paramilitary groups in the latest attempt to stem violence and crime in the country. One group was captured in border state Tachira and the other in the state of Portuguesa. “They’re going to go through a trial and remain detained here in Venezuela”, said the minister, with respect to the nine people arrested. He confirmed that it is possible that these groups came under orders of the opposition to destabilize the country.
INTERNATIONAL Venezuela vote audit ratifies Maduro as President T/ AVN After the conclusion of the second phase of the citizen verification audit to review 100% of the voting tables in Venezuela’s April 14th presidential election, National Electoral Council (CNE) President Tibisay Lucena said that the process demonstrates “the transparency and security of the electoral results in Venezuela means that they are and will continue to be a loyal reflection of the sovereign will of all citizens”. The broadened electoral audit was held at the request of the anti-Chavez campaign, a political group that did not recognize the electoral results based on the 1.5 percentage point margin. President Nicolas Maduro won the election with 7,587,532 votes, the equivalent of 50.61%, while opposition candidate Henrique Capriles obtained 7,363,264 votes, or 49.12%. The results led the opposition candidate to begin a campaign against the country’s electoral institution and bring a case before the Supreme Court of Justice. However, with 100% of voting tables audited, Lucena said that the result remains the same. “These results show an undeniable reality: the electoral results are a scientific fact that due to their technical qualities and redress mechanisms of certification, allow Venezuela to have a system with many protections against fraud and error. The transparency and security of the electoral results in Venezuela means that they are and will continue to be a loyal reflection of the sovereign will of all citizens”.
2 Impact | . s Friday, June 14, 2013
The artillery of ideas
Venezuela government puts in place new housing, commercial projects in Caracas
An additional 20 million bolivars has been allocated to the completion of a pedestrian boulevard in the neighborhood and three million bolivars for the erection of a sports complex in El Junquito.
RELATIONS WITH COLOMBIA
T/ COI P/ Pres idential Press
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enezuelan President Nicolas Maduro met with community members of the El Junquito neighborhood in Caracas last Friday as part of his government’s push to boost small business initiatives and provide affordable housing for low-income residents. Maduro was accompanied by cabinet members and other high-ranking government officials who inspected an agrotouristic project in the zone and conversed with local activists to evaluate housing and infrastructure needs. During his visit, the head of state announced plans to construct more than eight thousand new homes in El Junquito under the social program Mission Housing Venezuela. “We’re going to continue to invest in housing and in the lives of the people. This is what we call prosperity”, the Venezuelan President declared. Created in 2011, the public housing program has built and renovated more than 388,000 homes throughout the country. Housing and Habitat Minister Ricardo Molina explained on Friday that the construction plans for the El Junquito sector will span four years and cover a number of area neighborhoods.
“There will be 8,774 homes. We’re planning to begin construction this year on 1,074 homes in the El Naranjal and Yerbabuena neighborhoods and we’re going to begin 1,200 homes in the La Yaguara area at the end of the year. There will be 2,300 built in 2015, 2,300 in 2016 and the final 1,900 homes finished by 2017”, Molina stated. The housing minister informed that the new living spaces would be part of a lager government project in the zone that will incorporate business opportunities and basic services for community members. “In this area we are also going to build a center for services with spaces for businesses,
tourist stops, commercial kiosks, bakeries, coffee shops, supply centers and there is a proposal for a hyper PDVAL [government run food outlet] as well as a police station and other services”, he outlined. Included in this vision for this sector of Caracas is the expansion of the Capital District Quarry that will receive $20.8 million in government assistance for new machinery and industrial inputs. The move is designed to stimulate productive enterprises within city limits and thereby contribute to the supply of important resources. “Our great challenge is to overcome the capitalism of oil
rents. In 100 years, Venezuela has only depended on the rent of one product and it’s derivatives”, Maduro said. Other projects being undertaken in the El Junquito area include a number of smallscale agro-ecological endeavors, which the head of state highlighted as necessary in the fight against speculation and food hoarding in the country. With shortages of some basic food products occurring in the country, Maduro lamented the fact that there exist business owners in Venezuela who “are made happy by the difficulties of their neighbors” and ordered that part of the country’s alimentation reserves be released to the domestic market. The President also reaffirmed his commitment to meet the economic sabotage being practiced by members of Venezuela’s conservative business sectors with greater government action. “In the face of the economic difficulties, we are going to increase our productive investment”, he asserted. In this vein, the head of state approved a further 60 million bolivars for the establishment of a municipal market in the Caracas neighborhood of Antimano as well as 35 million bolivars for the creation of a commercial district in the historic sector of the same area.
While meeting with residents, President Maduro made reference to the current diplomatic spat between Venezuela and Colombia that has seen a heightening in tensions between the neighboring countries. Although he expressed his willingness to repair relations, the Venezuelan head of state voiced his concern over a number of actions being taken in recent weeks by his Colombian counterpart Juan Manuel Santos. “We are willing to recompose [relations] with respect to Colombia, without games and without hypocrisy. I will not accept games from anyone and Colombia needs to know that. There are no fools governing here, there are revolutionary Chavistas”, the Venezuelan President said. The recent dispute has centered on Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles’ meeting with President Manuel Santos in Bogota on May 30th. For Caracas, the encounter has interpreted as a slight to the current government, given the attempts made by Capriles to challenge the legitimacy of the constitutionally-elected Maduro as President of Venezuela. Santos has also spoken recently of his intention to sign a treaty with NATO, an accord that would see increased US military capacities in Latin America and a break with the non-interventionist trend that has marked much of the region’s foreign policy. Maduro has described this policy move as “worrying” while stating that “the ball is in Manuel Santos’ court”. According to the Venezuelan President, a meeting with the Colombian commander in chief is in the works, being facilitated by ex-Brazilian President Lula Da Silva. “I will attend this meeting if it is called and we can talk face to face”, Maduro said, adding that he has sent a private message to the conservative leader which states his desire to continue relations “in good faith” and “in favor of peace”. “We want the best relations with Colombia and we can achieve that”, he affirmed.
. s Friday, June 14, 2013 | International
The artillery of ideas
New conversations seek to normalize diplomatic relations between Venezuela and US
of clear lines of communication between the two nations. While Washington has not explicitly recognized the victory of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela’s April 14th presidential elections, Secretary of State Kerry did refer to the elected leader as “president” in a press conference after the meeting. “I want to thank President Maduro for taking the step to meet here on the sidelines of
this conference”, Kerry said, adding that both nations have decided to maintain “an ongoing, continuing dialogue at a high level”. “[W]e will try to set out an agenda by which we agree on things we can work on together, begin to change the dialogue between our countries, and hopefully, quickly move to the appointment of ambassadors between our nations and ultimately to a series of steps that will indicate to the people of both countries, as well as to the region, that we’re finding a way forward to a more constructive and understandable relationship”, the highest diplomat in the US commented. For his part, President Nicolas Maduro acknowledged the step forward last Friday and reiterated his willingness to see a fruitful relationship with the Obama administration based on the recognition of differences between Caracas and Washington. “Venezuela must be respected. Nobody respects those who are weak and those who kneel. We are on our feet and we have the moral and ethical force that is making us a regional power. We must be an ethical and moral power in order to be respected around the world”, the Venezuelan President said. New conversations between Venezuela’s Chargé D’affaires to the US, Calixto Ortega, and Assistant Secretary of State Jacobson are reportedly being arranged to follow-up on the diplomatic progress.
Despite allegations that US embassy staff have already tried to foment a coup since the death of President Hugo Chavez, the Maduro government has persevered with efforts to engage with Washington; requesting a meeting with Kerry on the sidelines of this year’s General Assembly of the Organization of American States. Despite pledges from both sides following the June 5th meeting to improve relations, during his address to the assembly, Kerry made a number of remarks that indicate that US meddling in Latin America is far from over. Rather than join the regional consensus of support for the outcome of the Venezuelan April 14th presidential elections, he made a vague statement that some nations in the region are failing to live up to democratic values, and falling behind on human rights. The latter probably wasn’t a reference to Guantanamo Bay, but the former may have
been a veiled reference to the April 14th elections; the results of which Washington was yet to acknowledge at the time of writing. Although Washington has backed opposition calls for an impossible audit of all voter signatures and fingerprints, Kerry’s agreement to foster better ties with Venezuela could indicate an acceptance of his government’s current inability to easily project influence in Venezuelan internal affairs. For now, even at the OAS, the US is becoming increasingly isolated in not only its support for the Venezuelan opposition, but also on lynchpins of its regional policies like the war on drugs. Economically, the US also stands to lose if Maduro chooses to cut off the 900,000 barrels of Venezuelan oil that is imported everyday, as he warned could happen back in April if the US goes too far. For now, Kerry is advocating cooperation, but only as a last resort.
T/ COI P/ AFP
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n a development that may mark a warming of relations between Caracas and Washington, US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roberta Jacobson, reported last Saturday that the Obama administration has “new energy” for reestablishing bilateral ties with Venezuela. The comments come on the heels of a 40-minute meeting sustained between Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua and US Secretary of State John Kerry while both diplomats attended the General Assembly of the Organization of American States in Guatemala last week. Jacobson made the remarks during an interview with the Voice of America radio program, stating that although “there is no road map” to establish the normalization of ties, there is a desire on behalf of Washington to see a “productive and functional” relationship with Caracas. “We can work with the government in Venezuela in areas where we have mutual interests”, the Assistant Secretary of State said.
The more conciliatory stance represents the first possibility of rebuilding relations since the expulsion in 2010 of Venezuelan Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez. Alvarez’s forced departure followed the refusal of Caracas to accept the Obama Administration’s designation of Larry Palmer as US Ambassador to Venezuela, who was accused of making meddling and offensive
statements about the Chavez government. Following his meeting with Kerry last Wednesday, Foreign Minister Elias Jaua described the dialogue as “respectful, cordial and frank”. According to Jaua, the conversation revolved around three key points: creating relations of mutual respect, the designation of new Ambassadors as soon as possible, and the establishment
US compromises on Venezuela as a last resort T/ Ryan Mallett-Outtrim
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ashington has taken the desperate step of publicly accepting a Venezuelan olive branch, but at its core the Obama administration remains as ruthless as ever. Just days after United States Secretary of State John Kerry took the reasonable step of meeting Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua in Guatemala on June 5th, the underbelly of the US government policy was put on display. On June 7th, the UK’s Guardian newspaper revealed a massive global data collection program operated by the US National Security Agency. A classified NSA document obtained by the Guardian indicated that the NSA has been collecting private client information “directly from the servers” of tech companies including Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple,
Yahoo, Skype, AOL and others. Since then, both the head of the NSA James Clapper and President Barack Obama have defended the secret program, known as PRISM. Clapper described the leak as “reprehensible”, and the NSA has called for a criminal investigation. The damage control after this latest leak follows the same routine as the handling of Bradley Manning and Wikileaks- defend secrecy and deception, and persecute truth tellers. This mentality stands in stark contrast to the values of the Bolivarian revolution. While the White House was trying to defend PRISM, the Venezuelan government was likewise dealing with a case of abuse of power emanating from a government agency, but in a dramatically different manner. According to Venezuelan authorities, in response to denouncements from the
public, the head of control and inspection at the Institute for the Defense of People in Access to Goods and Services (Indepabis) Tryno Martínez was arrested on June 9th. The arrest was in connection to allegations that some Indepabis staff have extorted money from businesses in Caracas. Following the arrest, President Nicolas Maduro went further by firing the president of the institute, Consuelo Cerrada. Maduro even publicly thanked those who made the denouncements. So while in the US whistle blowers are treated as criminals, in Venezuela they receive the gratitude of the president- the contrast between the two governments couldn’t be clearer. Yet nonetheless, after weeks of flatlining relations with Washington, the Venezuelan government made a breakthrough with this rogue state.
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4 Politics | . s Friday, June 14, 2013
The artillery of ideas
Pro-Government coalition holds popular assembly of “immense importance” T/ Paul Dobson P/ Presidential Press
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epresentatives of more than 30,000 groups held a historic Popular Assembly in Caracas this week to re-impulse the Great Patriotic Pole (GPP), to discuss the future of the revolutionary alliance, and specifically the question of unified candidates for the upcoming municipal elections in December. The Assembly bought together representatives from the 11 political parties which form the alliance, as well as thousands of collectives representing women’s rights groups, disabled groupings, environmental collectives, student groups, collectives of sexual diversity, of trade unions, communal councils, and cultural groupings amongst many others. The Poliedro in Caracas, which was full to bursting, heard the contribution of President Maduro, who reiterated Chavez’s call for “unity” by highlighting the importance of the GPP in the strengthening of the revolution. He called on the diverse members to “fulfill their role in con-
structing a historic bloc of the Bolivarian Revolution”. From the Assembly certain concrete measures were approved. Amongst the most important was the creation of two permanent seats for representatives of the GPP in the Council of State, which exists as an advisory body to support the Head of State, and brings together representatives of the elected governors, the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, and now the GPP. Furthermore, the GPP agreed to push for unified candidates between the dominant PSUV party and the other smaller allied parties for the upcoming elections. Also, it agreed to call for regional assemblies in the next month in preparation for a National Patriotic Assembly of the GPP, which was fixed for July 24th. Finally, Maduro announced the renaming of the Pole to reclaim the legacy of Simon Bolivar from the opposition, which used his name in their losing presidential campaign last April, and declared it the ‘Great Patriotic Pole Simon Bolivar’. GPP national coordinator and representative of the
Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), Yul Jabour, stressed the importance of collectivity: “the theme of the collective construction of policies allows that the distinct factors, the political parties and the GPP, can participate and debate these policies in a conscientious way, so that we move from a mandate of just the Executive or Government to one of collective leadership”. Regarding July’s National Patriotic Assembly, Jabour explained that this “will be a great meeting where all of the factors
are concentrated to discuss the strategies which we will take for the upcoming elections”. Joint coordinator and PSUV representative, Blanca Eekhout, called on all sectors to activate themselves in support of the revolution: “workers, peasants, students, Afro-Americans, housewives, everyone, we should work in alliance”. “We must have the consciousness to maintain unity despite our differences, despite our proper contradictions. This revolution is only possible through the unity of the diversity, but
we all have something in common, we are workers of Bolivar, sons and daughters of Chavez… the flame, the sacred fire has become continental. We have lived the revolution of a people, we have a motherland, and we are all working for its defense”, she passionately stated. General Secretary of the PCV, Oscar Figuera, stated that the Assembly was “for us, a transcendental act of immense importance… from the perspective of the Communist Party, this is a qualitative leap in the construction of a political, social, anti-imperialist instrument, of unity”. For his part, Juan Barreto, President of Redes party, explained the proposed distribution of candidatures for the upcoming elections between the giant PSUV party and the other parties which support the revolution: “let’s hope we can find unified candidatures in 80% of the country. Let’s hope no one gets funny, no one is sectarian, rather loyal to the project, and shows the generosity that should exist between revolutionaries”. He also highlighted that potential candidates should be community leaders of revolutionary standing: “let’s hope that this selection gives privilege to community leaders of concrete social organizations, who don’t try to occupy roles just to occupy them, but rather understand that power isn’t there to be concentrated, but distributed to the people so that they can take charge”.
of supermarket chains Exito and CADA and a hardening of the government’s stance on price controls and regulation. In February 2010 he was let go by President Chavez, a move
which caused much debate in the Venezuelan left. Saman thanked Maduro for his show of “trust” and promised to “work without rest…to protect the people”.
Maduro strikes against corruption, appoints radical former minister T/ Ewan Robertson P/ Agencies
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he Venezuelan government has exposed an alleged extortion ring operating within the state agency which regulates price controls. On Sunday morning police struck against alleged extortionists working within the Institute for the Defense of People in Access to Goods and Services (Indepabis), the consumer protection agency responsible for ensuring compliance with government price controls. The head of control and inspection at Indepabis, Tryno Martinez, was arrested after police reported finding a large sum of money and a firearm inside his official car. The operation was executed following denouncements to anti-corrup-
tion officials, which alleged that some Indepabis staff in Caracas were demanding pay-offs from businesses under threat of unfair sanctions. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro confirmed the operation through Twitter on Sunday, declaring, “We’re going full out against corruption”. The president of Indepabis, Consuela Cerrada, was also dismissed. Tackling corruption was one of Maduro’s key pledges before his election in April. However, the release of a recording last month featuring the voice of pro-government journalist Mario Silva appeared to incriminate several state officials in corrupt acts. Maduro thanked those who had made denouncements against the alleged extortion-
ists operating within Indepabis, adding, “corruption is a sickness of the values of capitalism, let’s all confront it!” The Venezuelan President appointed former commerce minister, Eduardo Saman to run Indepabis, an organization which Saman also used to head. Maduro said he had made the appointment “so that he [Saman] undertakes the revolution in the revolution, so that he protects the people”. Saman is associated with the more radical current within Chavismo, and has previously advocated the formation of a radical socialist current within the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). As head of Indepabis from 2008 –2009 and minister of commerce 2009– 2010, Saman proposed the nationalization
. s Friday, June 14, 2013 | Social
The artillery of ideas
New energy campaign seeks to tackle overconsumption in Venezuela T/ COI P/ Presidential Press
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he Venezuelan government launched a new public awareness campaign last Saturday to promote the efficient use of electricity, stabilize the demand for energy, and lessen the environmental impact of consumption in the South American nation. The Rational and Efficient Use of Electric Energy Campaign was kicked off at Los Caobos Park in the capital of Caracas with Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro in attendance. “This educational campaign is necessary for all of Venezuela. From here on, we’re all going to win. With an efficient consumption [of electricity] we’re going to achieve balance between the generation and the large-scale investment in generation that we’re making to keep up with demand”, Maduro said of his government’s initiative.
The Venezuelan President was accompanied by Mayor of Caracas, Jorge Rodriguez, and the Head of the Capital District Government, Jaqueline Faria. Electricity Minister, Jesse Chacon, was also on hand for the public act. “We need to understand that electricity has production costs and environmental costs and we have to make rational and efficient use of energy”, Chacon said. As such, the innovative campaign has been designed “to give a new cultural focus to the use of electricity” and help raise awareness regarding energy waste and excessive consumption in the OPEC member state. Although Venezuela is one of Latin America’s highest producers of electricity per capita, it is also one of the regions highest consumers of the energy commodity. Minister Chacon pointed out on Saturday that over the past
10 years, demand for electricity has increased in the Caribbean country by 70 percent. This rising use has placed stress on the ability of production to fulfill the necessities of a population that has become accustomed to “overconsumption”, President Maduro said.
Venezuelan government boosts eye surgery program Mission Miracle T/ Ewan Robertson P/ Agencies
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he Venezuelan government is to re-launch the eye surgery program Mission Miracle as part of a strategy to continue improving the humanitarian program’s reach and performance. Born from a health cooperation agreement with Cuba, Mission Miracle offers free eye surgery and optical care to low income Venezuelans and those in need from across Latin America. The “re-launch” of the program involves installing new medical-surgical equipment and supplies in centers where optical operations take place, establishing workshops for the fabrication of lenses and glasses, and creating a statistical center to produce a register of patients attended and those requiring treatment. A plan will also be developed to continue training ophthalmologists and optometrists in
Venezuela, and to design and implement preventative policies for sight problems. In a meeting of government ministers on Monday to plan the new stage of Mission Miracle, Vice President Jorge Arreaza referred to the program as “one of Comandante Hugo Chavez’s favorite children”. “It’s such a beautiful mission, because it receives patients that
have a disability or sickness and in many cases it allows them to recover their vision, [and] evade or prevent an illness later on”, Arreaza continued. Another decision taken at the meeting was to set up a new directive council for the running of the Mission Miracle Foundation, which will be headed by Rosa Virginia Chavez, late President Hugo Chavez’s eldest
Justice 5
Highlighting how the oilrent economy of the past 100 years has created a mentality that fails to value conservation, the head of state made a call for a rethinking of capitalist habits and the propagation of socialist principles. “This should be an example of how we can reconfigure the
overall system of consumption in the country in order to stabilize the economy and create prosperity and social harmony this year and in the years to come”, the former union leader affirmed. Similar campaigns have been employed by the government in the past, yet the demand for electricity has continued to escalate. Since 2005, the government has also distributed millions of free, high efficiency light bulbs to residents to encourage greater energy conservation. Officials informed on Saturday that this latest campaign would take a long-term approach to the consumption problem by focusing on the habits of children as well as adults. With a slogan of “I’m aware, I consume efficiently”, President Maduro exhorted young Venezuelans to set an example for adults and for society in general. “We begin with the children who are the future of the new homeland. This campaign is geared towards them and in the second place towards the children that is inside the hearts of every adult so that we can take on this responsibility”, he declared.
daughter. “Soon a commission to link together different health institutions will be installed, to promote Mission Miracle more deeply”, Arreaza explained. When Mission Miracle was first launched in 2004, Venezuelan patients were taken to Cuba under a solidarity-based healthcare agreement. From 2005, under the Sandino Compromise signed by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, Venezuela developed the capacity to offer the program in its own public healthcare facilities. The same agreement also established the Comprehensive Community Medicine program in Venezuela. Over 14,000 new community doctors have graduated from the program so far and are now working in public hospitals across the country. There are plans to train a total of 45,000 new doctors as part of the expansion of Venezuela’s public healthcare system. According to official data, since its founding in 2004 the Miracle Mission has attended to over 1.2 million patients with free eye surgeries. The majority of these were Venezuelan, with patients from Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Chile, Paraguay and Argentina also receiving treatment.
Official sources report that in the program’s new stage, as part of the mission’s “internationalist spirit” patients from African countries will also be treated. “We’re proud to move forward with an idea that the Comandantes Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez had”, explained Arreaza. “[The Miracle Mission] is a tribute to Hugo Chavez, it’s part of his legacy, and the peoples of Venezuela and…Our America can be sure that we’re going to continue forward, not only with the greatest love and dedication possible, but with detailed and scientific criteria to be able to create the greatest sum of happiness possible through our missions”, continued the Vice President. Meanwhile Minister of Health, Isabel Iturria, said that the expansion of Mission Miracle demonstrated advances in healthcare provision in Venezuela, which could also be seen in areas such as dental care and child cardiology. “In areas where the Venezuelan people never had the possibility of access [to healthcare], now we’re advancing in a significant manner, and with the capacity to offer it to brother countries”, she stated.
6 Education | . s Friday, June 14, 2013
The artillery of ideas
Opposition-led strikes continue at Venezuelan universities T/ Sascha Bercovitch www.venezuelanalysis.com
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n an effort to achieve wage increases, professors at 13 universities across the country have gone on strike, bringing university operations to a halt. University strikes, normally led by professors and students belonging to the conservative opposition, have become common over the past several years in Venezuela, delaying scheduled classes and often causing students to graduate later than expected. As the current strikes began at several universities last month, groups in Caracas led a large march throughout the city, during which Minister for University Education Pedro Calzadilla spoke. In a statement released yesterday, Calzadilla encouraged the discussion of university conditions at a Labor Standards Meeting, which he described as “a new way to process and arrive at collective agreements”. He urged those involved in the strike to reconsider their actions so that students’ plans of study are not affected. “Academic institutions need to be spaces of peace, dialogue, tolerance, and democratic coexistence”, he said.
posals in Caracas to get us back to work through December, and to include us in the budget for the coming year”.
STUDENTS CONFLICT OVER COURSE
HUNGER STRIKERS AIM FOR RECOGNITION To protest the conditions of the University of the Andes (ULA) in Merida, four students and one professor launched a hunger strike outside the office of the dean of the university. The strike, which began last Wednesday, uses the slogan, “Life for Education”. Hunger strikes have been a common opposition tactic over the past six years to draw media attention to protests against the government. The most recent one in Merida occurred in December to protest late President Hugo Chavez’s trip to Cuba for a medical operation. The protests have received a considerable amount of coverage on Globovision, an oppositionleaning public news channel. In a letter to the Minister for University Education Pedro Calzadilla, the students listed seven reasons “which forced [us] to make this extreme decision”, including the wages of
the administration and staff, the allocations of student scholarships, the “increasingly chaotic” transportation service, and the resignation of certain professors over the years due to “salaries that are inconsistent with the work they perform”. The students, who continue to maintain good health, have made no indication of ending their strike, though the professor was moved to the university’s Medical Health Center after showing signs of dehydration and hypertension. Meanwhile, various workers from the ULA, who have been without work for the past five months due to the administration’s refusal to recognize them, continued protesting throughout the city. “We’re 589 workers who are practically in the street”, dining hall worker Irene Alarcon
told a community television network. “We’re not vandals, or savages, as some authorities have called us. We’re mothers and fathers with families, and we have our needs. They haven’t paid us for five months, and it’s just not possible to get by”. She added that the university dean, despite traveling to Caracas to meet with officials and making various declarations on public news stations, has “at no point acknowledged us”. “He [the dean] doesn’t want us to be recognized”, said Alexis Candela, the press secretary for a workers’ union. “I understand that this has to do with the budget, that they have to take this to the National Assembly. But we ask that he looks into his heart, and that he recognizes us with a contract, because the truth is that there are good pro-
Davis Maron, a humanities student at the Central University of Caracas (UCV), once considered being a professor, but the meager salaries of even those who hold an endowed chair now make him uncertain. “I want the fruit of my efforts to be valued in the future, and with the current salary of professors, I don’t see it. What’s my motivation to give classes to others?” he said. Davis was one of around fifty students to participate in a demonstration on Friday afternoon, in which they painted themselves blue, the color of the university, and marched across the medical campus with signs calling attention to professors’ “unjust salaries”. The previous afternoon, the the Association of Professors of the UCV had voted to declare its strike as indefinite. “The university should, above all, be aware of what’s happening”, Maron said. “This is a reality that hurts all of us, the students, the professors, the employees, the administrative personnel. I think that everyone should come together in this fight, because the government, the minister of
higher education has refused to acknowledged what’s been happening … If we don’t fight, we lose the university”. On another part of the campus, students in the department of education organized a counter protest, putting up signs calling for students to recognize “their own rights”. “It’s an illegitimate strike”, said Jhonatan Sayago, president of the center for students of education. “It’s a strike against a fundamental human right, a fundamental constitutional right here in Venezuela, the right to education. The strike is not a legitimate way for the professors to demand their rights, because they’re violating ours”. Though Sayago maintained that he was in agreement with an increase in salaries of the professors, he disapproved of their means of achieving it. “The majority of the university population wasn’t consulted”, he explained. “Because of that, the effects are all negative. We’re missing class, we’re missing opportunities, we’re missing time. They’re calling for a strike, and the students here continue creating protest instead of learning. That leaves no room for any real change”. While many professors have canceled classes, others, including Sociology and Psychology Professor Hector Villegas, are continuing with their regular schedule. “The university authorities that we have now have had a broad involvement with the Venezuelan opposition. We’ve been able to see how, more than being the deans of the university, they’ve turned into political actors who openly confront the government … they’ve become extensions of the opposition”, he said. Though Villegas lamented the lost class time of many students, he remained confident that the lasting effects of the strike would be minimal. “The opposition in Venezuela spent the first five years saying that Chavez was black, that he was poor, that he was crazy”, he said. “Five years attacking him for his socio-economic condition. They thought that was enough to turn the people against him. The university authorities now are doing the same thing. They think that by playing with the collapse of the university, they’re going to overthrow the government”. “What they don’t realize”, he continued, “is that governments don’t fall with foolish, poorly-structured ideas”.
. s Friday, June 14, 2013 | Environment
The artillery of ideas
Children help take care of Havana Bay T/ Ivet Gonzalez – IPS P/ IPS
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n a piece of paper, Jennifer Rivas draws a beach, with little girls carrying bags of trash and signs that say “Let’s take care of the environment”. The 10-year-old is part of an educational program, Friends of the Bay, that involves 322 schools in the Cuban capital. The initiative, created in 2005 by the State Working Group for the Clean-Up, Conservation and Development of Havana Bay (GTE-BH), brings together thousands of students from different grades in environmental “circles of interest”, where they learn to take care of the bay. “Environmental education, especially among the new generations, is a cross-cutting focus of all clean-up and monitoring actions”, Johana Socarras, GTE-BH director of environmental education and community work, told IPS. Nationwide, Havana Bay is the bay that requires the most investment annually for environmental clean-up. In 2011, the national statistics office reported that nearly
68 percent of financing for cleaning up harbors and bays of national interest went to Havana Bay, which in the 1980s was included on a United Nations list of the most heavily polluted bays in the world. Between 1998, when it was founded, and 2012, the GTEBH reduced pollution levels in Havana Bay by 58 percent, according to sources with the Science, Technology and Environment Ministry. In 1998, the bay’s dissolved oxygen levels were down to zero, making marine life impossible. In parallel with clean-up work and the reduction of sources of pollution, the GTEBH also set out to raise environmental awareness among the new generations in the 10 Havana municipalities that surround the bay and its 85kilometre basin. “They are the future businesspeople, workers and technicians. If they receive environmental education from an early age, then when they are men and women, many will act responsibly with respect to the environment”, Socarras said. Volunteers are teaching children and adolescents about
protecting the environment and maintaining the clean-up work achieved by the group — which is also responsible for monitoring the bay’s waters and industrial waste, environmental legislation, and reforestation in the area. At schools located in the basin’s surroundings, younger students work with scale models, drawings, plays and poetry, while older students get involved in research projects, visit sites that are sources of pollution, and clean up affected areas. Yusneibi Guibert, a primary school teacher in the Havana municipality of Regla and a member of Friends of the Bay, took her students to observe the coastal health of their community, which is on the bay’s shoreline. “There was a small dump site, and we cleaned up cans and other rubble. We didn’t continue because we didn’t have more resources. We also went to the Nico Lopez oil refinery (near the bay) to see how they prevent air and water pollution”, she told IPS. According to the GTE-BH, due to the activities of this re-
finery and the transport of fuel through the port of Havana, an environmental accident occurs at least once annually, involving oil spills in the bay, which is pocket-shaped and has a narrow entry. In addition, 106 sources of pollution dump waste into the bay, which is 5.2 square kilometres and has an average depth of nine metres. Along with its seawall and seaside avenue, the Malecon, the bay is the center of life in the capital, home to 2.2 million of the country’s 11.2 million people. On June 5th, World Environment Day, the Science, Technology and Environment Ministry informed the local media that 57.6 percent of national entities with dangerous waste and unused, expired chemical products were implementing management plans at the close of 2012. In Diez de Octubre, Havana’s most densely-populated area, specialist Alvaro J. Perez is working with more than 100 schools associated with the environmental education program. “Doing projects with boys and girls multiplies actions. They learn and involve
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their families and the community”, he told IPS. Children have been identified as a group with a large capacity for environmental activism in Cuba. “Children and the elderly have an incredible potential”, Alba Camejo, coordinator of the environmental communication project Arbol de Vida (Tree of Life), told IPS. “Many things are being done through initiatives that come spontaneously from the community, aside from what is done through institutions”, she said. Sian Perez, 11, learned in his environmental circle of interest that the bay’s waters need to be protected. “That way, fish and human beings are not affected”, said the student from the Leonardo Valdes school in Regla. “I used to know a little about it, but now I know more about how to take care of it (the bay) and not throw garbage into the ocean. I also learned that we should tell other people not to pollute, so that the pelicans will always be in our bay”, he told IPS. “That’s how I would always like to see the bay — clean and pretty”, said Jennifer Rivas, as she looked at her finished drawing. The science club at Raul Cepero Bonilla secondary school took a trip to the Luyano River, which empties into the bay and carries almost 90 percent of waste that comes from tributaries. Thanks to their trip, the club promoted the construction of septic tanks among hog breeders located on the riverbanks, to prevent the dumping of manure into the water. In the town of Guanabacoa, schools that are not located within the bay’s basin also joined the project, according to Rosa Tuñon, a school health advisor who oversees environmental work in education. “The knowledge and understanding that we share are useful for all environments”, she told IPS. “We have seen progress among students in terms of their environmental knowledge thanks to the program. Clean-up work is done, and students and parents are encouraged to participate in festivals and contests about ecology”, she explained. Different projects have been carried out in Havana Bay with international financing, from sources such as the Global Environment Facility and Japan’s International Cooperation Agency.
La artillería del pensamiento
Friday, June 14, 2013 | Nº 162 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve
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! PUBLICATION OF THE &UNDACION #ORREO DEL /RINOCO s Editor-in-Chief %VA 'OLINGER s Graphic Design Pablo Valduciel L. - Aimara Aguilera - Audra Ramones
Opinion
On whistleblowers and government threats of investigation T/ Glenn Greenwald – The Guardian
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e followed the story about the NSA’s bulk telephone recordgathering with one written the next day about the agency’s direct access to the servers of the world’s largest internet companies. I don’t have time at the moment to address all of the fallout because - to borrow someone else’s phrase - I’m Looking Forward to future revelations that are coming (and coming shortly), not Looking Backward to ones that have already come. But I do want to make two points. One is about whistleblowers, and the other is about threats of investigations emanating from Washington: 1) Ever since the Nixon administration broke into the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychoanalyst’s office, the tactic of the US government has been to attack and demonize whistleblowers as a means of distracting attention from their own exposed wrongdoing and destroying the credibility of the messenger so that everyone tunes out the message. That attempt will undoubtedly be made here. I’ll say more about all that shortly, but for now: as these whistleblowing acts becoming increasingly demonized, please just spend a moment considering the options available to someone with access to numerous Top Secret documents. They could easily enrich themselves by selling those documents for huge sums of money to foreign intelligence services. They could seek to harm the US government by acting at the direction of a foreign adversary and covertly pass those secrets to them. They could gratuitously expose the identity of covert agents. None of the whistleblowers persecuted by the Obama administration as part of its unprecedented attack on whistleblowers has done any of that:
not one of them. Nor have those who are responsible for these current disclosures. They did not act with any selfinterest in mind. The opposite is true: they undertook great personal risk and sacrifice for one overarching reason: to make their fellow citizens aware of what their government is doing in the dark. Their objective is to educate, to democratize, to create accountability for those in power. The people who do this are heroes. They are the embodiment of heroism. They do it knowing exactly what is likely to be done to them by the planet’s most powerful government, but they do it regardless. They don’t benefit in any way from these acts. I don’t want to oversimplify: human beings are complex, and usually act with multiple, mixed motives. Those who step forward to blow these whistles rarely benefit at all. The ones who benefit are you. You discover what you should know but what is hidden from you: namely, the most consequential acts being taken by those with the greatest power, and how those actions are affecting your life, your country and your world. In 2008, candidate Obama decreed that “often the best source of information about
waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out”, and he hailed whistleblowing as: “acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled as they have been during the Bush administration”. The current incarnation of Obama prosecutes those same whistlelblowers at double the number of all previous presidents combined, and spent the campaign season boasting about it. The 2008 version of Obama was right. As the various attacks are inevitably unleashed on the whistleblower(s) here, they deserve the gratitude and - especially - the support of everyone, including media outlets, for the noble acts that they have undertaken for the good of all of us. When it comes to what the Surveillance State is building and doing in the dark, we are much more informed today than we were yesterday, and will be much more informed tomorrow than we are today, thanks to them. (2) Like puppets reading from a script, various Washington officials almost immediately began spouting all
sorts of threats about “investigations” they intend to launch about these disclosures. This has been their playbook for several years now: they want to deter and intimidate anyone and everyone who might shed light on what they’re doing with their abusive, manipulative exploitation of the power of law to punish those who bring about transparency. That isn’t going to work. It’s beginning completely to backfire on them. It’s precisely because such behavior reveals their true character, their propensity to abuse power, that more and more people are determined to bring about accountability and transparency for what they do. They can threaten to investigate all they want. But as this week makes clear, and will continue to make clear, the ones who will actually be investigated are them. The way things are supposed to work is that we’re supposed to know virtually everything about what they do: that’s why they’re called public servants. They’re supposed to know virtually nothing about what we do: that’s why we’re called private individuals. This dynamic - the hallmark of a healthy and free society has been radically reversed.
Now, they know everything about what we do, and are constantly building systems to know more. Meanwhile, we know less and less about what they do, as they build walls of secrecy behind which they function. That’s the imbalance that needs to come to an end. No democracy can be healthy and functional if the most consequential acts of those who wield political power are completely unknown to those to whom they are supposed to be accountable. There seems to be this mentality in Washington that as soon as they stamp TOP SECRET on something they’ve done we’re all supposed to quiver and allow them to do whatever they want without transparency or accountability under its banner. These endless investigations and prosecutions and threats are designed to bolster that fear-driven dynamic. But it isn’t working. It’s doing the opposite. The times in US history when political power was constrained was when they went too far and the system backlashed and imposed limits. That’s what happened in the mid-1970s when the excesses of J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon became so extreme that the legitimacy of the political system depended upon it imposing restraints on itself. And that’s what is happening now as the government continues on its orgies of whistleblower prosecutions, trying to criminalize journalism, and building a massive surveillance apparatus that destroys privacy, all in the dark. The more they overreact to measures of accountability and transparency - the more they so flagrantly abuse their power of secrecy and investigations and prosecutions - the more quickly that backlash will arrive. I’m going to go ahead and take the Constitution at its word that we’re guaranteed the right of a free press. So, obviously, are other people doing so. And that means that it isn’t the people who are being threatened who deserve and will get the investigations, but those issuing the threats who will get that. That’s why there’s a free press. That’s what journalism means.