Pg. P g. 7 | A Analysis nalysis
Pg. P g. 8 | O Opinion pinion
Documents published by Wikileaks evidence the sloppy, biased reports issued by the US Embassy in Venezuela
Ma Weisbrot on how Wikileaks Mark discloses disastrous dis US policy on Haiti
THURSDAY | December 23, 2010 | No. 44| Bs 1 | CARACAS
ENGLISH EDITION The artillery of ideas
Christmas joy despite tragedies in Venezuela
Dudamel in US cinema
After heavy rains left tens of thousands homeless in Venezuela, the government is providing humane solutions
Rift over US ambassador raises US-Venezuela tensions
New homes were provided this week for hundreds of Venezuelans displaced by the rains last month, as constructions began nationwide to solve the country’s housing problems. New “socialist” restaurants and shops were inaugurated also this week to ensure affordable and quality products for all, especially during the holiday season, in order to combat price hikes and speculation in the private sector.
The US government threatened “consequences” against Venezuela this week after the Chavez administration reiterated the rejection of the US nominee for Ambassador to the South American nation. Larry Palmer, Ambassadordesignee of President Obama, violated diplomatic protocol and international norms after making harsh statements about Venezuelan democracy and military capacity, rendering him “ineligible” for the job.
Politics
Banking in the public service
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A new law in Venezuela attempts to humanize banking.
A new and humane police force The National Bolivarian Police are waging the fight against crime and making Venezuela a safer place.
International
Ex Colombian President Uribe’s abuses revealed Falsified data evidencing advances in security and calls to invade Venezuela by Alvaro Uribe have been exposed.
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Venezuela approves law to regulate foreign funding
ate Tuesday evening, the Venezuelan National Assembly approved a law to regulate and control the flow of foreign funding coming from international agencies and governments to finance political activities in the country. The Law in Defense of Political Sovereignty and National SelfDetermination prohibits foreign funding to political parties, actors and organizations seeking to influence domestic policies and internal affairs. Most nations prohibit or strictly regulate foreign funding for po-
litical activities in order to protect national sovereignty and prevent foreign actors from intervening in internal affairs and policies. The US forbids foreign funding for political campaigns or parties, and highly regulates all foreign financing for other activities, including lobbying, public relations and NGOs or other groups that receive such funding and work in the interests of a foreign actor. The US Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) goes so far as to classify all groups or individuals in the US receiving foreign fund-
ing who engage in certain political and public relations activities as “foreign agents”. The Venezuelan law comes after years of foreign intervention via funding that has propped up political groups and media outlets seeking to oust the current government from power. Two US entities, USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) have been the principal channels for multimillion-dollar funding feeding anti-Chavez groups and coup attempts. Now, that funding will be prohibited.
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ive concerts of the internationally acclaimed Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel, director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, will be broadcast in movie theaters in the US and Canada, beginning January 2011. The three live performances, to be held in the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, will include behind the scenes rehearsal footage and exclusive interviews with the charismatic Venezuelan maestro, guest soloists and musicians from the Philharmonic. “Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic share the passion to enrich the world with classical music and expand access to the arts”, noted the Philharmonic. Audiences will be able to enjoy “up-close and dramatic views of Gustavo Dudamel and the orchestra in action, captured with multiple HD cameras and in thrilling 5.1 surround sound”. The first of the live broadcasts will be on January 9 in LA, when the Venezuelan star will conduct pieces by John Adams, Leonard Bernstein and Beethoven together with mezzo-soprano Kelly O’Connor. Gustavo Dudamel is one of the most successful graduates of Venezuela’s National System of Youth and Children Orchestras, a foundation financed by the Venezuelan government.
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2 | Impact
NoÊ{{ÊUÊThursday, December 23, 2010
The artillery of ideas
Venezuelan government provides new homes for displaced families For the displaced residents of the poor neighborhood of Petare in the state of Miranda, there could not have been a better Christmas present than the one given to them by the Venezuelan government last Sunday - the gift of new homes
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uring his weekly television program, Alo Presidente, the Venezuelan head of state, Hugo Chavez, officially delivered 120 new apartments to refugee families who had taken shelter in the William Lara Attention Center in Petare after torrential rains had forced them out of their homes. “I don’t want you to return to shanties”, Chavez said to the economically disadvantaged families who had lost their homes or had been evacuated due to high risks caused by the rains. “I want you to go to your new homes as some of you have already done.” The new apartments delivered by the government contrast starkly with the precariously built shanties that fill the hillsides around major Venezuelan cities such as Caracas. They are fully equipped with appliances including kitchen stoves, washing machines, and refrigerators. The move comes as part of the government’s relief efforts for families affected by the torrential rains that have left more than 100 thousand people displaced. Thirty-Five people have also been killed by the relentless downpours that have marked the worst rainy season that the country has seen in forty years. FUTURE CONSTRUCTIONS Chavez reported on Sunday that in addition to those already being delivered, 650 new apartments will soon be constructed on a 4.5 hectare plot of land in the area that had been previously purchased by the Venezuelan Supreme Court.
According to the Venezuelan President, the land had been bought to accommodate those working in the judiciary but had been underutilized. “All of this land belonged to the Judicial Branch to create a juridical complex”, Chavez related. “The President of the Supreme Court, Dr. Luisa Estela Morales, called me a few days ago and said: President, we don’t need this. The Judicial Branch bough it some years back and hasn’t done anything with it. We prefer to give it to the people”. The Venezuelan President also called for the improvement of conditions inside shelters and asked for a reduction in the number of families taking refuge in each attention center. “We need to reduce the number of families in the shelters. We have to humanize these shelters to the maximum”, he said. The call was made so that those affected by the rains “can remain as families for a period of more or less a year while housing is constructed. We have to have an equal distribution of people in the different [attention] centers so that there is more comfort”, he stated. Recently, the government has been ratcheting up its relief efforts for the victims of the rains, creating public shelters, distribut-
ing food and medical care, and organizing leisure and recreation activities for the refugees. HOUSING A PRIORITY Housing has been the top priority as the government has worked to accelerate both short-term and long-term living solutions. Apart from the projects taking place in Petare, President Chavez inaugurated a further 140 apartments in the state of Miranda via satelite on Sunday and an additional 230 in the state of Vargas, one of the coastal states that had been hardest hit by the downpours. According to Vargas Governor,
Jorge Carneiro, the first installment of 230 homes is part of a larger government plan to construct 500 new apartments. The price of the housing for residents provided by the government will vary depending on the situation of each new homeowner, Chavez explained. “The families that lost their homes and their furnishings will not be charged one cent for the home. There will be other cases in which we subsidize a good part of the house and the families, based on their incomes, will pay off the rest little by little with a low interest rate to maintain the plan”, he said.
MULTINATIONAL COOPERATION Last Saturday, Chavez toured the military complex of Fort Tiuna in Caracas where he expounded on plans to invest 400 million dollars in the construction of 10 thousand new homes, converting the under-populated military zone into a residential area. The project is slated to be completed by January of next year and will be carried out in collaboration with the Chinese multinational, International Trust and Investment Corporation (Citic) Group. The government has also employed the cooperation of the eastern European nation of Belarus to construct an additional 2,500 apartments in the state of Aragua. Accompanying Chavez during his tour of Fort Tiuna on Saturday, the Belarusian Vice Minister for Architecture and Construction, Anatoly Nichkzov, informed that his government is ready to install a new factory in Venezuela to aid housing construction. “This socialist factory is part of twelve businesses that will develop products and materials for the construction of high quality homes”, the Vice Minister stated. In a similar vein, Chavez announced on Sunday the nationalization of two paralyzed factories deemed critical for housing construction. “One of the factories is called Aluminios de Venezuela, Alven, and the other, [the toilet factory] Sanitarios Maracay. Both businesses will allow us to strengthen, above all, our production capacity for construction supplies”, he noted. The Venezuelan head of state also announced during his program on Sunday the creation of a commission designed to negotiate cheap apartment rentals as a shortterm solution for rain victims. “There are a lot of people who rent homes, apartments”, Chavez said with reference to private firms and individuals. “If we have to rent 10 thousand houses and apartments in the interim, this can be another solution”, he said. T/ Edward Ellis P/ Presidential Press
NoÊ{{ÊUÊThursday, December 23, 2010
The artillery of ideas
International
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Colombia: report reveals Uribe’s lies & rights abuses T
he reported reduction in kidnappings that have occurred over the past ten years in the war-torn nation of Colombia has been hailed as one of the hallmark achievements of the “tough on crime” government of former president Alvaro Uribe who left his countrymen with a legacy of law and order after serving eight years as the nation’s head of state, replaced this past October by his Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos. A new report released by a human rights organization in the country, however, casts doubt over the assertions propagated by the Colombian government with respect to its management of kidnapping figures and questions the legitimacy of the Uribe administration’s claims to have effectively handled the social problem. According to the organization Pais Libre (Free Country), the most recognized organization in the fight against kidnapping in the country, the Colombian government has deliberately massaged numbers to give the impression that it has been winning the fight against the crime. “The reductionist zeal of recent years has, through meth-
odological changes, put pressure on information gathering systems to eliminate the number of kidnappings”, the organization claims. Pais Libre accuses the Colombian government of “washing” the numbers to the point that, between 2009 and 2010, 664 people were totally erased from the kidnapping
registry – people whose whereabouts are still unknown today. The organization further asserts that the government has maintained a “policy of refusing access to databases regarding crimes against freedom”, in order to silence any questioning of official numbers released by the state agency Fondelibertad.
According to official figures released by Fondelibertad, an agency recently investigated on allegations of corruption, 21,476 kidnappings have taken place in Colombia from 1998 – 2010. The NGO Pais Libre puts that number at 24,316. The twisting of the definition of what represents a kidnap-
ping as well as the categories that define the crime, Pais Libre charges, have formed part of Fondelibertad’s manipulation of statistical data to give the impression that the government is successfully tackling the plague of kidnapping that has afflicted the country. “The central problem with the crime data in this country is that they are egregiously associated with the administration of institutions”, said Jeronimo Castillo, a researcher working with the organization. Another major problem is the fear on the part of family members to report kidnappings to authorities and the lack of support that victims receive from the judicial system to prosecute alleged perpetrators. “Impunity continues to be over 90 percent”, said Olga Gomez, Director of the organization. “We have a horrible system of guarantees for the rights of citizens in the face of kidnappings. Few investigations are carried out and even fewer convictions are forthcoming while the attention to the victim is deficient”, she stated. T/ Edward Ellis P/ Agencies
Uribe confirms Wikileaks: he was prepared to cross into Venezuela territory F
ormer Colombian President Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010) confirmed the contents of a confidential US State Department confidential cable exposed by Wikileaks, according to which he contemplated sending troops across into Venezuelan territory to capture and arrest FARC guerrilla leaders. In his Twitter Uribe wrote: “Reply to Wikileaks: I proposed it and I did it: to protect Colombians you must capture the terrorists whereever they are”. According to the cable, in early 2008 Uribe spoke of sending troops into neighboring
Venezuela to capture Colombian FARC leaders he suspected were hiding there. Uribe, who left the presidency in August after two four-year terms, mounted a determined effort to crush the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which has battled a succession of Colombian governments since the mid-1960s. The January 18, 2008, cable tells of a meeting held the day before between Uribe, US Ambassador William Brownfield, and the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen. Uribe said “he was prepared to autho-
rize Colombian forces to cross into Venezuela, arrest FARC leaders, and bring them to justice in Colombia”, Brownfield reported to the State Department. The meeting took place less than two months before Uribe ordered an attack on a clandestine FARC camp just inside neighboring Ecuador, which killed more than two dozen people, including Raul Reyes and several civilians. Two days later, Ecuador broke relations with Colombia and the rupture lasted until the end of last month, when Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and Uribe’s
successor, Juan Manuel Santos, agreed to fully reestablish bilateral ties. According to another cable published by the Spanish daily El Pais, Uribe told visiting US lawmakers in 2007 that leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was a “Hitler-like threat” to South America. Uribe’s January 2008 conversation with US officials also touched on Chavez, who has not undertaken any offensive military action since taking office 11 years ago. Uribe thinks “the best counter to Chavez ... remains action - including use of the mili-
tary”, Ambassador Brownfield said in his cable to Washington. During his second term, and especially during his last few months in office, Uribe repeatedly complained that several FARC leaders were hiding in Venezuela and that the neighboring country was not cooperating with Colombia to capture them. Those unfounded accusations led Chavez to break relations with Colombia in July. Ties were reestablished in August at a meeting between the Venezuelan leader and Uribe’s successor, President Santos. T/ MercoPress
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4 | Politics
NoÊ{{ÊUÊThursday, December 23, 2010
The artillery of ideas
US threatens venezuela over ambassador rift T
he Venezuelan government officially reiterated on Monday its refusal to accept Larry Palmer as the new US ambassador to the South American country after inappropriate and incendiary comments made by the diplomat earlier this year disqualified him from assuming the post. The statement came in the form of a protest letter issued by the Foreign Ministry as news of Palmer’s imminent confirmation by the US Senate as ambassador reached the Venezuelan government. “It’s well known that Palmer broke basic rules of respect towards the country that was to receive him with crude aggressions against fundamental Venezuelan institutions, making him ineligible to perform the task with which he would be charged”, the letter stated. Last August, Palmer criticized the Venezuelan armed forces claiming they had “low morale”. He also expressed his “concerns” for alleged Cuban influence in Venezuela’s military affairs and has maintained the unproven allegation that links exist between the Chavez government and Colombian guerrillas. Darnel Steuart, Charge D’Affairs of the US Embassy in Caracas, received the missive from the Foreign Ministry on Monday and read a statement to the press reaffirming President Barack Obama’s choice of Palmer to serve as the United States top diplomat to Venezuela. “President Obama named Larry Palmer to be our Ambassador in
Venezuela because he has a unique combination of experience, ability and wisdom to successfully represent our country in Caracas. We are firm on this stance”, she said. During her statements, Steuart “regretted” the Venezuelan government’s decision stating that it “will have to take responsibility for such actions”. STATE DEPARTMENT LASH OUT As a follow-up, US State Department spokesperson Philip Crowley directly threatened the Chavez administration for its re-
fusal to accept Palmer as US ambassador to Venezuela. “We make it clear to Venezuela that this type of action will have consequences”, he warned. “We have been discussing this issue with Venezuelan authorities for months”, Crowley told reporters on Monday. “We’ve warned them that if they reject [Palmer], there would be an impact in bilateral relations”. According to officials in Caracas, these remarks coupled with Washington’s refusal to withdraw Palmer as ambassador despite
demonstrably inappropriate and undiplomatic behavior “ratify the [United States’] historic line of interventionism and aggression carried out against the Venezuelan people, its institutions and its democracy”. Indeed, the State Department’s insistence on Palmer and its ensuing threats against the Venezuelan government fit a pattern of provocations towards the country. Documents recently disclosed by the whistleblower website Wikileaks spell out Washington’s antagonism towards Ca-
racas over the years in the form of its continued support for antiChavez groups and its attempt to sway public opinion against Venezuela in Latin America and around the world. In November, the US Congress held a forum entitled “Danger in the Andes: Threats to Democracy, Human Rights and Inter-American Security” where members of both the US and Latin American far-right attacked Venezuela and its allies for challenging neoliberalism and Washington’s hegemony in South America. Whether the US will terminate the mandate of Venezuela’s Ambassador in Washington as a response to the Chavez administration’s rejection of Palmer is not yet clear. “When we decide what we’re going to do, we’ll let you know”, Crowley said on Monday. Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which regulates foreign diplomacy between nations, foreign nationals with diplomatic status are not allowed to intervene in or express opinions on the internal affairs of their host nations. Per the Convention, foreign nationals seeking to obtain diplomatic status in any member nation of the international community must obtain the express and unequivocal approval of the host nation, and such approval cannot be imposed by one nation upon another. T/ Edward Ellis P/ Agencies
The world is with Venezuela, says FM Maduro I
nternational solidarity reached Venezuela immediately as soon as the reports on the economic damages and over 130,000 victims from the torrential rains that hit the country circled the world, said Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro. In an interview for Prensa Latina, Venezuela’s top diplomat first praised the solidarity from member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). “Thousands of Cuban medical workers multiplied their efforts in every corner of Venezuela, helping the poorest and there is a Cuban doctor working in every shelter”, stressed Maduro.
He described as awesome the consignments of relief supplies coming from Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, as well as from Caribbean Islands like St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica, “all sister countries within ALBA” that even collected donations that already reached our people at the shelters. FM Maduro also mentioned contributions from Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Syria, Iran, Belarus, Russia, “the world is with Venezuela”, he exclaimed. “During such difficult times, when we have to deal with these weather adversities with cour-
age, it is time to show the true sisterhood we have been weaving like a fishing net”.
He said that President Hugo Chavez has helped build a large international alliance for a new world that “we can feel manifested through the love and solidarity reaching the people of Venezuela from around the globe”. Heavy rains that hit 40 percent of the national territory over the past several weeks killed 35 people as rivers and dams overflowed, drenching vast zones, isolating dozens of communities and sweeping away bridges and roads, not to mention the billions of dollars in damages to the nation’s agricultural production. Food, water, blankets, matresses, medications, tents and child
clothing were among the aid flown to the Venezuelans who lost everything and are staying in 972 state-run shelters. The victims now benefit from medical assistance, including odontology, and recreation to help ease their distress. Housing is a top priority for President Chavez, who assured the victims that they will head from the shelters to their homes now under construction as part of an ambitious project to meet the national deficit -over two million houses- accumulated through many decades of neglect. T/ Prensa Latina P/ Agencies
NoÊ{{ÊUÊThursday, December 23, 2010
The artillery of ideas
Broadband Connections in Venezuela Grew 18% During First Half of 2010
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isco announced this week the results of a new Cisco Broadband Barometer study, reporting a growth of 18% in the number of fixed broadband connections in Venezuela, which represents a penetration of 5.2 per 100 inhabitants, during the first six months of 2010. According to the study, commissioned by Cisco and conducted by the independent research firm IDC, 223,927 new fixed broadband subscriptions were added in Venezuela during the first six months of 2010, reaching a total of 1,460,149 connections. A third of the fixed broadband connections are concentrated in Caracas, and 67% are in the rest of the country. Almost three-quarters (71%) of the fixed broadband connections have speeds higher than 512 kilobits per second, and 11% of the connections exceed 1 megabit per second. According to the analysis made by the Cisco Broadband Barometer, the deployment of more than 5,000 kilometers of fiber optic by CANTV in the south of Venezuela will be an important accelerator of the broadband penetration in the country. During the first half of 2010, mobile broadband connections grew by 15.3%, reaching 719,790 connections. Mobile broadband growth in the areas outside Caracas was propelled by the investments of mobile operators in order to meet the demand in the country’s interior. Almost half (46%) of the mobile broadband connections are concentrated in Caracas; 54% are in the rest of the country. Referring to the growth of broadband access in Venezuela, Enrique Mareque, general manager, Cisco Venezuela, explained, “High-speed networks offer a unique and profitable opportunity to increase enterprise productivity and facilitate the processes of regional integration. In addition, they help overcome physical and geographical restrictions to bringing education and health care to citizens”.
T/ Agencies
Economy
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Venezuelan national assembly passes law making banking a “public service” L
ast Friday, Venezuela’s National Assembly approved new legislation that defines banking as an industry “of public service”, requiring banks in Venezuela to contribute more to social programs, housing construction efforts, and other social needs while making government intervention easier when banks fail to comply with national priorities. The Law of Banking Sector Institutions, as it is formally known, is one of a dozen pro-Revolution laws being passed by the current National Assembly before the incoming assembly – and its growing anti-Chavez minority – begins legislating early next year. The new law protects bank customers’ assets in the event of irregularities on the part of owners, makes it illegal to arbitrarily change banking hours, and stipulates that the Superintendent of Banking Institutions take into account the best interest of bank customers – and not only stockholders, as was the case prior to the new law – when making any decisions that affect a bank’s operations. The law also requires that banks prepare a factual overview of financial health at the end of each trimester, and mandates the Superintendent of Banking Institutions organize this information for dissemination to the general public through a regular publication to be printed and distributed nationwide. RESPONSIBLE BANKING According to Ricardo Sanguino, legislator from Venezuela’s United Socialist Party (PSUV), the law is born of “a necesity in Venezuela to consolidate a responsible financial sector”. “With this law we are restricting unregulated speculation... [Now] there is absolutely no chance that a banking institution becomes involved in irregularities, as they have done in the recent past”, said Sanguino. In an attempt to control speculation, the law limits the amount of credit that can be made available to individuals or private entities by making 20% the maximum amount of capital a bank can have
out as credit. The law also limits the formation of financial groups and prohibits banks from having an interest in brokerage firms and insurance companies. The law also stipulates that 5% of pre-tax profits of all banks be dedicated solely to projects elaborated by communal councils. Ten percent of a bank´s capital must also be put into a fund to pay for wages and pensions in case of bankruptcy. According to 2009 figures provided by Softline Consultores, 5% of pre-tax profits in Venezuela’s banking industry last year would have meant an additional 314 million bolivars, or $73.1 million dollars, for social programs to attend the needs of Venezuela’s poor majority. OPPOSITION REACTIONS Reuters on Friday described the law as part of a “package of legislation the Venezuelan government is pushing through to entrench socialism in the South American OPEC member nation”. According to opposition legislator Juan Jose Molina, the new banking law is an “attack on economic liberty, on the consti-
tutional right that citizens have to compete freely, to comercial incentives”. In statements made to the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA), Molina concluded that the law was “the first step in the nationalization of banking” in Venezuela. Opposition economist Alexander Guerrero called the law “a 50-year step backwards” because it “takes away banks’ participation in the non-banking sector, such as stock exchanges, investment institutions, insurance companies, etc”. NOT NATIONALIZATIONS In contrast to Molina’s statements, Juan Carlos Escotet, President of the Venezuelan Association of Bankers, recently affirmed that he is, “in total disagreement with such affirmations” and that “in none of the law’s articles does it propose the nationalization of banking as such”. PSUV legislator Rafic Souki explained that the new law “doesn’t mean that [banks] are going to be nationalized... But yes, if there is an irregular situation, they are now a public utility and the state can proceed
to secure the assets to keep services functioning”. While the Venezuelan government has nationalized hundreds of companies since first taking office in 1998, private banks in Venezuela still play a majority role in the country´s banking industry, managing roughly 70% of assets. In 2009, the Venezuelan government took over Banco de Venezuela and this year, Banco Federal. Along with other publicly owned banking institutions, these takeovers meant that 30% of the banking industry is now in government hands. Last week, Venezuela’s outgoing National Assembly passed the banking law, media and internet regulations, as well as a People’s Power Law of Communes. The legislature also granted President Hugo Chavez decree powers allowing Chavez to legislate by decree for the next 18 months. This week, a new university law, urban property legislation, and controls on internationallyfinanced NGOs were approved. T/ Juan Reardon www.venezuelanalysis.com
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6 | Security
NoÊ{{ÊUÊThursday, December 23, 2010
The artillery of ideas
Making Venezuela safer through a new national police force T
he Venezuelan Government, through the Ministry of Interior Relations and Justice and the Experimental Security University (UNES), will invest about 1.1 billion bolivares ($255 million dollars) in 2011 to develop a Plan of Expansion and Reinforcement of the Bolivarian National Police (PNB) in eight states throughout the country. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that given the positive results obtained in the neighborhood of Sucre in Caracas, the idea is to expand this new and humane security body to the states of Tachira, Carabobo, Zulia, Lara, Aragua, Miranda and Anzoategui, as well as throughout the remaining areas of Metropolitan Caracas. In Sucre, one of the most populated areas of Caracas, the PNB reduced the crime rate by 57% in under a year of operations. Murder rates came down by 44%; robberies by 66%; injuries by 62%; and gender violence by 64%. To continue the growth of this new security force, 12,500 new officials are expected to graduate in 2011 from the UNES, a college that currently has a registration of about 3,000 students. President Chavez explained that the expansion of the Bolivarian National Police throughout the country is in direct correlation to research results on crime incidence in those states with a rate beyond 78%. Similarly, he emphasized that three months after the PNB deployment in 47 subway stations in Caracas, 25 criminal groups have been dismantled and 523 people arrested who committed robberies in the subway system. In addition, 38% of crimes were solved this year by the PNB, compared to 15% in 2009. President Chavez also highlighted that one year after its creation, the PNB counts on 4,222 officers. This figure represents an increase of 444% of officers compared to the 952 officers the force had at the beginning of its operations in December last year. “I dream of the day when the PNB is deployed all over the country, in every municipality and parish to guarantee security and calm to all citizens”, declared the Venezuelan leader.
POLICE ANNIVERSARY President Chavez announced the police expansion during a graduation ceremony of 1,077 officers from the fourth group of the PNB training course, which took place at the headquarters of UNES in Caracas. The activity was held to celebrate the first anniversary of the Bolivarian National Police, created on December 20th 2009. “The Bolivarian National Police is a police force of the social, legal and just state, and a mandate of the Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela”, the President said. The group is subdivided into 567 patrol officials; 314 officers for transportation and patrolling; and 196 peace officers.
The deployment of the PNB has allowed the city to maintain a ratio of police groups of 3.5 officers per 1000 inhabitants, which previously was only 1.5 officers pero 1000 residents. “The National Police bases its work on humane and just treatment with respect to human rights, and encourages a different and progressive use of force, depending on events. This new concept ends the image of a policeman oppressing people”, the President affirmed. DECORATED POLICE OFFICERS During the activity, President Chavez decorated a group of police officers based on their collaboration with rescue operations and safety of people at risk in the
neighborhood of Sucre, in Caracas, after heavy rains hit the nation in November and early December. “It is an honor to grant you these decorations on behalf of our people, given your outstanding and heroic performance to save and take care of those displaced by the rains”, exclaimed the Venezuelan President. About 16,000 people were evacuated by the PNB. The police force prevented casualties as a result of the heavy rains, which caused landslides, floods and damages to thousands of homes. “Christmas has arrived with this special situation, in which the PNB has proved to be what we want it to be, a new police body, preventive and humanitarian”. President Chavez announced as well that Venezuela’s National Electoral Council would donate 100 million bolivares to those displaced by the rains. These resources remained from the budget of 2010, as a consequence of the responsible management of the entity’s board of directors. Chavez thanked CNE chairwoman Tibisay Lucena “for putting these remaining resources at the orders of people”. DESTABILIZING OPPOSITION President Chavez also reiterated his warning regarding the destabilizing actions of the far right-wing in the country next
year, who aim to create chaos. Thus, he urged the people and state-run agencies to be alert and to prevent situations that could alter the constitutional order. “They are provoking civil disobedience, trying to create an environment for 2011, to take us to that chaos we lived in 2002 during the coup d’etat. In the midst of that chaos, they want to try and overthrow the government by any means”, the President stressed. He urged opposition sectors as well to not fall into the trap of destabilization as they did in 2001 and 2002, when they carried out a coup d’état against Chavez’s government that lasted 48 hours and rocked the nation into a political crisis. “The PNB is a humanist and social agency which abides by the Constitution. It aims at solving conflicts without violence. But nobody should underestimate it because it is a body with legitimacy and training to make use of force when needed, to ensure the constitutional order be respected, the same as the Armed Forces and the Army”, he detailed. Chavez added that opposition sectors expect the Government to lower the flag of the socialist Revolution in reaction to their threats. “We will not cease our Revolution and every single day we are advancing in the creation of a State which is not longer subordinate to the bourgeoisie”, he affirmed defiantly. The PNB was created on December 20, 2009 after a lengthy research process carried out by the National Commission for Police Reform that began in 2006. The Commission was in charge of cleaning up the operations and administration of the Metropolitan Police Force, which was riddled with corruption and heavy human rights abuses. Those officers from the previous force who met the values of respect for human dignity, complied with the academic training, civic conscience, and duty to protect the people were incorporated into the PNB. T/ AVN P/ Presidential Press
NoÊ{{ÊUÊThursday, December 23, 2010
The artillery of ideas
Analysis
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For US officials in Venezuela, ideology trumps competent analysis L
ooking at how US officials have privately assessed press freedom in Venezuela provides a good way to judge their ability to put ideology aside when they analyze Venezuela - and reality in general. It’s easy to judge the extent to which anti-government views can be expressed in Venezuela and - most crucially - reach a wide audience. US officials in Caracas could, for example, simply read newspapers and watch television. Thanks to Wikileaks, we know that US officials have indeed carried out this rudimentary form of intelligence gathering. For example, one US Embassy cable from 2009 entitled “Venezuela’s medical system in disarray as GBRV [Venezuela’s government] shifts resources to Barrio Adentro” says that: “In recent months, newspapers across Venezuela have carried daily reports of a growing crisis in the public hospitals. On November 30, for example, ‘Notitarde’ published reports of a vigil by patients and doctors to protest... the daily ‘El Universal’ reported that doctors in Merida had shut down the University Hospital of Los Andes (HULA) due to medical supply shortages, pronouncing the hospital ‘dead.’” In other words, according to the cable, it seems Venezuela’s private media is relentless in its criticism of the Chavez government. Protests against the government not only take place but are highly provocative (“protests have paralyzed hospitals across Venezuela” says the author) and are given considerable media coverage. However, another cable, also from 2009, takes it as given that Hugo Chavez has “fostered selfcensorship in the media” and is facing “no checks on his power at home”. Another 2009 cable relates how leaders of Venezuela’s Jewish community met with US officials to complain that there is no freedom of expression in Venezuela - and therefore no freedom of religion they added. According to the cable, US officials did not, even among themselves, question the claims made by Jewish leaders.
Was the “crisis in public hospitals” reported “daily” for “months” in “newspapers across Venezuela” in 2009 some kind of aberration? One cable makes a rare and weak effort to use data to support its negative assessment of press freedom in Venezuela: “Chavez regularly requires all local television and radio networks to carry his speeches (‘cadenas’); he has wracked up over 1,200 such hours (50 days) on the air”. The data comes from Chavez opponents and is supposedly the total time accumulated by “cadenas” over a ten-year period. It accounts for 1.4% of the private media’s programming hours over ten years. Apparently, US analysts are not interested in checking their conclusions using arithmetic. THE FACTS Mark Weisbrot and Tara Ruttenberg, with the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), just put out a brief report about Venezuelan television. It shows that state-sponsored pub-
lic television has an audience share of only 5%. Contrary to the impression conveyed by the international press, the Venezuelan media remains dominated by private interests fiercely opposed to the Chavez government. Rarely do reporters describe the relentless anti-government output of the Venezuelan media - as did the 2009 cable about the “hospital crisis”. Instead, reporters routinely write the way the UK Guardian’s Rory Carroll did in January of 2010. Carroll stated that Chavez has “expanded the state’s media empire and cowed private broadcasters. This year he shut dozens of radio stations and said Globovision, the last critical voice on television, would follow”. Rory Carroll has been based in Caracas for several years and must have known very well that calling Globovision (which has not been closed) the “last critical TV voice” is outrageously dishonest - as is labelling state media, with its audience share of 5%, an “empire”.
Presumably, Carroll is capable of distinguishing between a “cowed” media that is no longer “critical” and one that is no longer as openly subversive as it was during the 2002 coup and the oil industry shutdown oil industry shutdown of December 2002 - February 2003. If US outlets had been as subversive as Venezuela’s then their owners and managers would have faced the death penalty. The reaction of the US political elite to Wikileaks (ranging from calls for extrajudicial assassination to imprisonment) should make this impossible to dispute. Wikileaks has embarrassed US government and corporate elites. That’s a far cry from playing a key role in a coup overthrowing a democratically-elected government and in a major economic sabotage that shut down the nation’s primary industries and forceably halted food and beverage distribution for more than two months, causing major economic damages. But Rory Carroll is a corporate journalist writing for an audience
outside Venezuela. In contrast, the cables released by Wikileaks show how US officials talk among themselves. At least in private, shouldn’t they be capable of assessing facts? Judging from the cables released so far, it seems that the only fact that matters to them is that the Chavez administration is a threat to US influence in Latin America. The truth about other things, like the state of press freedom in Venezuela or the state of its economy or its medical system, is not seriously investigated. Sources that should cast significant doubt on official assumptions, including some glaring contradictions within their own reports, are simply ignored. This creates potential problems for US imperialism. On the other hand, the examples of Philip Agee, Daniel Ellsberg, and Bradley Manning reveal that too much attention to reality can be infinitely more problematic. T/ Joe Emersberger
THURSDAY | December 23, 2010 | No. 44| Bs 1 | CARACAS
ENGLISH EDITION The artillery of ideas
A publication of the Fundacion Correo del Orinoco • Editor-in-Chief | Eva Golinger • Graphic Design | Alexander Uzcátegui, Jameson Jiménez • Press | Fundación Imprenta de la Cultura
OPINION
Wikileaks Show Why Washington Won’t Allow Democracy in Haiti T
he polarization of the debate around Wikileaks is pretty simple, really. Of all the governments in the world, the United States government is the greatest threat to world peace and security today. This is obvious to anyone who looks at the facts with a modicum of objectivity. The Iraq war has claimed hundreds of thousands, and most likely more than a million lives. It was completely unnecessary and unjustifiable, and based on lies. Now, Washington is moving toward a military confrontation with Iran. As Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, pointed out in an interview recently, in the preparation for a war with Iran, we are at about the level of 1998 in the build-up to the Iraq war. On this basis, even ignoring the tremendous harm that Washington causes to developing countries in such areas as economic development (through such institutions as the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization), or climate change, it is clear that any information which sheds light on US “diplomacy” is more than useful. It has the potential to help save millions of human lives. You either get this or you don’t. Brazil’s president Lula da Silva, who earned Washington’s displeasure last May when he tried to help defuse the confrontation with Iran, gets it. That’s why he defended and declared his “solidarity” with embattled Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, even though the leaked cables were not pleasant reading for his own government. One area of US foreign policy that the Wikileaks cables help illuminate, which the major media has predictably ignored, is the occupation of Haiti. In 2004 the country’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was overthrown for the second time, through an effort led by the United States government. Officials of the constitutional govern-
ment were jailed and thousands of its supporters were killed. The Haitian coup, besides being a repeat of Aristide’s overthrow in 1991, was also very similar to the attempted coup in Venezuela in 2002 – which also had Washington’s fingerprints all over it. Some of the same people in Washington were even involved in both efforts. But the Venezuelan coup failed – partly because Latin American governments immediately and forcefully declared that they would not recognize the coup government. In the case of Haiti, Washington had learned from its mistakes in the Venezuelan coup and had gathered support for an illegitimate government in advance. A UN resolution was passed just days after the coup, and UN forces, headed by Brazil, were sent to the country. The mission is still headed by Brazil, and has troops from a number of other Latin American governments that are left of center, including Bolivia, Argentina and Uruguay. They are also joined by Chile, Peru and Guatemala from Latin America. Would these governments have sent troops to occupy Venezuela if that coup had succeeded? Clearly they would not have considered such a move, yet the occupation of Haiti is no more justifiable. South America’s progressive governments have strongly challenged US foreign policy in the region and the world, with some of them regularly using words like imperialism and empire as synonyms for Washington. They have built new institution such as UNASUR prevent these kinds of abuses from the north. Bolivia expelled the US ambassador in September of 2008 for interfering in its own internal affairs. The participation of these governments in the occupation of Haiti is a serious political contradiction for them, and it is getting worse. The Wikileaks cables illustrate how important the control of Haiti is to the United States.
A long memo from the US Embassy in Port-auPrince to the US Secretary of State answers detailed questions about Haitian president Rene Preval’s political, personal, and family life, including such vital national security questions as “How many drinks can Preval consume before he shows signs of inebriation?” It also expresses one of Washington’s main concerns:
“His reflexive nationalism, and his disinterest in managing bilateral relations in a broad diplomatic sense, will lead to periodic frictions as we move forward our bilateral agenda. Case in point, we believe that in terms of foreign policy, Preval is most interested in gaining increased assistance from any available resource. He is likely to be tempted to frame his relationship with Venezuela and Chavez-allies in the hemisphere in a way that he hopes will create a competitive atmosphere as far as who can provide the most to Haiti”. This is why they got rid of Aristide – who was much to the left of Preval -- and won’t let him back in the country. This is why Washington funded the recent “elections” that excluded Haiti’s largest political party, the equivalent of shutting out the Democrats and Republicans in the United States. And this is why MINUSTAH is still occupying the country, more
than six years after the c o u p , without any apparent mission other than replacing the hated Haitian army – which Aristide abolished – as a repressive force. People who do not understand US foreign policy think that control over Haiti does not matter to Washington, because it is so poor and has no strategic minerals or resources. But that is not how Washington operates, as the Wikileaks cables repeatedly illustrate. For the State Department and its allies, it is all a ruthless chess game, and the pawns matter. Left governments will be removed or prevented from taking power where it is possible to do so; and the poorest countries – like Honduras last year – present the most opportune targets. A democratically elected government in Haiti, due to its history and the consciousness of the population, will inevitably be a left government – and one that will not line up with Washington’s
foreign policy priorities for the region. Hence, democracy is not allowed. Thousands of Haitians have been protesting the sham elections, as well as MINUSTAH’s role in causing the cholera epidemic, which has already taken more than 2,300 lives and can be expected to kill thousands more in the coming months and years. Judging from the rapid spread of the disease, there may have been gross criminal negligence on the part of MINUSTAH – i.e. large-scale dumping of fecal waste into the Artibonite river. This is another huge reason for them to leave Haiti. This is a mission that costs over $500 million a year, when the UN can’t even raise a third of that to fight the epidemic that the mission caused, or to provide clean water for Haitians. And now the UN is asking for an increase to over $850 million for MINUSTAH. T/ Mark Weisbrot