The seeds of Latin America's rebirth were sown in Cuba

[The progressive alternatives to neoliberalism being pursued in Latin America, including in Venezuela, have their roots in Cuba's revolution.]

The seeds of Latin America's rebirth were sown in Cuba

January 29th 2009, by Seamus Milne - The Guardian

On 9 October 1967, Che Guevara faced a shaking sergeant Mario Teran, ordered to murder him by the Bolivian president and CIA, and declared: "Shoot, coward, you're only going to kill a man." The climax of Stephen Soderbergh's two-part epic, Che, in real life this final act of heroic defiance marked the defeat of multiple attempts to spread the Cuban revolution to the rest of Latin America.

But 40 years later, the long-retired executioner, now a reviled old man, had his sight restored by Cuban doctors, an operation paid for by revolutionary Venezuela in the radicalised Bolivia of Evo Morales. Teran was treated as part of a programme which has seen 1.4 million free eye operations carried out by Cuban doctors in 33 countries across Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa. It is an emblem both of the humanity of Fidel Castro and Guevara's legacy, but also of the transformation of Latin America which has made such extraordinary co-operation possible.

The 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution this month has already been the occasion for a regurgitation of western media tropes about pickled totalitarian misery, while next week's 10th anniversary of Hugo Chávez's presidency in Venezuela will undoubtedly trigger a parallel outburst of hostility, ridicule and unfounded accusations of dictatorship. The fact that Chávez, still commanding close to 60% popular support, is again trying to convince the Venezuelan people to overturn the US-style two-term limit on his job will only intensify such charges, even though the change would merely bring the country into line with the rules in France and Britain.

But it is a response which also utterly fails to grasp the significance of the wave of progressive change that has swept away the old elites and brought a string of radical socialist and social-democratic governments to power across the continent, from Ecuador to Brazil, Paraguay to Argentina: challenging US domination and neoliberal orthodoxy, breaking down social and racial inequality, building regional integration and taking back strategic resources from corporate control.

(click here to view entire article)

U.S. Policy Towards Venezuela and Colombia Will Change Little Under Obama

[Sadly, the Obama years promise more of the same with regard to U.S. foreign policy towards both Venezuela and Colombia.]

U.S. Policy Towards Venezuela and Colombia Will Change Little Under Obama

January 20th 2009, by Garry Leech - Colombia Journal

Recent comments by President-elect Barack Obama, Secretary of State appointee Hilary Clinton and leading congressional Democrats suggest that the incoming U.S. administration will not significantly differ from the Bush administration in its approach towards Venezuela and Colombia. In an interview with the U.S. Spanish-language television network Univision, Obama fired an unprovoked opening salvo across the bow of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez that will likely ensure a continuation of the verbal sparring that has marked relations between the Bush administration and the Venezuelan government. Not surprisingly, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton echoed her future boss’s view of Chávez in her confirmation hearings. Meanwhile, the new House majority leader, Democratic Congressman Steny Hoyer, lauded the achievements of Colombia’s President Uribe and, along with leading Democrat Charles Rangel, endorsed the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

In his interview with Univision, Obama alleged that Chávez had “been a force that has interrupted progress in the region.” Given that neoliberalism is the dominant trend in the region that Chávez’s policies have challenged and thwarted, one can only assume that the spread of free market capitalism is what Obama meant by “progress.” Obama professed his support for free trade during the final presidential debate, despite the fact that the neoliberal model has been rejected by tens of millions of Latin Americans who remain mired in poverty while multinational corporations and the region’s elites become richer. In the Univision interview, the president-elect also went on to suggest that “Venezuela is exporting terrorist activities” by supporting the Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Obama’s remarks closely mirror the positions held by the Bush administration over the past eight years regarding the Venezuelan leader, thereby suggesting that the ideological battle between Washington and Chávez’s socialist government is likely to continue. The president-elect’s comments were particularly troubling given that they were unprovoked. In fact, Chávez has repeatedly verbalized his hopes that ties between the two countries would improve once Obama moved into the White House.

(click here to view entire article)

10 Years of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution (Movimientos/London/5/2/09)

MOVIMIENTOS @ The Salmon & Compass
Thursday 5th February

10 Years of Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution, speakers and discussion + special guest DJs

::: Upstairs

> 7.30pm - Documentary: Puedo Hablar?
"¿Puedo Hablar? / May I Speak?" follows both candidates in the December 2006 Venezuelan elections. The film offers its audience a snapshot portrait of a Venezuelan society at a crossroads; a re-elected president, challenged by a reformed and mounting opposition; a valuable starting block for any debate on current Venezuelan politics. The production team of four journeyed to six different regions of Venezuela, shooting everywhere from the notorious barrios of Caracas to the oil-rich Lake Maracaibo, from a city of five million to an Amazonian pueblo of twenty-three, criss-crossing the country in everything from Chavista motocicletas to dug-out canoes and a private jet.
http://www.sol-productions.org/Sol%20Productions%20In%20Venezuela.htm

> 9.00pm - Panel Discussion
Speakers including Jorge Martin from Hands Off Venezuela (HOV) and Matt Willgress from the Venezuela Information Centre (VIC) discuss 10 Years of Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian government, the challenges it faces and the way it has been covered in the UK media.
Chaired by Pablo Navarrete (Red Pepper Latin America editor/Movimientos)

> 9.30pm
Exclusive music video screenings from Venezuela’s music scene courtesy of AVILA TV


::: & Music downstairs with Movimientos' resident DJs + special guest from Brazil

Salmon and Compass, 58 Penton Street Angel, N1

7pm-2am / £3 / Donations before 9pm

More info:
www.movimientos.org.uk
www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=46268877933
www.myspace.com/movimientos

Why Obama Should Meet With Hugo Chavez

[Regardless of what one thinks of Chávez's politics-love him or hate him---it should be obvious that Obama could score an easy political victory by initiating a détente.]

Why Obama Should Meet With Hugo Chavez

January 18th 2009, by Chesa Boudin - UpsideDownWorld

The same President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela who rapped a gavel to close a session at the New York Stock exchange in 1999 called President Bush "the devil" in a 2006 speech at the United Nations. Last week he announced that despite rumors to the contrary and a freefalling price of oil he would continue a home heating oil charity program in the US which totaled $100 million and reached over a quarter of a million families last year. With this gesture of good will from Caracas and Bush out of office, will President-elect Obama be open to dialogue with the US' one-time ally?

US-Venezuelan relations have never been worse than those Obama will inherit. In September both countries withdrew their ambassadors. Among the many issues straining the relationship are Venezuela's close relationship with Castro's Cuba, and the Bush Administration's support for a short-lived coup d'état that temporarily ousted Chávez in 2002. The collapsing relationship between Washington and the US' fourth largest supplier of imported oil is too strategically significant to ignore: regardless of what one thinks of Chávez's politics-love him or hate him---it should be obvious that Obama could score an easy political victory by initiating a détente.

(click here to view entire article)

Chavez: “Obama Is Confusing Me with Bush”

[Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said his country is open to unconditional talks with the new U.S. president, but rejected comments Barack Obama made in a television interview this week.]

Chavez: “Obama Is Confusing Me with Bush”

January 16th 2009, by Erik Sperling - Venezuelanalysis.com

Carora, January 16, 2009 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said his country is open to unconditional talks with the new U.S. president, but rejected comments Barack Obama made in a television interview this week.

Chavez read the comments from the president-elect, in which Obama repeated Bush administration claims that Venezuela had “exported terrorism” and interrupted progress in the region.

“How can you say that?” Chavez asked, incredulous. “He is misinformed, repeating what they are telling him. It’s very regrettable.”

“Could it be he’s confusing me with Bush?” Chavez joked, before taking a more serious tone. “Bush has been the one who has interrupted world progress, has sunk it into an abyss.”

Chavez expressed hopes that Obama would stop listening to “far right advisors,” and instead follow the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Chavez noted that Thursday would be the 80th anniversary of King’s birth, eliciting applause from the hundreds of supporters in attendance.

(click here to view entire article)

Did Venezuela's Opposition Meet with US Officials in Puerto Rico?

[Even by Venezuelan standards, the story seemed implausible. On January 9, a young reporter Pedro Carvajalino, from community television station Ávila TV, filmed four leading figures of Venezuela's right-wing opposition returning from Puerto Rico. They had just arrived by private jet from the U.S. territory, where they had purportedly met with representatives of the U.S. Department of State.]

Did Venezuela's Opposition Meet with US Officials in Puerto Rico?

January 14th 2009, by Miguel Tinker Salas - NACLA

Even by Venezuelan standards, the story seemed implausible. On January 9, a young reporter Pedro Carvajalino, from community television station Ávila TV, filmed four leading figures of Venezuela's right-wing opposition returning from Puerto Rico. They had just arrived by private jet from the U.S. territory, where they had purportedly met with representatives of the U.S. Department of State.

According to emails obtained by the reporter, officials held the meeting to plan strategy and secure funding aimed at defeating a proposed amendment to the Venezuelan constitution that would allow elected officials, including President Hugo Chávez, to seek reelection.

The story first broke on Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), a government television channel. The brewing scandal has quickly become a centerpiece of a debate over U.S. interference in the internal affairs of the country as it prepares to vote on the re-election referendum in February.

(click here to view entire article; click here to view the BoRev blog's take on this.)

Chavez Turns Into Palestinian Hero

[Venezuelan flags and portraits of President Hugo Chavez have been flying high during protests in the West Bank against Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip.]

Chavez Turns Into Palestinian Hero

January 12th 2009, by Anna Pelegri - Middle East Online

Venezuelan flags and portraits of President Hugo Chavez have been flying high during protests in the West Bank against Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip.

The Venezuelan president's decision on January 6 to expel Israel's ambassador from Caracas -- the only country apart from Mauritania to take such a step -- has made the left-wing South American leader a hero to Palestinians.

Hamas, the Islamist movement which controls Gaza, has welcomed Chavez's "courageous decision," while Hassan Nasrallah, head of Lebanon's Hezbollah group, urged Arab states to follow the Venezuelan president's example.

Chavez on Saturday accused Israel of being the "murder arm" of the United States and said the solution to the Gaza crisis was in the hands of Barack Obama when he becomes US president later this month.

(click here to view entire article)

Venezuela: Socialism, Democracy and the Re-election of Hugo Chavez

[On February 15, 2009, Venezuelan voters will go to the polls in order to vote on a constitutional referendum, which would allow for the indefinite re-election of the President. The vote on the constitutional amendment has raised fundamental questions about the relation between electoral politics and democracy. ]

Venezuela: Socialism, Democracy and the Re-election of Hugo Chavez

January 12th 2009, by James Petras - Venezuelanalysis

Introduction

On February 15, 2009, Venezuelan voters will go to the polls in order to vote on a constitutional referendum, which would allow for the indefinite re-election of the President. The vote on the constitutional amendment has raised fundamental questions about the relation between electoral politics and democracy. The proposed constitutional change, and specifically the constitutional amendment allowing for the indefinite re-election of the President requires an examination of two basic concepts: electoral systems and democracy. The distinction between these two concepts dominates the political conflict between the supporters (pro-Chavez) and opponents (anti-Chavez) of the amendment.

Electoral Systems and Democracy: Substance and Structure

A democratic political system involves at a minimum: (1) Free and equal competition for political office and (2) access to the means of communication and (3) competing ideas and freedom to act without physical or psychological coercion. Procedures and conditions leading up to elections, which violate these norms, are incompatible with the notion of democracy. The most obvious case is Colombia whose state terror against opposition groups is practiced in every recent election. Electoral processes are necessary but not sufficient conditions to define a democratic system.

In other words there are numerous examples where electoral processes are embedded in institutional structures (oligarchy-controlled mass media) and preceded by political conditions (threats, patronage and corruption), which violate the basic norms of democracy. In other words, we can have non-democratic (authoritarian) as well as democratic electoral systems.

(click here to view entire article)

Book launch for "The Real Venezuela", London (Wednesday, 14 January)

Wednesday, 14 January 2009, 7:30pm - 10:00pm

Hands Off Venezuela and Pluto Books invite you to the book launch of "The Real Venezuela" by Iain Bruce, a British journalist and film-maker who has worked extensively in Latin America, at Bolivar Hall, 54 Grafton Way, London W1T 5DL on Wednesday January 14th at 7.30pm, free entry. The author will be presenting his book, with additional speakers to be confirmed.

Iain Bruce has made documentaries for Channel Four and the BBC and has worked as a BBC correspondent in Brazil and in Venezuela. He is currently an adviser at Telesur, the Latin American news channel based in Caracas. His previous book for Pluto, The Porto Alegre Alternative, looked at experiences of direct democracy in Brazil.

The Real Venezuela aims to grasp the significance of the political changes underway in Venezuela, by listening to the stories of the ordinary Venezuelans most directly affected. The book focuses on developments since the August 2004 referendum – the period described by President Hugo Chavez as “the revolution within the revolution”, intended to prepare the way for “a socialism of the 21st century”.

(click here for more information)

New Battle for Indefinite Reelection

[Venezuela is heading for another electoral battle, after President Hugo Chávez kicked off 2009 by putting forward a new proposal to reform the constitution so that all elected officials may be indefinitely reelected.]

VENEZUELA: New Battle for Indefinite Reelection

January 9th 2009, by Humberto Márquez - IPS

Venezuela is heading for another electoral battle, after President Hugo Chávez kicked off 2009 by putting forward a new proposal to reform the constitution so that all elected officials may be indefinitely reelected.

In December, Chávez proposed a draft amendment to the 1999 constitution that he promoted, but the aim then was to allow only the Venezuelan president to stand for indefinite reelection.

After the Christmas and New Year break, the president and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) changed tack and proposed that at least five articles be amended, so that "the right to run for office without restrictions is extended to governors, mayors, and (national and regional) legislators," Chávez said.

"I think this strengthens the (amendment proposal). It is an extension of the right of the people to elect without restrictions and to nominate whomever they want. It's the theory of good governance: if a governor is doing a good job, the people have the right to reelect him as many times as they like," Chávez said at a televised PSUV meeting.

After becoming president in 1999, Chávez renewed his mandate under the new constitution in 2000, and was reelected in 2006 for another six-year term, which expires in January 2013 according to present law.

But in late 2008 the president posed "the need to continue at the helm at least until 2019. After that, God and the people will decide," he said.

"There will be a battle between the government and the opposition to see which side appeals most strongly to the democratic values of the people," analyst Oscar Schémel, the head of the Hinterlaces polling firm, told IPS.

(click here to view entire article)

Venezuela's ALBA in the face of the Global Economic Crisis

[As neoliberalism reveals its fissures and weaknesses, ALBA may be gaining ideological legitimacy as an alternative for poorer Latin American states facing these failures of neoliberalism (past and present). The question remains, however, of how ALBA will gain institutional legitimacy in this economic storm.]

Venezuela's ALBA in the face of the Global Economic Crisis

December 29th 2009, by Jodie Neary - UpsideDownWorld

In response to the G20 Summit in Washington D.C. last month, Chavez established an equivalent, the ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas) Summit in Caracas, Venezuela on November 26th. This 6-member group consisting of Venezuela (2004), Cuba (2004), Bolivia (2006), Nicaragua (2007), Dominica (2008), and its most recent member Honduras (2008), represents an alternative vision to neoliberal economics, one with a socialist agenda in trade relations attempting to re-embed 'the social' back into economic and political relations in the region. This ad hoc meeting was a response to the discontent expressed by many Latin American nations to the lack of representation from poorer nations in the G20 summit. It was also an attempt to confirm the notion that neoliberalism is at its end, a remark expressed by Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega during the Summit, who called the crisis as the 'funeral of Capitalism', naming ALBA as 'an alternative model of development'.[1] As neoliberalism reveals its fissures and weaknesses, ALBA may be gaining ideological legitimacy as an alternative for poorer Latin American states facing these failures of neoliberalism (past and present). The question remains, however, of how ALBA will gain institutional legitimacy in this economic storm. In the context of a global financial crisis, ALBA's institutional consolidation will be even more vital.

(click here to view entire article)

Times have changed in U.S.-Venezuela relations

[To get an idea of why the U.S. foreign policy establishment despises the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chavez, it helps to understand the geopolitical role that U.S. national security managers had in mind for Venezuela prior to Chavez's rise.]

Times have changed in U.S.-Venezuela relations

January 8, 2008, by Justin Delacour - Latin America News Review

To get an idea of why the U.S. foreign policy establishment despises the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chavez, it helps to understand the geopolitical role that U.S. national security managers had in mind for Venezuela prior to Chavez's rise.

In the lead-up to the first Gulf War of 1991, the elder President Bush praised the Venezuelan government of Carlos Andrés Pérez for deciding to increase its oil production in the face of an oil cutoff from Iraq and Kuwait.

On December 8, 1990, ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings aired a telling quote from Melvin Conant, a leading analyst of the geopolitics of energy:

"We can change the geopolitics of oil by sending a signal to the Middle East that in the great oil reserves of Venezuela there are simply enormous sources of oil which could significantly reduce our own dependence upon the Middle East."

Of course, the rise of Chavez would throw a wrench in the plans of the U.S. foreign policy establishment.

(click here to view entire article)

Financing Venezuela’s Communal Councils

[The survival of the community councils depends on their ability to implement meaningful development projects and thereby inspire participation. The embedding of funding in law independent of hydrocarbons revenues is therefore made especially important given declining oil money, which make further ad hoc transfers less likely and shrink existing council income.]

Financing Venezuela’s Communal Councils

December 29th 2008, by George Gabriel

Peering through the metal gate she asks me again, "Why do you want a Community Council? What is the reason?" The simplest response, that we want to improve our community has twice already failed to convince. The truth is I never expected to be really questioned as to "why", and though reasons race through my head, each appears less likely than the last to persuade such a staunch supporter of the Venezuelan opposition.

The truth is that alongside the thousands of councils[1] there already exist all sorts of neighbourhood organisations that do function; ours has arranged security, maintenance, and some infrastructure improvements like a back up water supply.

I tell her that with a Community Council we would receive government money with which we could undertake major projects without having to self-fund - my apartment paid the equivalent of one month's wages as our contribution to the water storage facility. This is an appeal to the lowest common denominator and it works. She wants a council for the exact same reason and will now help us construct one. She is an important member of the community and can help us hugely, but if this is such a success why do I feel uncomfortable?

David Velásquez, Minister of Popular Power for Participation and Social Development, declared in 2007, "We have the enormous responsibility of going beyond those who want to convert the Community Councils into instances for receiving and administering resources, or instances that fail to realize that they (the councils) are a new form of state, of government, a new form of society in construction."[2] In a country where corruption and incompetence are serious problems, participation is seen as a potential antidote, sidelining and replacing ineffective, inefficient, or corrupt parts of the state. With the financial crisis only temporarily contained by Venezuela's foreign reserves, the prospect of reduced government revenues makes these concerns urgent. Yet if the logic is clear, how do I know this argument will fail to convince?

(click here to view entire article)

Obama May Use Chavez as Test for Talking With Foes

[Venezuela may provide a useful first test for Obama’s pledge to engage rather than isolate antagonists. While President Hugo Chavez is one of Washington’s noisiest critics, frayed relations would likely be easier to mend than those with nations such as Iran and Cuba, whose leaders are even more hostile toward the U.S.]

Obama May Use Chavez as Test for Talking With Foes

January 6th, 2009, by Indira A.R. Lakshmana - Bloomberg

In a mirrored office tower overlooking Caracas, a top Venezuelan official says his government is ready to accept Barack Obama’s offer to talk with U.S. adversaries -- if the president-elect scraps George W. Bush’s division of the world into friends and foes.

Such categories are “simplistic,” says Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuela’s former envoy to Washington. “Why do nations have to be friends? What we have to do is sit down and discuss issues.”

Venezuela may provide a useful first test for Obama’s pledge to engage rather than isolate antagonists. While President Hugo Chavez is one of Washington’s noisiest critics, frayed relations would likely be easier to mend than those with nations such as Iran and Cuba, whose leaders are even more hostile toward the U.S.

Still, “Obama needs to be cautious” given Chavez’s inconsistent record on democracy, says Elsa Cardozo, an international-relations scholar at the Metropolitan University of Caracas. The 54-year-old former lieutenant colonel has allowed open elections and an opposition press while consolidating power over the government and selectively persecuting political rivals.
“Expect an indirect and gradual approach” that might serve as a template for normalizing relations with other countries run by long-serving charismatic leaders who’ve consolidated power, she says.

Mutual Interest

Some Obama advisers privately suggest the president-elect might reach out to Chavez, proposing cooperation on a few issues of mutual interest -- drug enforcement, energy, poverty -- while asking Brazil and other neighbors to encourage the Venezuelan leader to negotiate in good faith in the interest of regional harmony.

(click here to view entire article)

Then and now, Venezuela and Cuba, 1960-2008

[ Watching Hugo Chavez orate on Venezuelan television rings old memory bells. “Socialism. Revolution, Patria.” Words I heard in 1960-61 in Cuba.]

Then and now, Venezuela and Cuba, 1960-2008

December 24th 2008, by Saul Landau - CounterPunch

Watching Hugo Chavez orate on Venezuelan television rings old memory bells. "Socialism. Revolution, Patria." Words I heard in 1960-61 in Cuba.

Now, almost half a century later, in Venezuela's 5 million plus capital, I watched the local residents cheering and waving flags, a scene that looked almost identical to what I remembered in Havana when Fidel Castro launched his marathon exercises in exciting rhetoric.

Like his Cuban mentor, Chavez offered examples of how "imperialism" -- his word for the United States -- had violated sovereignty, by backing the unsuccessful 2002 military coup against him and how Washington interfered in the internal affairs of smaller countries.

What a difference the decades make! In the early 1960s, the CIA (using Cuban exiles) assassinated Cuban teachers and militia members, and sabotaged Cuban installations. I remember hearing explosions, shots, and screams from the street.

From May through October 1960, I heard Fidel speak frequently to large crowds. He had become what Lee Lockwood called "Cuba's living newspaper." (Castro's Cuba, Cuba's Fidel, 1967)

Almost fifty years later, Fidel's ideological son attempts to apply some of his mentor's rhetoric towards similar goals: to build a socialist society in a nation where oil has helped produce a capitalist mode of thinking and doing (shopping), a large wealthy class and a much larger mass of poor people.

(click here to view entire article; click here to view article in Spanish)

More Than 100 Latin America Experts Question Human Rights Watch's Venezuela Report

[ In an open letter to the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch, over 100 experts on Latin America criticized the organization's recent report on Venezuela, A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela, saying that it "does not meet even the most minimal standards of scholarship, impartiality, accuracy, or credibility." The signers include leading academic specialists from universities in the United States, including Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and a number of state universities, and academic institutions in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, México, the U.K., Venezuela and other countries.]

More Than 100 Latin America Experts Question Human Rights Watch’s Venezuela Report

December 17th 2008, by Various Authors - Venezuelanalysis

December 16, 2008

Human Rights Watch
350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor
New York, NY 10118-3299 USA

To the Board of Directors,

We write to call your attention to a report published by Human Rights Watch that does not meet even the most minimal standards of scholarship, impartiality, accuracy, or credibility. The document, A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela, appears to be a politically motivated essay rather than a human rights report. Indeed, the lead author of the report, Jose Miguel Vivanco, stated as much when he told the press just a few days after its publication, "We did the report because we wanted to demonstrate to the world that Venezuela is not a model for anyone..."[2]

Clearly Mr. Vivanco is entitled to his views about Venezuela, but such statements run counter to the mission of Human Rights Watch and indeed any organization dedicated to the defense of human rights. By publishing such a grossly flawed report, and acknowledging a political motivation in doing so, Mr. Vivanco has undermined the credibility of an important human rights organization.

We do not make these charges lightly and we hope you will understand the seriousness of such grave errors in judgment. As scholars who specialize in Latin America, we rely on what are supposed to be independent, non-partisan organizations such as Human Rights Watch for factual information about human right abuses committed by governments and sometimes non-governmental actors. So do many other constituencies, including the press, government officials, and the public. It is a great loss to civil society when we can no longer trust a source such as Human Rights Watch to conduct an impartial investigation and draw conclusions based on verifiable facts.

(click here to view entire letter; click here to view letter in Spanish)

Hugo Chavez, the FARC Laptops, and the Non-Existent Emails

[While UK and US government officials, NGOs and media outlets rushed to comment on alleged emails showing extensive collaboration between the leadership of the FARC rebel group and representatives of the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, they have shown a reluctance to comment on the the fact that according to the Colombian government-appointed investigator, Captain Ronald Coy, no emails ever existed.]

Hugo Chavez, the FARC Laptops, and the Non-Existent Emails

December 23rd 2008, by Calvin Tucker - 21st Century Socialism

Remember the laptop computer that, according to the Colombian government, miraculously survived the bombing of the Farc guerrilla camp in Ecuador? Yes, that one. The one that allegedly contained thousands of emails showing the extensive collaboration between the leadership of the rebel group and representatives of the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez.

The alleged contents of the laptop were exploited without delay by US officials seeking to increase pressure on the Venezuelan government. US Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon said that this was "the first time that we've stumbled across something coming from the Farc drawing such a straight line" between the rebels and Chavez.

Amidst the acres of news coverage generated by the ‘discovery’ of the laptop, the Economist provided a helpful summary:

"Interpol has now concluded that the huge cache of e-mails and other documents recovered from the computers of Raúl Reyes, a senior leader of the Farc guerrillas killed in a Colombian bombing raid on his camp in Ecuador on March 1st, are authentic and undoctored."

The Guardian’s self-styled Caracas correspondent, Rory Carroll, even managed to intercept some of the emails:

"In one leaked email dated January 2007 the Farc's military leader, Jorge Briceño, also known as Mono Jojoy, told the rebels' governing secretariat that he planned to ask Chávez for a loan of $250m, 'to be repaid when we take power'."

Carroll continued:

"In another coded email from April 2005 a rebel identified as Iván wrote that 'Tino', who was said to be responsible for Venezuela 's Popular Defence Units, a civilian militia, wanted help from Farc in teaching guerrilla tactics."

Ben Whitford, a writer for the Guardian's 'Comment is free' website, declared with undisguised glee:

(click here to view entire article)

Oil Prices and Venezuela's Economy

[This paper looks at Venezuela’s export revenue, imports, and trade and current account balances under a range of oil price outcomes for the next two years. It finds that Venezuela would run large current account surpluses for prices between $60-90 per barrel, and would even run a small surplus with prices at $50 per barrel. (Most oil industry estimates for the next two years are in the range of $80-90 per barrel). The authors conclude that Venezuela is unlikely to run into foreign exchange constraints in the foreseeable future, and can pursue expansionary fiscal policies to counter any economic downturn.]

Oil Prices and Venezuela's Economy

November 2008, by Mark Weisbrot and Rebecca Ray - CEPR

(click here to view entire report; click here to view entire report in Spanish)