English Edition Nº 36

Pg. P g. 7 | S Social occial Justice Justice Venezuela celebrates five years as a territory “Free of Illiteracy” thanks to a Cuban-developed literacy program that has taught Venezuelans to read and write

FRIDAY|November 5th, 2010 |No. 36 |Bs. 1|CARACAS

Pg. P g. 8 | O Opinion pinion

Alexander Cockburn from Counterpunch analyzes the outcome of Tuesday’s legislative elections in the United States

ENGLISH EDITION The artillery of ideas

Venezuela and Colombia: building the “Patria Grande” V Venezuela’s l’ Chocolate Revolution President Hugo Chavez inaugurated a new chocolate factory in Miranda this week as part of the country’s investment and rejuvenation of the cacao industry.

Venezuela has the finest cocoa bean in the world, though the nation’s chocolate industry was long ago abandoned by prior oil-obssesed governments. Chavez aims to increase national production of the cocoa bean in order to generate jobs and diversify the country’s oil-focused economy. Venezuela plans to export its fine chocolate in the near future.

Despite political differences, the governments of Venezuela and Colombia are rebuilding ties and strengthening relations to benefit their citizens.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos made his first official visit to Venezuela this week as part of an ongoing effort to reestablish relations with the Chavez administration after previous Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s policies led the two nations to the brink of war in July. The two heads of state met in Caracas at the presidential palace and signed several agreements to advance commercial relations and strengthen border security.

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Analysis

Dilma’s victory in Brazil The largest nation in South America has just elected its first woman president, Dilma Rousseff.

Economy

Venezuela nationalizes more industries Steel and housing development companies were nationalized this week by President Chavez.

“Mission Smile” is changing faces A Venezuelan government program providing free dental care and dentures to citizens has a positive impact.

Chavez on Twitter: 1 million strong

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School of Human Rights opens in Venezuela

he first School of Human Rights in Venezuela opened its doors on Saturday in Caracas to complement the academic training and research of various professionals in the field of promotion and defense of human rights with a critical and progressive approach.

During the opening ceremony, National Public Defender Gabriela Ramirez said the initiative is aimed at strengthening the academic training of the general public through an initial offering of free professional courses.

Ramirez explained that the

School of Human Rights is an institution created by the Office of the Ombudsman to promote, encourage and advance education, and training in Human Rights and academic research.

The National Public Defender further noted that this new area of academic training in the field of Human Rights would break with the elitist view that some specialists in the field have been promoting inside and outside the country. “Now we’re talking about human rights for all, not about privilege”, she added.

Next year, three new certificate

courses will be offered: Human Rights, Human Rights of Children and Adolescents, and Human Rights of Women.

The holder of the office of human rights in the country added that the higher-level academic offerings of the school would be expanded gradually, including educational activities involving ombudsmen in other countries throughout the Americas.

For more information on graduate courses, the School of Human Rights can be reached at +58-212 5053162 or fundacionjuanvivessuria@defensoria.gob.ve

enezuela’s President Hugo Chavez has exceeded one million followers on Twitter, making him the most followed Venezuelan on the social networking service.

“Good morning world! I want to thank all my followers. We’ve exceeded one million! Wow! We’re going to keep on winning!” he tweeted on Monday from his account, @chavezcandanga.

Since joining Twitter in April 2010, Chavez has used the service to interact more directly with the Venezuelan people, tasking aides with responding to requests for assistance made via his account. In July, Twitter cofounder Dom Sagolla recognized Chavez’s use of the service, noting at a conference that he was likely the only head of state doing his own tweeting. “There are a lot of presidents who use Twitter, but the case of Venezuela is unusual”. Since President Chavez joined Twitter, penetration of the service amongst Internet users jumped 4.8 percent, putting Venezuela third on the list of countries with the highest number of Twitter users.

On a global scale, Chavez has the third highest number of followers of heads of state, trailing only US President Barack Obama and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

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IMPACT

The artillery of ideas

Venezuela and Colombia: Relations back on track I

n a strengthening of bilateral relations between neighboring countries, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez received his Colombian counterpart, Juan Manuel Santos, in the capital Caracas on Tuesday to sign a series of new accords and evaluate the progress of relations between the two nations.

The meeting comes as a followup to an earlier encounter held between the heads of state in the Colombian city of Santa Marta last August after the newly inaugurated Santos expressed his will to repair relations with the Venezuelan government of President Chavez.

Relations between the two countries were severely damaged last July when Santos’ predecessor, Alvaro Uribe, accused the Chavez administration of harboring left-wing Colombian guerillas within its territory.

Uribe also called on international institutions, such as the UN Security Council and the Organization of American States (OAS), to intervene in Venezuelan affairs in order to substantiate his claims.

The allegations where never proven and Venezuela reacted by suspending all diplomatic ties with Colombia.

REAFFIRMING TIES With the arrival of Santos to the presidency, relations have begun to improve as the two nations have agreed to put the past behind them, reestablish dialogue and begin working again on issues of common interest.

“I think this process is going well”, Santos said upon arriving in Caracas. “We’ve come here to continue a process that we began in August and to say that from our side, we have only friendship and respect for the Venezuelan people”.

The meeting between the two presidents in Caracas resulted in the signing of a series of new accords to stimulate economic cooperation, collaborate in the fight against drugs, and promote tourism.

A bi-national economic committee was created between both states to focus on “planning actions to consolidate productive alliances” in strategic industries such as textiles, agriculture, automotives, housing, and energy.

Similar commissions have been established to analyze methods of increasing tourism between the two countries and strengthening cooperation and coordination in the fight against drug trafficking.

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Colombia’s Santos praised restoration of relations with Venezuela

olombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos was delighted about the restoration of ties between Colombia and Venezuela and he expressed his desire to strengthen and deepen bilateral relations.

The statement was made by the Colombian President on Tuesday after he was welcomed by his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, at Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas.

Santos took the opportunity to recall the non-aggression pact signed with Venezuela in 1939 by his great-uncle, former Colombian President Eduardo Santos. The text stipulated that differences between the two nations should be solved diplomatically.

“I would like to ratify that accord between Venezuela and Colombia now, 71 years later.

Our two countries have to work together and it is our duty because our people will benefit”, the Colombian President said.

This is the second encounter between Chavez and Santos, after a meeting held last August

10th in Santa Marta, Colombia. At that meeting, the two presidents made a significant step to restore relations and arranged a series of actions to advance trade and cooperation between both countries.

Part of these actions included setting up five task forces between Venezuela and Colombia to tackle issues of debt and commercial relations, economic cooperation, border control, immigration and safety.

“We want the commissions to have a concrete and successful result”, stressed President Santos, and he expressed to the Venezu-

elan people the friendship and respect of Colombians.

“We both gained our independence 200 years ago and we have had differences, but our destinies are the same. For that reason, we have to work together, 200 years later, to free us all from oppression, poverty and inequality. If we fight together, we will achieve our goals successfully”, Santos proclaimed from Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas.

Similarly, the Colombian President emphasized the strength of each Latin American country, “and if we work together, we will be a real power. Therefore, it is so important for us to pursue integration and cooperation with Venezuela”.

The two presidents met on Tuesday with the aim of discussing several issues of bilateral interest and to review the progress of the actions undertaken to reinforce trade and cooperation between both countries.

T/ Venezuelan News Agency

CONSOLIDATING RELATIONS President Chavez, speaking at a press conference held after the meeting, referred to the new agreements as the first step towards consolidating stronger relations with Colombia.

“This first group of accords that have reestablished the programs of cooperation that have always worked well…make up part of a first floor upon which to build a powerful system of relations based on mutual respect, trust, good faith and shared interests”, he stated.

In order to oversee the progress of the agreements and to strengthen the new relations, the two presidents announced that they would also carry out similar meetings on a three-month basis.

“We’ve decided to meet every three months to follow up not only on what has been signed today, but also on many other initiatives that we’ve discussed”, Santos explained. “These initiatives still need to mature but we have important projects that we’re going to carry out because these relations have begun very well and we’ve decided to not let them be derailed”, he affirmed.

In addition to the new accords, attention has also been focused on the evaluation of 5 working commissions previously established between the two nations to concentrate on issues of commerce, border security and infrastructure.

The commissions, headed up

by Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro and his Colombian counterpart Maria Holguin, have carried out a series of meetings, the last of which taking place in the border city of Cucuta in early October.

One of the results of the commissions’ work has been the payment of over $336 million USD in debt owed to Colombian exporters by Venezuela’s foreign exchange commission, CADIVI. T/ Edward Ellis P/ Presidential Press

ANALYSIS

The artillery of ideas

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No 36 • Friday, November 5th, 2010 |

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Dilma’s victory in Brazil: “Restore Sanity” beats “Keep Fear Alive” L

ike the rally led by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central that brought hundreds of thousands of people into the streets of Washington, DC on Saturday, Brazil’s election on Sunday was a contest of “Restore Sanity” versus “Keep Fear Alive”.

Dilma Rousseff of the governing Worker’s Party coasted to victory against the opposition candidate Jose Serra, with a comfortable margin of 56 – 44 percent. It was a bitter and ugly campaign marked by allegations of corruption and malfeasance on both sides, and ended with Serra’s wife calling Dilma a “baby-killer”.

Religious groups and leaders mobilized for the Serra campaign and accused Dilma of wanting to legalize abortion, ban religious symbols, being “anti-Christian”, and a “terrorist” for her resistance to the military dictatorship during the late 1960s. The whole campaign was all too reminiscent of Republican strategies in the United States, going back to the rise of the religious right in the 1980s, through the “Swift Boat” politics and Karl Rove’s “Weapons of Mass Distraction” of recent years.

Serra even had a right-wing foreign policy strategy that prompted one critic to label him “Serra Palin”. His campaign threatened to alienate Brazil from most of its neighbors by accusing the Bolivian government of being “complicit” in drug trafficking and Venezuela of “sheltering” the FARC (the main guerrilla group) in Colombia. He attacked Lula for his refusal – along with most of the rest of South America – to recognize the government of Honduras. The Honduran government was “elected” following a military coup last year, under conditions of censorship and human rights abuses such that only the United States and a handful of mostly right-wing allies recognized it as “free and fair”.

But in the end, sanity triumphed over fear, as voters proved to be more convinced by the substantial improvements in their well being during the Lula years.

It is perhaps not surprising that Serra, an economist, would try to find a way to avoid the most important economic issues that affect

the lives of the majority of Brazilians. The economy has performed much better during the Lula years than during the eight years of Serra’s party (the Social Democratic Party of Brazil [PSDB]): per capita income grew by 23 percent from 2002-2010, as opposed to just 3.5 percent for 1994-2002. Measured unemployment is now at a record low of 6.2 percent.

Perhaps even more importantly, the majority of Brazilians had some substantial gains: the minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, grew by about 65 percent during Lula’s presidency. This is more than three times the increase during the prior eight years (i.e. the presidency of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, of Serra’s party). This affects not only minimum-wage workers, but also tens of millions of others whose income is tied to the minimum wage.

In addition, the government has expanded the Bolsa Familia program, which provides small cash grants to poor families, with school attendance and health immunizations required. The program has been successful in re-

ducing illiteracy, and now reaches about 13 million families. More than 19 million people have been brought across the poverty line since 2003. And a new program of subsidies to home ownership has benefited hundreds of thousands of families, with millions likely to take part as it expands.

Although this brand of Republican campaign strategy was effective for most of the last four decades in the United States, it hasn’t performed all that well as an export.

The Brazilian electorate tired quickly of the mud-slinging, and swing voters wanted to know what Serra would do for them that would be better than what the Workers’ Party had done. When he couldn’t tell them, he lost their votes.

On the down side, the mudslinging and “Republican strategy” prevented the campaign from addressing some of the vital issues of Brazil’s future. Brazil’s financial elite, which dominates the central bank, has an influence on economic policy that is at least as bad – and as powerful – as that of Wall Street in the

United States. This is one reason why Brazil, even under Lula, has had for many years the highest or near-highest real interest rates in the world. Brazil’s growth performance has still not been on a par with the other BRIC countries (Russia, India, China), and the country will have to move away from some of the neoliberal policies of previous governments in order to achieve its potential.

Capital formation during the Lula years was not much different from during the Cardoso years, and was relatively low compared to many developing countries.

Public investment was even lower, although it has recently begun to accelerate. The country will need a development strategy, and one that establishes new patterns of investment and consumption that advance the interests of the majority of Brazilians – some 50 million of whom remain in poverty.

The election has enormous implications for the Western Hemisphere, where the Obama State Department has continued with barely a stutter the Bush admin-

istration’s strategy of “rollback” against the unprecedented independence that the left governments of South America have won over the last decade. A defeat of the Workers’ Party would have been a big victory for them.

It also has implications for the rest of the world. In May, Brazil and Turkey broke new ground in the world of international diplomacy, by negotiating a nuclear fuel swap arrangement for Iran, in an attempt to resolve the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program.

The State Department was probably more upset about this than anything that Brazil had done in the region, including Lula’s strong and consistent support for the Chavéz government in Venezuela. Serra had also attacked the Iran deal during his campaign. Outside of Washington, the results of this election will be greeted as good news.

T/ Mark Weisbrot

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C. He is also president of Just Foreign Policy.

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ECONOMY

The artillery of ideas

Venezuela: Chocolate Revolution As part of the recuperation of national industries, the Chavez administration is investing in chocolate production and promoting local development of the world’s best cacao.

During his Sunday television program, President Chavez also announced several nationalizations and inaugurated a new milk processing plant

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elebrating the high quality of Venezuelan cacao and its great potential as an export crop for the country, President Hugo Chavez inaugurated a new chocolate factory in the state of Miranda last Sunday during his weekly television broadcast, “Alo, Presidente”.

Chavez referred to the cacao, which has been grown in the coastal region for centuries, as being “the best in the world” and announced that it will soon be decreed as a National Strategic Product by the government.

“We’re talking about a strategic product for national production and for our new international economic policy”, the Venezuelan head of state said, explaining the export potential of cacao to ally countries in Europe and the Middle East.

CACAO IN VENEZUELA During the colonial period, cacao was one of the most desired agricultural products of the European market grown in Venezuela for consumption by wealthy elites.

Large slave populations were brought from the Caribbean to the central coastal region to cultivate the trees, which produce the cocoa pods, the basis for the production of chocolate.

Many slaves rebelled against the brutality of the cacao plantations, fleeing from the inhumanity of bondage and forming free communities in the region now known as Barlovento in the state of Miranda.

The fugitive slaves used the name “Cimarrones”, also the

name given to the chocolate factory inaugurated by President Chavez on Sunday.

After independence, falling prices and the oil boom in Venezuela led to a decline in the crop’s economic importance as agricultural workers began to migrate to urban centers in search for a better quality of life.

Many Afro-descendent communities, however, have remained in the region and continue to grow high quality cacao, whose national and international economic potential the Chavez government is attempting to develop.

Over the past eleven years, national production of cacao per hectare has grown by 30%, Chavez said on Sunday, thanks to the policies of the current government that has provided credits to small producers and has stimulated the local manufacture of chocolate through the

creation of various processing plants.

Venezuela currently produces 20 thousand tons of cacao a year, a number which the Venezeulan President is focused on increasing.

“If we produce today 20 thousand tons of cacao a year, we can reach some 100 thousand tons [annually] in the next ten years”, he said.

In order to achieve this goal, President Chavez requested a study be carried out by Vice President Elias Jaua and recommended the government identify and recover all abandoned plantations that exist in the region.

Funds from Venezuela’s Central Bank, amounting to 126 million bolivars ($29.3 million USD) will also be transferred to the nation’s Agricultural Bank for the disbursement of credits to small producers as part of the country’s National Cacao Plan.

NATIONALIZATIONS During his weekly television broadcast, President Chavez also announced the expropriation of a steel manufacturing company and a series of residential development projects in various regions of the country as part of the government’s renewed efforts to tackle the nation’s housing shortage.

Siderurgica del Turbio (Sidetur) was one of the largest producers of iron girders used for construction projects in Venezuela, occupying some 40% of the total market.

According to Jose Kahn, Minister of Mining and Basic Industries, the decision to nationalize the company is fundamental to ensuring the further development of the construction industry.

“It must be taken into account that iron is a strategic resource”, Kahn said on Sunday. “This is not just any company. This is a business that has to guarantee products for housing, infrastructure and roadways in our country”.

As part of the nationalization, the government has guaranteed the rights of all workers currently employed by Sidetur and expressed its commitment to improve conditions on the job.

In terms of the housing projects, the Venezuelan head of state signed an order to expropriate 6 urban developments in the states of Yaracuy, Miranda, Carabobo, and Miranda.

Another eight projects will be occupied by the government in the states of Miranda, Carabobo and Anzoategui, and the capital Caracas, in order to accelerate their completion.

The reason for the government interventions, President Chavez declared, was the overcharging of

home-buyers and the violation, on numerous occasions, of Venezuelan law by the private contractors involved in the construction.

The Venezuelan President guaranteed that all payments previously made by the home-buyers affected will be honored and that they will be ensured the delivery of their homes once completed.

MILK PROCESSING Via satellite, the Venezuelan head of state also inaugurated a publicly-owned milk processing plant in the state of Portugesa during his broadcast on Sunday.

The Los Gabanes plant, the result of an 8.5 million bolivar ($1.97 million USD) investment by the government, will have the capacity to produce 14 thousand liters of milk daily, benefiting some five thousand children in 14 schools located in the municipality.

Thirty-one people have been employed by the facility, which has been the recipient of Iranian technology based on an agreement signed between Venezuela and the Persian nation that has already resulted in the construction of nine similar plants in the country.

The workers of the “social property” business are members of the area’s community councils – grassroots neighborhood organizations – and will actively participate in the management and decision-making processes of the plant.

“We need to realize that every day the people have more power…” Chavez exclaimed. “This is not the property of a little group.

It’s property of the workers and the people”.

T/ Edward Ellis P/ Presidential Press

ECONOMY

The artillery of ideas

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Venezuelan Steel Company and Housing Developments Nationalized O

n Sunday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced the expropriation of Siderurgica del Turbio (Sidetur), a major producer of steel used in the construction of homes, bridges and other infrastructure and public works.

The President also confirmed government interventions in six large housing developments currently under construction, eight others that are ready for residents to move in, and increased government oversight in an additional 19 privately-run housing projects.

Chavez announced the expropriations during his weekly-televised address to the nation, “Alo Presidente”.

“NOT JUST ANY COMPANY” Sidetur manages 40% of Venezuela’s steel rod production and is accused by the government of speculating with prices of construction materials. The firm produces a number of steel-based construction materials (rebar, bar, beam, angle and flat), and manages six plants in Venezuela along with 15 collection and recycling centers for scrap metals nationwide.

According to the company’s website, Sidetur has an annual production capacity of 835,000 tons, enough to build an estimated 160,000 homes.

“This is not just any company”, proclaimed Venezuela’s Minister of Mining and Basic Industries Jose Khan. “This is a company that must serve to guarantee inputs for housing, infrastructure, and roads”, he added.

Khan also declared the expropriation a “historic decision”.

“In 1985, a decree emerged where the exploitation of iron was established as a strategic interest and in line with that, in 2008 the nationalization of Sidor was undertaken and today we carry out another step that strengthens that goal”, he added.

All of Sidetur’s assets and facilities are included in the expropriation decree.

In a statement published on Monday, Sidetur’s Executive Board expressed its opposition to the expropriation as well as plans to prevent it from moving for-

“We’ve been waiting a while for this to happen. It is part of securing dignity for us workers. We have finally removed the heel, the boot of the bosses”, stated Tirso Garcia, steelworker at Sidetur’s plant in Antimano, Caracas.

ward. “There are no objective justifications for the expropriation of our firm, and we will use all legal mechanisms to oppose the government’s decision… Sidetur is a socially responsible company that respects the law and fulfills its objectives”, the company affirmed.

The company went on to ask the government “to consider the impact this measure will have on infrastructure and construction plans as well as the impact on the workers and their families”.

Elias Bessis, President of Venezuela’s largest business federation (Fedecamaras) in the centralVenezuelan state of Lara, called the expropriation “alarming... I don’t even want to know how things will look when they [the state] control all of the country’s rebar production”, he claimed.

Rebar, short for reinforcing bar, is also known as reinforcing or reinforcement steel. It is commonly used as a tensioning device in reinforced concrete structures helping to hold concrete in compression, and is made of unfinished tempered steel.

But President Chavez complained about the the profit margins the company was making because of the massive price increase between the amount for which Sidetur buys the steel from state-owned Sidur.

“Go and see how much they by the steel from us for and how much the sell the reinforced steel bars for”, he said.

WORKER SUPPORT Alejandro Alvarez, a steelworker at Sidetur’s plant in the state of Bolivar, expressed his support for the expropriation on Monday during an interview with the state television channel, Venezolana de Television (VTV).

According to Alvarez, the measure will have a positive impact on the country’s development since it will complement other publiclyowned firms in the basic industries, including Siderurgica del Orinoco (Sidor), Industria Venezolana de Aluminio (Venalum), and Aluminio del Caroni (Alcasa).

Carlos de Oliveira, President of the state-owned Siderurgica del Orinoco (Sidor), which is Venezuela’s largest steel producer and was nationalized in 2009, also claimed that the expropriation of Sidetur leaves 87% of rebar production in the hands of the Venezuelan government.

“Today we feel strengthened by the decision [to nationalize Sidetur], a decision which is neither accidental nor isolated. This decision is taken in a context in which the President has taken the problem of housing personally”, affirmed Oliveria.

Rada Gumuluch, President of the Venezuelan Aluminum Industry (Venalum), explained that Sidetur’s nationalization is part of government efforts to create a national construction industry to better serve what he called “the public good”.

“The integration of the two iron-steel and aluminum industries is strategic for the country and for the construction of socialism…To guarantee socialism, the means of production must be at the service of the people”, stated Gumuluch on Monday.

Sidetur’s expropriation was discussed on VTV within the context of Plan Guayana Socialista 2019 – launched by Chavez in 2009 – in which the national government seeks to play a majority role in the aluminum, iron, and steel industries.

A key component of Plan Guayana Socialista is to establish worker control of production, which according to Gumuluch strengthens and democratizes these basic industries. “This conglomerate of industries [steel, iron, aluminum] will respond to the people’s needs. We are moving towards a social, collective, indirect form of property. The state will administer the industry, but the workers are the fundamental actors, in association with society”, affirmed Gumuluch.

HOUSING FOR THE PEOPLE “Private interests - the speculators - they don’t want us to mass produce housing for the people.

They operate on the capitalist notion of supply and demand. The less housing available, the higher the demand, and higher earnings for them”, explained Chavez during his Sunday program.

The interventions in the housing sector announced over the weekend include the full expropriation and culmination of six housing construction projects, four of which are found near the nation’s capital; the temporary occupation of eight housing projects (temporary because they are ready to be handed over to residents); and close supervision by government agencies of another 19 housing developments.

The private housing construction projects that were expropriated were involved in major scams affecting thousands of Venezuelan families. Perspective buyers were trapped into paying huge deposits and investments for future homes that in most cases were never built, despite the fact that the private companies keep raising interest rates and monthly payments for the housing units.

“To all the families who have paid into these projects, the government guarantees your deposits and your apartments, we will not allow you to become victims of the bourgeoisie.

We are returning them [the apartments] to their rightful owners”, stated Chavez as he announced the housing-related interventions on Sunday. Public housing has been in Venezuelan news recently, as heavy rains last month left hundreds of Venezuelan families dependent on government shelters. Also, President Chavez signed agreements with Russia, Iran, Belarus and Portugal to build or buy roughly 35,000 homes during his October eightnation diplomatic tour.

T/ Juan Reardon and Steven Mather

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

The artillery of ideas

“Mission Smile” Providing free dental care to Venezuelans Almost 100,000 Venezuelans have received free dental care and dentures under the specialized government healthcare program, “Mission Smile”

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overnment sources report that “Mission Smile” has provided over 96,000 adults with dental care, including 34,600 with dentures, since the creation of the free healthcare program in 2006.

The Minister for Health, Eugenia Sader, said the program includes both partial and complete dentures, which are supplied from six different specialized clinics around the country, as well as through mobile visits carried out by the Superintendency of Banks (Sudeban). The dentures are primarily for people from the poorest sectors of the country who traditionally have had no access to dental care.

“Mission Smile helps recover the self-esteem of our patients and the Venezuelan people. This is quality free dental attention the revolutionary government offers to our people in order to guarantee health and hygiene”, said

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Sader at one of Sudeban’s denture distribution events last week.

The Superintendent of Banks, Edgar Hernandez, explained that normally such dentures would cost 1,500 bolivars ($348 USD) in the private sector. Other reports quote a price of 2,500 bolivars ($581 USD) for a full denture.

The state run Venezuelan News Agency interviewed 63-year old Iraida Cedeño, who now has one

of the mission supplied dentures.

“I went for about fifteen years without teeth, to the point where I’d forgotten what it was like to chew. I swallowed food whole and it wasn’t good for my digestive system. Now I know that this definitely helps my health and it makes me attractive again”, Cedeño said.

Cedeño found out about the dental mission through her com-

munal council. “I was afraid, I’d gone a long time without anything in my mouth and I got used to eating and talking like that, but then I got excited about it and now I feel extremely happy... and can smile all the time”, she exclaimed.

The mission does not discriminate according to country of origin.

AVN talked to another woman, Julia Manjarrez, also 63 years old and Colombian. She said she had

been using an upper denture that was “so deteriorated that instead of helping me chew, it hurt me”.

After her initial assessment in September, it took less than a month to provide her with new upper and lower dentures.

“When I first heard about Mission Smile appointments I couldn’t go because I was visiting [family] in Colombia, but knowing that here in Venezuela I could get free, lovely dentures of high quality was hope for me and I feel very happy and thankful to these missions for providing me with the same rights as Venezuelan citizens”, Manjarrez professed.

Mission Smile began in June 2006 when a group of dentists from the western state of Tachira presented a proposal to President Hugo Chavez for a project that would largely benefit elderly from the poorest sectors in the country and provide them with dental prostheses. The President approved the project almost immediately.

Venezuelans can also receive free basic dental care, such as cleaning and fillings, through the second stage of the health mission Barrio Adentro.

T/ Tamara Pearson www.venezuelanalysis.com

Satellite manufacturing plant ready by 2012

inister of Science, Technology and Intermediate Industries, Ricardo Menendez, announced this week that as a result of the transfer of technology, expertise and industrialization between Venezuela and China, the first manufacturing plant of small satellites is expected to initiate operations in the central Venezuelan state of Carabobo by 2012.

The Minister explained, during an interview broadcast on Venezuelan state television, that these satellites will serve to observe Venezuelan territory, including phenomena such as climate change, soil decertification processes, status of drainage basins, and changes of cultivation and vegetation patterns in order to contribute to the detection of illegal plantations.

He also revealed that another factory of this type would be installed in Filas de Mariche (east of Caracas). This plant will manufacture receiving antennas specifically designed to operate with the Simon Bolivar Satellite, Venezuela’s first satellite launched two years ago.

The first unit of these antennas will be manufactured by production committees from community councils in neighboring areas, so that people from low income communities can participate in the manufacturing process with assistance, training and guidelines from the Ministry.

Executive Director of the Bolivarian Agency for Space Activities (ABAE), Francisco Varela, expressed that this project has been possible thanks to the training of

human talent in China, not only with specialized advice but also through academic studies.

Valera informed that the project was designed so that Venezuela could enter the field of space research. The Venezuelan Space Center (CEV) allowed the creation of ABAE, which is responsible for implementing national spacial policies.

Two years after its launch into orbit, the Simon Bolivar Satellite has considerably contributed to the democratization of the use and access of Information and Communication Technologies.

This represents a valuable tool to transform Venezuela’s communication systems into decisive factors for social welfare.

T/ Venezuelan News Agency

SOCIAL JUSTICE

The artillery of ideas

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Venezuela: Territory free of illiteracy “Few people had access to books with the salary that they had”, he explained. “Today you can find Venezuelan books very cheap and we also have a great diversity of themes and genres”.

Examples of the titles being published en masse and distributed freely include Miguel Cervante’s Don Quijote and Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, as well as works by the poet Miguel Hernández.

Extensive collections of both fiction and nonfiction that explore Venezuelan history and culture are also being made available through popular book fairs and the government run Libreria del Sur bookstore.

Last week, Venezuela celebrated the 5-year anniversary of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s declaration that the plague of illiteracy has been successfully eradicated in the South American nation

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n 2005, UNESCO affirmed that more than 95 percent of the Venezuelan population is literate, qualifying the country for the title of “Territory Free of Illiteracy”.

The free government program, Mission Robinson, is largely responsible for the success, teaching more than 1.5 million people to read and write in the first two years of its existence.

“This achievement is not something small”, said Marisol Calzadilla, President of the government foundation responsible for implementing Mission Robinson.

“For Venezuela it’s something very important and not only because it’s recognized by the world but rather for our development as a country and the development of our people. The consciousness that the people have today, what is happening all over the country, the level of participation in the construction of popular power, is a product of education. The people have taken control over their lives through knowledge”, Calzadilla said.

Robinson was initiated by the government of Hugo Chavez in 2003 as part of an educational reform strategy using the proven literacy training methods created in Cuba called “Yes, I can” (Yo si puedo).

Rosa Gonzalez, a 53-year old graduate of the program, expressed her satisfaction with the government’s policy during an act celebrating the 7th anniversary of the mission last week.

“For so long, I had been unable to know a marvellous world, the world of literature”, she exclaimed.

Nearly 2.3 million Venezuelans have now benefited from Mission Robinson which boasts over 38 thousand teachers, known as facilitators, and is divided into two

phases – literacy training and primary education.

A third phase is currently being developed for the creation of reading circles, mainly for elderly graduates of the program.

A POLICY OF INCLUSION Over the past 7 years, the mission has focused much of its attention on reaching out to geographically isolated and historically excluded members of the population including indigenous groups and Afro-descendents.

The physically challenged and people who suffer from substance dependency have also been brought into the program and according to official numbers, Mission Robinson is now present in 24 prisons, benefiting nearly 1,000 inmates.

Brizeida Quiñones, a government official working for the mission in the state of Bolivar, explained the goal of the educational policy.

“The principal aim [of the mission] is to assist the population excluded from the formal educational system, offering a holistic and quality education for everyone at all times and in all spaces at the national and international level, converting people into protagonists of their own learning and development through training that sparks liberating processes”, Quiñones said.

Robinson’s success in Venezuela has carried it across borders to countries such as Bolivia and

Nicaragua where the program has been implemented through agreements signed between member states of the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our America (ALBA).

BOOKS FOR THE PEOPLE Alongside the rise in the number of Venezuelans now able to read has been a concerted effort on the part of the government to increase access to books.

The Ministry of Culture reports that 80 million new publications

have hit the streets since 2003, providing the reading population with books that are either distributed freely or at very low costs.

“We have been thinking about the readers and we’ve been accompanying them”, said Miguel Marquez, President of one of the ministry’s publication foundations, which has spearheaded the supply of new low-priced books across the country.

According to Marquez, books in Venezuela were “almost like jewels” until recently.

BEYOND LITERACY With the problem of illiteracy now tackled in Venezuela, the Chavez government has turned its attention to providing basic education to all of its citizens.

According to Brizeida Quiñones, the country must go beyond literacy training and achieve primary education for all.

“The struggle for literacy is also a struggle for [primary education]. We’re not just going to sit with the declaration [of Venezuela] as an illiteracy-free territory. We need to work on ‘Yes, I can’ and ‘Yes, I Can Continue’ where the fundamental purpose is to reach the basic level of sixth grade and prepare citizens for life”, Quiñones affirmed.

Providing work opportunities for students of the educational program has also been a strategy of Mission Robinson.

Under the scheme Robinson Social-Productive, graduated members of the program have the opportunity to apply for government funding for economically productive projects aimed at advancing the communities where they are implemented.

Groups of five to ten students have the possibility of presenting proposals that value economic cooperation over competition.

The mission has thus far financed a total of 796 such projects in the areas of agriculture, fishing, handicrafts, construction, textiles and tourism.

T/ Edward Ellis P/ Agencies

FRIDAY|November 5th, 2010 |No. 36|Bs. 1|CARACAS

ENGLISH EDITION The artillery of ideas

A publication of the Fundacion Correo del Orinoco Editor-in-Chief | Eva Golinger • Graphic Design | Arturo Cazal, Pablo Valduciel L., Alexander Uzcátegui, Jameson Jiménez • Press | Fundación Imprenta de la Cultura

OPINION

T

United States: The clueless

he US people have spoken, but it’s impossible to decode their incoherent message. Drunk with their capture of the House of Representatives, the Republicans thunder that the verdict of ballot boxes from Maine to Hawaii is clarion-clear: the ultimate evil in the US is government, specifically government as led by President Barack Obama. But when exit pollsters questioned voters on their way to those same ballot boxes, as to who should take the blame for the country’s economic problems, 35 percent said Wall Street, 30 percent said Bush and 23 percent Obama. The US people want a government that mustn’t govern, a budget that must simultaneously balance and create jobs, cut spending across the board and leave the Defense budget intact.

Collectively, the election makes clear, they haven’t a clue which way to march.

Has the Tea Party changed the political map? Scarcely so. In concrete terms, it ensured that a significant portion of the political map didn’t change at all. Unlike the House, the US Senate will stay in Democratic hands, albeit with only a tiny edge. One could make a sound case that the Democrats invented the Tea Party out of whole cloth. If it wasn’t for Tea Party lady, Christine O’Donnell, the Republicans would be counting victory in Delaware. But the sometime-Satanist ensured the surprise victory of a dreary Democratic unknown, Chris Coons.

No single Democrat was targeted more fiercely by Republicans than Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic Senate majority leader. His was the symbolic scalp they craved. Right wing millions poured into the state, backing Tea Party Republican Sharron Angle.

Tuesday evening one could sense Republicans holding their breaths, ready to blare their joy at the victory for Angle suggested by many polls.

Around midnight east coast time it became clear that Angle

had gone down, victim of the political suicide she actually committed several days ago, dint of one of the most racist, anti-Hispanic campaign ads in many years. It had escaped the attention of that supposedly consummate Republican political strategist Karl Rove – born in Sparks, Nevada - that the Hispanic vote in Nevada is not insignificant. Hispanics went for Reid by a factor of about 75 percent and he slid through to victory.

It should be added that the powerful corporate and labor interests in the state of Nevada, most notably in the gambling and entertainment and construction sector, were all aghast at the possibility that economically stricken Nevada might cease to have its cause promoted in Washington, DC by the most powerful man in the US Senate, and instead have as their tribune a racist dingbat with zero political clout. If ever there was a need for the fix to be in, and seasoned fixers available to face the task, it was surely in Nevada. But that said, Angle and the Tea Party may have engineered defeat all on their own.

Just over half of the 17,000 respondents to a national exit poll said that their votes in House races had nothing to do with the Tea Party, pro or con. The other half was split, pro and con. Over 60 percent said the all-important issue is jobs; 87 percent said they are worried about economic conditions. Between government laying out money to create jobs and government slashing expenditures to reduce the deficit there’s also pretty much an even split.

Is there anything new in all this? Of course not. Republicans always campaign on homely pledges – economically illiterate – to balance the government’s books the same way as their household budgets. Pressed, as many triumphant Republicans were last night, as to exactly where they would start cutting the federal budget to achieve this end, they invariably slid into the programmatic shadows, with hoarse ranting about freezes and “across the board” budgetary carnage, except for military spending.

As California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, now even more

unpopular than the man he ousted, demonstrated, it’s easier to terminate in a movie script than in a legislature. The incoming California governor, Jerry Brown, demonstrated, that even if you spend more of your money than any other candidate in US political history, around $150 million (as did his opponent, Meg Whitman) you still need to treat your maid right if you want to win.

The second craziest victory speech of the evening came from a Tea Party man, Rand Paul, now the Republican senator from Kentucky. “We’re enslaved by debt”, he screamed at his cheering supporters and followed this by savage diatribes about any constructive role for government. Now it’s possible that Paul, inflamed with libertarian principle, could actually try to filibuster the next vote in the US Senate to authorize an increase in the US national debt.

As awed commentators swiftly noted, he could plunge the United States into default, bring economic devastation to the world.

On the other hand, the history of the Republican Party is suppo-

sed crazies, like Ronald Reagan who campaigned against the deficit in 1980, coming to heel and plunging the United States into a vast new ocean of red ink, courtesy of his tax cuts. It’s what drives the Tea Partiers crazy. They do know one basic truth - that to govern is to betray and they are in line for betrayal. The craziest speech? The visibly psychotic Republican gubernatorial candidate in New York, Carl Paladino, soundly thrashed by Andrew Cuomo, swinging a red baseball bat with the transparent desire to dashing it into Cuomo’s skull.

The landscape has changed. The Republican swing in the House was as dramatic as in 1994, after two years of Bill Clinton. Democrats who entered Congress on Obama’s coattails have now been ousted. What lies ahead is a war of maneuver, between the White House and the Republican leadership. Obama has been weakened -- deservedly so, because a large part of Tuesday’s disaster for his party can be laid at his door. He laid down no convincing political theme, mounted no effective offense, relied on a team of advisors of dubious competence, which had run out of steam. He himself tried to run for and against an effective role for government, made the same childish equations of domestic and federal budgets, sent out mixed messages, lost the confidence of the young and of a vital slice of the independents.

All the same, after two years, the polls show Obama is no more unpopular than was Clinton in 1994. By 1996 Clinton had outmaneuvered the Republican leadership and won reelection in 1996.

Today the economic situation is far worse than it was in 1994. No effective political and economic strategy for recovery is on the cards in the current atmosphere. As always, these days in the US, our last best friend will be gridlock.

Alexander Cockburn Counterpunch.org