English Edition Nº 76

Pg. g 7 | Analysis y

Pg. g 8 | Opinion

US: $20 million more for Venezuela’s opposition in 2012

Could the US be the next London?

And when do riots become revolts?

FRIDAY | August 12, 2011 | No. 76 | Bs 1 | CARACAS

ENGLISH EDITION The artillery of ideas

Chavez on Cancer: “I cried and then decided to win the battle”

Brilliant Dudamel in London

President Chavez is undergoing another chemotherapy session this week in Cuba. In an exclusive interview, he revealed details about his illness and future plans.

The Venezuelan head of state warned of opposition plans to sabotage the upcoming 2012 presidential elections, for which he has announced and reconfirmed his candidacy. During a televised interview with journalist Jose Vicente Rangel, Chavez spoke of the importance of his military past, and confessed he wept upon learning he had cancer. The latest tests have shown no more cancerous growth in his body and none of his organs have been affected. | page 2

New restaurants provide major discounts In an effort to provide affordable, high quality foods to Venezuelans, the Chavez government is opening hundreds of new typical Venezuelan-style food restaurants nationwide.

Called “Venezuelan Areperas”, named after the main national food staple, the “arepa”, a corn meal patty with a range of fillings, the restaurants offer full meals at up to 70% less than private establishments. The areperas are worker-run and profitmaking, yet don’t seek to exploit customers. | page 4

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Integration

Unasur advances regional unity South American nations are creating ways to decrease dollar dependence. | page 3

Economy

Food security through agricultural production A new agricultural academy will enhance Venezuela’s industry. | page 5

Social Justice

Free books for school kids Millions of free texts will be distributed this coming year in public schools. | page 6

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Venezuela: major advances in drug war

o far in 2011, the Venezuelan government has dismantled 17 laboratories with equipment and supplies for the production of cocaine hydrochloric acid through different intelligence operations throughout the country.

“Over the last 5 years we have been in the top of the world ranking regarding achievements and results in the fight against drug trafficking”, informed Minister for Interior and Justice, Tareck El Aissami, on Wednesday.

“All these actions ratify Venezuela as a country free of drug

production”, added El Aissami.

The Chief of the Strategic Operational Command of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB), Henry Rangel Silva, said that over 1,300 men from different branches of the FANB are deployed in Operacion Sierra – a mission to destroy illicit drugs plantations in the bordering states of Zulia and Tachira.

“This operation has been planned for more than six months with satellite photos, and we are reaching far-away territories in Sierra de Perija, in Zulia state,

where drug-trafficking forces never think we would go”, highlighted Rangel Silva.

The mission on the VenezuelanColombian border is aimed at detecting illegal drug plantations and storage places, as well as destroying clandestine airstrips used for drug-trafficking-related activities.

Operacion Sierra jointly works with other operations to fight drugtrafficking, like Plan Centinela, which located and destroyed 13 laboratories where about two tons of cocaine hydrochloric acid were presumably produced per month.

oncerts by the young Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel are always full of surprises. This is a reason why his London fan base, as well as the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra’s (SBYO), is always increasing.

This time around, at the BBC Proms 2011, the musicians didn’t turn into their Venezuelan flag jumpers, but instead they thrilled the public with the superb coordination between the orchestra and the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, as well as the impeccable conduction of brass and other instruments by Dudamel, giving the impression at times that the sounds would come from various spots of the theatre, away from the stage of the Royal Albert Hall.

In a sell-out concert, over 5,000 people rejoiced from the excellent musical performance given by more than 350 people among musicians from the orchestra, members of the choir, Dudamel and the leading soprano and mezzosoprano Miah Persson and Anna Larsson.

At the end of the concert, the public gave the musicians a standing ovation.

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2 | Impact

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The artillery of ideas

Chavez: “First I cried at the news of Cancer, then I decided to win the battle” Venezuelan head of state Hugo Chavez expressed his confidence in winning next year’s presidential election and warned of an opposition plan to deny electoral results during an exclusive interview last Sunday

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he interview took place at the Military Academy in Caracas before the socialist leader left for Cuba to continue his chemotherapy treatment and coincided with the 40th anniversary of his enrollment in the nation’s armed forces.

Hosted by journalist and former Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel, Chavez discussed a range of topics during the program including the strength of his popular support and his chances for electoral victory in 2012.

“I’m putting my faith in the widespread mobilization of the Bolivarian Revolution, the unity of the people, the revolutionary forces, the civil-military unity, the consciousness of where we’re heading and our ideology”, he told Rangel.

Chavez, also the leader of the country’s largest political party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, exhorted that the results, whatever they may be, must be respected from all sides and pledged his commitment to accept any outcome of the popular vote.

At the same time, the head of state admonished a potential “Plan B” of the opposition to create instability and chaos in the wake of a socialist victory.

“As a consequence of what I consider to be the structural impossibility that we lose the elections, [the opposition] will have a plan for violence. They’re going to generate violence, destabilization and intervention. That is their plan”, he warned, basing his assertions on the track record of the country’s conservative minority.

PAST AND PRESENT VIOLENCE In April 2002, guided and financed by Washington, the Venezuelan right-wing carried out

a violent coup d’etat against the democratically elected Chavez, which left at least 16 people dead and hundreds wounded.

Although the coup failed as a result of a popular uprising, the private media alongside the nation’s business sectors and corrupt labor unions employed a lock-out of the national oil company, PDVSA, later the same year in efforts to remove Chavez from office.

Much of the impetus for the subversion has stemmed from the passage of a far-ranging land redistribution law as well as the reorganization of PDVSA previously controlled by members of the country’s corrupt ancien regime.

Although the political tumult that marked the Chavez’s early years as President has subsided recently, many opposition sectors have continued to use violence to derail the progress of the country’s democratic revolution which has prioritized social spending and the rights of the poor.

Unable to defeat the Chavez government at the ballot box, right wing university students with international financing have resorted to the armed provocation of security forces, wreaking havoc on public life in Caracas and the Andean city of Merida.

Many landowners throughout the country have also continued to pay hired assassins to murder small farmers taking part in the nation’s agricultural reforms.

“If there’s something constant that we can point out about the behavior of the Venezuelan right, of the counter-revolution and the bourgeoisie, it’s its antidemocratic and coup-mongering character”, Chavez recalled in Sunday’s interview.

40 YEARS SINCE MILITARY ACADEMY Apart from the topic of elections, Chavez also spoke during the interview of his military career and his enrollment in the Military Academy on August 8, 1971.

“It is here that I was born [as a leader] and that I was accosted with a need to live, the need to transfer power to the people, power so that a homeland can exist and that the country can be free”, he recounted.

General Jacinto Perez Arcay, one of the cadet’s mentors in the Academy in the 1970s commented during an interview on state television on Monday that the current President displayed honesty and loyalty when studying.

“Hugo Chavez carries the legacy of a warrior, the legacy of honor”, Arcay said in reference to the leader’s great grandfather, known as Maisanta, who fought against the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gomez in the early 1900s.

Over the years, Chavez has commented that his ideological formation occurred through his interactions with different leftist thinkers in the military, leading him to link contemporary struggles for social justice with the independence thought of Simon Bolivar.

One of the most influential events in his political consciousness occurred in February 1989, when a series of free-market shock measures implemented by the International Monetary Fund provoked a spontaneous rebellion by people around the country.

The then government of Carlos Andres Perez sent the military into the streets to slaughter innocent civilians in one of the most brutal repressions of a popular uprising in the nation’s history.

Chavez saw the event as a tipping point and on February 4, 1992, the military officer led a failed uprising against the Perez government and was sentenced to prison where he stayed until 1994.

Although the rebellion failed, sympathy for the nascent leader grew as the poor and excluded bore the brunt of the free-market policies of Venezuela’s neo-liberal governments in the 1990s.

“History has confirmed it – and I hope that it will confirm it definitively – that February 4 was a necessary occurrence. More than just inevitable, it was necessary to stop the coup the right-wing was planning”, Chavez told Rangel during the interview.

Once released from prison, the former lieutenant colonel promptly began organizing for social change as the country’s ossified political system, dominated by two clientistic parties, began to buckle.

In 1997, he launched his first presidential campaign which culminated in his landslide electoral victory in 1998.

Since then, the leader of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution has won re-election in 2000 and then again in 2006.

CANCER Chavez revealed to Jose Vicente Rangel in the interview that after Fidel Castro gave him the news on June 18 of the cancerous cells in his pelvic region, “I asked for a moment to myself, went into the bathroom, looked into the mirror and cried. And then I said, I would win this ultimate battle of life”.

“It was a decisive moment”, he added, “just like April 11, 2002 during the coup d’etat”. The Venezuelan President was briefly kidnapped and held hostage, set to be assassinated during that coup. He was later rescued by loyal armed forces and millions of supporters. “Like then, we will prevail again”, he proclaimed.

Chavez also informed that all latest diagnostic tests show no more cancerous presence in his body. However, he would continue chemotherapy treatments as a precaution. “What about ‘my new look’”, he joked with Rangel, referring to his shaved head from hair loss resulting from the chemotherapy. “Some say I look quite handsome, even younger”.

T/ COI P/ Presidential Press

NoÊÇÈÊUÊFriday, August 12, 2011

The artillery of ideas

Integration

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Unasur promotes regional economic integration South American states are developing cooperation mechanisms to decrease dependence on the US dollar and other foreign currencies

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ast Friday, economic ministers from the Union of South American Nations’ (Unasur) member states met in the Peruvian capital to discuss the current unstable economic climate in the US and Europe.

At the meeting in Lima, the high level representatives discussed a “plan of action” for dealing with the unfolding financial crisis, which saw the US credit rating downgraded from AAA to AA+ by the credit rating agency Standard and Poor on the same day and intensified panic on the stock market.

“There is a realization in the region, after a long period of time, that the problems coming from the North can cause external problems that can affect our economies”, said one of the delegates from Argentina.

In what Venezuelan Foreign Relations Minister, Nicolas Maduro, called a “historic” step, member countries agreed on the need to act as a geo-political bloc in order

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hina’s expanding role in Latin America was reinforced this week during President Evo Morales’ visit to the Asian nation.

Bolivian President Evo Morales Ayma arrived in Beijing Wednesday morning, kicking off a five-day visit to China. During the Bolivian head of state’s visit, Chinese leaders met with him, as well as high level representatives from varios technology and communications related companies.

Morales was also scheduled to attend the opening ceremony of the 26th Universiade to be held in Shenzhen, South China’s Guangdong province.

Before heading for China, Morales said he hoped the visit could promote and strengthen the Bolivia-China relationship, as well as broaden bilateral cooperation in economy, trade, investment and technology transfer.

SATELLITE LAUNCH During one of the first bilateral events on Wednesday in the

to protect the region from the latest global crisis, demonstrating that the continent is “reacting and responding in order to build our economic strength”, affirmed Maduro.

Some of the main propositions aimed at insulating Unasur economies from any related economic downturn include placing limits on the speculative activities of foreign capital and increased intra-regional trade.

“It cannot be that (foreign) capital comes and goes, damaging us all. When it doesn’t find speculative benefits in one coun-

try, it ends up finding them in another”, explained Colombian President, Manuel Santos.

Colombian Finance Minister, Juan Carlos Echeverri, also suggested the creation of a regional monetary fund in view of the instability of the US dollar and the Euro.

The proposals will now be considered more fully by each independent member state and discussed at the South American Economic and Finance Council, due to take place this Friday 12th August in Buenos Aires. One of the main items on the Council’s agenda will be the

creation of a Unasur Board of Economy and Finance; a new initiative that would allow the regional bloc to address problems cooperatively and from a unified stance.

DEEPENING REGIONAL INTEGRATION Ministers and attendees cited the record time in which the meeting was organized as proof of increased integration and cohesion within the Latin American continent. On July 28th, an emergency Unasur meeting was also held in Lima in order to contemplate the possibility of a

China and Bolivia strengthen ties, launch satellite project Asian nation, China and Bolivia jointly launched a communications satellite project that will be completed within 3 years.

The construction of the Tupac Katari satellite, named after an 18th century indigenous hero who fought Bolivia’s Spanish colonizers, will benefit the Bolivian people, said Bolivian President Evo Morales Ayma at the launching ceremony.

The cooperation between the two countries will also promote friendship as well as technological and economic exchanges, added Morales, emphasizing the need for Bolivia to diversify its trade partners worldwide.

According to the deal signed on Dec. 13, 2010 between the Bolivian state-run space agency

and China Great Wall Industry Corporation, a subsidiary of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASTC), Bolivia will have its first commu-

nications satellite by the end of 2013, or the beginning of 2014.

China will work to ensure the quality and high technology of the satellite and its supporting facili-

US default on its national debt.

Argentinean Finance Minister, Boudou Amado, highlighted that South America’s collective efforts at regional integration were becoming “more and more important” and must be “deepened so that we are not affected by external crises”.

Following the July meeting, Unasur also reiterated its commitment to ensuring social inclusion and poverty eradication within the region, as well as its support for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in his current personal battle with cancer.

Speaking on Venezuelan television, President Chavez highlighted that although the Venezuelan economy was not immune from the financial troubles developing in the United States and Europe, the country’s economy was in a strong position.

“We have been preparing for years now, and we have a solid economy and surplus international reserves, like Evo (Morales) said, the US is broken”, declared the Venezuelan President.

“It is a very serious situation for the capitalist world…it indicates that the world should re-orient and liberate itself from the dictatorship of the dollar”, he added.

T/ Rachael Boothroyd www.venezuelanalysis.com

ties to better serve Bolivia’s economic development and the needs of its people, CASTC informed.

Once completed, the satellite will be launched at Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China’s Sichuan Province and is expected to provide telecommunication services in Bolivia and support the country’s educational and medical initiatives.

The deal is funded by the China Development Bank.

A similar initiative was launched between Venezuela and China in 2008. The “Simon Bolivar Socialist Satellite”, built with Chinese technology and sharing the orbit belonging to Uruguay, serves as a major technological tool for Venezuela’s nationwide communications, educational and medical services.

Venezuela is presently building another satellite with China, expected to be launched during the next few years.

T/ Xinhua P/ Agencies

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4 | Economy

NoÊÇÈÊUÊFriday, August 12, 2011

The artillery of ideas

Up to 70% savings at new venezuelan restaurants The “socialist” locales are aimed at providing low-cost, high quality national foods, while still earning decent profits.

The restaurants are worker-run

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nsuring access to affordable meals with good nutritional value, the Venezuelan government opened its 39th affordable restaurant nationally last Monday in the neighborhood of San Jose in the capital city of Caracas.

The new facility, along with other restaurants now operating around the South American country, will be serving primarily arepas, corn flour patties stuffed with a variety of ingredients including cheese, meat, vegetables and egg.

Arepas represent the single most important food item of the Venezuelan diet.

According to Venezuelan Food Minister Carlos Osorio, San Jose’s new restaurant will be offering five hundred arepas daily to residents at a savings of up to 70 percent.

While the cost of an arepa filled with basic ingredients can reach as high as 25 bolivars ($5.81) in a private establishment, the price of the government operated restaurant will be 7.5 bolivars ($1.74).

Full lunches will also be offered to customers at a price of 20 bolivars ($4.65) while natural juices will come in at 3.5 bolivars ($.81)

and espresso coffee at 1.5 and 3.5 bolivars ($.34 and $.81) for small and large sizes.

“A lunch on the street costs around 60 bolivars ($13.95) while here, I’m only going to spend 20 bolivars ($4.65). That’s a savings of more than 50 percent. This represents a blow to price speculation”, said Ivan Rosales a worker for the Venezuelan Food Producer and Distributor, PDVAL. Government officials report an investment of over 412 thousand bolivars ($95 thousand) in the new facility which anticipates serving more than six thousand consumers monthly.

Caracas resident Elsi Narvaez commented on the value of the

government’s restaurants for the inhabitants of the city during the opening of a similar restaurant earlier last week.

“Between an arepa and a juice, you can spend up to 40 bolivars ($9.30). But here at the Venezuela Arepa Restaurant, you’ll spend 15 bolivars ($3.48). I left my house early to run some errands and I didn’t have time to eat breakfast at home. This place is great and I hope that they keep it like this”, she said.

FOOD SECURITY The new restaurant in San Jose is part of a larger government plan to construct more than 150 establishments around the coun-

try by the end of the year, bringing the total number of Venezuelan Arepa Restaurants to 200.

“For the third trimester, we should be arriving at a total of 200 areperas, of which we already have 39 fully operational.

This week, we’ll be inaugurating another 30”, informed Minister Osorio on Monday.

The minister also detailed that the national government estimates the sale of more than 10 million arepas in the state-owned facilities by the end of this year.

Formerly known as Socialist Arepa Restaurants, the principal motivation of the initiative is to ensure a balanced diet for all residents, eliminate price speculation

Venezuela: Low poverty and unemployment rates T

he Venezuelan government has been able to maintain low rates of poverty and unemployment in spite of the global crisis of capitalism, explained the Vice-President of the Economic and Productive Area of the Venezuelan government, Ricardo Menendez on Tuesday.

During a television interview, Menendez highlighted the significant reduction of the poverty and unemployment rates, despite the strong impacts of the global financial crisis. “The unemployment rate has reached a single digit”, he affirmed.

“Additionally, we have been able to reduce poverty substantially. In 1999 we received [a country with] over 62 percent of household poverty and 30 percent of extreme poverty. Right now, poverty has been reduced from 62 to 26 percent, and extreme poverty has dropped from 30 percent to 7 percent”, he detailed.

“While Greece, Spain and the United States are undergoing this crisis, we have kept the unemployment rate at a single digit all the time. That is, while those crises are generally spreading all around

the world, in Venezuela our social policies continue and have grown, because people are a priority for the Revolution”, said Menendez.

Since 2008, when the crisis of capitalism broke out, countries like Greece, the US, Spain, Italy

and Great Britain entered in an economic recession. Nevertheless, Venezuela has kept consistent social policies to protect the Venezuelan people, highlighted Menendez.

“In spite of the decrease of the world economy, we have a positive

common in the private sector, and guard against the hoarding of food products by intermediaries.

The majority of the ingredients for the restaurants will be provided by state-owned industries including PDVAL. The corn flour, vegetable oil, and cheese will all be supplied by a growing public food production and distribution network representing an integral part of the nation’s move away from foreign dependence and towards food sovereignty.

Over the years, this strategy has helped Venezuela to surpass United Nations nutritional standards with respect to caloric intake while at the same time drastically reducing malnutrition in the South American nation.

According to Venezuela’s National Nutritional Institute, daily caloric intake has increased from 2,200 to 2,800 in the first 10 years of the Chavez government while malnutrition in the country has decreased by two-thirds.

For Osorio, these gains have been accompanied by a crucial new conceptualization of food and society in Venezuela.

“Our revolutionary government led by President Hugo Chavez is taking charge of satisfying the needs of the people and making sure that food is not seen as a commodity but rather as a product to fulfill the needs to the population”, the minister affirmed.

T/ COI P/ Agencies perspective and we are growing.

Although all the countries of the world have had negative economic impacts and have made major cuts in public spending, in Venezuela, we have maintained all our social investment in programs such as healthcare, education and employment benefits: over $400 billion worth”, confirmed Menendez. As an example, Menendez highlighted the fact that since the beginning of 2011 the government has invested 35 percent more than in 2010 in the Mission Agro Venezuela –a government program to fight large unproductive land estates and boost small and medium size producers in the country’s agricultural sector.

T/ AVN P/ Agencies

NoÊÇÈÊUÊFriday, August 12, 2011

The artillery of ideas

Economy

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Advancing food sovereignty and agricultural production “researchers, technicians and academics in the field of the agricultural sciences” to a range of organizations of People’s Power that represent “small- and medium-scale producers, indigenous communities, peasants, and fisher-folk”, among others.

As a public institution of “knowledge creation,” the national center seeks to unite “popular know-how and ancestral knowledge as it interacts with and complements (universitybased) scientific knowledge in the creation of alternatives that are technologically appropriate and serve to improve the rational use and conservation of natural resources” as Venezuela seeks to boost agricultural production.

Venezuela launched a pioneering Academy of Agricultural Sciences, widening efforts to stimulate the country’s agricultural industry and long-term food security

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his week Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez underscored the importance of the Venezuelan Academy of Agricultural Sciences (ACAV), the first national education, research, and extension center dedicated to improving agricultural production in the Latin American nation. Built on recently nationalized lands in the rural state of Barinas, the new scientific research institute seeks to merge university and popular knowledge in an ongoing effort to increase food production and support the country’s rural producers engaged in Mission Agro Venezuela.

In a message sent via Twitter on Sunday, Chavez highlighted “how beautiful our National Academy of Agricultural Sciences has become” and promised to “be there soon” in reference to the ACAV inauguration ceremony expected later this year.

The Venezuelan President issued his statement as Minister of Agriculture Juan Carlos Loyo and Barinas state Governor Adan Chavez presented 46 rural producers with the credit needed to finance cacao production (the raw material used for chocolate) as part of Mission Agro Venezuela, the latest in a series of attempts by the Chavez government to stimulate agricultural production.

HELPING FARMERS Launched earlier this year, the socio-economic agricultural ‘mission’ works by registering rural producers, working with them to identify specific production constraints, and providing them with the land, credit, and machinery needed to boost agricultural production on privately- or collectively-held lands.

According to Mauricio Nunez, Venezuelan Vice Minister for Education and Innovation, the coun-

try’s national Academy of Agricultural Sciences “will strengthen Mission Agro Venezuela by providing producers with the training they need to become engaged in the agricultural development of the nation”.

Nunez, who described the ACAV as one of many “achievements of the Revolution”, went on to explain that the research and education center will provide rural producers with technical training on “controlling the pests, weeds, and sicknesses that affect harvests”.

Financed by Venezuela’s Social Development Bank (BANDES) and the Venezuela-China Development Fund, the country’s first ever national Academy of Agricultural Sciences has cost nearly four million dollars in investments between 2009 and 2011.

GRASSROOTS LEARNING The Academy’s national headquarters, made up of seven recently-completed buildings which include multiple classrooms, an investigation center, laboratory,

library, computer lab, cafeteria, includes sufficient living quarters to house up to 500 students at any given time.

Located in Quebrada Negra, municipality Alberto Arvelo Torrealba, state of Barinas, the Academy’s central location is to be accompanied by future rural extension branches in the rural states of Guarico, Anzoategui, Aragua, and Monagas.

Venezuela’s ACAV is located in the same municipality as the Latin American Institute of Agroecology (IALA) – Paulo Freire, a collaborative effort between the Venezuelan government and the international rural social movement, La Via Campesina, aimed at providing agroecological training to the sons and daughters of rural land activists that make up La Via Campesina Latin America.

According to Atilio Barroeta, Director of the Projects Infrastructure at the ACAV, “the lands on which today we are constructing the Academy of Agricultural Sciences previously belonged to

a cattle ranch known as ‘The Future,’ comprised of 280 hectares (almost 700 acres), where the previous owners did nothing but raise a few heads of cattle and plant the so-called ‘bad (sugar) cane’ which damages the soil - the reason why our National Land Institute expropriating these lands”.

THE ACADEMY Approved by the National Assembly in March 2010, the Venezuelan Academy of Agricultural Sciences aims to help the Venezuelan people “reach technological independence and secure food sovereignty” by “forming a network that guarantees the coordination, cooperation, and complementarity between People’s Power and the diverse array of institutions that are currently involved in projects and programs” of agricultural development in Venezuela.

According to its founding charter, the ACAV recognizes the importance of numerous protagonists in the process of agricultural research and extension, from

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION The nearly four million dollars spent on the construction of the ACAV were made available thanks to a 2010 Chinese government offer to Venezuela of $20 billion in financing. Made in April of last year, the loan is said to be one of the largest credits China has made to any country in its recent history.

Highlighting the importance of the Venezuela-China relationship, Venezuela’s Chavez explained that the funds would be directed towards infrastructure, energy, and agriculture, among other fields of economic importance, and that Chinese support represented a break from “international credit organizations that grant financing under unfavorable and undignified conditions for the beneficiaries”.

Venezuela’s ACAV is modeled after China’s Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, located in the Janin province and part of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS). Nationwide, China’s CAAS currently has some 10,000 staff members and 38 research institutes distributed across 17 of the country’s 22 provinces, dedicated to “agricultural and rural development and empowering farmers” in the struggle to feed China’s 1.4 billion inhabitants.

T/ COI P/ Agencies

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6 | Social Justice

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n a move that will provide important savings for low-income families, the Venezuelan government unveiled a plan distribute 12 million new textbooks to primary school students around the country in the coming scholastic year.

The announcement was made last Monday by Education Minister Maryann Hanson. “The objective of this program is to ensure that those with less economic resources can count on having textbooks in order to guarantee education as an inalienable human right”, Hanson said.

With an investment of more than 194 million bolivars ($45 million) the new textbooks will cover the subjects of Natural Science, Social Science, Mathematics, as well as Literature and Language.

According to Hanson, the ability to produce the books locally is the product of a combined effort of the different printing presses of various government agencies including the Ministries of Defense, Food, and Culture “working together for the benefit of the people”.

Savings for parents and guardians of public school students, the minister informed, will range between 100 and 200 bolivars ($23 and $46) for each book.

NoÊÇÈÊUÊFriday, August 12, 2011

The artillery of ideas

Free books for students

CHAVEZ EXALTS INITIATIVE For his part, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez praised his government’s latest educational measure during a telephone call to VTV from Havana, Cuba.

Chavez, who is currently undergoing a second round of cancer treatment on the Caribbean island, referred to the educational advances in his country as some-

thing that “could not be done under capitalism”.

“This is the difference between capitalism and socialism. It’s not just about prices but rather about the value of things. Now we have the capacity to edit millions of books and teach our children from first grade to high school.

We also have the Canaima computers and all the instruments

and techniques necessary for our children and adolescents to participate in a liberating educational system”, he said.

The Canaima Program, another flagship educational initiative of the Chavez government, has provided more than 760,000 grade school students around the nation with free mini-laptop computers over the past year.

The computers, the product of an international agreement with Portugal, come equipped with interactive software designed to help prepare students in the areas of science, mathematics, history, and language.

EDUCATION ADVANCES Over the past 12 years, the Chavez administration has implemented a number of highly successful educational reforms that have, among other achievements, succeeded in wiping out illiteracy in the country and solidified Venezuela’s ranking as one of the countries with the highest university enrollment rates in the world.

These programs, known as missions, range from pre-school to university level classes and have been deployed throughout the country in the most remote rural areas as well as the most populated urban shantytowns with the goal of providing a quality education to all citizens.

On Monday, Hanson also pointed out that the dropout rate for primary and middle school students has diminished by 50 percent over the past 12 years as has the rate of failure for students.

T/ COI P/ Agencies

Venezuela prison orchestra gives hope to inmates S

urrounded on four sides by high walls or fences, looked over by a watch tower and countless closedcircuit cameras, the inner courtyard at this mixed prison is a barren and unwelcoming place.

But the music is a clue that not all is so bleak at this jail.

In the auditorium, more than 300 prisoners are preparing to show off their musical skills.

Around half are learning to play an instrument - violin, tuba, double bass or saxophone - while the others have been training their voices during choir practice.

The orchestra and choir are by far the most popular daily activities on offer to these prisoners above carpentry, metal work or sewing. More than half the inmates at Coro take part.

“I feel great when I’m playing, very proud and also it’s a very big responsibility for me”, says 23-year-old Elisaul Salas, inmate and concert-master. “To be the first violin is a very big responsibility, and if they had the confidence in me to choose me for this role, it makes me want to keep moving forward”.

INSTRUMENTS OR WEAPONS? The prison orchestra is a project of Venezuela’s much-admired music system. Created 36 years ago, the program, known as El Sistema, is famous for its pioneering work teaching children from poorer backgrounds how to play

classical music and has produced the world-famous Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra.

It was a Youth Orchestra alumnus and human rights lawyer, Lenin Mora, who came up with the scheme to expand into the country’s prisons. “At the begin-

ning there were some doubts because there are instruments which can be turned into weapons, for instance, the strings of a double bass or a violin can be used to hang someone”, he says.

“Thanks to the way things have worked in the prisons we have entered, that’s never happened.

The inmates look after their instruments because they see it as their responsibility”.

Prisoners must demonstrate a record of good behaviour before they can join the orchestra, and music teachers insist on good hygiene and a neat appearance. Hours are long - they are expected to attend lessons or workshops eight hours a day for five days a week.

Already working in 7 prisons, the program will be expanded to 3 more later this year.

Organizers hope to eventually offer music lessons in every one of the country’s 33 prisons, but conditions in some jails mean that is highly unlikely in anything but the long term. Rioting and violence are frequent in many prisons, where overcrowding is common.

But in Coro, Venezuela’s newest prison, the orchestra has been a great success, officials and prisoners alike say. “We’ve seen a huge improvement in the inmates”, says prison governor Abel Jimenez.

“From being some of the worst behaved inmates, we now have people who are among the best in this community with a clean record of conduct for more than two years”.

There are signs that the benefits continue long after inmates have been released.

In Caracas, 28-year-old Ramiro Rondon, a former gang member, served more than 3 years in prison in Merida, where he learned to play the clarinet. Released a year ago, he is now training to work in repair and restoration of instruments and is still taking clarinet lessons once a week.

“My life has changed 100%”, he says. “At the beginning it was difficult, but now I’ve changed my ways, I’m working hard and trying to make the best of everything”.

T/ Sarah Grainger

NoÊÇÈÊUÊFriday, August 12, 2011

The artillery of ideas

Analysis | 7 |

US: $20 million for the Venezuelan opposition in 2012 Washington is preparing funds to support the opposition’s campaign against President Hugo Chavez during the coming presidential elections in 2012

“to deploy special ‘democracy practitioner’ teams to states where democracy faces threats from the growing presence of alternate concepts such as the ‘participatory democracy’ advocated by Venezuela and Bolivia”.

Additionally, the budget claims the funds will be used to support “the appropriate responses to threats on freedom of expression and abuses by governments against their people, particularly in states such as Venezuela and Cuba”.

At minimum, a few of those $48 million will be filtered to groups in Venezuela that work against the government of Hugo Chavez.

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ince Hugo Chavez won his first presidential elections in 1998, the US government has been trying to remove him from power. With multimillion-dollar investments, every year Washington’s agencies advise and aid anti-Chavez groups with their campaigns and strategies against the government.

Despite multiple attempts, including a coup d’etat in 2002 that briefly ousted President Chavez, their efforts have been in vain.

The Venezuelan President’s popularity continues to rise and opposition leaders have failed to convince constituents of their plans.

The latest polls show Chavez’s support above 57%, while the opposition fails to even reach 20%.

Nonetheless, Washington continues to seek new mechanisms to achieve its eternal objective of recovering control over Venezuela’s strategic resources – the largest oil reserves on the planet – and this means putting an end to Hugo Chavez.

One of the US government’s principal tactics has been feeding the internal conflict in Venezuela through the consolidation of an opposition movement, that despite its impossibility of uniting, continues to maintain itself active in the country’s political sphere.

THE MONEY The main engine behind this tactic has been the multimilliondollar investment of Washington’s agencies, together with several European and Canadian foundations, in the Venezuelan opposition. The money has come with strategic support from top campaign and political consultants, who aid in everything from image to discourse.

Through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a

congressionally created entity funded by the State Department, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Washington has channeled more than $100 million to anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela since 2002.

A majority of those substantial funds have been used to run opposition candidates’ campaigns, as well as finance those well crafted media campaigns against the Chavez government that flood the national and international press.

Despite the economic crisis in the US, the funds to Venezuela’s opposition continue to flow.

In February 2011, President Barack Obama requested $5 million for opposition groups in Venezuela in his 2012 National Budget. It marked the first time a sitting US president openly requested money in the national budget to fund Chavez’s opposition, especially during a time when domestic funding is being cut. Apparently, Obama prefers to spend US taxpayer dollars on efforts to oust the Venezuelan President – elected democratically and supported by the majority – instead of investing in the health and well being of the US people.

Those $5 million comprise only a quarter of the total funds so far prepared by Washington for the Venezuelan opposition in 2012.

THE EMBASSY The US Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, has been the center of distribution and coordination of the majority of USAID and NED funds since 2002. However, until the end of 2010, USAID maintained offices of 3 contractors in Caracas: International Republican Institute (IRI), National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI).

Through these entities, particularly DAI, USAID channeled millions each year to hundreds of opposition groups, programs, projects and campaigns in Venezuela. IRI and NDI supplied more political advice and aid than liquid funds.

These three agencies abruptly parted Venezuela after the nation’s legislative body passed a law in December 2010 prohibiting foreign funding for political means in the country. In early 2011, USAID published a statement on its website claiming its Venezuela program had been transferred to the Washington office. No other information was provided.

Nevertheless, USAID’s 2012 budget includes $5 million more for its work in Venezuela. The agency, which is a funding branch of the State Department, has no authorized projects in Venezuela or agreements with the Venezuelan government. From the beginning, its motives have been purely political.

Without the presence of these three agencies in Caracas, the US Embassy has taken on an even more important role – evident in the major boost in its 2012 budget. In 2010, the Embassy in Caracas had an annual budget of $18,022,000; in 2011 it dropped to $15,980,000. But in 2012, the budget swoops up to $24,056,000, nearly a $9 million increase.

The US doesn’t even have an ambassador in that embassy, nor plans to name one. Relations with Venezuela are frozen and handled at the “charge d’affairs” level. Furthermore, the number of embassy staff has remained the same since 2010: 81 employees. So, what is the extra $9 million for?

There is no doubt that these funds are destined for the electoral campaigns in 2012, when Venezuela has both presidential and regional elections. Now that USAID and its contractors are no longer operating in-country, the embassy will be the principle channel to ensure those funds reach their destination.

So far, the total reaches $19 million – at minimum – from Washington to the Venezuelan opposition in 2012, but that’s not all.

In the State Department’s 2012 budget, $48,160,000 was requested to fund the Organization of American States (OEA). In the justification for those funds, State specifies that part of the money will be used

THE NED And then there’s still the NED, which funds with at least $1 million annually a dozen groups in Venezuela, including Sumate, CEDICE, Futuro Presente, Liderazgo y Visión, Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPyS), Consorcio Justicia, Radar de los Barrios, Ciudadanía Activa, and others.

The NED’s budget for 2012, which is $104,000,000, states the following: “In the Andean region, the Venezuelan presidential election scheduled for December 2012 will have relevant consequences for the country and the neighborhood, as President Chavez seeks reelection for an additional sixyear term. NED will support civil society organizations in their efforts to enhance voter participation and promote free, fair and competitive elections”.

Although the exact amount of money the NED will be providing to Venezuelan opposition groups in 2012 is not specified, it’s plans to intervene in Venezuela’s electoral process is obvious.

These multimillion-dollar funds destined to the Venezuelan opposition in 2012 leave no doubt that Washington will continue its plans to interfere in Venezuela’s internal politics, while trying – by any means – to impede the future of the Bolivarian Revolution.

At the same time, these millions reinforce the decade-old belief that Chavez’s opposition remains “Made in USA”.

T/ Eva Golinger

FRIDAY | August 12, 2011 | No. 76 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

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everal days of unprecedented revolt by the most impoverished minority-populated neighborhoods of London has shaken the normally staid and reserved British Estblishment. Prime Minister David Cameron cut short his Italian vacation in Tuscany to return to the red-orange glare of a burning city.

In an effort to mobilize 16,000 police officers concentrated in London alone, England’s socceraddicted fans saw their August 10 match against the Netherlands in Wembley stadium canceled.

So, this week at least, after years of ignoring glaring inequality and injustice, it is safe to say that all of England took notice of the crowded north London neighborhood of Tottenham and to similar minority communities in Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Bristol where an explosive, fiery social consciousness has been rekindled.

Tottenham itself, where events first ignited over the police killing of an unarmed black youth, is a genuinely multi-cultural mix of mostly British-born African-Caribbean along with Turkish, Portuguese, Albanian, Kurdish and Somali peoples reportedly speaking 300 different languages.

It claims to be the most diverse community in all of Europe but there is no doubt that most share in common the intense poverty and the abuse and neglect by the rich and powerful that is all too familiar.

London’s current revolt is quite different than the massive protests in other European capitals and even distinguished from those in the Middle East.

The poor of Tottenham, however, do share much with their brethren in the Black and minority communities of North America.

Neither have powerful advocates that are independent of the political establishment.

LONDON’S REVOLT FORECASTS US FUTURE? Traditional community and labor organizations in both Britain and the US purporting to represent the working class have utterly failed these communities

Is London a Harbinger for the US?

When is a riot a revolt?

and allowed both Downing Street and Wall St. to impose their most austere policies on these least-represented amongst us.

Of course, the British government peddles a different story about events in Tottenham. Most are echoed by the establishment press.

A typical response came from GlobalPost’s London correspondent, Michael Goldfarb, who was quoted on the PBS NEWSHOUR website as derisively dismissing the social problems of Tottenham by commenting that “the tension around [the police killing of the black youth] got out of hand very quickly, but it was clear almost from the beginning that this was plain old looting” by mainly unemployed youth with nothing to do on hot summer nights, he said.

To the extent that this crude opi-

nion is shared by many in Britain, it only serves to confirm the truth: Tottenham residents are isolated politically and socially from the rest of British society, and particularly from the rest of the working class.

Fundamentally, their isolated existence explains the different form the rebellion took; more akin to a chaotic riot in many people’s eyes as opposed to the far-better organized massive upheavals in Madrid, Athens and Cairo that united majority sections of their population and that, thereby, more easily won sympathy and admiration throughout the world.

It is important to recall that these same actions ultimately achieved major support from significant and massive social organizations that helped define the powerful and effective character of their protests.

Culpability for the desperate acts in Tottenham is shared by organizations of the working class that have so profoundly failed to embrace these communities and offer them the same shared benefits of organization and same shared status as brothers and sisters.

DIVIDED & DISORGANIZED Attempts during the era of the triumphant civil-rights movement to politically and socially unite the black community in the US were met with government-inspired assassinations and police terrorism, as documented by revelations contained in the US government’s cointelpro papers.

As a result, beginning in the 1970s, criminal gangs began replacing FBI-targeted militant organizations like SNCC, CORE, SCLC,

Black Panthers, Young Lords, Brown Berets and numerous other effective social and political organizations in the communities of the oppressed.

This had a debilitating effect after several decades and results today in reactions to police brutality and poverty being often marked by scattered individual acts of frustration and anger. For example, while ostensible political targets such as police cars and offices were burned in both Tottenham and Cairo, there was also in the former case, the indiscriminate burning of buildings and some personal accounts of victimizations that comes from pent-up rage.

These are not excuses, neither are they defenses. It is an explanation that contains the answer for its resolution: new organizations must be forged that unite the community around common social goals and aspirations.

But this reality and the impact it has on distorting the communities’ response should not in any way diminish the powerful and profound social nature of the Tottenham revolt, one deserving of our full support.

The 1965 Watt’s rebellion in Los Angeles was similarly attacked in its day as a criminal enterprise but history has now properly recorded it as a true revolt against poverty and discrimination. History will also record Tottenham on this honor roll.

The rich and powerful benefit from divisions and rivalries in the oppressed communities, both in Britain and the US. Arguably, these same forces promote criminalization as a way of preventing social unity that could become a powerful political force.

The wealthy elite in the US are only too well aware of the smoldering embers of discontent that have been stoked by the same draconian reductions in jobs and social services that have been adopted in Britain.

These issues affect the majority in the US and, hopefully, we learn from Tottenham that a united response is the best response with no community or section of working people left alone to fend for themselves.

- Carl Finamore