Analysis
Opinion
Venezuela: extraction-ism, movements and Revolution page 7
The courage of Bradley Manning will inspire others page 8
Friday, August 9, 2013 | Nº 170 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve
Venezuela & Colombia advance in security Venezuela and Colombia took a further step towards improving relations last Friday when the foreign ministers of both countries met in Caracas to discuss border security, commerce, and ending the illegal movement of products between the neighboring nations. They signed a series of accords designed to curb the illicit trading of goods across the more than one thousand miles of shared border between the countries. page 3
ENGLISH EDITION/The artillery of ideas
Venezuelans march against corruption, promise to crackdown in all sectors
Integration
Venezuela denounces US espionage Foreign Minister Elias Jaua criticized US spying during meetings at the United Nations. page 3 Politics
Polls Favor Maduro Recent surveys show President Nicolas Maduro’s popularity rate is increasing. Politics
Fresh faces for upcoming elections Journalist Ernesto Villegas will run for Metropolitan Mayor of Caracas. page 6
Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets of the capital Caracas last Saturday in support of the Maduro Administration’s fight against corruption in both the nation’s public and private sectors. The slogan “Crackdown on corruption!” was one of the many phrases chanted as the march moved through the principal avenues of Caracas. President Nicolas Maduro called for the weeding out of members of the socialist party who have violated the morals and principles of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution. Page 2
Venezuela to repatriate stolen matisse Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua has ordered the immediate return of a Henri Matisse painting that was stolen more than a decade ago from the Contemporary Art Museum of Caracas. The painting is “Odalisque with red pants” by Matisse and is currently in the United States after being recovered by the FBI in July last year. The Venezuelan government decided to repatriate the painting after a Venezuelan commission certified on August 6th the authenticity of the painting stolen from the Caracas art museum in 2000. The certification of the work was done by Wanda Guebriant, director of the Matisse archives in Paris. The work, which dates from 1925 and is valued at about $3 million, was found in July 2012 when a couple tried to sell it to undercover FBI agents at a hotel in Miami Beach.
INTERNATIONAL
Regional integration can help defeat violence In a speech at the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua called for stronger regional integration as the only path to ending violent and fascist groups who aim to destabilize governments. At a meeting of the Security Council presided over by Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, Jaua noted the role of organizations such as the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA) in raising awareness about attempts to violate the democratic order. Jaua reiterated Mercosur’s commitment to supporting democracy, saying “we have stood watch to prevent coup attempts led by fascist currents”. He said Mercosur has condemned divisive forces in Bolivia and an attempted coup against Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, and also warned of the arbitrary unseating of Paraguay’s president Fernando Lugo. “More recently, [we made] the timely pronouncement in the face of calls to violence by the defeated candidate in Venezuela after the presidential election on April 14”, Jaua noted. Jaua said that the banner of peace should continue to be unfolded: “UNASUR, CELAC, ALBA, PetroCaribe and Mercosur are regional integration initiatives that have made important achievements with regard to the preservation of peace in Latin America”. “We can find joint mechanisms to achieve well-being for the people of Latin Americ”, he said. “We are united to achieve equality and democracy for our peoples”.
2 Impact | . s Friday, August 9, 2013
The artillery of ideas
Venezuelans march against corruption, revolutionary imposters T/ COI P/ Presidentia l Press
B
raving rain and inclement weather, thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets of the capital Caracas last Saturday in support of the Maduro Administration’s fight against corruption in both the nation’s public and private sectors. The slogan “Crackdown on corruption!” was one of the many phrases chanted as the march moved through the principal avenues of Caracas and ended at Plaza Venezuela, just outside the nation’s congress. Head of state Nicolas Maduro gave the keynote address at the rally, calling for the weeding out of members of the ruling socialist party who have violated the morals and principles of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution. “From Caracas, in the cradle of the Liberator Simon Bolivar, the people are in the street fighting against the corruption of the past and the corruption of the present”, the Venezuelan President said. “We need to prepare ourselves to fight for a re-founding of Bolivarianism and Christianity and for a new political ethic. We need to get rid of the hypocrites and imposters who put on a red beret in order to rob the people, who hide behind the image of Simon Bolivar to thieve”, he added. Demonstrators at the event expressed their backing of government’s hardline stance against fraud and the looting of public funds via crooked politicians and businessmen. “If we all unite and give our support, we will be able to achieve the proposal that President Maduro has made”, said resident Rosa Aristigueta at the march. Others used the example of the late Hugo Chavez, former President of Venezuela, as inspiration to defend the country against those who wish to rob its natural wealth through inside dealings. “Our Comandante [Chavez] taught us to defend what is ours. That’s why we’re here today”, affirmed Moraima Suarez. Investigative journalist Jose Vicente Rangel also made
to continue this fight no matter who is indicted”, the President said. Venezuela’s Vice President Jorge Arreaza echoed this stance, articulating his commitment to stamp out malfeasance at all levels of government, regardless of political affiliation. “The National Executive supports all the measures that need to be taken. If we need to strip immunities, if we need to arrest vice presidents or ministers, if we need to open investigations on whoever it may be, we will do it”, Arreaza declared.
NEW COMMUNICATION MINISTER
reference to the recently deceased Chavez, stating during the rally that “every time the people are in the streets, the presence of the supreme leader of the revolution becomes manifested”. Rangel, a former Vice President of the Chavez administration, drew a parallel between corruption and fascism calling the two social afflictions “exactly the same thing”. “We are here to defeat fascism and corruption once again and every time they raise their head, we’re going to put an end to them”, he exclaimed.
TAKING ON MISCONDUCT ‘WHEREVER IT IS’ Since taking office in April, President Maduro has made it a priority to fight violent crime and corruption in the OPEC member state through a range of programs and policies. In his first months as Commander-in-Chief, the former union leader has overseen the arrest of a number of high ranking government members for embezzlement, including a regional head of the national
consumer protection agency INDEPABIS. Last week, the country’s National Assembly stripped congressman Richard Mardo, an opposition leader accused of receiving illicit funds, of his parliamentary immunity thereby opening the door for criminal charges against the lawmaker. The indictment caused a wave of protest from members of the Venezuelan right-wing whose leaders have alleged po-
litical targeting of opposition members and a violation of the country’s constitution. Maduro and his supporters have been undeterred by the conservative outcries and on Saturday, they re-asserted their intention to root out corruption wherever it may be found. “I am going after corruption wherever it is... The battle against corruption is the same battle against capitalism and it’s anti-values... We are going
Later on Saturday, at a concert in homage to Hugo Chavez, President Maduro announced the designation of Communication Minister Ernesto Villegas as the candidate of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) for Mayor of Metropolitan Caracas. The revelation was made in preparation for the nation’s upcoming municipal elections slated to take place on December 8th. Villegas, a native of the capital, has served as communication minister since last October and referred to his designation as “an honor”. During his address he emphasized youth engagement and the creation of a more just and egalitarian future for Venezuela. “Youth needs to be at the front to govern Venezuela and build a new homeland for our children and grandchildren as well as the children and grandchildren of those who oppose us. These children also deserve a homeland and with them we are going to build the society of the future”, the former minister said. To replace Villegas, Maduro has appointed Delcy Rodriguez Gomez as the executive’s new spokesperson. Rodriguez is the brother of the well-known socialist politician Jorge Rodriguez who currently serves as the Mayor of the municipality Libertador in the capital region. She graduated with a law degree from the Central University of Venezuela where she was a student leader and, subsequently, a professor. Rodriguez also served as Minister of the President’s Office for Hugo Chavez in 2006. “Delcy Rodriguez, extraordinary Venezuelan Minister of Communication and Information, welcome to the battle for the truth”, President Maduro said of the appointment on Saturday.
. s Friday, August 9, 2013
The artillery of ideas
| Integration
3
Colombia and Venezuela to clamp down on contraband, improve border security T/ COI P/ Agencies
V
enezuela and Colombia took a further step towards improving relations last Friday when the foreign ministers of both countries met in Caracas to discuss border security, commerce, and ending the illegal movement of products between the neighboring nations. “We have come here with the highest disposition to advance in the many areas that Colombia and Venezuela share so that there is a real change for the people of both our countries, especially in border areas”, said Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Holguin. Topping the agenda was the creation of a series of accords designed to curb the illicit trading of goods across the more than one thousand miles of shared border between the countries. This includes measures drafted to cut down on the proliferation of stolen automobiles and the theft of cellular phones as well as the establishment of “a holistic intelligence plan to attack organized contraband
gangs”, said Venezuelan Minister Elias Jaua. Venezuela has been hit particularly hard by groups and individuals who, taking advantage of price regulated goods in the OPEC member state, transport commodities to Colombia where they are sold at many times their original price.
The unlawful activity has led to a scarcity of certain staple products in Venezuela and has bled a number of productive industries financed by the national government. “There are gangsters working in the areas of gasoline, food products, lubricants, urea and fertilizers. With
Venezuela reiterates asylum for Snowden, denounces US espionage at UN T/ Agencies, with reporting from Tamara Pearson
O
n Monday the foreign ministers of Mercosur, including Venezuela’s top diplomat Elias Jaua, met with the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, to express their rejection of “global spying” by the United States. The Mercosur ministers representing Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, as well as Bolivia as a special guest, were referring to information about the US government’s PRISM global spying program revealed by Edward Snowden in June. The US government’s espionage “absolutely violates international law, countries’ sovereignty, and the fundamental human rights of the citizens
of the world”, Jaua denounced during the meeting. He also told Ban Ki-moon that Mercosur countries were concerned about the “attempt to put pressure and conditions on countries who have offered asylum to Mr. Snowden”. Brazilian foreign minister Antonio Patriota emphasized in the press conference afterwards that it was “very important” that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, had spoken against such “spying practices”. Pillay stated recently that UN human rights mechanisms “pointed to important rights and privacy issues at stake in connection with surveillance”. At the meeting, according to UN press, Ban Ki-moon “reiterated the need to safeguard these fundamental rights”.
According to Jaua, the ministers also talked about the blockade on Cuba, Argentina’s sovereign claim over the Malvinas Islands, Edward Snowden, and the aggression of some European countries towards Bolivian President Evo Morales last month. Spain, Italy, France, and Portugal prohibited Morales’ flight from passing through their territory after wrongly suspecting that Snowden was on his plane. “That attitude violates the Vienna Convention and other international agreements”, Jaua stated. He was referring to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which enables diplomats to perform their functions without fear of coercion or harassment by the host country. At the meeting, Ban Ki-moon also reiterated that a head of state
this joint work of inspection and regulation, and with a holistic plan we’re going to begin to hit back very soon”, Jaua declared. Minister Holguin referred to the fight against contraband as something that “should be an absolute reality”. “We must identify the products that have seen the highest levels of contraband such as cement and scrap metal which are reaching alarming levels. Contraband is affecting us enormously and the business community is beginning to take part in the clamor”, Colombia’s head diplomat stated. Further topics discussed were the fight against drug trafficking, the supply of gasoline to border areas, the normalization of commercial relations, and Venezuela’s debt to Colombian exporters. The credentials of Luis Eladio Perez, Colombia’s new Ambassador to Venezuela were also presented to Jaua during the dialogue. Perez, previously the Ambassador of the government of Juan Manuel Santos to Peru,
and his or her aircraft enjoy immunity and inviolability. Jaua explained that he handed in a report about the “wave of violence generated by Venezuelan opposition leaders on April 15th”, following the opposition’s defeat in the April 14th presidential elections, to the Secretary General. On Tuesday the UN Security Council debated cooperation between the UN and regional and subregional organizations in the maintenance of international peace and security. Venezuela’s Foreign Minister, as well as a majority from Latin America, also spoke at the Security Council meeting, expressing similar concerns. Argentina assumed the presidency of the important UN council in the presence of President Cristina Fernandez.
ASYLUM FOR SNOWDEN Also on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Jaua reaffirmed his government’s offer of asylum to US intelligence leaker Edward
was kidnapped by Colombia’s FARC rebels in 2001 and freed in 2008 following the intervention of former President Hugo Chavez in negotiations with the guerilla insurgency. “I want to thank Foreign Minister Elias Jaua and [Venezuelan] President Nicolas Maduro, who have given the authorization for the new ambassador on the same day that we have presented it”, Hogluin said. Friday’s meeting of ministers and the bilateral work commissions they head, marked the first such encounter since relations between the two countries were reinitiated on July 22. Both Jaua and Holguin agreed to a follow-up work session to take place in the Colombian capital of Bogota in October. “We are already carrying out the first decision of our presidents in this new phase of strengthening and deepening of relations between two brother countries, between two friendly governments. We are pleased to be able to reactivate this relationship at the highest level and with the greatest will”, Jaua affirmed.
Snowden during an interview with television stated RT. “Of course, President (Nicolas) Maduro, in keeping with our right under international law ... decided to grant this asylum to a citizen who requested it, explaining that he felt persecuted politically by his government”, Jaua said, in an excerpt released by the foreign ministry. Russia last week granted Snowden a year’s temporary asylum, allowing him to leave the Moscow airport where he had been stranded for five weeks in a cat-and-mouse game with Washington. The former US intelligence contractor is wanted by the United States for revealing the existence of secret US electronic surveillance programs that scoop up phone and Internet data on a global scale. Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia had said they would offer Snowden asylum, but the logistics of getting him to Latin America without US interference appeared to temporarily foreclose that option.
4 Politics | . s Friday, August 9, 2013
The artillery of ideas
Polls show Venezuelans back Maduro
T/ Ryan Mallett-Outtrim P/ Presidential Press
A
Maduro calls for ‘new ethic’ in politics, reveals mayoral candidates T/ COI P/ Presidential Press enezuelan President Nicolas Maduro made a call for a new socialist ethic in politics and designated candidates for upcoming elections during a speech given last Sunday in commemoration of the 76th anniversary of the South American country’s National Guard. In his address, the head of state urged his fellow countrymen and women to emulate the values of independence hero Simon Bolivar and the recently deceased socialist leader Hugo Chavez. “We want a new way of exercising power. A new Christian, Bolivarian, and Chavista ethic. in which we can construct a new republican and socialist ethic”, he declared. Continuing with his anticorruption stance, Maduro considered the government’s crackdown on immoral politicians as “a central theme for the construction of democracy” and a necessary for the building of a society based on values of equality and prosperity for all. The former bus driver and union leader also attacked as “craziness” recent suggestions made by opposition leader Henrique Capriles to redraft the nation’s constitution. “The right-wing is making plans. They want to put an end
V
to the constitution, the same constitution that they repealed [during the coup against Hugo Chavez] on April 11, 2002. They don’t understand and will never understand what constitutional power is, nor the power that the people have when they themselves convene a constitutional assembly”, Maduro said. Venezuela’s current magna carta was ratified through popular vote in 1999, following the election of the late President Hugo Chavez in 1998. Capriles, the governor of Miranda state, was defeated by Chavez in 2012’s presidential elections and then again by Nicolas Maduro for the same office following Chavez’s death in March. Since his most recent electoral loss, Capriles has been leading an international campaign to discredit the Venezuelan government and the nation’s electoral commission. Notwithstanding, the conservative son of a major Venezuelan media family has urged his followers to participate in the nation’s coming municipal elections set for December 8th. For his part, President Maduro divulged a list of candidates of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) who will stand in the approaching mayoral contests.
This includes aspirants to head the five different municipalities that comprise the capital of Caracas, the most populous and politically important region of the country. Four of the five metropolitan areas of Caracas are currently controlled by the Venezuelan opposition, with Jorge Rodriguez of the PSUV representing the exception in the capital district municipality of Libertador. Former Communication Minister Ernesto Villegas has been nominated as the socialist candidate for the Metropolitan Mayor’s Office to challenge Antonio Ledezma of the opposition. Many analysts see December’s elections as a key indicator of Venezuela’s political future following the death of Chavez and Maduro’s slim margin of victory over Capriles in last April’s presidential race. For this reason, both the opposition and the ruling socialists are giving added emphasis to the contests on the national level. “If the people want peace and good governance in their municipalities, they should guarantee that the candidates of the revolution, the best candidates, win. They are women, men and youth who are trained professionally, morally, and politically”, President Maduro said on Sunday.
majority of Venezuelans want to see a continuation of the policies of former President Hugo Chavez and back current President Nicolas Maduro, but would also like more dialogue between the government and opposition, according to the latest poll from the Venezuelan Institute for Data Analysis (IVAD). When asked if they would like to see Venezuela continue in the “direction it was taking” under Chavez, 52.3% of participants in the survey responded positively, according to the results released this week. A similar figure- 52.4%, reportedly expressed a positive view of the Maduro administration. Moreover, 41% of those surveyed told IVAD they intend to vote for a candidate of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) in the upcoming municipal elections in December. 36% of participants stated they would vote for an opposition party, while 23% were uncertain, or didn’t answer. The poll also indicates that 56% of Venezuelans believe Maduro’s ‘street government’ has generated significant benefits for the population. However, 42% view the street government as being of “little” or “no” significance. Maduro’s trips abroad were less popular, with just 39% of participants expressing a positive view of the President’s international efforts. Roughly half of those surveyed expressed a negative view of the trips. Although the majority of participants indicated they support Maduro, 79% indicated that they want more cooperation between the government and national opposition. Around six out of 10 supporters of the government indicated that more cooperation is needed. However, the number of opposition voters hoping for more dialogue was higher, at 91%. The IVAD survey was conducted last month, and the results were first announced over the weekend. The findings follow the release of the results of another poll by Hinterlaces last
week, which likewise found that support for Maduro is up. The Hinterlaces survey was also conducted last month, but recorded that 57% of participants have a positive view of the Maduro administration4.6% higher than the IVAD poll. The same percentage of participants in both surveys (56%) indicated that the street government is contributing positively to resolving public concerns. Hinterlaces also found that 51% of Venezuelans perceive that the Maduro administration has already “improved” their economic situation. However, 70% of participants still expressed concern for the economy, and only 23% of respondents stated that they view themselves as regularly paying attention to politics. During its survey of 1203 voting age Venezuelans, Hinterlaces also recorded a 17% rise in unfavorable views of the opposition, and increase in PSUV support since its last survey in June. The firm estimates PSUV support is at 48%, while the opposition now has 31%. Yet according to the head of pollster International Consulting Services (ICS) Lorenzo Martinez, support for Maduro is now higher than both the IVAD and Hinterlaces polls indicate. On Saturday, Martinez stated that a poll conducted by ICS between 26 May and 1 August estimated Maduro’s overall approval rating at 65%. Maduro’s handling of the economy received 61% approval, according to Martinez. “People perceive Maduro as an honest man, because he has undertaken strategies through Indepabis, and through the fight against corruption”, Martinez stated on Saturday, according to AVN. Along with the fight against corruption, Martinez also attributed the increased support for Maduro to the street government. “[Maduro] has made people believe that they [the government] are providing solutions to problems, and this is perceived positively”, Martinez stated. The previous survey from ICS, released in early July, put Maduro’s support at 55.9%.
. s Friday, August 9, 2013
The artillery of ideas
| Politics
5
National movement of youth theaters to be launched T/ Paul Dobson P/ Presidential Press
I
n the mark of the internationally renowned System of Youth and Infantile Orchestras of Venezuela, President Maduro announced the creation of a National Movement of Youth and Infantile Theaters this week at his regular ‘Bolivarian Dialogue’ roundtable events. “I have decided to create for our country a movement of the same dimensions as the Movement of Youth and Infantile Orchestras ‘Simon Bolivar’, which in Salzburg has given life to the glory of Venezuela in the World Festival of Symphonic Orchestras where the Venezuelan youth has reigned triumphant”. The theater movement seeks to repeat the success of its mu-
sical counterpart in encouraging culture for young people, reaching out to the poor sectors of society, implanting values such as working as a team, listening, discipline, and giving them an outlet for emotional expression, all though contact with the arts. “How many beautiful things are transmitted and learned through theater”, Maduro stated rhetorically. The movement will bear the name of the famous Venezuelan painter, writer, journalist, and poet, Cesar Rengifo, who lived from 1915-1980. “Cesar Rengifo, the great dramatist and multiple artist of the 20th century, master of masters, the great reference point”, explained Maduro. He went on to elucidate that “in each junior school there
GPP: “Perfect” revolutionary unity for 8-D elections
T/ Paul Dobson P/ Presidential Press
T
he eleven political parties which constitute Venezuela’s Council of Parties in the ample revolutionary alliance, the Great Patriotic Pole ‘Simon Bolivar’ (GPP), announced this week that they have successfully achieved a unified bloc of candidates for the upcoming December 8th elections. Speaking from the 8-D electoral command center, representatives Jorge Rodriguez (Socialist Unified Party), Oscar Figuera and Yul Jabour (Com-
munist Party), Rafael Uzcategui (PPT), Wilmer Nolasco (MEP), Humberto Berroteran (UPV), Juan Barreto (Redes), Jose Pinto (Tupamaro), Gerson Perez (Podemos), Erick Ramirez (New Revolutionary Road), Deyanira Vallenilla (PRT), and Ramses Reyes (CRV) presented a united front to the nation as the electoral authorities opened the postulation period for the 337 mayoral and 2455 councilmember positions which will be contested in December. “This is the unified platform of the GPP which will go forward united to the electoral event”, ex-
should be at least a workshop and a theater group, in each high school, each university, in each military unit, we are going to reproduce and multiply theater… we are going to incorporate thousands of children and youth as a gift to our Commander (Chavez) in this, the fifth month since his passing… the theater of the future is going to take into account this movement which we are creating today”. Maduro has marked the first months of his mandate with positive efforts to use culture as a means of combating crime and antisocial values. He has incorporated thousands of athletes, artists, musicians and entertainers as community organizers in the Great Movement for Peace and Life, which aims to encourage youth to
take up sports, music, theater or art instead of drugs, crime, or gangs. The Movement of Infantile and Youth Theaters ‘Cesar Rengifo’ will form part of a wider strategy. “This is a key movement for the peace of the country, it’s something extraordinary, one of the most beautiful expressions”, emphasized the Venezuelan President. Maduro announced that the movement would be under the
charge of leading Venezuelan actor, Pedro Lander, who will form a team of actors and directors to condition the movement. He also ordered the Ministers for Youth, Hector Rodriguez, and Culture, Fidel Barbarito, to incorporate themselves into the team. “We will see this miracle made reality, the miracle of seeing thousands of children acting in the streets”, accentuated Maduro.
plained Rodriguez, who is also the candidate for the key Libertador municipality of Caracas, and head of the national electoral campaign team. In light of recent events and the closeness of the April elections, the unity of the revolutionary forces has been considered essential to ensuring the continuity of the Bolivarian Revolution in the absence of President Hugo Chavez, who passed away in March. The discussions for unified candidates started in June when the GPP held a massive popular assembly, at which President Maduro emphasized the need for unity. Since then a series of intensive bilateral and multilateral meetings have been held which have resulted in the “perfect consensus”. “We feel happy… we announce to the nation the unified, perfect platform which will take us to an immense victory in the municipal elections”, affirmed Rodriguez. “We have had a very enriching process with the allied parties and the social movements… to choose the best women and men as candidates for the battle in this unified platform…We have the names of our 335 mayoral candidates already, and the vast majority of the more than 2000 councilmembers”. President Nicolas Maduro congratulated the various par-
ties on fulfilling the last wishes of Hugo Chavez, who called for “unity, unity and more unity” in his last public message previous to his physical passing. “The GPP announces a unified alliance for the December 8th elections. I congratulate them, compatriots, this is best homage to the Supreme Commander”, he wrote on his Twitter account. Speaking on national TV, he went on to explain that “this is news of gigantic historic impact, which says a lot about, and good things about the consciousness of the leaders of all the movements and parties… it’s not about one party imposing itself on another, it’s not about one group imposing themselves on another, it’s about putting forward excellent compatriots to be good mayors and having a permanent renovation of the forces which we are exerting in all of the institutions of government”. General Secretary of the Communist Party of Venezuela, Oscar Figuera, described the achievement as “a deepening of the process of participation and popular control”. He also verified that “we are advancing on the correct path, of unity, of the integration of the real possibilities, of the integration of a political, programmatic, and electoral proposal towards a national agreement of unified character”.
He did however share that there are still issues to be resolved, however that they are minor and will not affect the general push towards unified candidates. “There are still states which merit more attention”, he explained, and emphasized that any differences which may exist in those states “doesn’t mean that there exists a rupture in the general agreement”, and that “in the allied forces there is the will to resolve things properly and in the interests of the popular victory”. On the same day that the revolutionary bloc announced its unified front, one of the opposition parties broke from the right wing electoral MUD bloc and declared that it will launch its own candidates on an independent platform. Felipe Mujica, of the MAS party, stated that this decision was caused by the fact that “the MUD has mistreated the MAS and other sectors of civil society”. Similarly, divisions between the parties that make up the opposition alliance have come to the public eye in the key sectors such as Chacao, Sucre, and Libertador municipalities in Caracas, and Maracaibo in Zulia State amongst others. Opposition candidates were elected by primary elections held nearly two years previous to the electoral date.
6 Politics | . s Friday, August 9, 2013
The artillery of ideas
President Maduro Announces Candidate for Metropolitan Mayor of Caracas
2012, when President Chavez named him Minister of Communication and Information. Serving as the principal government voice tasked with reporting on Chavez’s health during the final months of his battle with cancer, Villegas was later ratified by President Nicolas Maduro.
OPPOSITION INCUMBENT
T/ COI P/ Agencies
O
ver the weekend, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro made public his decision to run Minister of Communication and Information Ernesto Villegas as the socialist mayoral candidate for the Metropolitan District of Caracas. With 335 mayoralties up for grabs later this year, Villegas is now at the forefront of pro-Chavez efforts to maintain or re-take a majority of city governments. A prized author, journalist, and key government spokesman during the most difficult months of President Hugo Chavez’s failed bout with cancer, Villegas faces incumbent opposition mayor Antonio Ledezma (2009-2013). Originally scheduled for April 14th but postponed in the context of President Chavez’s untimely death, the nationwide municipal elections are now set for December 8th.
MINISTER OF THE MAJORITY Speaking to thousands gathered in a march against corruption, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday announced that the country’s socialist majority – organized under the auspices of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and its Great
Patriotic Pole (GPP) coalition – have now chosen their candidate for the Metropolitan District of Caracas: Minister of Communication and Information Ernesto Villegas. With Villegas at his side, President Maduro affirmed that those who stand with the Bolivarian Revolution “are very pleased that Ernesto Villegas – a young, Caracas-born journalist of the new generation – is going to be the next Mayor of Caracas”. Though Caracas is actually split into five separate districts, each of which has its own elected mayor, a legal reform in 2000 created the office of the Metropolitan Mayor. Tasked with overseeing the overall administration of all five mayoralties, the seat was held by pro-Chavez mayors from 2000 to 2008. Having won with 68.8% (2000) and 60.3% (2004), pro-Chavez forces suffered a political setback in 2008 when right-wing figurehead Antonio Ledezma won the mayoralty with 52% of the vote. Responding to the announcement that he would face Ledezma in the December 2013 mayoral election, Minister Villegas told the crowd that “it is an honor to accept this challenge given to me by President Maduro and the political leadership of the Revolution. It’s a great honor to represent the Revolution at this historical moment”.
Villegas will hand over the Ministry of Communication and Information to Delcy Rodriguez Gomez, daughter of revolutionary leader Jorge Rodriguez Sr. “I accept the challenge”, Villegas affirmed, “and I call on all of Caracas to form a tremendous team, with the youth at the forefront governing Venezuela, building a new homeland for our children and grandchildren, and for the children and grandchildren of those who oppose us!” “We mustn’t return to that sinister past filled with corruption and vice, that old system that pushed the poor into the slums”. Villegas added, “we must win with Chavez! Long live Nicolas Maduro! Long live December 8th!” On December 8th, 2012, a recently-elected President Hugo Chavez announced his immediate need to continue cancer treatment in Cuba. Clearly aware that his health had greatly deteriorated, the President asked the Venezuelan people to elect Nicolas Maduro if, for “any reason”, he himself could not carry out his 2013-2019 mandate. President Chavez passed away on March 5th, 2013.
ERNESTO VILLEGAS POLJAK Born April 29th, 1970, Ernesto Villegas Poljak is the son of two respected Venezuelan com-
munists. His father, Cruz Villegas, was an outspoken union organizer with the Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV) who served as both President of the United Venezuelan Workers’ Central (CUTV) and Vice President of the World Federation of Unions (FSM). His mother, Maja Poljak de Villegas, was a renowned journalist and active leader in Venezuelan communist politics. Villegas followed his mother’s footsteps and studied journalism at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV). He has received numerous public recognitions for his commitment to quality reporting, winning National Journalism Awards in 2002, 2006, and 2010. He won the 2010 award for his book, April: The Coup on the Inside, a detailed investigation into those behind the failed opposition coup of 2002. At the time of the coup, Villegas worked at both state-run Venezolana de Television (VTV) and privately-owned El Universal, providing him a unique understanding of how pro- and anti-Chavez forces battled for and against Venezuelan democracy. In 2009, Villegas was named Director of CiudadCCS, a free Caracas daily that reaches some 150,000 readers in and around the nation’s capital. Villegas served as the paper’s Director until October
Antonio Jose Ledezma Diaz is nothing new to Venezuelan politics. Born on May 1st, 1955, he began his political career in the midst of a corrupt and now discredited Fourth Republic (19581998). He was an active member of the opposition’s Democratic Action (AD) throughout the 80’s and 90’s, braking ranks only when Hugo Chavez and his socialist movement brought an end to the Fourth Republic and founded the Fifth (1999-present). Looking to save his political career, Ledezma left AD in 1999 and established the Fearless Peoples’ Alliance (ABP), an opposition grouping he now presides over. With the support of right-wing allies in the antiChavez opposition, Ledezma was elected Metropolitan Mayor of Caracas in late 2008. Ledezma has spent most of the last four years victimizing himself, claiming the national government reduced his importance as mayor by appointing pro-Chavez activist and politician Jacqueline Faria to administer the District Capital. Stipulated within Venezuela’s legal framework, the naming of Caracas’ “Head of Government” is the sole responsibility of the President of the Republic. Largely absent from daily politics, Ledezma has instead used the Metropolitan Mayor’s office to promote himself and attack the national government. In one example, he held a brief hunger strike at the Caracas offices of the Organization of American States (OAS) in protest to the Faria appointment. In a more recent example, he used a 2012 International Mayors Conference in Jerusalem to hold closed-door meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, promising to “reestablish relations with the State of Israel under a new government presided by Henrique Capriles Radonski”. Earlier this year, after Nicolas Maduro won the April 2013 presidential election, Ledezma used another publicly-financed trip abroad to tell those gathered at a Florida conference that “the OAS must impose the Democratic Charter on Venezuela”.
. s Friday, August 9, 2013
The artillery of ideas
Venezuela: extraction-ism, movements, and Revolution
T/ Raul Zibechi – La Jornada P/ Agencies
S
ome days ago a meeting was held in Caracas to debate the relationships between movements and states, and how autonomy and popular power can build alternatives to development that are dependent on the extraction [of oil and minerals] model. Members of thirty organizations and movements participated, from cooperatives grouped into Cecosesola and the National Network of Bartering Systems, to Amazon and Yukpa indigenous groups, youth, culture, afro descendents, feminist, and urban and rural collectives. There were also debates and meetings with the Tenants Movement. It’s important to affirm the strength and determination of these movements, the profoundness and truth of their analysis, the autonomous character of their reflections, the certainty that they face a decisive period of political life. If one had to summarize, something that is difficult when words circulate around and around, there would be three central topics that were discussed: getting away from extraction-ism, deepening autonomy, and constructing a new type of productive model.
Exctraction-ism appeared in two ways. One was expected and customary, linked to the social and environmental damages that mineral and petroleum mining cause, which threaten the life of indigenous and rural communities. The killing of Yukpa chief Sabino Romero by rancher mafias on March 3rd in the Sierra de Perija in Zulia state is part of the offensive by the large landowners against those who struggle for the demarcation of their ancestral territories in an area where mining is advancing. Many non-indigenous groups, and even urban ones, fight against the consequences of the extraction model. The consequences generated over the last half century or more by a model based on extraction and exportation of petroleum are added now to the growing presence of mining and the construction of large infrastructure works. The criticisms of the “rentier culture” which converts the movements into dependents of the state and which has a long tradition in Venezuela, was something unexpected. One of the big changes in this country has been the democratization of the petroleum income, previously reserved for just a few people and now showered on the popular sectors. However
this democratization has reinforced the rentier culture and installed the productive model as something immovable. In the heart of the movements, this culture goes against productivity, as some collectives that form part of the Caracas urban cultural center Tiuna el Fuerte stated. The interesting thing about this view is that it places the problem below, not above. Extraction-ism is a fact of reality, just like the hegemony of rentier culture. But what they denominate as lack of “productivity” is part of a cultural challenge that can be dealt with and won. That’s what the movements talk-
ed about and they are focusing their efforts on this task. The producers grouped into Cecosesola (Central Cooperative of Social Services of the State of Lara) supply a quarter of the population of Barquisimeto, capital of Lara, with food, with their three weekly markets that sell 450 tons of food. In their six health centers they attend to 190,000 people per year. Everything they do is self-managed. The bartering network exchanges what it produces, from food to handicrafts, but also knowledge and services. It uses communal money and it asks itself how to promote the con-
| Analysis
7
struction of popular power without being destroyed by inept civil servants or the power of money. The Tenants Movement is occupying over three hundred buildings in Caracas, many of which were abandoned and are now self-managed. The urban movement groups together tenants who resist evictions, the urban land committees that were born in 2002 when the regularization of self-constructed urban settlements was approved, residential workers, and those who have lost their homes to floods. They are building fourteen groups of housing based on mutual help, they create urban communities on the path to a profound urban revolution. Tiuna el Fuerte is one of the most powerful urban youth experiences in the continent. It’s one of the few collectives that manages to work with poor youth who do illegal things, to build spaces with them for cultural and artistic creation through their participation in the Endogenous School of Hip Hop. The reflections about petroleum rentier-ism by the women of Latent Voices, who work with the collectives of Tiuna el Fuerte, are notable; if we manage to change the rentier culture and inclusion through consumerism for a productive and self-management culture, we’re starting to leave the extraction model behind. It could be said that in harmony with certain structuralism, while the productive model isn’t changed, the behavior of the population won’t be, that culture depends on production, that culture can’t do it alone, that this way of doing politics has post modern repercussions. However, the class struggle, the struggle in general, isn’t a structural fact but rather a building of ethics by those from below. There aren’t determinisms from the productive forces towards the rest of the society. We shouldn’t judge without knowing the intentions of those who are doing. In Venezuela there are powerful movements, understood as collective practices capable of transforming parts of society, modifying the material and symbolic place of those who form part of them. On occasions this part of society has felt and feels supported by the state and by diverse governments. On occasions, it hasn’t. The truth is that there are people in movements, doing things to change their lives and society. Whatever happens will happen in the next few years, they will be there, fighting for a better world.
Friday, August 9, 2013 | Nº 170 | 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
The courage of Bradley Manning will inspire others to seize their moment of truth T/ John Pilger
T
he critical moment in the political trial of the century was on February 28th when Bradley Manning stood and explained why he had risked his life to leak tens of thousands of official files. It was a statement of morality, conscience and truth: the very qualities that distinguish human beings. This was not deemed mainstream news in the US; and were it not for Alexa O’Brien, an independent freelance journalist, Manning’s voice would have been silenced. Working through the night, she transcribed and released his every word. It is a rare, revealing document. Describing the attack by an Apache helicopter crew who filmed civilians as they murdered and wounded them in Baghdad in 2007, Manning said: “The most alarming aspect of the video to me was the seemingly delightful bloodlust they appeared to have. They seemed not to value human life by referring to them as ‘dead bastards’ and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers. At one point in the video there is an individual on the ground attempting to crawl to safety [who] is seriously wounded... For me, this seems similar to a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass”. He hoped “the public would be as alarmed as me” about a crime which, as his subsequent leaks revealed, was not an aberration. Bradley Manning is a principled whistleblower and truthteller who has been vilified and tortured - and Amnesty International needs to explain to the world why it has not adopted him as a prisoner of conscience; or is Amnesty, unlike Manning, intimidated by criminal power? “It is a funeral here at Fort Meade”, Alexa O’Brien told me. “The US government wants to bury Manning alive. He is a genuinely earnest young man with not an ounce of mendacity. The mainstream media finally came on the day of the verdict. They showed up for a gladiator match - to watch the gauntlet go down, thumbs pointed down”.
The criminal nature of the US military is beyond dispute. The decades of lawless bombing, the use of poisonous weapons on civilian populations, the renditions and the torture at Abu Graib, Guantanamo and elsewhere, are all documented. As a young war reporter in Indochina, it dawned on me that the US exported its homicidal neuroses and called it war, even a noble cause. Like the Apache attack, the infamous 1968 massacre at My Lai was not untypical. In the same province, Quang Ngai, I gathered evidence of widespread slaughter: thousands of men, women and children, murdered arbitrarily and anonymously in “free fire zones”. In Iraq, I filmed a shepherd whose brother and his entire family had been cut down by a US plane, in the open. This was sport. In Afghanistan, I filmed to a woman whose dirt-walled home, and family, had been obliterated by a 500lb bomb. There was no “enemy”. My film cans burst with such evidence. In 2010, Private Manning did his duty to the rest of human-
ity and supplied proof from within the murder machine. This is his triumph; and his show trial merely expresses corrupt power’s abiding fear of people learning the truth. It also illuminates the parasitic industry around truth-tellers. Manning’s character has been dissected and abused by those who never knew him yet claim to support him. The hyped film, We Steal Secrets: the Story of WikiLeaks, mutates a heroic young soldier into an “alienated... lonely... very needy” psychiatric case with an “identity crisis” because “he was in the wrong body and wanted to become a woman”. So spoke Alex Gibney, the director, whose prurient psycho-babble found willing ears across a media too compliant or lazy or stupid to challenge the hype and comprehend that the shadows falling across whistleblowers may reach even them. From its dishonest title, Gibney’s film performed a dutiful hatchet job on Manning, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. The message was familiar - serious dissent-
ers are freaks. Alexa O’Brien’s meticulous record of Manning’s moral and political courage demolishes this smear. In the Gibney film, US politicians and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff are lined up to repeat, unchallenged, that, in publishing Manning’s leaks, WikiLeaks and Assange placed the lives informants at risk and had “blood on his hands”. On August 1st, the Guardian reported: “No record of deaths caused by WikiLeaks revelations, court told”. The Pentagon general who led a 10-month investigation into the worldwide impact of the leaks reported that not a single death could be attributed to the disclosures. Yet, in the film, the journalist Nick Davies describes a heartless Assange who had no “harm minimization plan”. I asked the filmmaker Mark Davis about this. A respected broadcaster for SBS Australia, Davis was an eyewitness, accompanying Assange during much of the preparation of the leaked files for publication in the Guardian and the New York Times. His footage
In 2010, Private Manning did his duty to the rest of humanity and supplied proof from within the murder machine. This is his triumph; and his show trial merely expresses corrupt power’s abiding fear of people learning the truth. It also illuminates the parasitic industry around truth-tellers. Manning’s character has been dissected and abused by those who never knew him yet claim to support him appears in the Gibney film. He told me, “Assange was the only one who worked day and night extracting 10,000 names of people who could be targeted by the revelations in the logs”. While Manning faces life in prison, Gibney is said to be planning a Hollywood movie. A “biopic” of Assange is on the way, along with a Hollywood version of David Leigh’s and Luke Harding’s book of scuttlebutt on the “fall” of WikiLeaks. Profiting from the boldness, cleverness and suffering of those who refuse to be co-opted and tamed, they all will end up in history’s waste bin. For the inspiration of future truthtellers belongs to Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and the remarkable young people of WikiLeaks, whose achievements are unparalleled. Snowden’s rescue is largely a WikiLeaks triumph: a thriller too good for Hollywood because its heroes are real.