English Edition Nº 96

page 7 | Analysis

page 8 | Opinion

The lawless lawyer: An expose of Venezuelan opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski

Declassified documents show US army sought radiation to kill cold war leaders

Friday | January 6, 2012 | Nº 96 | Caracas

Venezuela takes win in case against Exxon An international arbitration court has issued a favorable ruling for Venezuela’s stateowned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (Pdvsa), after US oil giant Exxon sued for over $12 billion.

Exxon sought the damages after the Venezuelan government nationalized an oil resource rich area of the country where Exxon had invested $750 million.

Exxon was one of just two companies, together with US corporation Conoco Phillips, that refused to abide by the new government regulations after the Orinoco’s reserves were nationalized, despite generous state offerings to keep the foreign investors in place.

Companies from Europe, Asia and the Middle East have happily maintained their investments in Venezuela. | page 4

ENGLISH EDITION The artillery of ideas

2011: A year of great challenges and advances in Venezuela Major progress in housing solutions, poverty reduction, regional integration and infrastructure development was made in 2011, the year that President Hugo Chavez also came up against his most powerful enemy: Cancer

Overcoming economic difficulties and natural disasters, Venezuela sailed through 2011 with an emphasis on social investment, democratic participation and worker’s rights. Latin American integration was also another highlight of 2011 in Venezuela and throughout the region, as the Chavez government hosted the most important historical event in Latin America in 200 years: the founding of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac). President Chavez himself confronted great obstacles this year as he battled with cancer and had to slow down his workload to undergo treatment. But, as the nation rebounded from its crises, so did the Venezuelan head of state, ending the year with a clean bill of health. | pages 2-3

Economy

Venezuela’s GDP to grow in 2012 The South American nation’s GDP grew 4% in 2011 and prospects are even better for this year. | page 4 Social Justice

Housing program achieves goal 144,000 new homes were built in 2011 as part of a public housing program for those in need.| page 5 Social Justice

Simon Bolivar youth orchestra takes the world The dynamic symphony led by acclaimed Gustavo Dudamel has garnered international acclaim.| page 6

Despite global crisis, no rise in unemployment & poverty in Venezuela T/ AVN

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he decline of the global economy didn’t have an important impact on the Venezuelan economy in terms of unemployment and poverty rates. We were able to maintain an employment policy, there was no increase in poverty at all”, said president of the National Institute of Statistics (INE), Elias Eljuri, on Wednesday.

In a televised interview, Eljuri noted that Venezuela’s gross domestic product (GDP), which rose by 4 percent during 2011, was among the country’s achievements, along with preserving employment and reducing poverty and strong policies of social investment aimed at guaranteeing health and education.

“Social investment during this period went from 36 to 62 percent, which was the main

element in ensuring an unemployment rate no more than 8 percent, and we ended this year with about 6 percent”, he explained.

Eljuri stressed that these policies of social investment set Venezuela apart from other economies in the world, such as the US, where unemployment has risen and social benefits have been reduced despite an increase in the GDP.

Alo Presidente returns on Sunday

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enezuelan President Hugo Chavez plans to resume on Sunday his popular weekly radio and television program “Hello President”, which went off the air for seven months after the South American leader was diagnosed with cancer.

The program was broadcast for the last time on June 5 after running almost every Sunday since Chavez became Venezuela’s President in 1999. It is broadcast

by Radio Nacional de Venezuela and state television VTV and other local stations.

Chavez was unable to appear for some of the broadcasts in April and May after flu and a sore knee forced him to stay away from political activity for several weeks.

He halted the broadcasts in June, after undergoing surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in his pelvic region.

Chavez uses the “Hello President” broadcasts as a tool of his government to communicate decisions with the public about his management and development of ideas on different themes. He has run the programs for as long as eight hours at a time. The programs are interactive with live audiences and allow for spontaneous participation from the public.

According to Eljuri, Venezuela’s GDP has tripled in real terms under the current government, jumping from $90 billion to $300 billion.

“The important thing is not only the growth of the economy, but the decrease in inequality, because it’s useless to say that the economy and employment increased while poverty increased, because that would mean that those resources are not reaching sectors they should”, he said.

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2 | Impact

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The artillery of ideas

Venezuela in 2011: A year of great battles and advances Major progress in housing solutions, poverty reduction, regional integration and infrastructure development was made in 2011, the year that President Hugo Chavez also came up against his most powerful enemy: Cancer T/ COI P/ Presidential Press

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he year 2011 was yet another period of important advances for the Venezuelan government and more importantly, the Venezuelan people. A year which started under the pressure of a national emergency ended with the birth of new social programs and the rebirth of a revolutionary movement focused on consolidating its popular power for the next six years.

As the year closes and Venezuela moves into its 13th year with Hugo Chavez as President, it behooves us to reflect on some of the highlights of the past 12 months while drawing attention to the many challenges facing the nation's Bolivarian Revolution into 2012. We begin with the advances.

PUBLIC HOUSING Above all, 2011 will be known as the year of housing in Venezuela. Facing the difficulties of more than 130 thousand people left displaced by torrential rains at the end of 2010, the national government created its most ambitious social program to date Mission Housing Venezuela.

Promising to provide not only rain victims but all Venezuelan residents with an affordable and "dignified" home, the Chavez administration launched its public housing initiative in May and quickly went to work to ensure the construction and financing necessary to put the new "Great Mission" into action.

The program first committed the government to building 2

million homes by 2017, an astounding number that, if not enough, was then augmented to 3 million by 2019. Of course, in order to reach this lofty goal, the Chavez administration must dedicate a massive amount of public resources to the program and boost its national production to meet the demands of its expanding housing market.

The government's executive Housing Commission has been busy building a coalition made up of private businesses, government agencies and international partners to guarantee the feasibility of its nation-wide plan, entering into contractual agreements with domestic and foreign firms to develop the country's natural resources and provide the technical knowledge to meet its goal.

In 2011 Mission Housing Venezuela successfully built more than 144,000 homes and will need to up that pace considerably in subsequent years if it is to achieve three million by 2019. It is also important to point out that each home built under the auspices of the program is subsidized in accordance with a family's size

and income. The homes are not provided “for free”, but rather with subsidized mortgages and down payments that vary per household financial capacity. In some instances, if a family has no possibility of paying an initial percentage of the cost of the home, then the down payment is waived by the state and just the mortgage is assumed.

CHAVEZ’S BIGGEST BATTLE Although Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution has been known for its emphasis on participatory democracy and grassroots politics, Venezuela's decade-long movement away from neo-liberalism and towards socialism is firmly anchored in the presidency of Hugo Chavez. This fact was made soberly clear last June when the head of state informed the nation that a cancerous tumor was removed from his pelvic area during an official visit to Cuba.

The surprising news struck the country with gripping force, stiffing disbelief and unity from the President's base while igniting a flurry of speculation and intrigue in the domestic and international press.

For months onlookers watched as the defiant socialist leader faced his greatest challenge to date, undergoing a series of chemotherapy treatment cycles in Cuba that forced him out of the public eye for weeks at a time.

But as with almost every challenge laid before him over the past decade, Chavez took the disease head on, eschewing the speculative attacks and emerging cancer-free from his treatment in just under five months since the detection of the tumor.

BOLIVAR’S DREAM: LATIN AMERICAN UNITY & THE CELAC On December 2, 2011, a new hemispheric alliance that excludes the United States and Canada was born in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, solidifying the growing movement towards pan-Latin Americanism that has been spreading throughout the region for more than a decade.

The newly formed Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) unites 33-nations together in an integrationist block that will focus its energies on building demo-

cracy and mutually beneficial economic relationships between countries in the region as opposed to answering to US policy interests.

The birth of Celac coincided with Venezuela's bicentennial independence year and is the Chavez's government's most visible manifestation of its commitment to the integrationist dream of Simon Bolivar, the 19th century Caracas-born military leader who is attributed with having freed current day Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, and Bolivia from Spanish rule.

Chavez, who has modeled his "Bolivarian Revolution" after the example of the independence hero, has been an adamant internationalist, signing hundreds of bilateral agreements with allied governments in Latin America and the Caribbean in efforts to fortify regional cooperation and liberate his country from the social and economic hegemony of the United States.

GOOD NEIGHBOR POLICY As part of its internationalist stance, the Venezuelan government made great strides in 2011 in repairing its bilateral relationship with its western neighbor after a series of unfounded allegations by former rightwing Colombian president Alvaro Uribe led to a breakdown in diplomatic relations between the two nations.

With the election of Manuel Santos to the presidency in August 2010, the two neighboring countries have gotten to work mending divides. A meeting brokered by the now deceased Nestor Kirchner, Secretary General of the Unasur alliance, put Venezuelan-Colombian relations back on track as both Santos and Chavez have displayed their willingness to work together despite political differences.

In 2011, the two nations agreed to create a new set of preferential tariffs to maintain their robust commercial relations which account for more than $2 billion annually.

A series of other agreements designed to strengthen security, fight narco-trafficking and stimulate infrastructure development in border areas have also been signed as the sister nations re-establish their historic ties.

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The artillery of ideas

Impact

work of more than 10,000 grassroots organizations known as the Great Patriot Pole to push its campaign ahead. The organization and mobilization of the GPP, working hand-in-hand with the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), will be the key for a socialist victory in October 2012.

SOCIAL PROGRAMS & SPENDING As President Chavez recovered from his cancer treatment, his ability to create new legislation geared towards addressing the needs of the Venezuelan people increased. As such, a series of new missions were introduced at the end of 2011 to expand on the government's anti-poverty measures and provide new benefits for previously excluded populations.

Both Mission Children of Venezuela and Mission Greater Love were inaugurated to give a helping hand to the nation's children and seniors. The first program provides a monthly stipend to mothers with up to three children living in extreme poverty while the second provides a pension for workers and residents over retirement age unable to claim benefits for a variety of reasons including not making the sufficient number of payments into the public insurance program or having held nontraditional jobs such as artisans, fishermen and freelancers.

In addition to these initiatives, the government has continued to invest in its healthcare infrastructure and education, spending billions on the renovation and construction of more than 140 hospitals throughout the national territory while providing millions of discounted school supplies to families everywhere.

Yet despite these gains, the Chavez government is also facing a range of upcoming

DOMESTIC PRODUCTION As wages have increased in Venezuela, so too has demand, creating the need for greater domestic production to match the population's growing purchasing capacity. Apart from facing an inflation rate of 27 percent, the government must also confront the difficult task of fighting price speculation while ensuring the availability of commodities to what can be considered a highly consumptive society.

The Chavez administration has recently introduced a price controls law which seeks to limit usurious business practices in the private market, but it will be a challenge to enforce the legislation and even more challenging to guarantee the supply of products which retailers will simply not sell as a result of the regulations. Without a public manufacturing and retail sector large enough to ensure the availability of products, consumers may be caught in the middle of a cat and mouse game as profitdriven venders seek to evade government price controls.

This will especially be true as the government devotes more and more resources to its national housing project. The capacity of the national production apparatus must increase if the government is to attain its housing goal while ensuring the distribution of other important products to its internal market.

challenges in 2012 that will demand a good deal of attention and define the direction of the country for the coming years.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS Of course, the most significant test facing the two-term incumbent Chavez is his presidential reelection bid. On October 7, 2012, voters will go to the polls to decide if they wish to maintain the current leader of the Bolivarian Revolution at the helm of government or if they

favor a change for a still undetermined opposition candidate.

Polls currently give the advantage to Chavez over any opposing contender, but, as always, the government must be prepared for Washington's perennial attempts to delegitimize elections results as the State Department continues to aid opposition groups and their attempts to create a potentially destabilizing electoral atmosphere.

In terms of strategy, the Chavez camp has put together a net-

INSECURITY & IMPUNITY The kidnapping of Major League Baseball player Wilson Ramos last November brought international attention to the problem of extortion and violent crime in Venezuela, something that the government has struggled to resolve over the past decade. The creation of the new Bolivarian Police Force has made tremendous strides in implementing a new model of community law enforcement in the country, but more needs to be done to successfully combat this deep rooted social problem in the South American nation.

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3| The same is true of the nation's judicial system which continues to grant impunity to the landowners responsible for the murder of more than 300 small farmers since the implementation of the country's Land Law in 2001. While Venezuela's Attorney General's Office continues to promise investigations into these and other crimes, there seems to be little progress on the topic. Without a functioning judicial system to prosecute criminals, justice for those who hail from economically disadvantaged backgrounds will continue to be elusive. In contrast, widespread reform to the nation's Attorney General's Office, if successful, would go a long way in boosting government support from those of humble origins who have been victimized by crime.

TRANSPORTATION & INFRASTRUCTURE Another important area that must be addressed is the nation's infrastructure, especially with respect to transportation. As the Venezuelan population grows, the demand for public transportation continues to rise as does the need for improvements in the nation's highways and streets. The government has embarked on the expansion of the Caracas metro and has begun construction on a variety of new rail projects, but a greater focus on the nation's transportation infrastructure would vastly improve the quality of life for many residents.

The 2012 budget has allocated a great deal of resources over $1 billion - specifically to the question of transportation improvements but the country must also confront a cultural problem of corruption between local officials and private contractors that hampers the efficient execution of many public works projects for the spending to be effective.

Overall, 2011 was a year of great social advances for Venezuela. The battles overcome by President Hugo Chavez against cancer and against attempts to destabilize his government and regional relations evidence a solid platform to jumpstart his reelection campaign in 2012.

There is no doubt that Venezuela will continue to make international headlines throughout this new year.

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4 | Economy

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Venezuela wins big against Exxon in arbitration case Of the $12 billion ExxonMobil originally demanded from Venezuela’s state oil company, Pdvsa, for the 2007 nationalization, not even 10% was awarded T/ Rachael Boothroyd & agencies P/ Agencies

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he Venezuelan government has described its arbitration hearing at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) as a “successful defense” after it was told to pay just US$907 million to the Texas-based oil company Exxon in return for the nationalization of one of its projects in Venezuela.

In an official statement, Venezuelan state oil company Pdvsa confirmed that of the $907 now owed to Exxon, it would be obliged to pay just $255 million, after subtracting various debts owed by the corporation from the amount.

According to figures from Pdvsa, the oil company had debts of $191 million which will be subtracted, as well as $160 million that the ICC awarded to Pdvsa in counterclaims. The $300 million in Pdvsa’s New York bank account which was frozen by Exxon following the nationalization will also be deducted.

“If ExxonMobil had been willing to accept a reasonable compensation, which the arbitration tribunal has confirmed, arbitra-

tion would not have been necessary”, read an official statement released this Monday by Pdvsa.

The award via arbitration is less than the $1 billion that Venezuela offered to Exxon in compensation in September.

OUTRAGEOUS DEMANDS US oil giant Exxon withdrew from Venezuela in 2007 when the Chavez government nationalized the oil rich Orinoco river belt.

At the time, Exxon had a 41.6%

The artillery of ideas stake worth $750 million in the Venezuelan oil fields, specifically in the Cerro Negro project.

Since then, both Exxon and the Venezuelan government have been locked in a legal battle, with Exxon originally demanding over $12 billion in compensation - a sum previously described as an “abusive amount” by Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez, who also condemned Exxon for demanding over ten times what it had invested in the project.

“This (the verdict) confirms that the amount demanded at the beginning of the case, 12 billion dollars plus accrued interest since 2007, was completely exaggerated and beyond all logic”, continued the statement.

"They must be elated that they got off so cheap. It's certainly a happy new year for Venezuela", said Russ Dallen, head bond trader at investment bank Caracas Capital Markets.

The ICC decision appears to award Exxon a sum close to the $750 million it said it invested in the project - the amount Venezuela says Exxon deserves following the takeover.

But Exxon insists it should also be compensated for the increased value of the project, which at its outset in the early 1990s was considered risky because of low oil prices and un-

certainty about the relatively untested operations to turn tar-like Orinoco oil into valuable light crude.

"Exxon took a risk when they went in. I'm sure they were expecting more than just making their money back", said Dallen.

ConocoPhillips was also an investor in two of the four Orinoco upgrader projects. Exxon and Conoco, who had in total asked for as much as $40 billion in compensation, both left the country after the nationalizations, refusing to comply with government regulations.

Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez has said the country does not expect to pay more than $2.5 billion for the combined total of the claims by the two companies. Pdvsa said in a debt prospectus it had set aside $1.5 billion in provision for litigation as of the first semester of 2011.

Aside from the ICC’s recent verdict, Exxon also has a claim pending for the same nationalization with the World Bank's International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (Ciadi).

Pdvsa has stated that should Exxon continue with the second arbitration, the Venezuelan government will “take all necessary steps to defend itself, as Pdvsa has done in this arbitration case with the CCI”.

Venezuela GDP grows 4% in 2011, predicts strong 2012 T/ Business Recorder

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enezuela's economy grew by an estimated 4 percent in 2011 and will maintain strong growth in 2012, the central bank said last Friday, an expansion that may help President Hugo Chavez's bid for reelection this year.

But the country's inflation rate remained stubbornly high at 27.6 percent, based on preliminary statistics, the bank said, signaling rising prices will remain a key concern in the OPEC member nation as government spending shows no signs of abating in the runup to the October vote.

"The recent performance of the economy demonstrates the reactivation of productive sectors, which affirms the expectation that the rhythm of growth will be maintained

next year", the bank said in a statement.

Growth was driven by an 11.2 percent expansion in the financial sector, 6.6 percent growth in commerce, and 5.5 percent growth in utilities such as electricity and water.

Government outlays in areas including education and health rose 5.3 percent, the bank said.

The 4 percent growth - double the original estimate of 2 percent - contrasts with a 1.5 percent contraction in 2010 for Venezuela, which was one of only a few countries in the region whose economies shrank that year.

Increased investment in the electricity sector, which suffered rationing in 2010, as well as greater spending on home construction following floods that destroyed houses around the country, also helped spur expansion.

The country this year benefited from higher crude prices that helped its vital oil industry, with the average price of Venezuelan oil reaching a record $101 per barrel in 2011.

That helped the country post a current account surplus of $31.5 billion, but it also reported a capital account deficit of $32.6 billion linked to increased government deposits abroad.

The government's budget estimates 2012 growth at 5 percent with inflation between 22 and 23 percent.

Chavez's high-profile announcements of new housing projects and social spending programs signal the government plans to ramp up outlays in the coming months to shore up complaints among supporters about unemployment and the lack of affordable housing.

Critics say Chavez's campaign of nationalizations and frequent confrontation with businesses, hallmark traits of his "21st century socialism", have scared off private investment and left the country dependent on state spending. However, foreign investments in Venezuela have increased over the past few years by companies from countries such as China, Russia, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.

Chavez’s supporters also point to rising standards of living and increased investment in basic services including health and education, which have helped reduce poverty and have enabled the former soldier to win repeated elections over the last 13 years with substantial majorities.

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Social Justice

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Venezuelan public housing program a success: 144,000 new homes built in 2011

T/ COI P/ Presidential Press

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nding the year with a flurry of activity, Venezuelan authorities reported last weekend that more than 144,000 families received a new home in 2011 as the result of the government’s new far-reaching public housing program.

Mission Housing Venezuela, launched last May, seeks to eliminate the Caribbean country’s current housing deficit by building 3 million homes in the

OPEC nation by 2019, thereby guaranteeing an affordable living space to all residents.

“The advances made by this program are truly impressive and I want to congratulate all the workers who are making this possible”, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said last Saturday during the delivery of 2,624 new residences in the central-western state of Barinas.

The new homes form part of the Ciudad Tavare housing complex, a neighborhood of more than five thousand three-room apartments

created by the revolutionary new public housing initiative.

During the final weeks of 2011, the Chavez administration delivered thousands of homes to residents throughout the national territory, making good on its commitment to provide a dignified and permanent living space to those displaced by torrential rains a year earlier.

Although the government originally set 153,000 new homes as it’s goal for 2011, 96 percent of that figure was attained as

Mission Miracle performed almost 200.000 free eye surgeries in 2011 T/ AVN

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uring 2011, the Venezuelan state-funded health care program known as Mission Miracle performed 199,791 surgeries on patients suffering from vision problems, according to statements made by the program’s coordinator Manuel Pacheco on Wednesday.

Of the operations, Pacheco said 64,862 were for pterygium (tissue growth over the white part of the eye), 30,904 were for cataracts (clouding over the lens), and 2,619 for strabismus (eye misalignment). Of the latter type, 90% of cases

were performed primarily on young children.

Pacheco explained that since the creation of Mission Miracle in 2005, a total of 1.45 million surgeries and procedures have been performed.

Of that number, 3,528 were performed on patients from other countries including Ecuador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Paraguay and Chile. Fiftyone international f lights were chartered for this purpose.

“Patients from other countries are brought to Venezuela on the airline Conviasa in order to have operations, and

they can stay in the country from 8 to 14 days to recuperate”, Pacheco explained.

One of the program’s goals for 2012 is to increase international flights by 30% in order to help more people with vision problems that need medical attention. Mission Miracle’s surgeries are carried out at 72 different health centers throughout Venezuela.

Founded in Cuba in 2004 with Venezuelan patients, the project was brought to Venezuela a year and a half later, in October 2005. It offers free care to needy patients from all over Latin America and the Caribbean.

workers throughout the country put in extra hours to ensure the greatest number of new homeowners by year’s end.

In the state of Bolivar, Housing and Habitat Minister, Ricardo Molina, was present for the handing over of the keys to 200 new subsidized homes in the neighborhood of Cayaurima in Ciudad Bolivar.

“The houses that are being delivered in Cayaurima cost 230 thousand bolivars ($53,000), they’re 70 square meters and have a bathroom, kitchen and three bedrooms as well as all basic services like water and electricity”, he detailed.

Mildred Marcano, mother of seven and recipient of one of the new homes in Cayaurima, expressed her satisfaction and gratitude for the program after years of inaction by previous governments left her without a solution to her living situation.

“We’re very happy. For half of my 57 years, I’ve been waiting for the chance to have my own home. Today that’s a reality because the government is taking these steps”, she exclaimed.

“For decades I applied for help and never got an answer”, she added.

In the central-coastal state of Aragua, the government also inaugurated a new residential complex built with the technical support of the Eastern European nation of Belarus.

Belarusian ambassador to Venezuela, Gurinovich Valentin Arkadjevich, was on hand for the delivery of the new homes to 720 families and commented that his nation will also be inaugurating a new ceramic brick factory in the South American country in 2012 as well as a plant for the manufacture of heavy vehicles.

“All of this is to create employment for the Venezuelan people”, he said.

Minister Molina informed that the gains made by the Mission Housing Venezuela in 2011 have set the stage for greater achievements into the new year as the nation prepares for presidential elections in October.

“This is just a sample of what is going to happen in 2012. We’re better organized and coordinated as we follow the strategy of President Chavez and the people...

We’re sure that in 2012 we’re not only going to follow through with Mission Housing Venezuela but also the great mission of October 7”, he proclaimed.

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6 | Social Justice

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The artillery of ideas

A big year for Venezuela’s Simon Bolivar youth orchestra

T/ AVN P/ Agencies

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he Simon Bolivar Youth Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela earned international acclaim in 2011, an indication that it is on par with some of the best orchestras in the world, despite being comprised entirely of adolescents and children.

The System of Youth Orchestras and Choruses of Venezuela – to which the Simon Bolivar Orchestra belongs – was recognized in 2011 through its founder, Jose Antonio Abreu, honored with the

the Order of the Lion of Finland, the Austrian Cross of Honor, the Istanbul Music Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and Germany’s Echo Klassic Award.

The director of the Simon Bolivar Orchestra, world-acclaimed young composer Gustavo Dudamel, who currently conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic, received the Women Together Award from United Nations Women and was also named Artist of the Year by the British classical music label Gramophone.

It was a busy year for the orchestra, which offered an

historic concert in Caracas for Venezuela’s independence day on July 5th, when more than 1,700 musicians took the stage.

The Simon Bolivar Orchestra commemorated the bicentennial of Latin American independence by touring Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, and Colombia.

Some of the musicians also traveled to the United States, where they gave two very well received concert performances in New York City and Boston as the Simon Bolivar Big Band Jazz Orchestra.

Dudamel also led the Simon Bolivar Orchestra onstage at the 2011 Latin Grammy Awards alongside the multiple Grammywinning Puerto Rican band Calle 13, a landmark performance that was seen by an estimated 11 million viewers in the US and throughout Latin America.

The stellar youth orchestra also performed virtuously at Victoria Hall in Geneva, Switzerland, to benefit the United Nations Fund for Victims of Turture, and at the Philharmonic Theater in Verona, as well as at other venues throughout Italy.

Within Venezuela, 2011 saw the expansion of the System of Youth Orchestras and Coruses.

The number of local groups nationwide grew to 286, and around 400,000 children and young people were involved with the programs.

Another accomplishment this year was the opening of the Musical Center for Social Action in Caracas, which has two main performance halls: Simon Bolivar and Fedora Aleman. These venues hosted concerts by the best ensembles to emerge as part of the System of Youth Orchestras, and are used each day for music classes and practice.

The dynamic Gustavo Dudamel also led the Simon Bolivar Orchestra performance at the inaugural ceremony of the new Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), which took place in Caracas on December 2 and counted on the presence of 33 heads of state and representatives from the region.

In January and February of 2012, the Simon Bolivar Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic will play all of the Symphonies of the Czech composer Gustav Mahler at concerts in Los Angeles and Caracas.

Los Angeles is just one of the many cities worldwide that has developed its own music education programs for at-risk youth based on the Venezuelan model. Others exist in Boston, New York, and Detroit. Scotland has developed similar programs as well, and members of the Simon Bolivar Orchestra will travel there to meet their Scottish counterparts this year. A US tour by the acclaimed orchestra is also planned for the end of 2012.

Chavez founds new school in birth town T/ COI P/ Presidential Press

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n his first public activity of 2012, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez laid the founding stone of a new preschool that will provide attention to more than 180 children in the town of Sabaneta in state of Barinas last Monday.

The 802 meter Initial Education Center “Mama Rosa”, named after the socialist leader’s grandmother Rosa Ines from the town of Sabaneta, will be built on the

grounds where Chavez was born and spent part of his childhood.

“I’ve been wanting to give a gift to Barinas for some time now”, the head of the state at the ground breaking ceremony.

During the inauguration, Chavez recounted the significance of the town of Sabaneta during the war against Spain where a great mix of ethnicities and revolutionary activity in the 1800s became a testament to the national identity of the country.

“When one arrives here, one can’t help but feel these races

that vibrate, filled with life-giving energy”, he said.

The head of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela also commented on the possibility of turning the entire area surrounding the new preschool into a complex “so that all of this becomes one educational city”.

As such, Chavez took time during the event to call for the owner of a nearby abandoned warehouse in order to discuss the state acquiring his property and expanding the acreage of the educational project.

Workers estimate that construction of the initial preschool will be completed by June.

Following the ceremony, Chavez attended mass at the nearby Our Mother of Rosario church where he prayed for his deceased grandmother and wished the best of health and well-being to the Venezuelan people for 2012.

“My best wishes from here, from my roots.The best wishes for peace and prosperity for all the Venezuelan people and nation so that we continue on the path of progress, peace and

greatness. I ask God that this might be so”, he prayed. He also gave thanks for his recent recovery from cancer and expressed his gratitude to his supporters for their prayers and blessings during his convalescence.

NoÊ ÈÊUÊFriday, January 6, 2012

The artillery of ideas

Analysis

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Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski: A wealthy lawyer with little respect for the Law As the Venezuelan opposition prepares for primary elections in February 2012 to choose a candidate to run against Hugo Chavez in the October 2012 presidential elections, we provide weekly exposés on who’s-who in the antiChavez camp T/ COI P/ Agencies

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aracas-born Henrique Capriles Radonski is one of the opposition candidates most likely to make it through the primary selection process and face Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in next year’s presidential election.

Former Mayor of the wealthy eastern Caracas neighborhood of Baruta (2000-2008), Radonski is now Governor of Miranda – with some 2.6 million inhabitants – and is widely popular in opposition circles. He and six others in the opposition’s Mesa de Unidad Democratica (MUD), or Democratic Unity Roundtable in English, are currently engaged in US-backed primaries aimed at helping the opposition win votes before next year’s election.

President Chavez, who is expected to sweep the presidential election, has committed to “push forward and consolidate” the Bolivarian Revolution’s platform of ‘21st Century Socialism’ during his next presidential term (2013-2019).

THE OTHER MODEL A strong supporter of free market economics gift-wrapped in social programs designed to avoid social unrest, Radonski’s campaign is based on vague promises of “a better Venezuela”.

Questioning the Chavez administration’s interventions in strategic sectors of the economy, Radonski has affirmed repeatedly, “I don’t believe in that model.”

Son of Cristina Radonski Bocheneck and Henrique Capriles

Garcia, 39-year-old Radonski was born into a family of significant wealth. His mother’s Radonskis are the owners of CINEZ, Venezuela’s largest chain of private movie theaters, while the Capriles are owners of numerous private media outlets (See: Cadena Capriles) and are said to have important investments in the country’s food processing industries.

Among other things, his parents’ resources allowed Radonski to study law at Caracas’ private Andres Bello Catholic University and participate in numerous international student exchange programs in, for example, Italy and the United States.

Fresh out of college, Radonski dove right into politics and served as legal counsel to Armando Capriles, his cousin and then lawmaker. Providing legal support to his congressmen cousin during the last three years (1995-1998) of the 4th Republic (as the period of time from 1958-1998 is known), Radonski began his political career just as the Bolivarian Revolution’s Hugo Chavez won the first of several presidential victories to come.

Eager to represent his class at a time of heated national debate surrounding Chavez’s proposal for a Constitutional Assembly, Radonski accepted a backdoor nomination from Venezuela’s Social Christian Democrats (COPEI) and won a seat in the 4th Republic’s last existing Congress (1998).

COPEI placed Caracas-based Radonski on the ballot to represent Maracaibo, capital of Zulia, where the party had a strong base of support at the time. A trained lawyer, Radonski was sure to respect existing electoral laws by renting an apartment in Maracaibo during the course of the election.

JUSTICE WHEN? A year after the Venezuelan people voted to approve the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic (1999), Radonski and a handful of other opposition politicians launched a new party based in and around the nation’s

Unsuccessful in his search attempt, Radonski left the embassy and allowed protests to continue as they were, abandoning the Cuban diplomats and their request for help. Fortunately, massive pro-Chavez demonstrations reversed the short-lived coup before things got worse.

capital. Named Primero Justicia, or Justice First in English, the party received significant financial and strategic support from the United States and helped Radonski win the mayoralty of Baruta, a wealthy neighborhood in eastern Caracas.

According to investigative journalist Eva Golinger, in the year 2001 Radonski’s nascent party was the principal beneficiary of funds channeled to Venezuela by the US-based National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and International Republican Institute (IRI). That year, the IRI spent $340,000 “training” members of Justice First and others of the country’s antiChavez minority on “external party communication and coalition building”, among other topics of US concern.

Two years later, Radonski’s Justice First had grown into small but national party.

As Mayor of Baruta (2000-2008), Radonski made national headlines after he was filmed illegally climbing over Cuban embassy walls during the April 2002 coup d’etat against the democraticallyelected Chavez government.

During the short-lived coup, staff of the Cuban embassy (located in Baruta) called Mayor Radonski’s office for police su-

pport after protestors gathered outside the premises cut the water and electricity and threatened to storm the building.

Instead of coming to the aid of the besieged diplomats, Radonski briefly joined the protestors before climbing over embassy walls in pursuit of Chavez administration officials.

As Golinger notes in her book, The Chavez Code, “Radonski violated diplomatic law by forcing entry into the embassy, where he attempted to persuade Cuban Ambassador German Sanchez Otero to turn in Vice President Diosdado Cabello and other Chavez government officials whom the opposition believed were taking refuge in the embassy”.

“Though Ambassador Sanchez Otero permitted Capriles Radonski on the premises to engage in dialogue”, explains Golinger, “he made it clear that the actions were violating diplomatic law”.

“The Primero Justicia mayor attempted to force a search of the inside of the embassy by threatening the ambassador that the situation would only worsen if a full search were not allowed. When the ambassador stood firm, Capriles Radonski left the embassy”.

CANDIDATE CAPRILES Governor of Miranda since 2008, Radonski has found it difficult to defend his marketbased, welfare state ideology in the context of the Bolivarian Revolution’s widely effective and mass social ‘missions’.

His campaign of “There is Only One Way” promises “solutions to all of Venezuela’s problems” and, referring to the Chavez administration’s policies of bi-national and regional integration efforts, an end to “gifts abroad”.

“To reduce the cost of living”, Radonski tried explaining, “we need to change the model, this model in which the State is the owner of everything and ends up with power but doesn’t create opportunities”.

Ignoring the fact that Venezuelan GDP rose 4% this year, Radonski’s campaign has chosen instead to question the legitimacy of data released by the Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV). This data, released in November, shows that third quarter economic growth in 2011 was widespread, with telecommunications increasing by 7.9%, mining 7.6%, transport 6.6%, community social services by 4.6%, and manufacturing by 2.1%.

In construction, for example, the Chavez administration spent all of 2011 financing both public and private housing initiatives, the result of which was the successful completion of some 100,000 newly-built homes.

Stimulating a 10% growth in the construction sector, public construction projects accounted for 62% of developments while the private sector contributed the remaining 38%.

Radonski claims these figures are false, but has presented no alternate data to back his position.

Friday | January 6, 2012 | Nº 96 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve

ENGLISH EDITION The artillery of ideas

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n one of the longest-held secrets of the Cold War, the Army explored the potential for using radioactive poisons to assassinate “important individuals” such as military or civilian leaders, according to newly declassified documents obtained

by The Associated Press.

Approved at the highest levels of the Army in 1948, the effort was a well-hidden part of

the military’s pursuit of a “new concept of warfare” using radioactive materials from atomic bomb-making to contaminate swaths of enemy land or to target military bases, factories or troop formations.

Military historians who have researched the broader radiological warfare program said in interviews that they had never before seen evidence that it included pursuit of an assassination weapon. Targeting public figures in such attacks is not unheard of. Last year (2006), an unknown assailant used a tiny amount of radioactive polonium210 to kill Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London.

No targeted individuals are mentioned in references to the assassination weapon in the government documents declassified in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the AP in 1995.

The decades-old records were released recently to the AP, heavily censored by the government to remove specifics about radiological warfare agents and other details.

The documents give no indication whether a radiological weapon for targeting high-ranking individuals was ever used or even developed by the US. They leave unclear how far the Army project went. One memo from December 1948 outlined the project, and another memo that month indicated it was underway. The main sections of several subsequent progress reports in 1949 were removed by censors before release to the AP. The broader effort on offensive uses of radiological warfare apparently died by about 1954, at least in part because of the Defense Department’s conviction that nuclear weapons were a better bet.

Whether the work migrated to another agency such as the CIA is unclear. The project was given final approval in November 1948 and began the following month, just one year after the CIA’s creation in 1947.

It was a turbulent time on the international scene. In August 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic

bomb, and two months later Mao Zedong’s communists triumphed in China’s civil war.

As US scientists developed the atomic bomb during World War II, it was recognized that radioactive agents used or created in the manufacturing process had lethal potential. The government’s first public report on the bomb project, published in 1945, noted that radioactive fission products from a uranium-fueled reactor could be extracted and used “like a particularly vicious form of poison gas”.

Among the documents released to the AP -an Army memo dated Dec. 16, 1948, and labeled secret- described a crash program to develop a variety of military uses for radioactive materials. Work on a “subversive weapon for attack of individuals or small groups” was listed as a secondary priority, to be confined to feasibility studies and experiments.

The top priorities listed were: Weapons to contaminate “populated or otherwise critical areas for long periods of time”; Munitions combining high explosives with radioactive material “to accomplish physical damage and radioactive contamination simultaneously”.; Air and/or surface weapons that would spread contamination across an area to be evacuated, thereby rendering it unusable by enemy forces.

The fourth-ranked priority was “munitions for attack on individuals” using radioactive agents for which there is “no means of therapy”.

“This class of munitions is proposed for use by secret agents or subversive units for lethal attacks against small groups of important individuals, e.g., during meetings of civilian or military leaders”, it said.

Assassination of foreign figures by agents of the US government was not explicitly outlawed until President Gerald R. Ford signed an executive order in 1976 in response to revelations that the CIA had plotted in the 1960s to kill Cuban President Fidel Castro, including by poisoning.

The Dec. 16, 1948, memo said a lethal attack against individuals using radiological material should be done in a way that

makes it impossible to trace the US government’s involvement, a concept known as “plausible deniability” that is central to US covert actions.

“The source of the munition, the fact that an attack has been made, and the kind of attack should not be determinable, if possible”, it said. “The munition should be inconspicuous and readily transportable”.

Radioactive agents were thought to be ideal for this use, the document said, because of their high toxicity and the fact that the targeted individuals could not smell, taste or otherwise sense the attack.

“It should be possible, for example, to develop a very small munition which could function unnoticeably and which would set up an invisible, yet highly lethal concentration in a room, with the effects noticeable only well after the time of attack”, it said.

Tom Bielefeld, a Harvard physicist who has studied radiological weapons issues, said that while he had never heard of this project, its technical aims sounded feasible.

Bielefeld noted that polonium, the radioactive agent used to kill Litvinenko in November 2006, has just the kind of features that would be suitable for the lethal mission described in the Dec. 16 memo.

Barton Bernstein, a Stanford history professor who has done extensive research on the US military’s radiological warfare efforts, said he did not believe this aspect had previously come to light.

“This is one of those items that surprises us but should not shock us, because in the Cold War all kinds of ways of killing people, in all kinds of manners -inhumane, barbaric and even worse- were periodically contemplated at high levels in the US government in what was seen as a just war against a hated and hateful enemy”, Bernstein said.

The released documents were in files of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project held by the National Archives.

“It is thought that this is a new concept of warfare, with results that cannot be predicted”, one document said.