We speak with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez about climate change, the Copenhagen summit and President Obama. Chavez calls the COP15 summit undemocratic and accuses world leaders of only seeking a face-saving agreement. “We must reduce all the emissions that are destroying the planet,” Chavez says. “That requires a change in the economic model: we must go from capitalism to socialism.”
Watch the video here:
Mérida, December 24th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan and Chinese government officials and business leaders met in Caracas this week to discuss bilateral relations. As a result of the accords signed at the meeting, Venezuela will increase its supply of oil to China to more than 600,000 barrels per day next year, and China will increase its investments in Venezuelan agriculture, infrastructure, mining, and energy production.
In a press conference, Venezuelan Planning and Development Minister Jorge Giordani called Venezuela’s growing economic relationship with China “a consolidated strategic alliance based on the premise of equality and mutual respect that will be consolidated even more by two countries that have a shared vision of a multi-polar world.”
(click here to view entire article)
Telesur, December 15, 2009 - The Venezuelan delegation to the Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, denounced Tuesday the attitude of developed countries in the world meeting for not committing to reduce emissions of polluting gases because this would presumably affect their economies. The delegation said that developing nations “will not let them get away with it” because it is unacceptable that they do not take into account that they are responsible for the future of the planet.
In an interview with Telesur, Claudia Salerno, director of the Venezuelan Environment Ministry’s Office of International Cooperation, explained that the 30 industrialized countries have the potential to “change the destiny of the world, but today they are telling us that it is too expensive and they are unwilling to let the GDP of their economies be impacted by the response measures to climate change.”
“That is unacceptable, I not only point out to them, but I accuse them… not only are they going to be responsible for climate change but they will be responsible for the future of this planet,” said the official.
(click here to view entire article)
A Decade of Propaganda? The BBC’s Reporting of Venezuela
Monday 14th December 2009, by Lee Salter -Venezuelanalysis.com
Researchers at the University of the West of England, UK, have exposed ongoing and systematic bias in the BBC’s news reporting on Venezuela. Dr Lee Salter and Dr Dave Weltman analysed ten years of BBC reports on Venezuela since the first election of Hugo Chavez to the presidency in an ongoing research project, and their findings so far show that the BBC’s reporting falls short of its legal commitment to impartiality, truth and accuracy.
The researchers looked at 304 BBC reports published between 1998 and 2008 and found that only 3 of those articles mentioned any of the positive policies introduced by the Chavez administration. The BBC has failed to report adequately on any of the democratic initiatives, human rights legislation, food programmes, healthcare initiatives, or poverty reduction programmes. Mission Robinson, the greatest literacy programme in human history received only a passing mention.
(click here to view entire article)
At the opening session of the PSUV congress Chavez made a very radical left-wing speech, calling for the setting up of a new international, explaining that it was necessary to destroy the bourgeois state and replace it with a revolutionary state, but also referring to the bureaucracy within the Bolivarian movement itself. It was clearly a speech that reflects the enormous pressure from the masses below who are getting tired of talk about socialism, while real progress towards genuine change appears to be frustratingly slow.
On Saturday November 21, the First Extraordinary Congress of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) commenced its sessions with the attendance of 772 red-shirted delegates. The majority were workers, peasants and students, elected by around 2.5 million voters (the total membership on paper is seven million!). The atmosphere was one of enthusiasm and expectation.
After a warming up session of revolutionary songs and a couple of opening speeches from visiting dignitaries from Nicaragua and El Salvador, Hugo Chavez opened the proceedings with a five hour speech that finished shortly after midnight.
(click here to view entire article)
Mérida, November 25th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) -- On Tuesday the Venezuelan National Assembly passed a reform to the Community Council Law transferring the financial management of the councils from communal banks to finance commissions, and aiming to solve the problems that arose during the councils’ prolific expansion over the past three years.
Discussion of the law reform began early this year. The first proposal was submitted to scrutiny in 2,500 local discussion forums in which more than sixty thousand spokespeople from tens of thousands of existing community councils participated, according to the president of the National Assembly Commission for Citizen Participation, Dario Vivas.
(click here to view entire article)
Mérida, November 5th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan Foreign Relations Ministry expressed its “repudiation” of remarks made on Tuesday by Israeli Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Dani Ayalon, who said Venezuela had become “a base for the Iranian advance on the American continent.”
The Ministry’s official statement said the Israeli official’s comment constituted “a new aggression against the Venezuelan people” and “a demonstration of the rude, interventionist, and aggressive attitude that characterizes the representatives of the international right wing, and of the violence of the campaigns that they permanently mount against peaceful peoples and governments like that of Venezuela.”
(click here to view entire article)
Your article presents a disturbing picture of political freedoms under attack in Venezuela (Chávez accused of turning tyrant as even former allies languish in jail, 13 October). Allegations of a politically driven judicial system are backed up with a quote claiming: "There are 38 people in jail for political reasons disguised as corruption or public disorder offences."
If true, Venezuela would have political prisoners and such a substantial article into its democratic health would be warranted. But it is not. Among these 38 cited cases are people convicted of the murder of a public prosecutor investigating the 2002 coup; military personnel convicted for placing bombs in the Colombian and Spanish embassies; and police chiefs convicted for ordering gunfire against civilians on peaceful demonstrations with the aim of justifying a military uprising.
(click here to view entire article)
As Latin Americans witness the return of dictatorship – with Honduras suffering political executions, widespread repression and condemnation from human rights organisations about curtailing of press freedoms – it seems a strange time for the media to repeat opposition allegations that Venezuela is becoming a tyranny.
Venezuela is far from the "dictatorship which has a facade of democracy" described by General Raúl Baduel, who has been accused of corruption. What kind of tyranny oversees a 70% increase of participation in presidential elections, as Chávez has, or the government holding 13 free and fair elections in 10 years?
Of course, Venezuelan society and democracy is imperfect. One example is that corruption remains a very real problem. Opponents have tried to use this issue to disparage the government, though it pre-dates the Chávez era. It is therefore ironic that when measures are taken to tackle it, as is the case in legal prosecutions, these are cited as examples of a clampdown on political freedoms. Many Chávez-supporting politicians are under investigation and it paints a distorted picture to focus only on prosecutions against those opposed to Chávez
(click here to view entire article)
U.S. measures for resisting progressive changes in Latin America have included funding of rightwing opposition groups, military deployment throughout the region, and the Fourth Fleet for monitoring a continent. This year seven new bases have been announced for Colombia, one in Peru and two in Panama.
Efforts to destabilize Venezuela's socialist government have been part of the mix. Assets include despondent, formerly entitled Venezuelans and Colombian military force. The failed coup to remove President Hugo Chavez and attempted shutdown of the state oil company were early signs seven years ago. Since then Colombian paramilitary formations, in league with the U.S. puppet government there and rightwing elements in Venezuela, have embarked upon mayhem.
First hand testimony suggests paramilitaries plotted to assassinate President Hugo Chavez.
El Nuevo Herald of Miami recently published a prison interview with Geovanny Velásquez Zambrano. The ex-paramilitary said he attended two meetings almost 10 years ago at which Manuel Rosales, then mayor of Maracaibo, offered $25 million for killing Chavez. He hinted at U.S. sources. Velásquez reported that paramilitary chieftain Jorge Iván Laverde - known as "el Iguano" - accepted the offer: "I have the guys to kill this gentleman."
The plotters established a training camp in Catatumbo to prepare for forays into Venezuela. Velásquez' own group entered Venezuela in 2000. According to the Nuevo Herald, Laverde, also a prisoner, accused high Colombian Army officers of orchestrating paramilitary ventures.
From 2000 to 2008, Rosales governed border state Zulia. In 2006 he was the rightist candidate in a losing bid for the presidency and that year allegedly met again with Colombian paramilitaries in a border town. He escaped to Peru in April.
In late September, a video rendition of Velasquez' testimony before Colombian prosecutors appeared on the Al Jazeera web site, along with lawyer Eva Golinger's commentary. Interviewed by TeleSur, she characterized paramilitary intrusion into Venezuela as "part of what the United States classifies as irregular war [using] military groups to promote violent actions." She saw the 2004 assassination of Venezuelan chief prosecutor Danilo Anderson as one example. Citing a U.S. Southern Command document dated April 13, 2003, Golinger accused Washington of creating a new "United Self Defense Forces of Venezuela" organized by paramilitaries of the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia.
(click here to view entire article)
The Guardian newspaper has had to retract false claims made by Ian Black, the Middle East Editor, which labelled Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez a “contender for the ‘pariah’ status Gaddafi held for so long."
Ian Black made his claim, which is without any basis, in an article titled Shadow of Megrahi hangs over Libya’s mass celebration of Gaddafi’s 40 years on 31 August 2009.
Following calls by Samuel Moncada, the Venezuelan Ambassador in London, for a retraction, Siobhain Butterworth the Guardian Reader’s Editor, has explained that the newspaper has “removed the sentence from the web article and added a footnote documenting the change.”
This is the second time that a British publication retracts from previous accounts in relation to Venezuela. Last month The Economist retracted from an inaccurate statement about alleged participation of Venezuelan troops in military activities in Bolivia.
Samuel Moncada said: “I am pleased that The Guardian has retraced its false claim that President Chavez is a pariah. Unfortunately there is too much inaccuracy and distortion in the British media about developments in the Venezuela. There will be ongoing efforts to counter these misrepresentations. Whatever views are held on the changes underway in Venezuela today, these should be reported accurately and honestly to allow the readers to make up their own mind"
Venezuelan Embassy Press Office 18 September 2009
Notes to Editors:
1) The correction can be seen at http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/sep/17/corrections-and-clarifications
2) The correction by The Economist can be found at http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14142418
3) For more details, please contact Mr Alvaro Sanchez at 0207-584-4206
The United States was founded as an "infant empire," in the words of George Washington. The conquest of the national territory was a grand imperial venture. From the earliest days, control over the hemisphere was a critical goal.
Latin America has retained its primacy in U.S. global planning. If the United States cannot control Latin America, it cannot expect "to achieve a successful order elsewhere in the world," observed President Richard M. Nixon's National Security Council in 1971, when Washington was considering the overthrow of Salvador Allende's government in Chile.
Recently the hemisphere problem has intensified. South America has moved toward integration, a prerequisite for independence; has broadened international ties; and has addressed internal disorders-foremost, the traditional rule of a rich Europeanized minority over a sea of misery and suffering.
The problem came to a head a year ago in Bolivia, South America's poorest country, where, in 2005, the indigenous majority elected a president from its own ranks, Evo Morales.
In August 2008, after Morales' victory in a recall referendum, the opposition of U.S.-backed elites turned violent, leading to the massacre of as many as 30 government supporters.
In response, the newly-formed Union of South American Republics (UNASUR) called a summit meeting. Participants-all the countries of South America-declared "their full and firm support for the constitutional government of President Evo Morales, whose mandate was ratified by a big majority."
"For the first time in South America's history, the countries of our region are deciding how to resolve our problems, without the presence of the United States," Morales observed.
Another manifestation: Ecuador's president Rafael Correa has vowed to terminate Washington's use of the Manta military base, the last such base open to the United States in South America.
In July, the U.S. and Colombia concluded a secret deal to permit the United States to use seven military bases in Colombia.
(click here to view entire article)
"In the end", said Martin Luther King, "we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends." His words are relevant to every social struggle and are especially pertinent to the ongoing fight for social justice in Latin America, where media manipulation and forces hostile to the positive changes of the last decade conspire to return nations such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Honduras to an imposed neo-liberal economic model.
The survival of Hugo Chávez' government in Venezuela, the popular elections of Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador and the campaign to restore Manuel Zelaya, the democratically-elected leader of Honduras, to power following a right-wing coup have all relied on solidarity at home and abroad and the courage to read between the lines of the disinformation pedalled by corporate media outlets.
The British labour movement has always played its part. From the Spanish Civil War, to the coup in Chile and the apartheid struggle in South Africa, and now the solidarity campaigns around Cuba, Colombia, Venezuela and Honduras, the British left has stood up for democracy and justice. This makes the present media manipulation around Venezuela even harder to stomach.
Against a background of increasing anti-Chávez propaganda an attack on the British left's support of Venezuela's revolution has emanated from Labour's benches in the House of Commons. Denis MacShane's critique in The Guardian (3 August) must be challenged. The Rotherham MP began with a call for all "Hooray Hugos", presumably including more than 50 Labour MPs and many national trade unions, to rethink their support for Venezuela's leader.
According to Denis MacShane: "While the left in Spain, France, Italy and Latin America has always had doubts about the populist, demagogic style of Chavez, he has had a free run in Britain. Ken Livingstone organised meetings to worship him and got involved in a bizarre oil deal. The NUJ [National Union of Journalists] and Labour MPs have made pilgrimages to Caracas to buy the Chávez line."
It was a risible attempt to belittle the work of the solidarity movement which arose in response to the CIA-backed coup against a democratically elected Venezuelan leader, who has made the alleviation of poverty a priority.
(click here to view entire article; click here to view a longer version of this article)
Micheletti's spokesman added that Obama's decision “condemned the people that struggle against Marxist expansion in Central America”.
In the rest of Latin America the tougher US stance was welcomed, in particular the proposals to revoke the visas of members and supporters of the regime and the indication that the USA will not recognise the outcome of scheduled elections in November.
Yet despite coming under pressure from senior members of his own party, Obama has so far resisted calls to formally declare that the June 28 overthrow of President Zelaya was military coup. Were he to do so, the US government would by law be required to make permanent its cuts in aid and suspension of visas.
However, a formal declaration would require ratification by Congress, and some analysts have suggested that Obama is desperate to avoid playing into the hands of right wing Republican lawmakers who are busy echoing the claims of the coup leaders that he has allied himself with Venezuela’s socialist president.
Whilst this may in part account for Obama’s reluctance to issue a declaration, others in his administration- most notably Secretary of State Hilary Clinton- are opposed in principle.
Clinton’s role since the coup has been opaque. She chairs the US government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation, which had continued to fund the regime until Thursday’s announcement prohibited all direct aid. In July, she denounced President Zelaya’s attempt to return to Honduras as “reckless”. And her confidant Lanny Davis, who was chief fundraiser for her presidential campaign, has since been hired as a public relations spokesman for the coup regime.
(click here to view entire article)
Photo: Avila TV MuralIn Venezuela they are a key force in the country's ongoing media-war. Armed with video cameras, they are a team of some 380 young people working for Caracas television station, Avila TV. Started as an experiment just three years ago, according to one study it is now the third most watched station in the city. Funded completely by the government, they consider themselves a voice of President Hugo Chavez's "socialist revolution."
Located on Avenida Urdaneta, in the center of the city, Avila TV is in a large beautiful building bustling with young adults sporting Caracas' latest urban fashions. The building, a former bank, has been transformed with floors of state of the art equipment and walls decorated with elaborate murals and posters of well-known revolutionary figures.
(click here to view entire article)
In the 1980's, we were told by government leaders such as Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, most economists, media pundits such as Thomas Friedman that there is no alternative (TINA) to unregulated market capitalism. This economic model and the related policies are called neoliberalism in Latin America.
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