Pg. g 7 | Investigation g Special report on terrorist plans and plots against Venezuela and Cuba and the capture of terrorist Francisco Chavez Abarca
FRIDAY|October 1st, 2010|No. 31 |Bs. 1|CARACAS
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Cuban leader Fidel Castro explains that oil is really what external forces are after in Venezuela
ENGLISH EDITION The artillery of ideas
Elections special
Young Venezuelan Conducts Baltimore Orchestra
Sunday’s legislative elections in Venezuela celebrated an extraordinary voter turnout at over 67%. Pro-Chavez PSUV party won a solid majority of seats in the National Assembly Although both sides claim victory, the PSUV party took 98 seats in parliament, while the opposition coalition won 65. A third, independent party won two seats. The win stands as the largest majority any one party has had in Venezuelan history and evidences strong support for Chavez’s policies after more than a decade. Opposition parties boycotted the last elections in 2005, losing their presence in the legislature. Now, they’re back.
Housing a top priority
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This week President Hugo Chavez announced new plans to accelerate solutions for Venezuela’s housing problem. Recent heavy rains have led to the destruction of numerous homes in poor communities, causing the deaths of over a dozen people. Chavez said he will use special funds to ensure the housing crisis is resolved expeditiously.
Politics
Voting process was smooth The National Elections Council (CNE) lauded the participatory and civil voting process last Sunday in Venezuela.
Coup Attempt in Ecuador
Politics
Opposition loss, Chavez win The outcome of the Venezuelan legislative elections has different interpretations in Venezuela’s polarized society.
Politics
Normal electoral structure in Venezuela Despite claims of gerrymandering, Venezuelan law requires equal and representative distribution of voting circuits.
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s we go to press, a coup attempt is underway against the government of President Rafael Correa. On Thursday morning, groups of police forces rebelled and took over key strategic sites in Quito, Ecuador’s capital. President Correa immediately went to the military base occupied by the police leading the protest to work out a solution to the situation. The police protesting claimed a new law passed on Wednesday regarding public officials would reduce their benefits. Nonetheless, President
Correa affirmed that his government has actually doubled police wages over the past four years. The law would not cut benefits but rather restructure them. The law was used as an excuse to justify the police protest. But other forces are behind the chaos, attempting to provoke a coup led by former president Lucio Guitierrez, who was impeached by popular revolt in Ecuador in 2005. “This is a coup attempt led by Lucio Guitierrez”, denounced Correa on Thursday afternoon via telephone. Correa was attacked by the
police forces with tear gas. He was hospitalized shortly after. As of 1pm Thursday, police forces were attempting to access his hospital room to possibly assassinate him. Thousands of supporters filled Quito’s streets, gathering around the presidential palace, backing Correa and rejecting the coup attempt. Countries throughout the region expressed support for Correa and condemned the destabilization. USAID channels millions annually into political groups against Correa that could be behind the coup attempt.
rom October 14 to 16 at 8pm, 17-year-old Venezuelan Ilyich Rivas will conduct the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to give life to a program that includes works by Johannes Brahms, Ludwig van Beethoven, Gustav Mahler, and Dmitri Shostakovich. Rivas, recognized today as one of the most promising young orchestral conductors in the world, will head one of the country’s leading symphony orchestras, directed by Marin Alsop, the first woman to head a major American orchestra. “Ilych is enthusiastic, respectful, focused, and passionate”, she said, referring to the Venezuelan musician Born in Venezuela’s Andean city of San Cristobal in 1993 from a family of musicians, Rivas, despite his young age, already has had a well-recognized career. He is currently assistant director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and was recently awarded the Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation Award Nominees in the United States and the 2010 Julius Baer Prize in the Verbier Festival in Switzerland. He was also nominated as “Artist of the Month” by the magazine Musical America.
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IMPACT
The artillery of ideas
Chavez: Housing Solutions a Top Priority
to deal with the issue. Referring to the government owned and operated industries, the Venezuelan head of state called for unity and solidarity in confronting the housing problem. “We have the cement factory and [the steel company] Sidor. We’re going to see how we can bring the price of materials down”, he said.
augurated a pipe recycling plant in the state of Anzoategui, which uses discarded materials from oil exploitation to create structures for affordable homes. In 2008, the government launched the Petrocasa program, which provides low cost housing made of the plastics derived from the oil industry. Yet, despite these attempts to address the issue, the question of housing continues to exist as a major challenge for the government, particularly since the price of building materials increases and the population continues to grow. News agency EFE reports that Venezuela’s current housing deficit is around two million and statistics from the private association, the Venezuelan Chamber of Construction, put the number of houses constructed in 2009 at 98,000. According to the organization, the Venezuelan government would need to construct 200,000 houses annually to overcome the shortage. On Monday, Chavez announced the $1 billion to be invested in the government’s new housing initiative should provide “at least 25 thousand homes”. The Venezuelan President also asked for a commission to be established to study the possibility of using the urban lands currently occupied by golf courses for the creation of neighborhoods.
MORE EFFORTS NEEDED Last month, the government in-
T/ Edward Ellis P/ Presidential Press
One of the major problems facing the Venezuelan government is the lack of affordable, safe housing for the nation’s growing population. The Chavez administration is pursuing several different strategies to ensure homes are available for all
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roviding decent and affordable housing for the nation’s population will be one of the top priorities for the government as the newly elected National Assembly begins to take shape, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced last Monday. “I’m going to work with the other branches of government, governors and private businesses to solve this problem of housing”, the Venezuelan head of state said during a press conference at the presidential palace Miraflores. Chavez referred to the question of housing as a problem for the state and expressed his willingness to take the issue to the “presidential level” in order to guarantee high quality homes at low prices. Accordingly, the Venezuelan president reported that $1 billion USD of a new credit line granted by China will be directed towards the project.
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ith the objective of making basic commodities accessible to ordinary families, late last week, the Venezuelan government launched a new type of credit card which residents can use to purchase items in the country’s state-run supermarkets. The Good Living Card provides low interest credit to clients of government owned banks to facilitate food and appliance purchases in the state’s Bicentennial Markets and the Mercal social program. According to officials, the interest rate being offered to card users is 50% less than traditional credit cards.
Earlier this year, China granted Venezuela a record-setting $20 billion in credit. Much of the problem of housing in Venezuela revolves around the informal homes that have sprung up on the outskirts of the capital Caracas and other major cities. These barrios are host to a highly dense population and in the case of Caracas, a seismic zone, the homes are precariously built on the hillsides with practically no oversight.
Last week, at least 14 people were killed when heavy rains led to the collapse of poorly constructed homes in the capital. The government has made efforts to legally recognize the homes of barrio residents through the granting of land titles, but the structures themselves continue to be a sprawling and vulnerable patchwork of improvised living arrangements. Chavez said on Monday that he would ask the National Assembly to pass a Special Housing Law
Good Living, Living with Dignity “These cards are liberating because the poor who live from paycheck to paycheck are never given loans or credit”, President Hugo Chavez said during the launch of the initiative last Friday. Apart from basic food commodities, affordable appliances will also be available for purchase with the card. The appliances are the product of a government accord with the Chinese company Haier, which has supplied the Venezuelan population with items such as refrigerators and washing machines at a very reduced price. Chavez revealed at the event that the new card’s name is derived from South America’s indigenous heritage.
“We’ve taken inspiration from the indigenous of Bolivia and Peru”, Chavez exclaimed during the ceremony at the presidential palace Miraflores. “For thousands of years, the indigenous have had this code: Good living, and living with dignity and decorum”, the Venezuelan President declared. Users of the Good Living Card will have a percentage of their debt subtracted from their monthly income over a defined time period. For purchases made at the government run Bicentennial food markets, a period of 24 months will be granted for debt payment. AFFORDABLE TOURISM Another card has also been
designed specifically for tourism where cardholders will be able to solicit credit up to three times their monthly salary for packages organized through the Toursim Ministry. Tourism Minister, Alejandro Fleming, informed on Friday that packages for the popular destinations of Canaima, Merida, Morrocoy, and Margarita Island are ready for the public. The packages include airfare, food and lodging. As an example of prices, a three-day trip to Margarita Island will be offered to the public for 1.290 bolivars ($300). Although the prices being offered are considerably lower than what is available through private agencies,
President Chavez asked for a further reduction in expenses to make the packages more accessible. “We need to look for a way to lower the costs of this program”, he implored. Minister Fleming mentioned that, different from the Good Living Card for purchases at the state-run supermarkets, the card used for tourism would allow customers a lapse of 36 months to pay their debt. The program seeks to stimulate the national tourism industry and encourage Venezuelans to visit and get to know different areas of their country. T/ EE
ANALYSIS
The artillery of ideas
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No 31 • Friday, October 1st, 2010 |
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A Win for US Interference ian Revolution, despite imperfections, inefficiencies and failures.
Although it is undeniably true that the winner of Venezuela’s legislative elections last Sunday was the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), which sealed a solid and absolute majority in the new National Assembly, there was also another winner: US interference
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resident Hugo Chavez’s party, PSUV, achieved a landslide victory this past Sunday, September 26 in the nation’s legislative elections, winning 98 seats out of 165 in the parliament. The coalition of opposition parties, grouped under the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), won 65 seats, while a third party, PPT, took two. On a national level, the PSUV won in 56 out of 87 circuits, and 18 states out of 24, including the capital district, Caracas. PSUV also won 7 seats on the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino), while MUD took five. Out of the votes tallied nationally 5,422,040 went to PSUV and 5,320,175 were for MUD parties. In all scenarios, PSUV won. It’s an impressive achievement for a political party formed just three years ago, and demonstrates PSUV is the primary political force in the country. With 98 deputies in the National Assembly, PSUV has an absolute majority, followed in second place by opposition party Accion Democratica (AD), which won 22 seats. The other 43 seats in parliament are divided between 9 different political parties. But despite the victory of PSUV in the elections, some key areas were lost to opposition forces, such as in the state of Anzoategui, a solid Chavez-supporting region. Opposition sweeps in the states of Tachira and Zulia, while not suprising, merit analysis. INTERNAL ERRORS This year was one of the most difficult for the Chavez administration since it came to power in 1999. Electrical energy problems caused by a severe drought during the first semester of the year almost plummeted the nation into collapse. If the government
hadn’t implemented a nationwide electricity-rationing plan, the situation would have been unbearable. Nonetheless, entire regions in Venezuela were without regular electricity and water service for months, and this had a major impact on the daily lives of Venezuelans. Even though the principal cause of the energy problem was not the government’s fault, Chavez still took the blame. The global financial crisis had its impact on Venezuela, forcing oil prices to drop and the country’s budget to decrease. Eleven Venezuelan banks were intervened by the state to save customer savings and prevent a bad situation from becoming even worse. The majority of these private banks were either nationalized or liquidated, some for corruption or financial irregularities. If the Chavez administration hadn’t intervened, millions of Venezuelans would have lost all their savings and the social crisis would have been unimaginable. Inflation and speculation encouraged by private enterprise also had a major effect on the daily lives of Venezuelans. Prices of basic consumer products skyrocketed to unaffordable rates. If the state hadn’t expropriated several chains of supermarkets involved in speculation and turned them into a nationwide chain of state-run stores selling products at affordable and accessible prices, millions of Venezuelans would have been without basic food supplies. But the problems of speculation and inflation persist, and instead of recognizing the partial responsibility of private enterprise sabotaging the economy, and consumers willingly paying hiked up prices, the media and others blame
Chavez. Despite the government’s efforts to solve these difficult and complex problems, the manipuation perpetuated through mass media, nationally and internationally, ignored the reality and exaggerated the negative, influencing voters’ decisions at the polls. There have also been some very real problems this year, such as the discovery of several tons of decomposed food items in containers owned by the state food program, PDVAL. Despite an investigation into the matter and the detention of those involved, the media exploited the incident to pin corruption and inefficiency on the government. On a regional level, numerous elected officials have failed to follow through on key policies. Others have been consumed by corruption, bureaucracy or incompetence, ignoring the constituents who elected them and causing people to feel abandoned, betrayed and forgotten. A ferocious international media campaign against the Chavez administration has attempted to link the government with terrorism, drug trafficking, authoritarianism and human rights violations, with little, if any, alternative viewpoints. And nationally, the majorityowned private media ran fear campaigns about communism, corruption and dictatorships, in the style of US Cold War propaganda. This context heavily influenced the elections last Sunday and the decisions of voters. The miracle may be not that the opposition won 65 seats, but rather that the PSUV achieved 98. The sound support for President Chavez and his policies demonstrated through this vote evidences a majority in the country still backs his Bolivar-
EXTERNAL FACTORS Another important factor influencing these elections was the multimillion-dollar support the opposition campaign received from US agencies, such as USAID, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), International Republican Institute (IRI) and National Democratic Institute (NDI). These agencies, backing the opposition to Chavez for years, achieved a major result; their most loyal agents won top seats in parliament. During the past eight years, US agencies have been working hard to strengthen opposition forces and help them return to power in Venezuela. The result of Sunday’s elections is their most important victory to date. Efforts backed by US agencies to destabilize Venezuela and force Chavez’s removal from power have not succeeded since the 2002 coup d’etat. Since then, economic sabotages and numerous electoral interventions had failed to produce favorable results for the opposition. 2010 The key strategic aid and millions in campaign funding from US and other international agencies – in clear violation of Venezuelan law – helped bring opposition forces together under the MUD coalition and select candidates most likely to win. IRI and NDI set up “campaign schools” and workshops to train candidates and help them develop the right messages to influence voters. US funding helped design campaign propaganda, most of it directed against Chavez. Almost none of the opposition candidates presented alternative policies to attract voters. Their entire campaign was about the threat of “communism” if Chavez stays in power. The political parties that won the most votes in the elections were Primero Justicia, Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT), AD and Copei – including winning entire states, such as Zulia (UNT) and Tachira (Copei), both strategic regions bordering Colombia of key interest to US policy. Two of these parties, Primero Justicia and UNT were created under 10 years ago with US funding and strategic advice. Their work
with them over the decade has finally paid off. The funding and advising invested in one particular candidate, Maria Corina Machado, helped her get the most votes of any candidate on a national level. Machado, founder of the US-funded opposition group Sumate, was the only Venezuelan to be publicly received by President George W. Bush in the White House (with a photo op) throughout his presidency. The discourse of “communism vs. capitalism” was the pillar of Machado’s campaign, and her baby-kissing, plastered-smile style was clearly made in USA. The brutal international media campaign against the Chavez government, primarily in CNN, FOX News, the New York Times and the Washington Post also had a heavy impact on the elections. For weeks, all the news about Venezuela was related to unsubstantiated claims linking Chavez to “terrorism”, “drug trafficking” and even “nuclear weapons”. The US government is pleased. They never thought the opposition would win a majority in the National Assembly, but they did believe that PSUV could achieve a solid two-thirds majority. Their objective was to impede Chavez supporters from achieving the comfortable two-thirds majority, which would have neutralized opposition forces in parliament and rendered them powerless. They won. Although the PSUV has an absolute majority, the presence of US-funded and backed deputies in Venezuela’s legislative body will cause unrest. They won’t be able to roll back any of Chavez’s policies, but they will be able to use this platform to strengthen ties with external allies and prepare their strategy for the 2012 presidential elections. US interference triumphed this time around in Venezuela. The most loyal agents of the US government are now in key positions in Venezuela, where they can create obstacles and challenges for the Chavez government. Now these individuals, many of whom participated in the 2002 coup and subsequent destabilization attempts, can continue with their anti-Chavez agenda, acting with the legitimacy of being representatives of Venezuela’s National Assembly. T/ Eva Golinger
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POLITICS
The artillery of ideas
Venezuelan Elections: Historic Participation, Smooth Process exist anywhere else on the planet. There is no possibility of fraud”, he declared.
Showing the world the healthy state of their country’s democracy and the current government’s respect for the popular will, millions of Venezuelan citizens exercised their right to vote last Sunday in an electoral process marked by efficiency and transparency
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rom 8 am to 6 pm, the more than 12 thousand polling places, where Venezuelans chose the lawmakers who will represent them in the country’s national legislative body, the National Assembly, bustled with activity. Only minor inconveniences were reported. Where small problems did occur, they were quickly dealt with by the nation’s independent National Electoral Council (CNE), the body in charge of managing the electoral process. “The CNE has demonstrated its capacity to respond in the face of contingency situations because in the great majority of cases, the problems had been foreseen in order to guarantee that the entire electorate can vote”, said CNE Vice President, Sandra Oblitas on Sunday. Nearly 150 thousand citizens chosen at random carried out the operations of the voting centers and more than 230 thousand observers from the nation’s different political parties and organizations oversaw the smooth functioning of the process. “The electoral system is the synthesis of the efforts of 11 years of revolution, so that the [past] fraud, which made a mockery of the people’s will, comes to an end”, declared Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro after casting his vote. “The people are conscious and educated”, he exclaimed, “They have culture and education and for this reason, they vote consciously to determine ways to improve our nation”.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made clear from the beginning that the process would be free of fraud. While voting on Sunday, he reiterated that point. “Every vote will be respected here”, announced Venezuela’s head of state. “From our side, nobody can say that there are fraudulent intentions”.
Referring to the electronic voting machines utilized in the process, which leave each voter with a paper record, Chavez explained that Venezuela’s electoral infrastructure is one of the most advanced on earth. “A voting system like this one, which has been authenticated and audited by global experts, doesn’t
MASSIVE PARTICIPATION According to the official numbers of the CNE, voter turnout reached over 66% on Sunday, the largest participation in legislative elections in Venezuelan history. The results of the elections, which saw supporters of President Chavez win a majority of legislative seats, have not been contested by opposition groups, though some have tried to manipulate the interpretation of the results. Out of the 165 National Assembly seats in play, Chavez’s Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV), managed to secure 98 posts while opposition parties won 67 seats. This is the largest victory won for any political party in the history of Venezuela’s democracy. For the past five years, supporters of President Chavez have enjoyed complete control of the National Assembly thanks to an opposition boycott of elections in 2005. Venezuela has now seen some 14 electoral processes over the past eleven years during Hugo Chavez’s presidency. These contests have included presidential elections and recall referendums, the creation of a new constitution, modifications to that constitution, local and regional elections, and three national legislative elections. According to Foreign Minister Maduro, Venezuela’s bustling democracy is one of the most important achievements of the Chavez government. “Never before in the political history of the country had the people been consulted in the form of referendum”, he recalled. “Now, it’s a constitutional right”. Young people have also been engaging more in the political process, CNE representative Tania D’Amelio reported. CNE numbers reveal that the gap between the number of young people in the country aged 18-30 and the number of registered voters for this age group has been reduced by nearly 50%. Out of nearly six million young people in Venezuela, five million are registered to vote.
D’Amelio said that this fact, together with the growth in the number of voting centers across the country, represents part of the CNE’s focus on community outreach. “The policy of the CNE is to bring the Electoral Branch [of the state] closer to the communities, because ultimately it’s the communities that participate in the process”, she explained. Unlike the United States where voting takes place on a workday and long lines prevent some people from being able to exercise their universal right to suffrage, Venezuela holds elections on a Sunday and nearly every business is closed for the day The lines to vote are normally quick moving and process is generally swift. Frank Arellano, a recently graduated history student from the University of the Andes in Merida, said his total voting time from arrival to the polling place to exiting was approximately 15 minutes. “Everything was very well organized. When I arrived, I joined the line until my number was called. Everything took place in a very orderly manner”. Over 250 thousand members of the armed forces who form part of the government’s electoral security body, Plan Republic, were posted nationwide to ensure safety and calmness throughout the day. The sale of alcohol had also been banned from the Friday before the elections to minimize any potential problems. According to Major General Henry Rangel Silva, Plan Republic was carried out with “total normality” and no situation occurred that would have merited the use of public force. Vladimir Acosta, an international analyst referred to Venezuela’s electoral process as “truly participatory” and “exceptional”. With more than two thirds of registered voters turning out, Acosta called Sunday’s elections, “truly amazing and positive, especially when one compares it to the electoral processes of the past”. T/ Edward Ellis P/ Agencies
POLITICS
The artillery of ideas
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No 31 • Friday, October 1st, 2010 |
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Venezuelan Elections: Socialists Advance, Opposition Loses Ground Compared to 2000 Elections
n Venezuela’s National Assembly elections on Sunday, opponents of President Hugo Chavez won approximately 20 fewer seats than they held during the 2000-2005 legislative term, while the pro-Chavez camp grew by several seats, Deputy-Elect Roy Chaderton said on Monday. Chaderton said the opposition was setting up a “media farce” by comparing Sunday’s results only to those of the 2005 election, which the opposition boycotted, and thus reporting that that opposition drastically increased its presence in the National Assembly. During the 2000-2005 legislative term, which was marked by an array of party splits and shifting alliances, pro-Chavez parties held between 83 and 92 seats at any given time, while opposition parties held between 73 and 82 seats, out of a total of 165. According to the official results of Sunday’s election released by the National Electoral Council, Chavez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) won 98 seats, while the opposition coalition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) won 65 seats. The centerleft Fatherland for All (PPT) party, a former Chavez ally that split with the PSUV, won two seats. Both PSUV and MUD officials reported non-official results on Monday. President Chavez said in a press conference that the PSUV and its allies won 98 seats. MUD leader Ramón Aveledo said MUD candidates received 52% of the total number of votes cast nation-wide. President Chavez refuted this claim, reporting that the PSUV and its allies received 5,422,040 votes and the MUD received 5,320,175 votes. Officially, the PSUV won the majority of the seats in 17 of Venezuela’s 23 states. This included sweeping victories in the rural states of Apure, Barinas, Guarico, Cojedes, Lara, Portuguesa, Vargas, and Yaracuy; and strong victories in the major industrial states of Bolivar and Carabobo. The PSUV also won seven seats in the Capital District, compared to three for the MUD. In Miranda state, where part of metropolitan Caracas is located, the PSUV and the MUD each won six seats, with the MUD defeating
the PSUV by a mere 741 votes out of a total of 968,947. The two were also tied with three seats each in Sucre state. In the sparsely populated and heavily forested Amazonas state, the PSUV won one seat, while the PPT won 2 seats and the MUD did not win any seats. The MUD swept the border states of Tachira and Zulia, as well as Anzoátegui and the island state of Nueva Esparta. CONTRASTING INTERPRETATIONS According to an unofficial Venezuelanalysis calculation, approximately 10% of the 110 deputies who were elected as individuals were women. Having won a majority of the National Assembly, the PSUV will be able to control the passage
of ordinary laws and most other functions of the legislative body. However, the PSUV did not win a large enough majority to control the passage of organic laws, enabling laws that give decree power to the President, and some appointments to other branches of the government. On Monday, MUD officials claimed victory in the elections, based mainly on their claim to have won the majority of the total votes cast on Sunday, which is inaccurate. US-backed candidate, María Corina Machado, who was elected deputy of Miranda state, said the vote showed Venezuela’s disapproval of President Hugo Chavez’s presidency and its project of 21st Century Socialism,
which the opposition says is emulating Cuba’s communist system. “It’s very clear, Venezuela said no to Cuban-style communism, Venezuela said yes to the path of democratic construction and now we have the legitimacy of vote of the citizenry, we are the representatives of the people”, said Machado. The PSUV also celebrated what it considered to be a victory. Vice President Elias Jaua, who is a PSUV official, said, “The revolution can count on a comfortable majority in the National Assembly... Few governments on our continent can count on such a comfortable majority of just one party”. “The opposition does not have any possibility, with this number of deputies, of reversing the legislative processes that have been implemented or activating destabilizing mechanisms, such as revoking public powers or impeaching the President”, explained Jaua. PSUV Campaign Chief Aristobulo Isturiz expressed disappointment that the goal of 110 seats was not reached. However, he said this should not distract from the “truly decisive victory” won by the PSUV, which “reaffirms us as the primary political force in our country”. “We achieved our objective in the sense of being able to guaran-
tee the defense of President Hugo Chavez and the policies of the revolutionary government, and we won sufficient seats to propel structural changes during this next era of the construction of socialism”, proclaimed Isturiz. Isturiz, who was elected deputy in the Capital District on Monday, called on the PSUV “to unite more than ever, to strengthen ourselves because this is a long struggle, it’s a daily struggle, it’s a never ending battle and our new legislators will be an important force in the construction of socialism”. In the early morning hours on Monday, President Chavez, through his Twitter account, called the election “a solid victory, sufficient to continue deepening democratic and Bolivarian socialism”. He added, “We must continue strengthening the revolution!” In a press conference on Monday night, Chavez said the next phase of his government would include “the acceleration of programs within our new historical, political, social, and technological project”. Chavez said the results reflected what was predicted by recent polls and analysis, and as such, “nothing extraordinary happened. Something extraordinary would have been if we had won 130 deputies, extraordinary would have been if we lost the majority”. Polls over the past year consistently showed the PSUV’s popularity as a political party hovering in the mid-30th percentile, with opposition parties much weaker, and a large undecided population. Meanwhile, the approval rating for Chavez’s presidency remained high at around 55% or 60%. This appears to have impacted the PSUV’s electoral campaign, which de-emphasized individual candidacies and framed the election as a vote of approval or disapproval of Chavez’s presidency. MUD candidates also focused on weaknesses of the Chavez government, such as rising crime and corruption, and made few if any policy proposals of their own. T/ James Suggett www.venezuelanalysis.com
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POLITICS
The artillery of ideas
CNE: Venezuelan Electoral Districts Drawn by Standard Method I
n response to accusations by the opposition that the electoral districts were gerrymandered to favor the governing party in Sunday’s National Assembly elections, Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) explained on Tuesday that the districts were defined according to a standard legal method that was not designed to benefit any particular party. Opposition leaders have accused the government of drawing electoral districts in a way that over-represents rural areas, which are strongholds of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), and under-represents major urban centers where supporters of the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) are concentrated. While a final official vote tally for Sunday’s elections is not yet available, unofficial estimates indicate that the PSUV and the MUD were virtually tied in terms of total votes received, while the PSUV won 98 seats in the National Assembly and the MUD won 65.
In an interview with Telesur on Tuesday, CNE director Socorro Hernandez said the discrepancy between the total votes and the number of seats won by each party occurred by chance. “The districts were not changed in favor of anyone. They are in accordance with the Electoral Processes Law”. According to Venezuela’s electoral system, some National Assembly seats are contested nominally, meaning individual candidates compete and the one who receives the most votes wins. Other seats are contested by political parties, which are granted candidates proportional to the amount of votes they receive. In Sunday’s elections, 110 representatives were elected nominally and 52 were elected by political party. The final three go to elected indigenous legislators. Hernandez acknowledged the system has the potential for a degree of disproportional representation, and she said both the PSUV and the MUD had benefitted from this in Sunday’s election.
She pointed out that the PSUV received at least 40% of the votes in the states of Zulia, Anzoategui, Nueva Esparta, and Tachira, but the opposition won a total of 27 seats in those states compared to seven for the PSUV. “Are these cases of favoritism for the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD)? No. The method defined it that way”, Hernández said. “The results should be reviewed and compared to the law. It is the method which everybody must abide by”. This method mandates that there be a minimum of three legislators per state, Hernandez explained. The total number of legislators for any given legislative term varies in proportion to the population of the country. The number of legislators who will be nominally elected is determined by dividing the total number of residents in any given district by 1.1% of the national population. T/ James Suggett www.venezuelanalysis.com
Venezuelan Elections: This Was About Participation S
unday’s election for 165 representatives in the National Assembly is significant but unlikely to bring about major change in Venezuela, despite the opposition having done better than expected. The pro-government United Socialist Party won 98 seats, with 65 for the opposition Democratic Unity, and two for the independent Patria Para Todos (PPT). As expected, most of the international press and its sources hailed the results as a “major blow” to President Chavez, paving the way for his possible removal in the presidential election in 2012. But this is exaggerated. The vote was widely seen as a referendum on Chavez, and it would indeed be quite an anomaly in the history of electoral politics if the government did not lose some support after a recession last year that continued into at least the first quarter of this year. Chavez’s popularity has always gone up and
down with the economy, reaching a low during the last recession of 2002-2003, despite the fact that it was caused by an opposition oil strike. His approval rating has fallen from 60 percent in early 2009 to 46 percent last month. For comparison, President Obama’s approval rating has fallen from 68 percent in April of last year to 45 percent this month, and his party is expected to take big losses in the November Congressional elections here, with some pollsters forecasting a loss of the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. And this is despite the fact that he clearly inherited the country’s economic problems from his predecessor. It is not clear why anyone would expect Venezuela to be exempt from the normal workings of electoral politics. The opposition has most of the income and wealth of the country, and most of the media as well. They have
no problem getting their message out, even if the government mostly through Chavez - also has a big megaphone. Obama also faces a strong right-wing media, with Fox News now one of the most popular sources for coverage of the fall elections, but there is much less of an opposition media in the United States than in Venezuela. NO MAJOR CHANGES Much has been made of the opposition’s winning more than a third of the National Assembly, thus being able to block some important legislation that would “deepen the revolution.” This importance of this result it also greatly exaggerated. In reality, the government’s having a less than two-thirds majority is unlikely to make much difference. The pace at which it adopts socialist reforms has been limited much more by adminis-
trative capacity than by politics. The Financial Times recently added up the value of industries nationalized by the Chavez government. Outside of oil, it came to less than 8 percent of GDP over the last five years. Venezuela still has a long way to go before the state has as much a role in the economy as it does in, for example, France. On the positive side, the most interesting result of this election is that the opposition participated, has accepted the results, and now has a bloc of representatives that can participate in a parliamentary democracy. If it chooses to do so, this could be an advance for Venezuelan democracy, which has been undermined by an antidemocratic opposition for more than a decade. As opposition leader Teodoro Petkoff has noted, the opposition pursued a strategy of “military takeover” for the first four years,
which included a military coup and a devastating oil strike that crippled the economy. In 2004, the opposition went the electoral route and tried to remove President Chavez through a referendum; they failed and then promptly refused to recognize the result, despite its certification by international observers such as the Carter Center and the OAS. They then boycotted the last National Assembly election in 2005, hoping to portray the government as a “dictatorship”, and leaving them without representation for the last five years. This newly elected parliamentary bloc could potentially draw the opposition into real political participation. If that happens, it would be a significant advance for a country that has been too politically polarized for too long. T/ Mark Weisbrot
INVESTIGATION
The artillery of ideas
7
No 31 • Friday, October 1st, 2010 | |
Special Report
Under the Sign of Terror T
he most notorious and dangerous Latin American terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles, is still residing freely in the United States where he’s only being accused of immigration violations, despite his record of bombings and assassinations in different nations throughout the past 40 years. However, the detention last July 1st of one of his accomplices, Salvadoran Francisco Chavez Abarca, alias El Panzon, must cause concern for Posada because of what this man knows and what he has done. Wanted by INTERPOL, Chavez Abarca was trying to get into Venezuela. “What for”, asked President Hugo Chavez, denouncing the capture of this terrorist before TV cameras in Venezuela. Now, the terrorist has confessed: he wanted to reproduce in Venezuela a similar sinister plan that had “results” in Cuba in the 1990s, when a string of violent actions against hotels in the island nation, aimed at discouraging tourism, caused one fatality, several injured and great devastation. The Miami rightwing ex-pat Cubans, sponsored by various US administrations, intended for the violence to destroy the Cuban revolution, which since 1959 has endured numerous criminal conspiracies aimed at its obliteration. Chavez Abarca was a major piece. He not only set up three of those explosive devices set in Cuba in the 1990s, but also hired Central American mercenaries for similar missions. Last July, 13 years later, he resurfaced in Caracas, near the onset of the campaign for the legislative elections held this past September 26 in Venezuela. The person behind his plans to undertake criminal actions and destabilize Venezuela was the same: Luis Posada Carriles. Transferred to Havana under an INTERPOL red alert to face the charges brought against him, Chavez Abarca has spared no details during the investigation and confirmed that in both countries the terrorists and the plans are quite the same. According to his own confession, months before his arrival at Maiquetia airport, he had received instructions from the
Chavez Abarca’s actions against Cuba were part of the escalation of criminal actions carried out in the second half of the 1990s, when the type of terrorism that has characterized the anti-Cuban policy pursued by the US and the Miami Mafia materialized in a wave of brutal actions against Cuban tourist facilities. Such actions would have the additional effect of selling to the world the image of a restless and combative opposition. The bomb blasts and arsons, which were the main features of sabotage in Cuba in the 1960s, were replaced by lethal devices that the terrorists assembled themselves before setting them up in places with high concentration of tourists. Such devices could be programmed several days in advance. They only needed a simple pocket calculator, a watch, a detonator, some wires and C-4, a powerful explosive looking like Plasticine, introduced in Cuba by the criminals in apparently harmless toothpaste tubes and flasks of deodorant or shampoo. Actually, some of those C-4 caches seized could have blown up two airplanes. Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) and Posada to destabilize Venezuela. They were excited over the coup d’etat that brought down President Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, last June 29, 2009, and toyed with the idea of a successful plot against Venezuela. They believed if Chavez was toppled, “the left would be weakened because Venezuela was the country with the highest economic capacity” in Latin America. Chavez Abarca confessed that during various meetings, his counterparts brought up the need to pursue violent and destabilizing actions in Venezuela to try influencing the result of the elections. These included arranging demonstrations, burning tires, assaulting National Assembly candidates and even attacking President Hugo Chávez. CLOSING THE CIRCLE The onset of the investigation that will put Chavez Abarca on
Washington could not accept a different social system that transcended the scenarios of the decision-making centers of power. This is perhaps the premise to understand why subversion and terrorism were incorporated into US policy against Cuba. trial in Havana is not only shedding light on dirty plans for Venezuela, but is also enabling the continuation of the 1999 trials against Salvadoran mercenary Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon and Guatemalans Maria Elena Gonzalez Meza, Nader Kalam Musalam Barakat and Jazid Ivan Fernandez Mendoza, the people he recruited to sow terror in Cuba.
THE POSADA CONNECTION Around the year 1995, Chavez Abarca met Posada at the Moldtrock car workshop owned by Jose Ramon San Feliu in El Salvador. San Feliu was close to Posada Carriles, and just like his father, Ramon San Feliu Mayoral, he had close links to the Salvadoran rightwing party ARENA. In that first meeting, Posada proposed to bring explosives into Cuba, but later “he showed me everything, how to make a bomb”, confessed Chavez Abarca. “He took care of tickets, the accommodation, everything. I only had to give him my passport”, he said, adding, “he told me to stuff the explosives in a pair of boots”. “He paid $2,000 for every bomb blast”, said Chavez Abarca. The Salvadoran set up three but only one of them exploded. Still, the devastation at the Hotel Melia Cohiba nightclub earned him congratulations from Posada. “They wanted Cuba to be included in the list of countries ‘dangerous’ for tourists”.
“I don’t have good memories of Posada”, he admitted, “He treats people as if they were expendable objects”. SUBVERSION AND TERRORISM The story is well known: a young Italian tourist, Fabio Di Celmo, lost his life and various people were wounded during that wave of terrorism. The victory of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959, drove US hegemony in Latin American to a crisis. Washington could not accept a different social system that transcended the scenarios of the decision-making centers of power. This is perhaps the premise to understand why subversion and terrorism were incorporated into US policy against Cuba. It’s no secret that after the fiasco of Bay of Pigs, in April 1961, the White House was forced to deal with a new reality: the Island could not be crushed through domestic or external coups d’etats backed by propaganda campaigns. So Washington fostered intelligence operations against Cuba, establishing rings of agents to carry out espionage, terrorism, sabotage and subversive propaganda and to systematically develop smear campaigns to discredit Cuba’s policies. They also tried to create social and economic conditions in the country conducive to a counterrevolutionary political climate. The United States then tried to isolate the Cuban Revolution diplomatically through an instrument of economic warfare aimed to thwart social development: the blockade. Washington helped fabricate, through covert means, groups of so-called “dissidents” to provide the image of a domestic political opposition as an alternative to the revolution before international public opinion. A number of terrorist groups sponsored by the CIA have played a key role in this dirty war against Cuba since 1959. Many tried to assassinate Fidel Castro, hundreds of times, but their every plan has been dismantled and defeated. T/ Deisy Francis Mexidor and Marina Menendez
FRIDAY|October 1st, 2010|No. 31|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
EDITOR’S NOTE
A
third coup d’etat is underway against a nation member of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA), a Latin American bloc of nations that opposes US hegemony in the region and has created new mechanisms for trade and integration based on principles of solidarity and independence from imperial powers. In 2002, a coup d’etat by opposition forces backed by Washington briefly ousted Hugo Chavez from power in Venezuela. The coup was defeated by the people of Venezuela during a popular uprising rejecting the attempt to destroy democracy. Chavez returned to power two days later. Since then, Venezuela has suffered numerous destabilization attempts, economic sabotages, psychological warfare –both nationally and internationally– electoral intervention, assassination attempts against President Chavez, and a vicious international campaign to portray Venezuela as a dictatorship. This past weekend, opposition forces, funded and supported by US agencies, regained key seats in the nation’s legislature; a platform from where they can intensify their efforts to provoke regime change. In June 2009, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was overthrown in a coup d’etat backed by the Obama Administration and promoted by military and right wing forces in Honduras. Since then, Honduras has never recovered its democracy. Zelaya remains in exile. Now, Ecuador is victim of a coup against President Rafael Correa, an outspoken, solid revolutionary who ousted the US military base from his nation last year and has taken a firm stance against the US capitalist economic model imposed in his nation years ago. Security forces have risen up against his government, backed by political organizations funded by USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy. An emergency meeting has been convened by ALBA and UNASUR nations in Argentina late Thursday night. President Correa’s life was in danger Thursday, as he remained sequestered by coup forces. Another coup against ALBA attempts to impede Latin American liberation and integration, but the people remain defiant, with dignity.
What They Want is Venezuela’s Oil In his latest reflection, Cuban Revolution leader Fidel Castro referred to the outcomes of parliamentary elections in Venezuela. Today, the Bolivarian Revolution has the Executive Power, a large majority in the parliament and a party capable of mobilizing millions of combatants in favor of socialism, he also pointed out
Y
esterday, I wrote about what I would do if I were Venezuelan. I explained that it is the poor people who suffer the most from natural catastrophes and I gave the reasons why. Later I added: “…where imperialism rules and the opportunistic oligarchy receive the greater portion of the national goods and services, the masses have nothing to gain or lose. The empire doesn’t give a damn about the elections…in the United States, even during presidential elections, less than 50 percent of registered voters turn out to vote”. Today I would add that, even when they are voting for the entire House of Representatives, a part of the Senate and other important positions, voter turnout in the United States is no greater. I asked, why then do they employ their enormous media resources to try to drown the Revolutionary Bolivarian Government of Venezuela in a sea of lies and slander? What they really want is Venezuela’s oil. We’ve all seen during these elections, a group of bastards who, together with the mercenaries from the local print, radio
and television press, have gone so far as to attempt to eliminate freedom of the press in Venezuela. The enemy did achieve part of its objective: to stop the Bolivarian Government from obtaining a two-thirds majority in parliament. Perhaps the empire believes it has achieved a great victory. I believe the exact opposite: the
September 26th election results represent a victory for the Bolivarian Revolution and its leader Hugo Chavez Frias. During these parliamentary elections the participation of the electorate rose to a record 66.45 percent. The empire, with its vast resources, was unable to hold back the PSUV, which won 98 of the 165
seats. The most important result is the increased number of young people, women and other proven militants who were elected. Today, the Bolivarian Revolution has the Executive Power, a large majority in the parliament and a party capable of mobilizing millions of combatants in favor of socialism. The United States only has the support of fragments of parties in Venezuela, united out of their fear of the revolution and out of material greed. This time they could not resort to a coup d’êtat in Venezuela as they did with Allende in Chile and in other counties in Our America. The armed forces of this fraternal country both promote and are a part of the Revolution. They are educated in the spirit and example of the Liberator, and it was their ranks that nurtured the current leaders who began this process. Such a union of forces is invincible; a fact that becomes much clearer with half a century of experience. Fidel Castro Ruz September 27, 2010 3:24 a.m.