page 7 | Analysis
page 8 | Opinion
Opposition candidates in Venezuela are trying, unsuccessfully, to play the “populism” card
Fidel Castro reveals details from his latest meeting with president Hugo Chavez this week
Friday | October 21, 2011 | Nº 86 | Caracas
ENGLISH EDITION The artillery of ideas
Chavez: No more cancer Transforming food production The government of Hugo Chavez has made food sovereignty and security a top priority and part of achieving that goal is ensuring the South American nation’s own agricultural industry prospers. New agricultural supply companies have been created to serve farmers’ needs and keep prices affordable. A special statesponsored national program, Mission Agro Venezuela, was implemented earlier this year to provide low-interest loans to farmers and producers, as wel as aid in the distribution process to guarantee food supplies reach consumers in a timely and efficient way. Farmers’ rights have taken a front row seat in revolutionary Venezuela. | page 4
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez confirmed that medical exams show he is free of cancerous cells and on the path to full recovery
Upon return from Cuba this Thursday, the Venezuelan head of state spoke live on television, detailing the extensive medical tests done this week to determine the effects of chemotherapy treatments he has undergone for the past three months. Four months ago, on June 20, President Chavez underwent surgery to remove a baseball-sized cancerous tumor from his pelvic region. The latest tests show no more cancer cells are present in his body and he has had no major negative side effects from chemotherapy. Chavez affirmed he is now on the path to recovery. “A new Chavez is being born”, he exclaimed before TV cameras after descending from his airplane Thursday morning. | [Continued below]
Impact
Venezuelan politician sanctioned for corruption Despite media manipulation, opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez’s sanction is for breaking the law, not politics. | page 2 Politics
US presidential candidates attack Chavez Republican contenders Mitt Romney & Newt Gingrich took swipes at President Chavez this week. | page 3 Social Justice
A focus on education in prisons Venezuela is humanizing its penitenciary system. | page 6
Chavez, free of cancer, condemns Gaddafi assassination A
n energetic Hugo Chavez arrived Thursday to the western Venezuelan state of Tachira, after four days in Cuba undergoing intensive medical exams. “There are no more cancerous cells in my body. There is no abnormal cellular activity. I can say I got an A+ on my exams”, exclaimed the popular Venezuelan President. After experiencing pain and discomfort earlier this year,
Chavez underwent an emergency operation in June to drain a pelvic abscess. After the infection cleared – which had been caught just in time – further exams showed a baseball-sized tumor in his pelvic region. It was removed immediately. The Venezuelan head of state previously explained the tumor was “encapsulated” and no metatasis or spread of cancer cells to any of his organs
had occurred. Nonetheless, he received four sessions of chemotherapy as a precaution. Today the Venezuelan leader, who enjoys a 60% approval rating nationwide, appears optimistic, rejuventated and determined to fully recover from his illness. “I am going to radically change my life”, announced Chavez, referring to his previous roundthe-clock lifestyle that was lar-
Venezuela rejects US meddling I
n an official statement Wednesday, the Venezuelan government rejected “the meddling statements made by the US Department of State on Wednesday, October 19th, 2011, regarding institutional matters pertaining exclusively to Venezuela”. The statement affirmed, “the US government attempts to question administrative decisions of our regulatory entities and rulings of our Supreme Court of Justice, which constitutes unacceptable disregard for our constitutional order”. “In a display of nerve and cynicism, the State Department criticized a decision of the highest Judicial Power of Venezuela, ignoring the principle of separation of powers the US purports to defend”. The statement concluded, “The US government, by repeatedly attacking the dignity and honor of the institutions of Venezuela, is solely responsible for the ever greater deterioration of bilateral relations”.
gely supported by over 20 cups of black coffee a day. Chavez has reaffirmed his candidacy for the 2012 presidential elections. At present, he leads opposition candidates by more than 30 points. The Venezuelan President also condemned the assassination of Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi. “They assassinated him, it’s another violation of life”, he said. “This history of Libya is just starting. The US empire cannot dominate this world”.
|
2 | Impact
NoÊnÈÊUÊFriday, October 21, 2011
The artillery of ideas
Venezuelan politician Leopoldo Lopez barred for breaking the law, not for political reasons T/ Eva Golinger and Tamara Pearson P/ Agencies
T
his week, Venezuela’s Supreme Court (TSJ) declared “unenforceable” a ruling by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), thereby maintaining an administrative decision barring politician Leopoldo Lopez from exercising public office. According to the original determination, Lopez has been temporarily banned from holding any public office which involves the administration of public funds until 2014, because he broke the law and engaged in corruption while he was a public official, and misappropriated monies once while he was a public employee. Venezuela’s Comptroller General conducted an in-depth investigation into Lopez’s actions and found that in 1998, while holding a government job, he committed acts of corruption by illegally diverting more than 60 million bolivars from Venezuela’s oil company, PDVSA, to create his own political party. The funds were “authorized” by his mother, then director of a division of PDVSA. The Comptroller General’s office found this incident a clear case of conflict of interest and misappropriation of public funds. Subsequently, while mayor of the Chacao district in Caracas, Lopez inappropiately used public funds for unauthorized transactions. Specifically, he was required to return additional funds from his municipality to the Metropolitan District of Caracas, which he failed to do, claiming he had used them for other purposes. However, Lopez had refused to follow legal and administrative regulations with regards to his budgetary process, and never legally accounted for the missing funds, therefore violating the law. He was also repeatedly accused of corruption by his constiuents during his two terms as mayor of Chacao, from 2000-2008. The Comptroller’s decision, first issued in 2005, barred Lopez from holding public office for a period of 3 and 6 years, respectively, for both violations. The determination was
appealed by Lopez first administratively, and then in the Venezuelan courts. Venezuela’s highest court, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, upheld the Comptroller’s decision in 2008. IACHR RULING Lopez, refusing to accept the decision of Venezuela’s Supreme Court, took his case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) in Costa Rica. He claimed his “political rights” had been violated by the Comptroller’s ruling, and as such, asked the IACHR to override his justice system’s decision. On September 17, 2011, the IACHR issued a sentence rendering the decisions by Venezuela’s comptroller and its Supreme Court as violating Lopez’s political rights and issued a ruling ordering the Venezuelan government to lift the 2008 barring of Lopez and to allow him to run for president in the 2012 elections. The IACHR decision chose to not evaluate, examine or rule on the alleged violations committed by Lopez, but rather to determine whether the process itself was valid under Inter-American legal standards. In its sentence, the IACHR found that Lopez had been guaranteed all his rights to due process and defense, and that neither the Comptroller’s administrative investigation, nor the appeals process in Venezuela’s courts, had violated Lopez’s
rights. What the IACHR in the end decided, was that Venezuela could not allow its Comptroller General to sanction public officials for corrupt acts. However, the IACHR’s ruling contradicts Inter-American law that specifically requires member states to implement legislation and administrative processes to combat corruption. Venezuela, a signatory to the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption, gave legal authority to the Comptroller General’s office, through legislation enacted in 2001, allowing the autonomous watchdog office to investigate and administratively sanction all public officials and employees involved in corruption. Furthermore, an extra-territorial tribunal has no authority to rule on whether a nation’s internal laws are valid or not. Nor can an international court determine the authority of a domestic institution. As is the case with any decision made in an international court, Venezuela, a member of the IACHR, underwent a thorough process of review of the ruling to determine whether or not it was in compliance with Venezuelan law. As a result, the Constitutional Review Board of Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice, determined this week that the IACHR’s decision in this case was “unenforceable” because it contradicted Venezuelan law.
In response to the IACHR’s decision and the Supreme Tribunal ruling rendering it null and void, Attorney General Carlos Escarra commented, “We [the Venezuelan government and judicial system] are aware of the international treaties and agreements that we have signed...Venezuela is a country that respects these accords, but at the same time, we can’t implement rulings that go against our constitution”. “One of the fundamental principles of our state is ensuring our officials act ethically when serving the public. Someone [such as Lopez] who has violated ethics while in public administration can’t manage public funds”, Escarra said. “We can’t leave the vulture looking after the meat”, he added in reference to Lopez. Further, last month Escarra said that allowing an IACHR decision to override Venezuela’s judicial authorities would “unarm” the country’s fight against corruption. Various Venezuelan authorities have also complained that the IACHR is biased against the country’s current government. President Hugo Chavez accused the court of hypocrisy, and highlighted that the body had remained silent during the 2002 coup d’etat against his government during which time a brief dictatorship was installed that dissolved Venezuela’s democratic institutions. German Saltron, Venezuela’s representative to the IACHR, stated that whereas the Chavez government had received 58 politcally-motivated accusations of human rights violations, with little or no solid evidence, from the IACHR since 1998, only 6 were brought against the Venezuelan state between 1967 and 1998; figures which Saltron cites as indicative of the international court’s bias. CORRUPTION In 2005, 271 Venezuelans, including Lopez, were temporarily banned from holding public office due to charges of corruption or administrative irregularities such as misuse of public funds.
According to Venezuela’s current Comptroller General, Adelina Gonzalez, 1,300 public officials have been sanctioned and prohibited from holding office for different corrupt acts during the past 11 years. Venezuela, a nation with a nasty history of corruption, is fighting hard to eradicate this harmful practice from its public institutions and national culture. Leopoldo Lopez is just one of more than one thousand public officials caught in the act and sanctioned for corruption. Mainstream media have portrayed the decision against Lopez as a form of political repression, yet the sanctions against Lopez have no evident political motivation. Furthermore, there is no reason why Lopez should receive “special treatment” from the Venezuelan or international courts, merely because he comes from one of Venezuela’s most economically powerful families, the Mendozas. On Wednesday, Mark Toner, spokesman for the US State Department urged the Venezuelan government to adhere to the IACHR’s decision on the Lopez case. Ironically, the US is not a member of the IACHR or any international court as it refuses to submit to jurisdiction beyond its own borders. Venezuelan journalist Miguel Angel Perez commented that “Lopez is a ready-made smokescreen created Washington-style through the use of the InterAmerican Court on Human Rights so as to bulk-up the list of arguments against Venezuela in the face of possible diplomatic, military, economic, judicial and or any type of intervention”. LOPEZ TO RUN, DISREGARDS SUPREME COURT Lopez announced Wednesday that he “can and will be a presidential candidate” if he wins the opposition primaries in February. He argued that the “people would decide” and said he would continue his tour around the country, “bringing the proposal of peace, well being, and progress”. While he is barred from exercising public office he is not barred from running in elections. However, it’s unclear whether Venezuelans would choose to elect a candidate who clearly disregards the autonomy, independence and authority of the nation’s highest court.
NoÊnÈÊUÊFriday, October 21, 2011
The artillery of ideas
Politics
|
3|
US presidential candidates attack Chavez as campaign strategy; say god made US an empire I
n response to recent statements made by US presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Minister of Foreign Affairs Nicolas Maduro labeled the Republican candidate one of the most “absurd” and “fascist” of the right-wing politicians currently engaged in US presidential primaries. The comments came after Romney, who currently leads most Republican Party polls, threatened to use a presidential victory to “launch a campaign” against what he called the “material and moral bankruptcy” of “the Venezuelan and Cuban model” and force change on the “anti-American visions of regimes” including the government of Venezuela’s democraticallyelected socialist President. Right-wing commentators in the United States also recently suggested that the Venezuelan leader was “financing” a wave of growing anti-capitalist demonstrations taking place across the US and Europe, citing participation by Eva Golinger, Correo del Orinoco International’s Editor in Chief, as proof. ROMNEY: “GOD’S” PLAN DOESN’T INCLUDE A MULTI-POLAR WORLD At a recent fundraiser held in the historically conservative state of South Carolina, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney blamed US President Barack Obama and a handful of world leaders, including Venezuela´s Chavez, for the dwindling US presence in global political and economic affairs. After declaring, “God did not create this country (US) to be a nation of followers”, Romney decried the growing role played by China and Russia in the development of a multipolar world with independent regional forces that include, for example, Venezuela and Iran. According to Romney, the United States is “not destined to be one of several equally balanced global powers” but instead, “must lead the world” so as to prevent the consolidation of viable alternatives to US hegemony.
Referring specifically to Venezuela, the multi-millionaire turned politician told supporters that “the malign socialism of Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, in tight alliance with the malign socialism of Castro’s Cuba” represents a threat to “prospects of democracy” for people in Latin America and the Caribbean. If elected, Romney said, he would “launch a campaign to advance economic opportunity in Latin America, and contrast the benefits of democracy, free trade, and free enterprise against the material and moral bankruptcy of the Venezuelan and Cuban model”. While the global economic downturn has certainly affected the Venezuelan economy, public policies aimed at assuring people’s basic needs are met have helped secure repeated electoral victories for the socialist government of Venezuela’s Chavez in power since 1998. In the case of Cuba, five decades of unilaterally-imposed US sanctions have been unable to break popular support for the socialist revolution led by Fidel and Raul Castro (1959 - ). Though US sanctions have taken their toll on the Cuban economy, especially during the post-USSR 1990´s, the Cuban people continue to enjoy one of the highest standards of livings in the Global South. While Romney provided no details to back his anti-Venezuela and Cuba claims, he did say his campaign against “the
anti-American visions of regimes in Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba” would focus on controlling Russia and China, two countries he described as “rising nations with hidden and emerging aspirations”. According to Romney, “only American (US) power” is capable of providing “the foundation of an international system that ensures the security and prosperity of the United States and our friends and allies around the world”. Before serving as Governor of Massachusetts (2003- 2007), Romney spent most of his professional career as a consultant to private business firms. Involved in numerous leveraged buyouts and other speculative practices, Romney is said to have accrued over $200 million in assets before beginning his life in politics. The Republican candidate is also an active member of the Mormon Church, a US-based Christian group founded in 1830 by U.S.-born “prophet” Joseph Smith Jr. VENEZUELA RESPONDS Responding to the verbal attacks issued by the right-wing candidate, Venezuela´s Chavez questioned what he called “the arrogance to say that God created the United States so the United States can rule the world”. “I was reading about the US elections the other day, about this Republican candidate (Romney)”, said Chavez.
“Obama is going down quickly and now the right-wing is threatening to enter”, the White House, he explained, “and that crazy man (Romney) might end up President of the United States, in elections that are just after ours”. Presidential elections in Venezuela and the United States are scheduled for October 7 and November 6, 2012, respectively. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro also responded to the unfounded attacks, affirming that Romney belongs to growing “fascist currents within the extreme right-wing” of US society. Since the election of Barack Obama, the first black US president, membership in extreme right-wing groups including the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) has surged. Neo-liberal sectors of US society have also partnered up with their Christian fundamentalist base to consolidate the Republican Party’s most conservative wing, known commonly as the Tea Party. “These are the right-wing fascist tendencies that exist in the US, the ones we have continuously warned about, the same ones that maintain links to the Venezuelan right”, explained Maduro. Describing as “absolute madness” Romney’s use of religion to justify US global dominance, Maduro countered with the assertion that the only ones “predestined by God to be free” are “the peoples of the world”. RIGHT-WING BLAMES CHAVEZ FOR WALL STREET PROTESTS On October 15th, just a month after US activists launched the Occupy Wall Street Movement, hundreds of thousands of people in over 1,500 cities worldwide marched against the economic injustice associated with global capitalism. Unwilling to accept the legitimate concerns of a critical populace, right-wing commentators have suggested Venezuela is somehow backing the protests. Last month, after hundreds of anti-capitalist protestors were beaten and detained in
New York City, the Venezuelan President denounced what he said was “a horrible repression” and told reporters that more protests should be expected because in the US “poverty is growing, the misery is getting worse”. In response to Chavez´s statements, the right-wing Heritage Foundation´s Ray Walser wrote that “Hugo Chavez hates Wall Street, ground zero for `savage capitalism´” and that the Venezuelan President “dreams of bear markets bringing the US economy crashing down”. “He certainly likes the Occupy Wall Street movement” wrote Walser, who described the protests as “tailor-made for advancing Chavez-style `participatory democracy´”. Since Chavez “hates Wall Street,” Walser argued, it was no surprise to see Correo del Orinoco International Editorin-Chief Eva Golinger at the street protests. Golinger, he said, “has apparently joined forces with the anti–Wall Street protest movement, gleefully reporting back to Venezuela news of growing disorder, imminent class struggle, and sinking capitalism in the US”. Criticizing her for exercising her right to free speech, Walser went as far as to claim that “her presence” at peaceful protests held in New York last week was “a reminder of the consistent, well-financed efforts on the part of Chavez and company to stir the `anti-capitalist´ pot abroad while isolating the domestic, democratic opposition in Venezuela”. Following Romney’s lead, Walser failed to provide any concrete evidence to back his claims*. *Editor’s Note: There is no evidence of President Chavez funding the Occupy Wall Street protests or funding my presence at the protests in New York, because it’s not true. As a US citizen, I retain my rights to free speech and assembly. This newspaper is not run, directed, supervised or funded by President Chavez. Correo del Orinoco is an autonomous foundation.
|
4 | Economy
NoÊnÈÊUÊFriday, October 21, 2011
The artillery of ideas
Transforming food production through Agropatria & Mission AgroVenezuela T/ COI P/ Agencies
S
ince Venezuela nationalized the agricultural supplies giant Agroisleña and turned it into the state-owned Agropatria one year ago, the number of farmers served by the company has almost tripled and the number of supply outlets has increased by two thirds, according to Agropatria’s annual balance sheet. In 2009, Agroisleña provided services to 145,000 producers. In contrast, in the first eight months of 2011 Agropatria provided services to 317,000 producers. That number is projected to rise to 475,752 by the end of this year, the balance sheet shows. Agropatria also extended its services to isolated and previously ignored towns by setting up 130 small-scale mobile stores that have served 13,086 farmers in remote locations, often beyond the grid of paved roads and power lines. The state-owned company increased its total number of agricultural supply stores from 64 to 106, and increased its distribution fleet from 135 units to 228 units. Consistent with the govern ment’s policy of respecting workers’ rights, Agropatria also incorporated onto its official payroll 892 workers – nearly a third of the company’s workforce – who had previously been nonunionized contract laborers under Agroisleña. COMMUNAL AGROPATRIA According to Carlos Casanova, regional coordinator of Agropatria, the state-owned company will step up its efforts at social inclusion in the coming months by opening 80 new “Communal Agropatrias” nation-wide. These outlets will be self-managed by communal councils, producers’ networks, small farmer organizations, and communes, which are integrated groups of communal councils. These stores will help Agropatria fulfill its mission of providing agricultural inputs at affordable prices without profit-driven intermediaries,
while promoting ecologically sustainable products that are appropriate to local geography, Casanova asserted. “Agropatria brings a new focus on promoting agroecology through the policy of integral management of crops”, said Casanova. “We have opened a new line of ecological bio-inputs with the goal of advancing the construction of a new agricultural paradigm, breaking the old schemes that only promoted the excessive use of agro-toxins”. Agroisleña was nationalized in October 2010 on the basis that it purchased goods at stateregulated prices and sold them to farmers at inflated prices, and that it received low-interest loans issued by the government and then re-issued them to farmers at speculative rates. Farmer rights organizations compared the company to the US-based Monsanto, accusing it of monopolizing seed production and making farmers dependent on toxic fertilizers. TRANSFORMING AGRICULTURE Just three months after the creation of Agropatria, in January 2011, President Hugo Chavez launched Mission Agro Venezuela to manage the transition from a profit-driven, exploitative food production system to one based on solidarity among producers, sustainable cultivation of a variety of regional crops and participatory decision-making.
According to Jose Guerrero, regional coordinator for Mission Agro Venezuela, the mission’s strategy is to first purchase idle lands from large estate owners and transfer these lands to collectively organized farmers. Then it coordinates training and low-interest financing for networks of farmers – not individuals – and provides these groups with low-cost fertilizers, irrigation materials, and other supplies through Agropatria. And, it assists in developing distribution networks with the aim of creating “Venezuela’s own model of production”. “We are in the tropics. We have to move away from the Anglo-Saxon food system that was established in South America, a model based on four seasons that do not occur here. That model is totally contrary to our own. We also need to substitute agro-toxins for sustainable agricultural inputs”, Guerrero told Correo del Orinoco International. The ultimate goal, Guerrero said, is food sovereignty – the country’s ability to autonomously satisfy 100% of its food needs. One of the main challenges to achieving this goal is the arduous process of “constructing new social relations of production”, Guerrero said. “What will be the relationship between those who produce and those who consume? What will be the relationship between the
industry and the producers, and in whose hands will the means of production lie – in a few hands or in the collective, with all the people?” Guerrero commented. To spur this process of transformation, the government has designated particular areas where the farmers are especially well-organized to be “motor districts”, providing an example and helping to promote the new model of production in other parts of the country. EIGHT MONTHS OF ACHIEVEMENTS In step with Agropatria, Mission Agro Venezuela also released a public record of its achievements since its inception eight months ago. “Thanks to the Grand Mission Agro Venezuela, as of today more than 300,000 producers have been attended to in different programs, of which 170,000 have received one of a variety of finance plans”, reported Ricardo Sanchez, president of the national Fund for Socialist Agrarian Development (FONDAS), on the national radio station RNV. These plans include 105,000 credits granted by FONDAS and the state-owned Agrarian Bank of Venezuela; 14,000 credits for machinery, tractors, and other harvesting tools; and the free provision of services such as immunizations for cattle, irrigation systems, and assistance in pest control.
Approximately 775,000 hectares (1.9 million acres) of land have been put into cultivation of corn, rice, soy, sunflower, green leafy vegetables, sugar cane, coffee, cacao, chicken, eggs, pork, milk, lamb, beef, fish, tuna, and shrimp, Sanchez said. Juan Carlos Jimenez, president of the state-run Venezuelan Food Corporation (CVAL), reported that the government has purchased one million tons of food from small and mediumsized farms in the states of Lara, Zulia, Tachira, and Trujillo, helping to spur local production. Additionally, Venezuela has signed 55 international cooperation agreements that include the transfer of technological expertise, intellectual property, and machinery, with the aim of empowering Venezuelan producers and reducing dependency. Jimenez made the comments during an agricultural conference titled “Who are we and where are we going?” that was held in the largely rural state of Lara in commemoration of World Food Day last weekend. URBAN AGRICULTURE Meanwhile, another government institution called the Foundation for Training and Innovation to Support the Agrarian Revolution (CIARA), announced it would launch a new campaign to promote urban agriculture. “Urban agriculture is an alternative in the cities, to take advantage of those under-utilized spaces in order to produce foods that are free of agrotoxins”, said CIARA President Martha Bolivar. “Let’s plant seeds in our own spaces, produce our own foods, get information in the Agriculture and Land Ministry... and make the urban agriculture explosion”. Bolivar said food produced in urban areas could be consumed by its producers or commercialized in urban communities in Venezuela’s largest cities, including Caracas, Maracay, Valencia, Maracaibo, San Cristobal, Puerto la Cruz, La Guaira, and Barcelona. On World Food Day, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that in the context of the world economic crisis, the number of people going hungry on the planet has increased to one billion – almost one out of every seven human beings.
NoÊnÈÊUÊFriday, October 21, 2011
The artillery of ideas
Integration
Venezuela and Peru pledge to strengthen bilateral relations T/ COI P/ Agencies
V
enezuela and Peru took a further step towards strengthening bilateral relations last Friday when Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro arrived in Lima for an official visit that saw the solidification of preferential trade deals as well as the formulation of new education, security and immigration accords. Maduro was received by Peruvian President Ollanta Humala upon his arrival at the Government Palace in the capital, where he met with the head of state for nearly two hours and expressed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s willingness to further build relations between the two South American nations. “[President Chavez] asked us to ratify his respect, recognition and immense desire to continue advancing an agenda that will allow us to update ourselves for the 21st century… an agenda that will advance the concrete construction of development for both countries”, Maduro said. Following his encounter with Humala and Foreign Minister Rafael Roncagliolo, a joint declaration was released by the two diplomats which enumerated the advances made by the nations in areas of common interest. Referring to the dialogue as “frank and fruitful”, the declaration lists 20 points of mutual agreement in sectors ranging from the stimulation of small business initiatives and job
creation to the fight against poverty and social exclusion. Key among these themes is the renewal of a series of temporary tariff preferences intended to promote economic and social development through the strengthening of bilateral commerce. This temporary arrangement will continue to be honored, the Ministers informed, for a period of 90 days until a new agreement, currently under negotiation, comes into effect. The new agreement, officials report, is intended to form part of the Montevideo Treaty of 1980 and will replace a series of trade relations nullified following Venezuela’s departure from the Andean Community (CAN) alliance in 2006. As a long-term accord, the new pact will “have as its goal the granting of preferential and reciprocal tariffs applicable to the importation of products
originating from both parties”, a joint statement reads. Telesur reports that Peruvian exports to Venezuela between January and August of this year accounted for $489 million – an 82 percent increase in trade from 2010. According to Foreign Minister Maduro that figure could reach over $600 million by the end of the year. “We’re going to take measures to guarantee our bilateral commerce and stimulate it even more”, the Venezuelan diplomat said last Friday. “With a well organized and targeted stimulus, we could even double [bilateral trade]. So what we have is good news for the productive sectors of both countries”, Maduro stated. In addition to trade pacts, the two countries also agreed last week to re-initiate and strengthen their cooperation in
Caracas Youth Symphony Orchestra tours Asia T/ Agencies his Friday, the world-acclaimed Caracas Youth Symphony Orchestra embarked on an international tour in Asia
with a repertoire of Latin American and universal music. The National Center of Performing Arts of Beijing, China's capital, will host the first presentation of the Venezuelan
orchestra, which will perform Symphony No. 3 with organ by French composer Camille Saint-Saens; and Symphony No. 10, by Russian Dimitri Shostakovich.
|
5|
GROWING TIES Relations between Peru and Venezuela have been growing steadily since the election of Ollanta Humala to the presidency last June. Upon winning his election, the Peruvian head of state visited Caracas to reaffirm his support for his Venezuelan coun-
terpart and re-establish ties between the two governments after a period of strained relations resulting from the 5-year term of Humala’s conservative predecessor, Alan Garcia. On Friday, Foreign Minister Maduro dismissed efforts of right-wing elements in Peru that have attempted to criticize the growing relationship between Lima and Caracas. “We’re sister nations. There will always be campaigns to demonize us and this relationship… We know these kind of campaigns but the friendship between our people will not be undone by anyone – no lies nor manipulation will be able to stain the love that we have for Peru and the love that we feel from the Peruvian people”, Maduro declared. As such, Venezuela’s highest diplomat confirmed a coming meeting between both Humala and Chavez before the end of the year. This meeting will most likely take place under the auspices of the Third Summit on Latin American and Caribbean Development and Integration, set for December 2 and 3 in Caracas. As part of this meeting, the solidification of a new regional alliance, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), will play a prominent role. The CELAC, an integrationist initiative spearheaded by Venezuela, is set to unite more than 30 countries in the Western hemisphere under the banner of regional cooperation and will exclude both the United States and Canada from participation. The first meeting of CELAC, scheduled for July 5 of this year in conjunction with Venezuela’s bicentennial independence celebrations, was postponed due to the President Hugo Chavez’s recovery from a cancerous tumor discovered in his pelvic area in mid-June.
The Caracas Youth Symphony Orchestra will continue its journey on October 25 at the Center of the Arts in Seoul, South Korea, where it will offer a concert with the Youth Symphony Orchestra of the host nation with pieces by Ludwig van Beethoven. On Wednesday, October 26, they will close the tour at Ewha University, performing compositions by Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Latin American mu-
sicians Arturo Marquez and Alberto Ginastera. The Caracas Youth Symphony Orchestra is comprised of 170 young musicians between 14 and 25-years old and is currently directed by maestro Dietrich Paredes. Last month, the Orchestra was applauded by the public in Norway during the first Bergen International Festival and in the Academy of Music in Oslo.
tourism, culture, energy, and the fight against drugs. “We’re going to activate, after 6 years, our mixed commission dealing with anti-drug efforts and we’re going to sign an accord which addresses cultural goods in order to protect the cultural patrimony of both countries”, the Foreign Minister stated. With respect to immigration, the two South American nations agreed to collaborate in the legal regularization of Peruvians in Venezuela, the number of which currently reaches 150,000. Both governments “[r]ecognize the contributions that migrants play in development and the need for their rights to be adequately promoted and protected through policies that favor their productive inclusion in the country hosting them”, the joint declaration read. Likewise, both governments “expressed their willingness to initiate negotiations regarding an agreement on social security that would permit migrant workers to have access to the rights and benefits that correspond to their institutional contributions to social security under the laws of both countries”.
|
6 | Social Justice
NoÊnÈÊUÊFriday, October 21, 2011
The artillery of ideas
Venezuela: Turning jails into schools T/ COI P/ Agencies
M
oving forward with prison reform at the national level, Venezuelan Minister for Penitentiary Services, Iris Varela, announced this week the implementation of a prisoner survey designed to uncover unnecessary hangups in the legal system and relieve strains on the inmate population. The survey forms part of the ministry’s strategy to humanize prisons in the South American nation by eliminating overcrowding and provide meaningful rehabilitation opportunities to those serving time. Crucial to this reform is the effective and efficient execution of judicial proceedings which many times fall victim to the excessive bureaucracy of Venezuela’s legal system. “There is a lot of optimism and hope around the idea that judicial processes are accelerated”, the Minister said during a visit to the Tocuyito Prison in the state of Carabobo. Thus far, some 21,000 prisoners have responded to the survey which began on October 1 and will run until December 2. “The objective is to ease the congestion of the penitentiaries, dismantle the mafias
and promote appropriate prison conditions so we can convert the jails into schools for training and education”, she explained. PLAN TO DISARM PRISONS During an interview on the program Jose Vicente Today broadcast by private television station Televen on Sunday, Minister Varela also spoke of a new plan currently in the works to put an end to the possession of illegal arms by inmate populations. Referring to the groups of organized crime that have seized control of certain sectors of
the penitentiary system, Valera spoke of the political interests that lie behind many of the issues currently plaguing the prisons. “These mafias exist thanks to even more dangerous mafias that operate from the outside. Those who say that we need to privatize the prisons are involved in this business”, the Minister accused. In order to attack this problem, Varela explained, the ties between external and internal mafias need to be severed and prisoners need to be offered a humanistic alternati-
NO OVERNIGHT SOLUTIONS Venezuela’s Ministry for Penitentiary Services was created in June of this year after an uprising in the Rodeo II prison brought national attention to the state of the country’s correctional facilities. Neglected for decades by previous governments, Venezuela’s prisons have suffered from chronic overcrowding and have operated in many ways as a microcosm of the organized criminal activity present in the country’s largest cities.
The current administration of President Hugo Chavez has attempted to improve conditions for the more than 40,000 inmates around the country by writing prisoners’ rights into the nation’s constitution for the first time and creating educational, recreational and artistic programs for the incarcerated. Yet despite these efforts, the problem of prison overcrowding and corruption within the system continues to be a problem. On Sunday, Varela described the need for a willingness on the part of both the inmates and the government to find answers to the issues still affecting the prisons. “A transformation of the penitentiary system will not be achieved if those incarcerated are not willing to accept a process of change”, she stated. The Minister also reiterated the lack of a magic bullet solution to the problem and reiterated the fact that true reform will take time to implement. “There are those that are expecting a chronic problem to be solved in 2 months. This is irresponsible”, she said, pointing out that a vast majority of those critical of the penitentiary system have never even stepped inside the visiting area of a prison. “It’s easy to have an opinion about something when you don’t know the issues and only listen to what the mafias want you to know. Many times they’re painting a picture of reality that doesn’t exist”, she said
cessful meeting in Durban”, he said. The countries in general will take advantage of opportunities for cooperation ahead of the conference in Durban (November 28 to December 10), in order to strengthen the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. ALBA is a regional alliance of Latin American and Caribbean countries focused on the fight against poverty and social exclusion.
T h e Group of 77 (G-77) was initially made up by 77 countries, but it was increased to 130 member nations. The G-77 makes joint statements on specific issues and coordinates a cooperation program in the areas of trade, industry, food, agriculture, energy, raw materials, finance and monetary issues.
ve to criminal activity rooted in employment and productive opportunities. “Inside the penitentiaries there is a human potential that is willing to work… When you speak to inmates about a plan for them to have work when they gain their freedom, they become filled with jubilation”, she said. To provide these jobs, Varela informed, her ministry is currently in conversations with the state-owned telecommunications company Cantv and the government’s National Institute of Socialist Training and Education to put 3,000 prisoners to work following the successful completion of their sentence. “Work redeems. The plan that we have consists of work and study”, she affirmed.
ALBA countries and G-77 call for stronger UN climate accords T&P/ Agencies
M
ember countries of ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas), the Group of 77 (G-77) and the African Union will bring a common proposal aimed to strengthen existing accords on climate change to the battleground over this topic at the UN conference in Durban, South Africa, later this year. During a preparatory meeting in Panama this week, these groups developed a document outlining a common position,
describing areas of unity and specific agendas, according to a press release by Venezuela’s Ministry of the Environment. One of their key demands is that industrialized countries assume more ambitious greenhouse gas reduction commitments during the second period of the Kyoto Protocol, which begins in 2013. Claudia Salerno, chief of delegation for Venezuela, said on behalf of ALBA countries: “We call on all developed nations to close the gap on two issues in Durban: the mitigation gap by
reducing emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, and the gap on financing by offering longterm financial support for emissions reductions beginning in 2013”. For his part, Chair of the African Group of Negotiators for Climate Change, Tosi Mpanu Mpanu of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said that a table cannot have two legs. “We are doing our part. We need to move forward on the issue of financing to combat climate change and reduce emissions by developed countries in order to have a suc-
NoÊnÈÊUÊFriday, October 21, 2011
The artillery of ideas
Analysis
Sleeping in barrios: The venezuelan opposition in a class of Its own T/ Rachael Boothroyd www.venezuelanalysis.com
D
espite the fact that he still had a possible ban from holding public office hanging over his head, presidential hopeful Leopoldo Lopez chose to take his lead from the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights last Sunday and get started on his electoral campaign. In an all-out assault on the senses, an informally dressed Lopez set about his “The Best Venezuela” tour by rubbing shoulders with a group of working class fisherman and beating the drum of democracy as loudly as humanly possible. The opposition candidate for the “Popular Will” party had pledged to travel to “each corner of Venezuela” over the next few weeks in order to “listen to the people”. As opposition spectacles go, it did not disappoint. Without a hint of irony, Lopez brazenly declared to the world that he would “use oil for wellbeing and progress and to eradicate extreme poverty”. “It is immoral and incoherent that there is so much poverty, zinc roofs, areas without basic services where children are exposed to rubbish and illness, on this ground which produces the best riches thanks to oil...that is a reality that we are going to change, that is not ‘The Best Venezuela!’” chimed the millionaire Harvard graduate. If that is the best campaign that millions of dollars worth of USAID funding can buy, I can only assume that there must be some serious hand-wringing going on in Washington. Still, if charismatic public speaking isn’t Lopez’s strong point, you have to admire his sheer audacity. Having stolen 60 million bolivars from PSVSA and donating it to his own political party in 1998, misappropriating public funds during his time as Mayor of Chacao and taking part in an illegal and violent coup against the democratically elected president in 2002, you think he’d be a little more humble with regards to the topic of upholding human rights and democracy.
Nevertheless, Lopez assures us that, given the chance, he will “build a Venezuela where rights are for all”. Lopez’s moment in the limelight was cut short, however, as the Venezuelan Supreme Court Justice released a proverbial rain over his parade: the ban preventing him from holding public office would be upheld: pressure from Washington or no pressure from Washington. Apart from the accusations of “flagrant human rights violations” that this move will undoubtedly provoke, the verdict makes very little real difference to the up-and-coming 2012 elections. Lopez is not the favorite opposition candidate and there are plenty of other presidential hopefuls who are willing to cavort with fisherman they have never met or cared about before in order to get a slice of the electoral pie. However, Lopez’s ephemeral political campaign is interesting for a number of reasons, not least its comedy value. Lopez’s constant references to the “people”, “excluded sectors” and using oil for “the well-being of all” is incredibly revealing of the opposition’s electoral strategy.
Having tried an array of tactics, from coups and boycotting elections to ridiculing Chávez, (and by proxy, millions of Venezuelans) the opposition has added a shrewder political tactic to its repertoire: simply regurgitating the rhetoric used by the Revolution. In fact, according to Lopez, who comes from one of the wealthiest families in Venezuela, when he wasn’t ferreting away public funds to unknown destinations during his time as mayor, he was busy promoting “popular networks”, which bear an astounding similarity to the Revolution’s communal councils. Lopez defines these networks as “a model of community organization which is orientated towards promoting social and political participation for your rights and in search of solutions to community problems”. Keen to present themselves as an alternative to the “traditional politics” of the Fourth Republic, opposition candidates are currently busy stressing their links to unions, youths and “grassroots organizations” to any media outlets willing to listen. Yet this isn’t just your typical political showmanship, the latest opposition
strategy is a manifestation of how the Revolution has radicalized the political landscape in Venezuela and changed the national consciousness. Politics in Venezuela is no longer just something which takes place between men in suits at the National Assembly, but is a collective enterprise staged everyday in public spaces; it is a concept that has been re-appropriated and re-invented by the popular sectors, who are simultaneously democratizing and revolutionizing their socio-cultural surroundings. Faced with this new political dynamic, the right has been forced to wage its political campaign by engaging in action on traditionally leftist terms, by staging “demonstrations”, forming “social movements” and attempting to assert their presence in non-traditional political spheres in order to keep up with the Revolution. THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES Chirping the words “alternative democracy” and “grassroots social movements” with nauseating regularity doesn’t seem to be fooling the majority of Venezuelans. A recent GIS XXI poll placed Chávez’s approval rating at 58% (cue more hand-wringing in Washington) and opposition favorite, Capriles Radonski at only 8%. This could be because the opposition aren’t making their case with enough vigor, but I suspect it’s more related to issues of substance vs. rhetoric and the minor problem of collective memory. Not only are the opposition still associated with the repressive and neo-liberal politics of the Fourth Republic, but they are quite simply and inescapably viewed as Venezuela’s corrupt elite. For all their different strategies, the opposition has consistently failed to grasp that the Bolivarian Revolution has squarely placed the longavoided issues of class and class struggle at the heart of Venezuelan politics. Unfortunately, the opposition represent the
|
7| wrong interests, no matter how many barrio kids they kiss. A classic example of this kind of strategy gone horribly wrong is the case of Eduardo Fernandez, who pledged to spend a night in the barrios during his 1988 electoral campaign to show his “humility” to the Venezuelan electorate. The contrived and patronizing nature of the stunt (and some rumors even allege that he spent the night in his bullet-proof limousine) just emphasized the gaping class schism between Fernandez and the majority of Venezuelans. There is one aspect, however, where the opposition may have finally got it right. In an interview with Venezuelan newspaper Diario el Tiempo, Carlos Vecchio, the head of Lopez’s election campaign, commented, “With this process (the Bolivarian Revolution), we have learned what democracy is really worth”. With this statement, Vecchio may have unwittingly captured the global mood. As hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets in Spain, New York, London and many other countries, the issue of direct democracy and citizen participation has never been more relevant - the role of democracy in the struggle against capitalism, the need to wrest the actual concept of democracy from the liberal mantra of “free and fair elections” and reinvent it from below. Although this process is underway in Venezuela, it is still nowhere near complete. Bureaucracy and corruption still remain the biggest obstacles to the implementation of a veritable socialist project. Yet the content for this sui generis revolutionary process comes from the popular sectors which create it, and the hope for the future of the Revolution lies heavily within the ability of these sectors to keep reconstituting and reasserting this creative role through the democratic tools they have honed throughout the revolutionary process. The only hope for the opposition, however, is that Venezuelans are suddenly afflicted by a collective bout of amnesia. For the moment, it seems that they are just doomed to continually getting it wrong and constantly wondering why the answers still elude them. After all, there are some things that not even a private education at Harvard can teach.
ENGLISH EDITION The artillery of ideas
Friday | October 21, 2011 | NÂş 86 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve
A publication of the Fundacion Correo del OrinocoĂŠUĂŠ `ÂˆĂŒÂœĂ€Â‡ÂˆÂ˜Â‡ …ˆivĂŠEva GolingerĂŠUĂŠ Ă€>ÂŤÂ…ÂˆVĂŠ iĂƒÂˆ}Â˜ĂŠAlexander UzcĂĄtegui, Jameson JimĂŠnezĂŠUĂŠ*Ă€iĂƒĂƒĂŠFundaciĂłn Imprenta de la Cultura
‡Ê ˆ`iÂ?ĂŠ >ĂƒĂŒĂ€Âœ
T
here was a time when Venezuela was an ally of the US empire and the country where Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch carried out their plans for the brutal inight bombing of a Cuban plane that caused the death and disappearance of all people aboard, including the youth fencing team that had just won all the gold medals at the Central-American and Caribbean Championships held in Venezuela. With the Pan-American Games underway in Guadalajara, we remember them with great sadness. It was not the Venezuela of Romulo Gallegos and Andres Eloy Blanco but that of the scoundrel, traitor and venomous Romulo Betancourt. A man who was jealous of the Cuban Revolution and who, as an ally of the imperialists, cooperated so much with their attacks against our homeland. At the time Venezuela was an oil property of the United States and, after Miami, represented the epicenter for counterrevolutionary actions against Cuba. History recalls how Venezuela played a significant role in the imperialist attack on Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs), the economic blockade and countless other crimes against our people. It was the beginning of the dark ages in Venezuela that came to an end when Hugo Chavez was sworn in on the “dying constitutionâ€? held in the trembling hands of former President Rafael Caldera. Forty years had passed since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution and more than a century since the Yankee plundering of Venezuela’s oil, natural resources and sweat. Many Venezuelans died amidst the ignorance and misery imposed by US and European gunboats! Fortunately the other Venezuela exists, the Venezuela of Bolivar and Miranda, of Sucre and of a legion of brilliant leaders and thinkers who were able to conceive that great Latin American homeland of which we feel a part of and for which we have resisted aggres-
Ă€i>Â“ĂƒĂŠÂœvĂŠ-ÂœVˆ>Â?ĂŠ Ă•ĂƒĂŒÂˆVi
The two Venezuelas
sions and blockades for more than half a century. â€œâ€ŚSo that Cuba’s independence will prevent the expansion of the United States throughout the Antilles, allowing that nation to fall, ever more powerfully, upon our American lands. Everything I have done, everything I will do, is toward this endâ€?, wrote the apostle of our independence Jose Marti the day before he died in combat. Included among us today is Hugo Chavez who is visiting a part of that great Latin American and Caribbean homeland envisioned by Simon BolĂvar. Hugo Chavez understands better than anybody the Jose Marti principal that â€œâ€Śwhat Bolivar left undone, is still undone today. Bolivar has things yet to do in Americaâ€?. I spoke with him at length yesterday and today. I told him about the great passion with
which I dedicate the energy I have left to the dreams of a better and more just world. It is not difďŹ cult to share dreams with the Bolivarian leader when the empire is already
showing unequivocal signs of a terminal illness. Saving humanity from an irreversible disaster is something that today may be compromised by the stupidity of
any of those mediocre presidents who in the most recent decades have led that empire or by one of those increasingly powerful leaders of the industrial military complex that rules the destiny of that country. Friendly nations that have become increasingly important in the world economy —given their economic and technological advances and their condition as permanent members of the Security Council, such as the Popular Republic of China and the Russian Federation, along with the peoples of the so-called Third World in Asia, Africa and Latin America— could achieve this goal. The peoples of the developed and rich nations, increasingly sucked dry by their own ďŹ nancial oligarchies, are also starting to play a role in this battle for human survival. Meanwhile, the Bolivarian people of Venezuela are organizing themselves and uniting to challenge and defeat the sickening oligarchy at the service of the empire that once again is attempting to take over the government of this country. Venezuela, given its extraordinary educational, cultural and social developments, and its vast energy and natural resources, is called on to become a revolutionary model for the world. Chavez, who came out of the ranks of the Venezuelan Army, is methodical and tireless. I have observed him over the course of 17 years, since his ďŹ rst visit to Cuba. He is an extremely humanitarian and law-abiding person; he has never taken revenge on anybody. The most humble and forgotten sectors of his country are profoundly grateful to him that for the ďŹ rst time in history there is a response to their dreams of social justice. Hugo —I told him—, I clearly see that in a very short time the Bolivarian Revolution will create jobs, not only for the Venezuelan people, but also for their Colombian brothers, a hardworking people, who fought along with you for the independence of America, and of whom 40 percent live in poverty; a signiďŹ cant portion of them in extreme poverty.