Newsletter8

Bolivarian Government of Venezuela

Ministry of People’s Power for Foreign Affairs Office of The Deputy Minister for Africa

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Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Kenya Concurrent to Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and Somalia

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Permanent Mission of Venezuela to the United Nations Environment programme (UNEP)and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme ( UN Habitat).

VOL. 2: ISSUE. 8 7th March 2016

BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA MINISTRY OF PEOPLE’S POWER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMUNIQUÉ The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela strongly rejects the renewal of the Executive Order issued by the President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, who inexplicably insists in declaring Venezuela as an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the US. The unilateralism and extraterritoriality permanently practiced in the world by the US government constitute a flagrant violation of the principles and purposes of the United Nations Charter and the rule of international law, threatening the life of multilateralism and the protector and guarantee mechanisms of the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs and sovereign equality of States.

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela condemns the double standards of the Government of the United States, which is one of the countries where the violation of human rights is a state policy, and extreme warmongering is practiced in entire regions of the world thus massive denying people access to human rights, seeks to give lessons to other countries of what it intentionally suffers to justify its interventionism.

Venezuela denounces before the international community that this attack incites the anti-democratic factors and violence of the Venezuelan opposition to attack the Venezuelan institutions and its legitimate and constitutional authorities.

The US government, in a sign of its arrogance, has ignored the calls of the world's people and the international community, contained in the declarations of UNASUR, ALBA, PETROCARIBE, NAM, G77 plus China and CELAC, who demanded expressly the repeal and non-renewal of this unusual Executive Order.

The Venezuelan government has decided, therefore, to subject to comprehensive review the relations with the United States. From this sacred ground came a handful of men to gain freedom and independence of much of the Americas. Two hundred years after that libertarian feat, Hugo Chavez claimed our right to be free and sovereign. Venezuela, its women and men of goodwill, we endorse the visionary statement of our Founding Father Simon Bolivar: "The United States seems destined by providence to plague America with misery in the name of freedom"

Inside this Issue!

Pg 1.

Venezuela strongly rejects the renewal of the Executive Order issued

by President Barack Obama

Pg 2.

Unasur rejects decision to extend the Executive Decree of the USA Government on Venezuela

Pg 3.

Latin America Remembers Revolutionary Legacy of Hugo Chávez

Pg 4.

Chavez’s Legacy: Transforming the Lives of Millions

Pg 4.

Minister Rodríguez asks UN to Assess Opposition’s Amnesty Law Proposal

UNASUR rejects decision to extend the Executive Decree of the USA Government on Venezuela

The General Secretariat of the Union of South American Nations rejects the decision to extend for one year the term of the Executive Decree of the Government of the United States of America, approved on 9 March 2015 on Venezuela because, as pointed out by the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Union on March 14, 2015, “(…) constitutes an interventionist threat to the sovereignty and the principle of nonintervention in the internal affairs of other States”.

This measure also ignores the reaffirmation of the democratic institutions of Venezuela, produced in the election of the Legislative Assembly last December 6, 2015, as the Electoral Mission of Unasur could verify, that accompanied these elections.

Therefore, Unasur reiterates the call that has been doing for the establishment of an institutional dialogue in Venezuela that allows Venezuelans reconcile and overcome their differences without any foreign intervention or pressure.

Quito, 4th March 2016

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Latin America remembers revolutionary legacy of Hugo Chávez

Peace, unity and prosperity was the message on Saturday, on the third anniversary of the death of Hugo Chávez.

President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, was at the Cuartel de la Montaña alongside other Latin American leaders to pay homage to the former leader.

"Today the new history begins," he said.

Evo Morales, Daniel Ortega and Salvador Sanchez Ceren, the presidents of Bolivia, Nicaragua and El Salvador respectively, among others, gathered at the monument to pay tribute Chávez, who died of cancer three years ago.

“With the union of all it is possible to build new prosperity, that is what we are going to see,” said Maduro in an interview with VTV. “There is no option, either we achieve it or we achieve it. Peace, union and prosperity that is the message today three years after the parting of Comandante Chávez.”

The day was also marked by international leaders, with current and former Latin American presidents paying tribute to Chávez.

Evo Morales, President of Bolivia “As a human being, (Chávez) was a great support. As a Latin American brother, he was a great integrator. As a politician, he was an anti-imperialist who taught us to lose our fear in the face of the empire, to raise our voice to the empire with no fear.”

Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador “You can’t even imagine all the propaganda that they made against Chávez, full of slander, when in reality Chávez was an extraordinary human being. Despite being a soldier, at the end sometimes he was very naive because he trusted people so much. He was too goodnatured, he gave opportunities again and again to the opposition, for them to end up once again driving the dagger into his back” Cristina Kirchner, former President of Argentina

The president said that in spite of the death of Chavez, his message is still strong.

“We remember him, those who know that he left life for a free people, and a legacy of American unity.”

“I feel Chávez more present and more alive than ever, and he generates more and more love in those who fight for the truth of America.” he added.

“Hugo Chávez, remembered by his people with enormous and eternal love.”

Indigenous and Catholic communities joined together in a religious ceremony at the Cuartel de la Montaña, in the revolutionary neighborhood of 23 de Enero, to honor Chávez.

“Chávez is the reincarnation of Bolivar. Chávez knew that revolutions cannot go alone and depart from the principle of solidarity, and this solidarity goes from sharing bread, up to moral solidarity, they all have an infinite value.” www.teleSURtv.net

At 4.25 p.m. local time a canon was fired to remember his revolutionary legacy, as his death fell at that time, March 5, 2013.

Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua

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Chavez’s Legacy: Transforming the lives of millions When Hugo Chavez won his first election as Venezuela’s President in 1998, it was against a backdrop of a deep economic and social crisis.

Venezuela's economic performance was one of the worst in the world. Its economy per head had been falling for over 25 consecutive years. Living standards had been driven down, and just a few years before Chavez came to office over 40 percent lived in extreme poverty.

This despite the vast oil wealth that the country possessed. In the late 1950s Venezuela's income per person was on a par with Britain. That era came crashing down thanks to misrule and, later, the implementation of neoliberal policies by the country's political elite, which failed the Venezuelan people. As a result Venezuela’s income per head was lower in 1998 than it had been in 1960, in real terms.

Popular revolts against this decline were brutally repressed. In one incident alone - the Caracazo - up to 3,000 died and the constitution was suspended.

Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution" — named after Latin American independence hero Simon Bolivar — began to reverse these decades of failure, and after the state oil company was taken under full government control, following a coup attempt and failed oil strike in 2002-2003, the social improvements accelerated.

Poverty reduction and inequality Arguably the most impressive achievements of the era of progressive change that begun with Chavez's election is poverty-reduction programs, which have seen startling results.

When Chavez arrived in office in 1998, Venezuelan poverty levels were at 44 percent. The Revolution has reduced this substantially to 27 percent today. Whilst extreme poverty has declined from 20% to 5.4%, according to figures released earlier this week.

Inequality has also been tackled. Using the internationally recognized measurement, the Gini coefficient where zero represents perfect equality, inequality fell from 0.48 at the time of Chavez's election to 0.38 today.

Tackling a humanitarian crisis Free-market extremism devastated the living standards of the Venezuelan people. One clear example is the widespread hunger that afflicted the oil rich nation. In 1998, 21 percent of the population suffered from undernourishment according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations definition. Today that figure is just 2 percent.

Likewise, the number of underweight children at the end of the pre-Chavez was 5.3 percent, a figure that had halved by 2012. Today 95.4 percent of Venezuelans eat three times per day according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE). Social programs providing subsidized food, free meals, and free school dinners have played a significant role in eradicating hunger and child malnutrition. Access to drinking water has significantly improved too, from 80 percent in 1998 to 96 percent today.

Enriching lives through public services In the 15 years prior to Hugo Chavez, from 1983 to 1998, just 37 percent of the state budget went on social investment. In the 15 years of the since Hugo Chavez initiated the Bolivarian Revolution that figure has shot up to 61 percent.

As a result, Venezuela has risen substantially in the UN's Human Development Index.

Increased social investment led to huge improvements in education, for example illiteracy was eradicated and Venezuela now has one of the world's highest proportion of people attending university.

Healthcare was also a major beneficiary of this investment. Over 80% of Venezuelans have accessed the nation's now-free public health system with some 700 million consultations via the more than 10,000 new free health centers. As a result, infant mortality in revolutionary Venezuela has dropped by a third and this effort is estimated to have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

Sharing the economic gains The reversal of a 25-year economic decline has seen employment opportunities flourish. Unemployment was 14.5 percent in 1998, a figure which, today, has been reduced by two thirds, with over 4 million jobs since 1999. Employment in the formal sector has risen considerably to 60 percent.

Whilst in retirement, many more have a dignified life, with the number of people accessing a state pension increasing from 387,000 pre-Chavez, to over 2.5 million today.

Backed by the people All this progressive change has been backed in election after election. Since Hugo Chávez took office in 1999, Venezuela has held 18 national elections with the coalition of supporters of the Bolivarian Revolution winning all but one. This is a greater number of elections than were held during the previous 40 years of Venezuelan democracy, following the fall of the dictatorship in 1958.

www.teleSURtv.net 4

Minister Rodríguez asks UN Human Rights Council to assess opposition’s amnesty law proposal

Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez on Wednesday asked the United Nations to evaluate the amnesty law being proposed by the country’s right-wing opposition in the National Assembly in an attempt to violate the country’s constitution through the bill, which would free politicians imprisoned for inciting violence and other criminal acts.

“We request the high commission for human rights to carry out a judicial study to evaluate the legality of this legislative proposal, which violates human rights,” Delcy Rodriguez told the 31st session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

During her speech, the foreign minister emphasized the role played by her country in promoting domestic human rights, through the expansion of political inclusion, education and health along with the eradication of poverty.

“The social achievements under our revolution continue,” she stated.

Rodriguez went on to issue support with the people of Palestine against the policies of Israel, calling on the Human Rights Council be free of politicization, selectivity and double standards.

During the sidelines of the U.N. event, Foreign Minister Rodriguez took time to meet with Palestinian counterpart, Riad al-Malki, where the pair discussed a variety of initiatives to strengthen cooperation. www.hoyvenezuela.info

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