English Edition Nº 49

Pg. g 7 | Analysis y

Pg. g 8 | Opinion p

Human Rights Watch’s anti-Venezuela agenda

Nikolas Kozloff on WikiLeaks’ disclosures of Costa Rica as Washington’s Central American lackey

FRIDAY | January 28, 2011 | No. 49| Bs 1 | CARACAS

ENGLISH EDITION The artillery of ideas

Venezuela: increasing agricultural production Venezuela Celebrates Democracy Thousands of Venezuelans poured into the streets of Caracas last Sunday to commemorate the fall of the nation’s last dictator, Marcos Perez Jimenez, overthrown by democratic forces on January 23, 1958.

The day is an important political holiday in Venezuela, which opposition groups have tried to appropriate and use against the current administration of Hugo Chavez. But this year, the voices heard were celebrating not only the fall of the Perez Jimenez dictatorship, but also the end of subsequent governments that ran exclusionary elitist regimes.

Food security and sovereignty is the goal of a new program aimed at aiding farmers Mission Agro Venezuela was launched by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez this week to support farmers, agricultural production and national development. The program seeks to coordinate both private and public producers in order to advance the nation’s agricultural capabilities and help those farmers affected by the heavy rains in 2010 that devasted crops in several regions. The Chavez administration is focused on diversifying the country’s industries and reducing imports by investing in domestic food production.

Integration

Cuba-Venezuela Underseas Cable Launched A submarine communications cable from Venezuela to Havana will increase Internet access for Cubans.

Economy

China aids Venezuela on food, housing Agreements with the Asian nation will help Venezuela build housing units and end food shortages.

Social Justice

Workers take over newspapers Organized workers of two papers have taken over operations after owners abused their rights.

ALBA: region of literacy

C

Venezuelan classical musicians in London

lassical music fans are in for a treat this January and February as the celebrated Venezuelan conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, makes his London debut with the LA Philharmonic Orchestra at the Barbican on the 27th and 28th of January.

Dudamel rose to fame during his time with El Sistema, Venezuela’s state funded classical music program for children. Speaking in a recent Sunday Times interview the young conductor said: “Growing up in Venezuela, I was part of

El Sistema, which is an incredible project involving thousands of children - many from very poor families who might have gone into drugs and crime - who learn an instrument for free and play in the youth orchestras. More than 300,000 children have transformed their lives through music”.

Another young Venezuelan musician following in Dudamel’s footsteps, double-bassist Edicscon Ruiz, will be performing with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in London at the end of February.

The Venezuelan Brass Ensemble, formed from the ranks of the legendary Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, returns to the UK following a rousing debut performance at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the 2007 BBC Proms. The group will perform at two venues in Manchester, The Royal Northern College of Music on Friday the 28th of January and at Bridgewater Hall on the 30th of January.

The 60-strong ensemble will then return to London’s Royal Festival Hall to perform on February 1st.

T

he Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) has enabled the region to become the first territory free of illiteracy, reported Cuban Education Minister Ana Elsa Velazquez.

During the opening speech at the 2011 International Pedagogy Congress, which took place in Cuba’s capital city from Jan. 24-28, Velazquez said the success in education matters in the region is due to ALBA’s literacy projects.

Velazquez praised the regional initiative created by Cuba and Venezuela in 2004, which has subsequently incorporated Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

“This is a modernizing of the concept of integration defined by our heroes, a dream we believe possible”, she said.

More than five million people from 28 nations have learned to read and write with the Cuban method “Yes, I can”.

Countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador have joined Cuba as illiteracy-free territories.

“Half a million people who were illiterate a few years ago have now reached the level equivalent to elementary education with the program Yes, I can”.

|

2 | Impact

NoÊ{ ÊUÊFriday, January 28, 2011

The artillery of ideas

Venezuela: looking out for the People A new agricultural program promises to increase production and provide aid to farmers to support national development.

Simultaneously, the Chavez administration holds people’s assemblies to collaborate jointly on solutions to the nation’s housing crisis

O

n Tuesday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced the creation of a new social program, Mission Agro Venezuela, in which all domestic producers both public and private - will have to opportunity to participate in the advancement of national agricultural production to guarantee food sovereignty and protect the country from food shortages plaguing nations around the world.

The announcement was made during an event with the Venezuelan President at the Socialist Property Unit (UPS) “La Productora”, located in Tierra Buena in the State of Portuguesa in central Venezuela. Chavez called on small and medium agricultural producers from across the country to join in this new initiative.

The Venezuelan head of state explained that this new program forms part of the Annual Food Production Plan approved for 2011-2012. Factors involved in the mission include investment in strategic industries, an increase in crop planting and the execution of diverse public policies oriented towards achieving food security and sovereignty in the country.

President Chavez also indicated that a chronogram of activities for this new agricultural program has already been designed, and the first event will begin on January 29th with the launching of a census and registration process for producers who wish to participate in the initiative.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Lands will set up more than 600 centers nationwide, primarily in agricultural regions, from January 29th through February 15th, where interested parties can register to participate in Mission Agro Venezuela.

“We will inform everyone via radio, newspapers and through other media as to where these locations will be so those with just one acre or those with five thousand acres who want to produce more can come and join with us.

Come and sign up. We need to incorporate all productive units that we can into this plan”, pledged President Chavez.

According to the Venezuelan leader, once the registration process is complete, a major event will take place to enlist the cooperation of private and public banks and other financial institutions, to provide funding for agricultural producers.

“I invite everyone to collaborate with this initiative. This is for the benefit of the country. I call on all public and private banks to collaborate. This mission is going to require extraordinary financial assistance”, exclaimed Chavez.

The chronogram also contemplates mass funding activities for all registered producers, as well as the delivery of farming products, such as fertilizers and seeds, “to start off the harvest season with full force”, added the Venezuelan head of state.

Chavez asked government authorities and those in charge of

this program to conduct a widespread communications campaign to let people know about the benefits of this mission, which will allow Venezuela to become an agricultural power.

He emphasized that Mission Agro Venezuela is one of the new programs to be created this year under the banner of “Bicentennial Missions”. Chavez also reiterated that existing social programs would be strengthened and renewed continuously.

Venezuela celebrates its 200th year anniversary of Independence this July 5th and will be hosting several major events and activities to commemorate the “Bicentennial Year”.

INCREASING CROP PRODUCTION Also referring to Mission Agro Venezuela, Minister of Agriculture and Lands, Juan Carlos Loyo said on Wednesday that the project includes urban farming, to prepare productive areas suitable for cultivation in the nation’s most important cities.

The project expects to increase production of strategic food items such as white and yellow corn, rice, leguminous plants and vegetables, and other products by 34% this year.

Heavy rains during the end of 2010 affected more than 65,000 productive hectares in several regions of the country, which has already impacted national food production.

In that regard, the national census and registry of agricultural producers wishing to participate in this new program will provide relief for those farmers affected by the torrential rainfalls last year. The government estimates about 100,000 farmers will register for the mission.

FIGHTING HOUSING FRAUD Housing shortages severely affecting Venezuelans has been one of the major concerns of the Chavez administration in recent months, particularly after the rains left over 130,000 homeless last year. All those displaced have received support from the government and were placed in temporary shelters while new homes are being built for their permanent relocation. Approximately 60 families were given refuge in the presidential palace, an offer made by President Chavez himself.

But beyond the shortages caused by a long-term housing crisis plaguing Venezuela,

and the added problem of those who lost their homes during last year’s heavy rains, are the thousands of primarily middleclass Venezuelans who have been the unfortunate victims of housing fraud.

The government has been waging a battle against private construction companies and big real estate ventures that presold properties to thousands of innocent Venezuelans, taking huge downpayments initially and charging monthly fees, without ever completing the promised homes. In some cases, real estate companies forced homebuyers to “re-purchase” the un-built properties at higher rates due to inflation, despite having already executed a contract for a set price.

During 2010, the real estate scam scandal was made public after President Chavez himself met with victims and decided to expropriate several of the companies involved in committing the fraud. Since then, teams have been placed in charge of intervening construction companies and contractors to force them to complete work for which they had already been contracted and paid.

Movements have sprung up around the country of the victims of the real estate fraud who are working together in assemblies to ensure those responsible are brought to justice, and their homes are completed so they can finally move in.

On Wednesday, President Chavez hosted an assembly of the housing fraud victims in the presidential palace. At the event, he was finally able to give property deeds to 71 victims of the real estate scams.

“A new group of families, victims of fraud committed by construction companies, receives their corresponding apartments today. We are passing title to 71 homes, apartments for the middle class - those who were defrauded by real-estate mafias”, exclaimed the Venezuelan President.

“The middle class should not be enemy of this democratic Revolution...This Revolution, this Government is also for the middle class”, he added.

T/ CO P/ Presidential Press

NoÊ{ ÊUÊFriday, January 28, 2011

The artillery of ideas

Integration

|

3|

Cuba to have high-speed internet access, thanks to venezuela The island nation, subject to a brutal US-imposed blockade, which has impeded mass access to communications services, will now be able to increase Internet and telecommunications usage with a new underseas cable from Venezuela

I

n a show of international solidarity and bilateral cooperation, Venezuela and Cuba inaugurated a project last weekend to lay over 800 miles of fiberoptic cables across the Caribbean sea, connecting Caracas to La Habana in a bid to increase internet connectivity on the embargo-seized island.

The cable, according to the Venezuelan government, will break the US-enforced economic blockade that has suffocated the nation’s technological advancement and stalled its telecommunications development for the past 50 years.

“Venezuela, with autonomy and sovereignty, has decided to do something that until now no one has done: break the blockade against Cuba and give our sister republic the possibility of having high quality communications”, said Manuel Fernandez, head of

Venezuela’s state-owned telecommunication company, CANTV. INTERNET ACCESS FOR CUBA Owning to the US embargo, strict restrictions on imports have prevented Cuba from obtaining the technological equipment necessary to increase Internet access on the island.

Currently, the nation ranks last in Latin America with respect to Internet connectivity and must use the slow and costly method of satellite connections to access the web.

Reuters has reported that, given its scarcity, the price of Internet usage on the island can reach as high as $10 an hour in some hotels.

Officials in charge of the Venezuelan-Cuban project estimate

that the fiber-optic cables will increase the speed of Cuba’s current connection by three thousand percent and multiple its usage exponentially.

“This cable is going to permit Cuba to have improved communications at the international level because, through this system, there will be greater capacity”, said Wilfredo Morales, president of the joint Cuban-Venezuelan company, Great Caribbean Telecommunications, which will take charge of the cables once in place.

The cable will be laid at a depth of between 650 feet near Venezuela and some 18,000 feet near the coast of Cuba.

Officials have reported that all environmental studies carried out

over the past two years ensure a minimization of any potential ecological damage resulting from the initiative.

“In order to obtain permission from the environmental authorities of each country, we had to carry out an environmental impact study to make sure that the cable does as little damage as possible to the eco-system. This will allow us to install the cable with the least amount of environmental impact”, Morales informed.

HELP FROM JAMAICA, CHINA & FRANCE The $70 million project will take at least four months to complete and is also being supported by the nation of Jamaica, which

will play host to one of the cable’s connection terminals.

Other international support has come from China, where the fiber optic technology has originated, and France, whose nautical equipment is laying the cable.

A planned bifurcation will also make the technology available to neighboring Caribbean countries including Haiti.

On Saturday, the Chinese, French, and Jamaican ambassadors in Venezuelan were on hand for the inauguration ceremony, hailing the event as an important advancement for Latin America.

“We know that this installation is very important to link the countries of the region as well as all the countries in the world”, said Chinese Ambassador Zhao Rongxian.

ALBA 1 is the official name given to the project, referring to the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas – a regional block of nations established in 2001 that seeks to counterbalance US hegemony in the hemisphere and promote integration.

According to the Cuban Ambassador in Venezuela, Rogelio Polanco, ALBA1 represents “a gigantic step towards the independence and sovereignty” for both countries.

“Thank you for all of your solidarity for which we will always be grateful”, Polanco said during the project’s inauguration.

T/ Edward Ellis P/ Presidential Press

Venezuela and Uruguay: advancing agricultural production Uruguayan President Jose “Pepe” Mujica visited Venezuela this week for the second time since assuming the presidency of his nation one year ago

A

s part of ongoing, trimestral meetings between the governments of Uruguay and Venezuela, Uruguayan President Jose “Pepe” Mujica arrived to Caracas on Wednesday, for his second official visit to the country since taking office in March 2010.

Since 2005, both South American nations have worked to renew and strengthen their relations, including the advancement of commercial trade through a maritime route that allows for lower transportation costs. Uruguay and Venezuela have also exchanged knowledge and expertise to create socialist companies rescued by workers from exploitative practices, such as Envidrio, an Uruguayan glass company founded in 2005 with the help of the Venezuelan government, which is currently collaborating in the installation of similar glass companies in Venezuela.

AGRICULTURAL AID Uruguay’s farmer based economy has provided extensive expertise to Venezuela in agricultural production, aiding in the recuperation of an abandoned and weak industry which was caused by the shift to an oil-based economy in the 20th century.

During Mujica’s visit to Venezuela this week, both governments relaunched a program that was first initiated in 2007 to train Venezuelan farmers and agricultural workers in family farming and small-scale production. Another program

advanced by Presidents Mujica and Chavez focused on the genetic development of cows.

Venezuela and Uruguay also cooperate in areas such as medicine, science and technology through the Simon Bolivar Satellite, launched by Venezuela in 2008.

Pepe Mujica is a former guerrilla fighter who was imprisoned for 14 years during the dictatorship in Uruguay in the 1970s, the majority of which he spent in solitary confinement.

Mujica, a member of the leftist Tupamaros movement, was freed in 1985 under an

amnesty law and elected to parliament in 1994. Mujica became Minister of Livestock, Agriculture and fisheries under the Tabare Vazquez administration in 2005, until resigning in 2008 and launching his presidential campaign. He won with a landslide victory in 2009 and was inaugurated on March 1, 2010.

Under Pepe’s mandate, Uruguay has increased ties with Venezuela and promised to strengthen Latin American integration.

T/ CO P/ Agencies

|

4 | Economy

NoÊ{ ÊUÊFriday, January 28, 2011

The artillery of ideas

Venezuela and China advance housing, food agreements During a visit to Venezuela this week of a high-level Chinese delegation, several accords were advanced in the areas of agricultural production, imports and housing construction

I

n order to strengthen national food sovereignty, the governments of China and Venezuela signed a cooperation agreement for the import of oilseeds, legumes and cereals.

A press release from the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said that the signing of the agreement was carried out by Quian Baim, president of the Chinese company Heilongjiang Beidahuang State Farm Business Trade Group, and the Venezuelan Minister of Food, Carlos Osorio.

Under the agreement, Venezuela will have food stocks for three months, which will allow citizens to access products continuously and without obstacles.

Private companies in Venezuela have engaged in dangerous speculation, unjust price hikes and hording of food products over the past several years in efforts to

destabilize the government and promote civil unrest, with the end goal of forcing President Hugo Chavez from power.

Agreements with nations such as China are helping Venezuela decrease dependency on those companies unwilling to contribute to national production and development, while at the same time aiding in the advancement of food sovereignty.

The first phase of the accord with China will allow for the storage of soybeans, black and white beans and soybean crude oil from the Asian nation.

The second phase includes other crops, to be evaluated by a Venezuelan technical committee through a visit to China, says the text of the Foreign Ministry.

Venezuela currently has food reserves equivalent to 692

thousand tons of products in food facilities located throughout the national territory, that provide security for one and a half months.

The Venezuelan minister said that to achieve the goal of having reserves for three months they would also have support from other nations with which the Chavez administration has excellent relations.

Venezuela: phones for the blind O

n Sunday President Hugo Chavez announced that the state-owned company Vtelca, which manufactures the subsidized and very affordable ‘Vergatario’ cellular telephone, would now also manufacture a phone designed for blind people.

The phone’s keys have the Braille system on them and are also much larger for those with poor eye sight.

Chavez explained that the phone is the result of an agreement between Venezuela and China, using the “latest technology”, and would be available on the national market “soon”.

“This is the first phone of its kind in the country”, he announced.

According to the Ministry of

Science, Technology and Intermediate Industries, Vtelca has beaten its production records, producing over 6,000 phones daily by the end of 2010.

The Vergatario phones –which include a camera– are distributed by the state run company, Movilnet, for 25 bolivars (US $5.80), including the line hookup and plan, with priority given to community leaders. On Sunday, Chavez also announced that this phone will be released with a new “more elegant and modern” design.

The Vergatario was first released in May 2009.

ACCESSIBLE PRODUCTS One of the main aims of the Venezuelan government and the

Bolivarian Revolution is to increase inclusion of previously excluded sectors of the population, such as women, the poor, and people with disabilities.

The People with Disabilities Law, passed in 2006, states that at least 5% of workers employed by any given entity must be people with disabilities. In 2009, the government began to set up coordination centers for people with disabilities as a space for project generation and to help public and private institutions accommodate disabled persons. Such centers, as well as other movements and organizations of disabled persons, have encouraged the inclusion of spokespeople for the disabled in organized community groups.

For the blind and visually impaired, Mission Milagro (Miracle) provides free eye operations, including correcting and restoring eyesight as well as providing free consultations and eyeglasses. The learning material used by the various education missions promoted by the government has also been printed in Braille, and music lessons given as part of the innovative, state-sponsored El Sistema music teaching program are also available in Braille.

T/ Tamara Pearson www.venezuelanalysis.com

HOUSING DEVELOPMENT Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced late Tuesday that Chinese state-owned Citic Group would build an additional 20,000 housing units in the South American nation over the next two years.

Speaking during a televised cabinet meeting, Chavez said that the new agreement would double the construction of housing by Citic Group in Venezuela.

“Their proposal is to reach 40,000 homes in the next two years. We already have signed agreements for 20,000 and we will build 20,000 more”, Chavez said.

Venezuela and China agreed in April to a US$20 billion credit-foroil deal. State-owned China Development Bank will provide the equivalent of $20 billion, half in dollars and half in Chinese yuan.

In return, oil-rich Venezuela will ship crude oil to resource-needy China for the next decade.

Chavez has said the funds would be used for housing in the wake of floods and mudslides last year that displaced more than 130,000 Venezuelans, as well as for the improvement of the country’s electricity sector and other public works projects.

T/ Agencies P/ Presidential Press

NoÊ{ ÊUÊFriday, January 28, 2011

The artillery of ideas

Politics

|

5|

Venezuela: celebrating democracy With revolutionary fervor and patriotic enthusiasm, Venezuelans from all over the country took to the streets last Sunday to celebrate the 53rd anniversary of the toppling of the dictator Marcos Jimenez who ruled the country from 1952-1958

partment of the University of the Andes in 1978.

In similar acts of repression, in 1989, then President Carlos Andres Perez sent the armed forces to the streets to quell spontaneous rioting that resulted from the implementation of a neo-liberal economic austerity package forced upon the poor.

By the time the smoke had cleared from has become known as the Caracazo, more than three thousand people had been murdered by the army.

K

CHAVEZ AND PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY For many in Venezuela, real democracy did not arrive in the country until the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998 and the creation of the nation’s new constitution, passed by popular referendum in 1999.

The constitution, which officially marks the end of the Punto Fijo era, is considered to be one of the most progressive in the world, granting a vast array of new rights to ordinary citizens and laying the foundation for what Chavez supporters have called a “participatory” democracy.

Rights of political and economic inclusion at both the grassroots and national level have been enshrined by the document, which provides for greater citizen participation in decision making processes.

Thousands of grassroots political organizations have been formed since Chavez came to office while dozens of factories have come under worker control and millions of acres of land have been distributed to small agricultural producers.

“Every day in Venezuela there will be more democracy – true democracy that translates into more power for the people”, Chavez exclaimed of the initiatives on Sunday.

“Today, there are some people saying that Venezuela is on its way back to the democracy of Punto Fijo”, he commented with reference to opposition members from the old political parties of AD and COPEI. “We’re going to tell them, once again, that they will never come back”.

nown as “National Democracy Day”, January 23rd is one of Venezuela’s most important political holidays marking the nation’s definitive break with military rule and celebrating the social movements that struggled to bring down Jimenez’s repressive regime.

In Caracas, five separate marches wound their way through the nation’s capital until reaching the Presidential Place where a festive rally was held to commemorate the day and support the democratic initiatives of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

“We’re celebrating the fall of a dictatorial and non participatory system”, said community activist Francisco Avila in attendance at one of the marches. “At the same time, we’re celebrating the opening of a participative democratic system – a system that we’re creating from popular power”, he affirmed.

VENEZUELA AND REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY Although January 23, 1958 is celebrated as a day in which authoritarian rule was overcome by an organized citizenry, it also remembered as the beginning of a period in Venezuela’s political history which thrived on exclusion and subservience to foreign economic and political interests.

When Jimenez fled the country, Venezuela underwent a transition to representative democracy referred to as the “Punto Fijo” era, based on a pact carried out by 3 mainstream political parties – The Christian Democratic Party (COPEI), Democratic Action (AD), and the Democratic Republican Union (URD).

The Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), which played the most important role in the resistance to the Jimenez Dictatorship, was systematically excluded by the main parties that colluded with Washington to implement a political system protective of US oil interests and responsive to its anti-Castro agenda in Latin America.

President Hugo Chavez made this point while addressing his supporters at the rally held on Sunday.

“We have to remember this”, he told the Venezuelan people during his speech. “The so-called Punto Fijo Pact betrayed [the events of] January 23, 1958 and the martyrs of the Jimenez dictatorship…It was a betrayal of the will and the sacrifice of the people and we all need to know it”, he declared.

RAMPANT REPRESSION During the Punto Fijo era, thousands of communists and progressives, deemed too radical for Washington’s agenda, were assassinated, disappeared, persecuted and arbitrarily jailed by the new power players while others took to the mountains in armed resistance against the regime.

One of those who fought against the re-

pression was Fabricio Ojeda, a former member of the Jimenez resistance and subsequent leader of the Venezuelan guerilla movement, the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN).

Ojeda was murdered at the hands of the Venezuelan state in 1966.

During the rally held at the presidential palace, a memorial was held for Ojeda as well as Hugo Trejo, a military officer who participated in the first uprising against the Jimenez dictatorship on January 1, 1958.

“The people are on the streets, telling the bourgeoisie that ruled this country and that massacred the country for decades that Fabricio Ojeda and Hugo Trejo are alive in the hearts and the faces of each one of us”, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said during one of the marches on Sunday.

Like Ojeda, many progressive activists were hunted down by the Venezuelan police and security forces during the Punto Fijo era.

This includes student activist Domingo Salazar from the state of Merida who summarized the government’s repression by famously stating, “they call us the future while they murder us in the present”.

Salazar was killed by police forces outside the Medicine De-

T/ Edward Ellis P/ Presidential Press

|

6 | Social Justice

NoÊ{ ÊUÊFriday, January 29, 2011

The artillery of ideas

Workers take over Venezuelan newspapers on the door”, said Vega, “but many we didn’t know are helping out”. Students from the Bolivarian University of Merida, including many who study journalism with Vega, have helped with everything from writing to selling the paper. The Merida City Council has backed their struggle. Alexis Ramirez, then president of the Merida State Legislature, and now a deputy to the National Assembly, has helped organize legal support, donations of food and other material aid, and brought presents for the workers’ children at Christmas.

The fate of the only media company in Venezuela to be taken over by its workers now rests in the hands of President Hugo Chavez and his administration

P

ushed to the wall by their employers’ decision to go out of business—after they’d gone for four months without pay—the workers at two small daily newspapers published in Merida did the only thing they could think of. Seventeen staff members at Cambio de Siglo and Diario El Vigía took over their workplace.

They hung a homemade banner proclaiming “Control Obrero” (worker-run) from the secondfloor of the papers’ offices in the center of the city, and began an occupation that has persisted day and night since. In late November, they began putting out weekly combined editions of the two newspapers.

Venezuela has worker-run businesses in many sectors, but this action is “unprecedented”, according to Hugo Peña of the National Workers’ Union (Unete), one of Venezuela’s trade union federations. “There are no other cases of a group of workers deciding to take control of a media outlet”, said Peña, Unete coordinator for Merida.

Almost all the workers at Cambio de Siglo /Diario El Vigía insist they do not want to see their action “politicized” and used by the opposition and the international press to fuel antiChavez sentiment. They simply want to see their rights respected, and get the back pay and benefits due them.

“We took the initiative to make our situation known”, said copy editor Kira Fuentes. “We want people to support us as workers and as human beings who have gone through a lot by not being paid, and we deserve to have our rights respected”.

Nevertheless, under their control the workers have transformed Cambio de Siglo/DiarioEl Vigia from organs of the opposition into a single responsible community paper that presents a full range of local, state and

national news and sports, along with commentary sympathetic to the Bolivarian process.

“As a daily, Cambio de Siglo was a source of information against the Revolution”, said Javier Montsalve, a journalist and communications director for the Merida State Legislature. “Now it is supporting the Revolution, and plays a critical role in keeping people informed”, he said.

The owners of Cambio de Siglo and Diario El Vigía, Julio Marcolli and Alcides Montsalve, are big business people and vocal opponents of President Chavez and his policies. Julio Marcolli is a construction and real estate tycoon with holdings in Venezuela and Puerto Rico, and Alcides Montsalve is director of the right-wing daily La Frontera. “[The owners] used the paper [Cambio de Siglo] as a means of smearing Chavez and the government”, Javier Montsalve said.

OWNER ABUSE Over the past two years, the two owners have also violated nearly every clause of Venezuelan labor law, La Ley Organica del Trabajo.

Since 2007, they have failed to pay into the Social Security system, though they took deductions from

the workers’ paychecks. They also stopped paying into the workers’ retirement fund, and making deposits required under the Ley de Política Habitacional, which helps workers buy housing. In 2009, they stopped paying the workers’ “cestatickets”, or meal benefits, and they paid no salaries after June 2010.

The workers went on strike for 12 days in May 2010 and another eight in June, but continued to put out the papers until September without pay. After the Sept.

6 edition, the owners shut down the papers without notice, explanation, or any word on how they planned to pay the workers what was due them. The owners’ representatives kept promising payments that never materialized.

Alcides Monsalve, the minority owner, said he was willing to pay the workers 25% of what they had earned if they quit their jobs, but that was all. As a last resort, the workers decided to take over the plant on October 4th.

WORKERS UNITE “It was just unacceptable that we had put the paper out on the street every day with so much effort, work and sacrifice, and the owners simply disregarded our rights as workers and human be-

ings”, said Lisbeth Barrotea, one of the layout artists.

On the first day of the takeover, the workers were meeting every three or four hours, Barrotea said.

They organized themselves into three shifts to maintain a presence at the plant.

“It was a bit uncomfortable that first night”, she said. “We had no pillows and were sleeping on the couches and in the chairs”. Over the next few months of the occupation, they brought in mattresses and pillows, cooked meals on the hotplate and microwave.

“We prepare and share food, sing and listen to music”, said Judith Vega, the one reporter on the staff. “We’re family here”.

The 16 workers who remain with the occupation—nine women and seven men—are also sharing all the functions of the paper, from administration to printing, and making all the decisions about the direction and content of the paper collectively. They make the budget, and although they have covered expenses, they have only been able to give themselves small salaries.

Building support for their fight has been more difficult than they imagined.

“Many we never thought were friends have never knocked

APPEAL TO CHAVEZ Yet no other official in the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), including the state governor, has officially recognized the struggle. The National Association of Journalists, which includes many who claim to be committed to the Bolivarian Revolution, has remained silent on the takeover. Now the most important support they could receive would be from the national government.

“We are asking the government to step in and solve this problem”, said Edgar Saenz, head of production for the paper. “We are hoping they will help us economically so we can go on with the production of the paper, secure our work and get the wages owed us”.

The workers wrote to the Ministry of Communications in Caracas early this year, explaining their situation and asking for a meeting. They are optimistically waiting for a response. Whether or not they get the needed help will be a test of the government’s willingness to follow through on its rhetoric advocating worker control.

“We are sure we will get the support we need at a national level”, Vega said. “People have said, ‘If you want to see a real revolution, come here, where the workers have taken over and will not leave until their rights are respected, where workers have taken over a media outlet for the first time here in Venezuela’”.

T/ Marcy Rein-Clifton Ross P/ Clifton Ross

NoÊ{ ÊUÊFriday, January 28, 2011

The artillery of ideas

Analysis | 7 |

Human Rights Watch perpetuates bias and myth against Venezuela The US-based NGO, Human Rights Watch, released its annual “World Report” last week, using the opportunity to once again take aim at the Venezuelan government for what it considers to be the country’s “precarious human rights situation”

I

n what has turned into a yearly recital of negativity and factually impoverished accusations, the NGO has strongly criticized the government for alleged abuses while ignoring any positive advances that the country has made in the area of human rights over the past twelve years.

This year’s criticisms include two old standards – President Chavez’s “domination of the judiciary” and his alleged “systematic” clamp down on freedom of expression.

In order to make its “judiciary” argument this year, the NGO cites the case of Judge Maria Afiuni, a circuit magistrate who illegally freed a wealthy banker, Eligio Cedeño, imprisoned for stealing some US$27 million from the Venezuelan government through a computer import scam.

Afiuni, arguing that Cedeño had been held longer than mandated for pre-trial detentions, was arrested after she unilaterally freed the corporate executive, personally escorting the banker out of the courtroom onto the parking lot where he promptly sped off on a motorcycle.

Cedeño, like many in his profession, turned up in Miami where he was detained by US authorities for entering the country illegally; however, he was later released after requested political asylum.

NOT POLITICAL Venezuela’s conservative opposition, Human Rights Watch, and a myriad of anti-Chavez media outlets have been quick to pounce on Afiuni’s arrest as “evidence” of a politically tilted judiciary clamping down on dissidents.

But the fact remains that neither Cedeño nor Afiuni were outspoken political foes of the Chavez administration.

While it is true that Cedeño had indeed been held beyond the stipulated time for pre-trial detentions, it is also true that Afiuni’s rogue actions were made in violation of all judicial protocols and legal procedures.

In fact, hundreds of trials in Venezuela fall victim to bureaucratic slow downs and judicial delays that prevent the timely delivery of justice in the country.

This deeper, structural problem is one of the greatest challenges confronting the nation’s legal system today.

SELECTIVE BLINDNESS But, in their zeal to paint Venezuela as a country rife with persecution, Human Rights Watch’s political spin on the Afiuni case ignores this fundamental problem, opting instead to paint the judiciary as a tool of the Chavez administration.

This is the same judicial system, it is worth reminding readers, which has failed to prosecute wealthy vigilante landowners who, upset with

Chavez’s land re-distribution laws, have been actively contracting assassins and paramilitaries to systematically murder small farmers.

As the murder of poor farmers by wealthy landowners does not serve Human Rights Watch’s anti-Chavez campaign, the NGO chooses to ignore them in its report, focusing, rather, on the plight of Venezuela’s upper classes.

DISTORTING PRESS FREEDOM In a similar vein, Human Rights Watch also accuses the Venezuelan government of “systematically undermin[ing] journalistic freedom of expression” and uses a single case, that of journalist Francisco Perez, to make its broad condemnation.

Perez, journalist from the newspaper El Carabobeno, was sued under Venezuela’s Media Responsibility Laws by the governor of Valencia, Edgardo Oquendo after Perez had published a series of attacks against the public official, accusing him of corruption and nepotism.

After being unable to substantiate any of his slanderous allegations with evidence in a court of law, Perez was sentenced to 3 years

of house arrest and ordered to pay a fine of 20 thousand dollars.

His sentence is currently under appeal.

Beyond the case of Perez, which upholds a Venezuelan law designed to ensure honesty and accuracy in reporting, Human Rights Watch is unable to provide any example of censorship, intimidation or persecution of journalists.

In fact, it even affirms that “Venezuela enjoys vibrant public debate in which anti-government and pro-government media are equally vocal in criticizing and defending the president”.

Yet, the organization still feels justified in accusing the Chavez administration of “systematically” undercutting freedom of speech.

These type of broad condemnations based on erroneous assumptions and faulty research have become standard fare for Human Rights Watch.

HRW’S AGENDA AGAINST VENEZUELA In 2008, the organization released an intensely critical, 236page report on Venezuela that was subsequently refuted by over

a hundred academics and Latin American experts.

Of course, in none of its publications has the organization made mention of the impressive gains that the country has made in terms of human development.

Free and universal health care and education, the elimination of illiteracy, drastic reductions in poverty and malnutrition, and increased political participation are just some of the advances that have been praised by the United Nations.

If Human Rights Watch was truly concerned with human rights, then it would focus as much on these issues as it does on spreading negativity and antiChavez propaganda.

But unfortunately, what the organization has become over the years is simply a mouthpiece for Venezuela’s conservative opposition, using progressive rhetoric to defend the interests of wealthy minorities.

Its reports have become so biased and inaccurate that they hardly merit reading, not to mention serious analysis.

T/ Edward Ellis P/ Agencies

FRIDAY | January 28, 2011 | No. 49| Bs 1 | C ARACAS

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

A

WikiLeaks: Costa Rica is a willing US partner in Central America

s more WikiLeaks cables are released, a true cloak and dagger picture of US foreign policy is emerging. Take, for example, recent documents pertaining to Central America, where the Bush administration sought to bolster its regional allies in an effort to counteract the political influence of Venezuela. Alarmed by rising star Hugo Chavez, who was fast making ideological inroads within Washington’s traditional sphere of influence, diplomats promised to collaborate on sensitive intelligence gathering in an effort to halt the region’s dangerous shift to the left.

One cable dates to November 2004 when the region’s so-called “Pink Tide” was just getting underway. For five years, Chavez had been in power but in Central America the Bush administration could count on the support of a host of friendly client governments. Indeed, it would not be until several years later that leftists Daniel Ortega and Manuel Zelaya would win the presidencies of Nicaragua and Honduras, respectively. Nevertheless, judging from the cables regional governments were already extremely wary of Chavez.

The tiny Central American nation of Costa Rica has long prided itself on its political independence and long-term stability. The country has no standing army, and during the height of US counter-insurgency involvement in the region some 25 years ago the San Jose government played a key role in drawing up a Central American peace plan. More often than not, however, Costa Rica has proven to be a willing partner in Washington’s wider geopolitical designs. Indeed, the 2004 cable reveals intelligence collaboration at the highest levels.

The cable, which is marked “secret” relates to a meeting between former Costa Rican president Abel Pacheco and US ambassador to Brazil John Danilovich. During a Pacheco visit to Brasilia, the Costa Rican made a point of dining with the American diplomat. Confiding in Danilovich, the Costa Rican remarked that he was concerned about Hugo Chavez’s intelligence gathering activities in Central America.

According to Danilovich, the Costa Rican government was “surveilling the activities of the Venezuelan cultural attaché in San Jose”.

The attaché was believed to be an intelligence officer who was “meeting secretly with labor union officials, and has brought $200,000 into Costa Rica to pay labor activists to stage ‘provocations’, perhaps during the upcoming IberoAmerican summit in Costa Rica”.

Alarmed by alleged Venezuelan spying, Pacheco asked Danilovich if the US could provide needed intelligence on the matter.

WHAT’S BEHIND THE CABLE? The Danilovich cable, though brief, raises a number of questions about Costa Rica and the country’s place within the wider geopolitical milieu. Far from acting as a casual observer, Costa Rica took a keen interest in political developments in Venezuela and may have sided with anti-Chavez forces.

In 2002-3, Chavez was put on the defensive, first by a military coup d’etat which nearly toppled

the government and later by a 64day lock out which nearly crippled the nation’s oil industry and caused severe economic damage. A key figure during the lockout was Carlos Ortega, president of the Venezuelan Workers’ Confederation (CTV). When authorities called for Ortega’s arrest, charging him with rebellion, conspiracy and treason, he sought refuge in the Costa Rican embassy in Caracas.

Though officials allowed for Ortega’s safe passage out of Venezuela, several months later Chavez accused Ortega and Costa Rica of conspiring against his government. As proof of his allegations, Chavez offered up tapes of a telephone conversation between Ortega and Venezuelan opposition figures in which plans for a “civil rebellion” were discussed. Chavez claimed that Costa Rica was “supporting the presence in San Jose of these coup plotters, giving them support, security and resources”.

Responding to the incendiary charges, Pacheco denied that any members of his government had conspired against Venezuela. “I can assure Chavez that the policy of the Costa Rican government is non-intervention in the internal affairs

of any country”, Pacheco remarked. Throughout its history, the Costa Rican added, Costa Rica had welcomed foreign exiles but only under the strict condition that they would abstain from subversive political activities relating to their countries of origin.

COSTA RICA: NOT SO NEUTRAL? In light of Chavez’s volatile accusations, it is not surprising that Costa Rica felt paranoid about Venezuelan intelligence operations and sought out Washington’s counsel. By 2005, now two years after the Ortega affair, Chavez was in a much better political position. Having beaten back his opposition, the Venezuelan president was now something of a leftist cause célèbre and had extended his geopolitical influence throughout the region.

As a more conservative-leaning country, Costa Rica was now embroiled in wider political tensions sweeping through Latin America.

Seeking to portray himself as something of a neutral peacemaker, Pacheco tried to mediate between Mexico and Venezuela during a diplomatic spat. Blasting Mexico, Chavez had earlier called President Vicente Fox “a puppy dog” of the United States. The Mexican leader, Chavez added, was given to “kneeling down” before Washington.

As both countries withdrew their respective ambassadors, Pacheco called for both

Fox and Chavez to be civil. Taking the moral high ground, Pacheco declared that it was hardly a propitious moment for the two leaders to divide Latin America, adding that Chavez and Fox should give each other a “fraternal hug”. A couple of months later, Pacheco was at it again, calling for Chavez and Bush to sit down and to try to “understand each other”.

In more recent years Costa Rica has become even more allied to Washington. In May 2006 Oscar Arias succeeded Pacheco as president. A veritable grandfather of Costa Rican politics, Arias proved to be no great admirer of Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez. In the summer of 2009, when Honduran President and Chavez ally Manuel Zelaya was removed in a military coup d’etat and a new de facto regime installed, tensions ran high between Venezuela and Costa Rica. When Arias attempted to mediate the Honduranimbroglio, Chavez charged that the Costa Rican president was attempting to set a crafty trap.

As more leftist governments have taken power in Central America, Costa Rica has made some controversial political choices. Laura Chinchilla, an Arias protégé who took over the reins of power in 2010, has invited the US Navy to deploy in Costa Rican, an unprecedented buildup which goes against the small Central American nation’s anti-militarist history. With Costa Rica pursuing closer ties to Washington, the country’s reputation as a neutral mediator has come into doubt. Just how much intelligence collaboration existed between San Jose and successive US administrations? Did Costa Rica undertake specific moves to halt Chavez’s geopolitical advance in Central America? Hopefully, further WikiLeaks disclosures will give us insight into these matters.

- Nikolas Kozloff