Red Pepper Venezuela Blog

The Concept of Homeland Property

2010-12-26T09:11:00.000-08:00

Thursday, December 24 2010, by Debate Socialista

President Chávez practices the Property of the Homeland concept which is superior to the concept of Social Property. He wraps it, and he gives it meaning. He makes it more human, more understandable and he brings it closer to the people’s souls.

(click here to view entire article)

Venezuela Condemns Israeli Aid Ship Attack, Telesur Journalist Detained

2010-06-04T12:07:00.000-07:00

Monday 31st May 2010, by Tamara Pearson - Venezuelanalysis.com

Merida, May 31^st, 2010 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – “The only weapon my son had was his video camera,” said the Cristina Soler, mother of David Segarra, a Spanish Telesur journalist and resident of Venezuela, who was detained early this morning by Israeli marines as they attacked the fleet of aid ships heading towards the Gaza Strip in Palestine. The Venezuelan government also officially condemned the attack, calling it an “action of war against unarmed civilians.”

(click here to view entire article)

Hugo Chávez’s First Decade in Office: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings

2010-05-05T08:07:00.000-07:00

By Steve Ellner - Latin American Perspectives (January 2010 Vol. 37, No.1.)

Now that the presidency of Hugo Chávez is beginning its second decade, the insistence of some critics on holding the government accountable by evaluating its concrete results becomes increasingly compelling. The assessment of gains and shortcomings is particularly important in light of the assertion of Chávez’s adversaries, as well as the concerns of some analysts who are more sympathetic to his government, that rent-seeking continues to underpin the Venezuelan economy and society, which remain completely dependent on petroleum (López Maya, 2008: 7; Coronil, 2008; Kelly and Palma, 2004: 229–230; Lombardi, 2003: 5–6).

(click here to view entire article)

Venezuela: The People’s Fight for a Fair Hearing

2010-03-30T14:48:00.000-07:00

27 March 2010, by Pablo Navarrete - Green Left Weekly

February 4 marked 11 years since Hugo Chavez first assumed the presidency in Venezuela, following a landslide election victory that swept the country’s discredited traditional parties out of power.

Since then, Chavez has presided over a radical process of reforms that has been the subject of ever increasing levels of demonisation by the corporate-controlled mainstream media.

The English-language media has been no exception — in fact it has been at the forefront of the attempts to systematically smear Venezuelan democracy under Chavez.

(click here to view entire article)

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on How to Tackle Climate Change: “We Must Go from Capitalism to Socialism”

2009-12-26T12:28:00.000-08:00

Monday 21st December 2009, by Amy Goodman - Democracy Now!

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:

Venezuela and China Consolidate “Strategic Alliance,” Expand Bilateral Trade

2009-12-26T12:20:00.000-08:00

[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.]

Friday 25th December 2009, by James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com

Mérida, December 24^th 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)

Venezuela: What is happening in the Copenhagen Summit is Unacceptable

2009-12-15T15:24:00.000-08:00

[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.]

Venezuela: What is happening in the Copenhagen Summit is Unacceptable

Tuesday 15th December 2009, by Telesur - Venezuelanalysis.com

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

2009-12-15T14:55:00.000-08:00

[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. Their findings so far show that the BBC’s reporting falls short of its legal commitment to impartiality, truth and accuracy.]

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)

First Extraordinary Congress of the PSUV - Chavez calls for the Fifth International

2009-11-26T13:49:00.000-08:00

[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.]

First Extraordinary Congress of the PSUV - Chavez calls for the Fifth International

November 23rd 2009, by Alan Woods - In Defence of Marxism

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)

Venezuela’s Reformed Communal Council Law Aims at Increasing Participation

2009-11-26T13:44:00.000-08:00

[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.]

Venezuela’s Reformed Communal Council Law Aims at Increasing Participation

Published on November 25th 2009, by James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com

Mérida, November 25^th 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)

Venezuela Says Israeli Criticisms of Its Relationship with Iran Lack Moral Authority

2009-11-06T16:21:00.000-08:00

[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.”]

Venezuela Says Israeli Criticisms of Its Relationship with Iran Lack Moral Authority

5th November by James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com

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)

Official US Air Force Document Reveals the True Intentions Behind the US-Colombia Military Agreement

2009-11-06T16:14:00.000-08:00

[An official document from the Department of the US Air Force reveals that the military base in Palanquero, Colombia will provide the Pentagon with “…an opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations throughout South America…” This information contradicts the explainations offered by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and the US State Department regarding the military agreement signed between the two nations this past October 30th.]

Official US Air Force Document Reveals the True Intentions Behind the US-Colombia Military Agreement

Wednesday 5th November 2009, by Eva Golinger

An official document from the Department of the US Air Force reveals that the military base in Palanquero, Colombia will provide the Pentagon with “…an opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations throughout South America…” This information contradicts the explainations offered by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and the US State Department regarding the military agreement signed between the two nations this past October 30th. Both governments have publicly stated that the military agreement refers only to counternarcotics and counterterrorism operations within Colombian territory. President Uribe has reiterated numerous times that the military agreement with the US will not affect Colombia’s neighbors, despite constant concern in the region regarding the true objetives of the agreement. But the US Air Force document, dated May 2009, confirms that the concerns of South American nations have been right on target. The document exposes that the true intentions behind the agreement are to enable the US to engage in “full spectrum military operations in a critical sub-region of our hemisphere where security and stability is under constant threat from narcotics funded terrorist insurgencies…and anti-US governments…”

The military agreement between Washington and Colombia authorizes the access and use of seven military installations in Palanquero, Malambo, Tolemaida, Larandia, Apíay, Cartagena and Málaga. Additionally, the agreement allows for “the access and use of all other installations and locations as necessary” throughout Colombia, with no restrictions. Together with the complete immunity the agreement provides to US military and civilian personnel, including private defense and security contractors, the clause authorizing the US to utilize any installation throughout the entire country - even commercial aiports, for military ends, signifies a complete renouncing of Colombian sovereignty and officially converts Colombia into a client-state of the US.

(click here to view entire article)

This is about terrorism and corruption – it is not persecution

2009-10-22T02:43:00.000-07:00

[Claims that Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez is carrying out a witch-hunt are unfounded.]

This is about terrorism and corruption – it is not persecution

Thursday 22nd October 2009, by Samuel Moncada - The Guardian

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)

Video: The Indigenous University of Venezuela Struggles for Recognition

2009-10-22T02:39:00.000-07:00

22nd October 2009, by Michael Fox, Silvia Leindecker, and Carlos Martinez

Michael Fox and Carlos Martinez are co-authors of the upcoming book,"Venezuela Speaks! Voices from the Grassroots" to be released in December by PM Press.

Venezuela is No Tyranny

2009-10-14T07:50:00.000-07:00

[Dictatorship has returned to Latin America in Honduras, not in the genuine, if imperfect, democracy of Venezuela.]

Wednesday 14th October, by Francisco Dominguez - Comment is Free (The Guardian)

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)

A Slow Coup in Venezuela

2009-10-13T06:34:00.000-07:00

Sunday 11th October, by W. T. Whitney Jr - People's Weekly World

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)

Review of Venezuela Documentary 'Inside the Revolution' by 'Lenin's Tomb'

2009-09-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

Review of Venezuela Documentary 'Inside the Revolution' by 'Lenin's Tomb'

Thursday September 24th, by Lenin's Tomb

What to make of the Bolivarian revolution? Despite its limitations, it has achieved real decreases in poverty, higher social spending per capita, elements of grassroots democracy, and a widespread radicalisation among Venezuela's working class. The revolution has thus far withstood various challenges from the right, including a coup, largely because of the solid backing the Chavez government receives from the poor. Unlike previous efforts at social transformation in Latin America, this one has not been drowned in rivers of blood. Is Venezuela therefore a model for others to follow, as well as an inspiration in its own right?

The new documentary Inside The Revolution (trailer here) deals with precisely this question. This sort of film could so easily just re-tread old ground. It could just as easily lapse into uncritical adulation. Or it could just be very cliched, with various pleasing sentiments structured around a 'story so far' narrative. Already, films about Venezuela are characterised by some very familiar vistas: the red t-shirts, the smiling Chavez supporters, the scandalously abusive corporate media footage, and the slums, all overlaid with cheery joropo music. And if these were to be the fixtures of a genre that ossified the exciting and conflict-ridden social processes of Venezuela into low budget entertainment for leftists, then the Bolivarian revolution would have been done a disservice. But Inside The Revolution takes the argument deeper than previous films, making an effort to gauge what kind of example Venezuela provides for the left. It has less glamour and polemical bite than Pilger's The War on Democracy, for example, but is intellectually more challenging.

The argument is more distinctive than the material, most of which can be found in useful texts such as Bart Jones' biography of Hugo Chavez - cryptically entitled ¡Hugo! - and Gregory Wilpert's Changing Venezuela By Taking Power (an excellent counterblast to the Holloway thesis). Thus, you get a very brief account of the history of Venezuelan politics, from the Jimenez dictatorship to the highly controlled liberal democracy during the oil boom of the post-war era, to the social collapse and soaring poverty from 1978 onward. You get a discussion of the radicalisation in 1989, a counterpoint to the general demoralisation on the Left as the Berlin Wall fell. There is footage of Chavez's attempted coup in 1992, and his 72 second speech to the nation upon surrendering in which he famously said that his goals could not be achieved "por ahora" (for now). This statement became a catchphrase for millions, as Chavez became a hero to the poor and, upon his release, he began to build up support for a presidential campaign. He wins, brings about constitutional changes, faces down the hysteria of the ruling class, defeats a coup, braves a referendum defeat, suffers electoral setbacks, but continues to make progress. So far, so familiar - and accurate too.

(click here to view entire review)

The Guardian Retracts False Claims that Hugo Chavez is a "Pariah"

2009-09-21T05:34:00.000-07:00

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

Militarising Latin America

2009-09-17T12:09:00.000-07:00

[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." However, recently 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.]

Militarising Latin America

September 13th 2009, by Noam Chomsky - In These Times

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)

Iniquitous Critics of Hugo Chávez

2009-09-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

["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.]

Iniquitous Critics of Hugo Chávez

September 16th 2009, by Colin Burgon - Tribune

"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)

Honduras: Has Obama Sided with Chávez?

2009-09-06T14:51:00.000-07:00

by Calvin Tucker / September 6th 2009

http://21stcenturysocialism.com/

Has Obama sided with Chávez? That’s certainly the view of the leader of Honduran coup regime Roberto Micheletti, whose spokesman angrily denounced the 30 million dollar cut in US aid announced on Thursday.

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)

Oliver Stone: 'The truth about Hugo Chávez'

2009-09-03T09:43:00.000-07:00

[South of the Border is Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone's record of a trip to Venezuela to meet the president, Hugo Chávez. Ahead of the film's premiere at the Venice film festival on Monday, Stone writes about his hopes for the film, and the future of US foreign policy in the region.]

(click here to view entire article)

Watch the Trailer for Oliver Stone's South of the Border

2009-09-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

[South of the Border, which premieres at the Venice film festival on Monday, is the latest documentary in which Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone journeys to South America to see first-hand how their political system functions. In this film, co-written by Tariq Ali, he interviews Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez]

(watch the trailer here)

Noam Chomsky Meets with Chavez in Venezuela

2009-09-02T00:41:00.000-07:00

Professor Noam Chomsky (at left) and President Hugo Chavez in Caracas on Monday (ABN)

Noam Chomsky Meets with Chavez in Venezuela

August 28th 2009, by James Suggett

Mérida, August 27th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) -- U.S. author, dissident intellectual, and Professor of Linguistics at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology Noam Chomsky met for the first time with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Caracas and analyzed hemispheric politics during a nationally televised forum on Monday.

Chomsky is well known in Venezuela for his critiques of U.S. imperialism and support for the progressive political changes underway in Venezuela and other Latin American countries in recent years. President Chavez regularly references Chomsky in speeches and makes widely publicized recommendations of Chomsky's 2003 book, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance.

(click here to view entire article)

A New Model With Rough Edges: Venezuela’s Community Councils

2009-09-02T00:19:00.000-07:00

[As the community councils gain experience, two processes fraught with tension are under way. First, marginalized and semi-marginalized sectors of the population gain confidence and experience in collective decision making. Second, steps toward institutionalization are designed to create viable mechanisms that monitor and guard against ill-conceived projects and misuse of public funds. But the effort to achieve incorporation, on the one hand, and institutionalization, on the other, is a complicated balancing act.]

A New Model With Rough Edges: Venezuela’s Community Councils

June 11th 2009, by Steve Ellner - NACLA

The main country road that passes by Las Cuadras, a poor rural area in the zone of El Valle, in the Venezuelan state of Mérida, sports a new roofed waiting area and sidewalk. Julio Cerrada, a spokesman for the Las Cuadras community council, shows me these and other recent projects, including a decorative arch at the neighborhood’s entrance and a large metal garbage container. Then Cerrada takes me to the end of the mountain road, where the community council of La Culata has constructed a pathway consisting of two paved tracks extending about 300 yards uphill, which allows potato and carrot farmers to transport their produce by vehicle and also opens the area to tourism. A small cooperative, called Paseos a Caballo de La Culata, takes tourists on horseback up the pathway, whose entrance is now marked by a large plaque celebrating the figure of Simón Bolívar. Cerrada tells me the cooperative is requesting state financing to construct a tourist station at the pathway’s upper end.

(click here to view entire article)

Colombian Elites Fear Bolivaran Revolution

2009-08-26T01:16:00.000-07:00

[As a result of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe's decision to allow six U.S. military bases on his country's soil the propaganda war has heated up in the Andean region. When Uribe and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez slug it out rhetorically the two constantly employ historical references, in particular to the Great Liberator Simón Bolívar. Why is this Bolivarian rhetoric still so common and integral to politics in the Andean region? ]

Colombian Elites Fear Bolivaran Revolution

August 25th 2009, by Nikolas Kozloff - Counterpunch.org

As a result of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe's decision to allow six U.S. military bases on his country's soil the propaganda war has heated up in the Andean region. In neighboring Venezuela, Hugo Chávez says Colombia is seeking to destabilize the border and has hinted that war could be imminent.

When Uribe and Chávez slug it out rhetorically the two constantly employ historical references, in particular to the Great Liberator Simón Bolívar. A leader of the independence struggle against Spain, Bolívar was a member of the Caracas aristocracy and liberated Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador from imperial rule in the early nineteenth century.

(click here to view entire article)

Venezuelan Education Law: Socialist Indoctrination or Liberatory Education?

2009-08-23T08:47:00.000-07:00

[Venezuelan opposition activists allege that the new Education Law is unconstitutional, anti-democratic, politicizes the classroom, threatens the family and religion, and will allow the state to take children away from their parents for indoctrination. Are they correct?]

Venezuelan Education Law: Socialist Indoctrination or Liberatory Education?

August 21st 2009, by James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com

Venezuelan opposition activists allege that the new Education Law, which the National Assembly passed unanimously shortly after midnight on August 14th following an extended legislative session, is unconstitutional, anti-democratic, politicizes the classroom, threatens the family and religion, and will allow the state to take children away from their parents for indoctrination. Are they correct?

In defense of the law, Education Minister Hector Navarro told several national media outlets that the opposition's claims are not only incorrect, they "form part of a campaign that seeks to generate fear in the population so they will be against the [Education] Law."

(click here to view entire article)

Colombia: U.S. Bases Stoke the Flames of Regional Conflict

2009-08-23T08:29:00.000-07:00

[It was a moment that promised to define a new era in U.S.-Latin American relations: Obama greeted Hugo Chávez at the Summit of the Americas with a smile and a handshake, and Chávez responded with a gift and a heavily accented "I wanna be your friend." But a nearly completed agreement to grant the U.S. military access to Colombian bases is rapidly undermining whatever diplomatic progress was made in that fleeting moment.]

Colombia: U.S. Bases Stoke the Flames of Regional Conflict

August 19th 2009, by Roque Planas - NACLA

It was a moment that promised to define a new era in U.S.-Latin American relations: Obama greeted Hugo Chávez at the Summit of the Americas with a smile and a handshake, and Chávez responded with a gift and a heavily accented "I wanna be your friend." The Cold War-style chasm between Washington and the leftist leaders of the Andes that had widened during the Bush administration finally seemed to be narrowing a bit.

But a nearly completed agreement between Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and the Obama administration to grant the U.S. military access to Colombian bases is rapidly undermining whatever diplomatic progress was made in that fleeting moment.

(click here to view entire article)

The State of the Venezuelan Worker - 2008

2009-08-18T13:45:00.000-07:00

[Proceeding with the information from the Venezuelan Central Bank's report on the Venezuelan economy for 2008 I would now like to review some data on Venezuela's workforce and how its workers faired last year.]

The State of the Venezuelan Worker - 2008

July 15th 2009, by Oil Wars Blog

Proceeding with the information from the Venezuelan Central Bank's report on the Venezuelan economy for 2008 I would now like to review some data on Venezuela's workforce and how its workers faired last year.

This data is quite interesting and thought provoking. And as usual, some of it paints the accomplishments of Hugo Chavez is a flattering light and some of it paints him in not such a flattering light.

Before getting into the pages that specifically relate to the Venezuelan workforce it is important to give a key statistic which is found at the bottom of this page:

(click here to view entire article)

Latin America: Social Movements in Times of Economic Crises

2009-08-18T13:20:00.000-07:00

[The most striking aspect of the prolonged and deepening world recession/depression is the relative and absolute passivity of the working and middle class in the face of massive job losses, big cuts in wages, health care and pension payments and mounting housing foreclosures. The Venezuelan social movements retain their vigor in part because of the encouragement of Chavez' leadership, but the movements are also held back by powerful reformist currents in the regime.]

Latin America: Social Movements in Times of Economic Crises

August 17th 2009, by James Petras

The most striking aspect of the prolonged and deepening world recession/depression is the relative and absolute passivity of the working and middle class in the face of massive job losses, big cuts in wages, health care and pension payments and mounting housing foreclosures. Never in the history of the 20-21st Century has an economic crisis caused so much loss to so many workers, employees, small businesses, farmers and professionals with so little large-scale public protest.

To explore some tentative hypotheses of why there is little organized protest, we need to examine the historical-structural antecedents to the world economic depression. More specifically, we will focus on the social and political organizations and leadership of the working class; the transformation of the structure of labor and its relationship to the state and market. These social changes have to be located in the context of the successful ruling class socio-political struggles from the 1980's, the destruction of the Communist welfare state and the subsequent uncontested penetration of imperial capital in the former Communist countries. The conversion of Western Social Democratic parties to neo-liberalism, and the subordination of the trade unions to the neo-liberal state are seen as powerful contributing factors in diminishing working class representation and influence.

(click here to view entire article)

Video: Covering the Honduran Coup (The Listening Post/Al Jazeera English)

2009-08-15T06:03:00.000-07:00

Covering the Honduran Coup

Friday 1st 2009, by The Listening Post - Al Jazeera English

Watch it here.

Video: Venezuela's Troubled Media (The Listening Post/Al Jazeera English)

2009-08-15T05:53:00.000-07:00

Venezuela's Troubled Media

Friday 14th 2009, by The Listening Post - Al Jazeera English

Watch it here.

Public Talk: Massacre in the Amazon: The Garcia Government vs Peru’s Indigenous (Thursday August 27th)

2009-08-13T03:31:00.000-07:00

Alborada presents a public talk:

Massacre in the Amazon: The Garcia Government vs Peru’s Indigenous

On June 5, World Environment Day, Amazon Indians in Peru were massacred by the government of Alan Garcia in the latest chapter of a long war to take over common lands -- a war unleashed by the signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Peru and the United States.

Come and hear about the latest developments in Peru and what we in Britain can do to help Peru’s indigenous people and the wider social and environmental struggles taking place in the country.

“The Amazon struggle must continue, demanding respect for the rain forest. The Amazonian natives know that what is at stake is their own survival. We hope that the world population becomes aware that they are fighting in defence of all humankind, the Amazon jungle is the lung of the planet.”
-- Hugo Blanco (Peruvian social activist and director of ‘Lucha Indigena’ ('Indigenous Struggle'))

Speakers:
- Oscar Blanco (Son of Peruvian political figure Hugo Blanco)
- Derek Wall (Former Green Party Principal Speaker)

Thursday August 27th, 6.30-8pm (Talk starts at 7pm)The Exmouth Arms (Function Room), Starcross St, Euston, NW1, London (http://www.exmouth-arms.co.uk;%203/ 3 mins from Euston underground station). Free entry

::: More info: http://www.alborada.net/ / info@alborada.net / http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1910/76/

The Honduras Coup Is a Sign: The Radical Tide Can be Turned

2009-08-13T00:57:00.000-07:00

[If this were Burma or Iran the assault on democracy would be a global cause celebre. Instead, Obama is sitting on his hands.]

The Honduras Coup Is a Sign: The Radical Tide Can be Turned

August 13th 2009, by Seamus Milne - Comment Is Free (The Guardian)

If Honduras were in another part of the world – or if it were, say, Iran or Burma – the global reaction to its current plight would be very different. Right now, in the heart of what the United States traditionally regarded as its backyard, thousands of pro-democracy activists are risking their lives to reverse the coup that ousted the country's elected president. Six weeks after the left-leaning Manuel Zelaya was kidnapped at dawn from the presidential palace in Tegucigalpa and expelled over the border, strikes are closing schools and grounding flights as farmers and trade unionists march in defiance of masked soldiers and military roadblocks.

The coup-makers have reached for the classic South American takeover textbook. Demonstrators have been shot, more than a thousand people are reported arrested, television and radio stations have been closed down and trade unionists and political activists murdered. But although official international condemnation has been almost universal, including by the US government, barely a finger has been lifted outside Latin America to restore the elected Honduran leadership.

(click here to view entire article)

Avila TV Venezuela: Revolutionizing Television

2009-08-09T14:33:00.000-07:00

Photo: Avila TV Mural
[In 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.”]

Avila TV Venezuela: Revolutionizing Television

June 15th 2009, by Lainie Cassel - UpsideDownWorld.org

In 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)

Venezuela: Socialism for the 21st Century

2009-08-09T01:46:00.000-07:00

[In 1998, Hugo Chávez was elected President of Venezuela. He spoke strongly and acted against savage neoliberalism in his electoral campaign and after taking power but socialism was not a part of his vocabulary or program for his first few years in office. Since late 2004, he has been increasingly calling for Socialism for the 21^st Century in Venezuela, and speaking out against capitalism and imperialism.]

Venezuela: Socialism for the 21st Century

August 5th 2009, by Peter Bohmer - Znet

For much of the 19^th and 20^th century, socialism was the hope of millions of working people around the globe, including the United States in the early part of the 20^th century. This was the period of the growth of the Socialist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World, the IWW. Socialism has meant a society committed to meeting the basic needs of all people including health, food, education, and housing , where there is no poverty and full employment, where enterprises and firms are socially and publicly owned not privately owned by capitalists to make profits. It has meant a society where workers control how firms are run and where the economy is democratically planned to serve human needs. As a great socialist revolutionary, Rosa Luxemburg said in the early 20^th century, socialism requires democracy, and democracy requires socialism.

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.

(click here to view entire article)

Economist Backs Down over Misleading Readers on Venezuela

2009-08-09T01:41:00.000-07:00

[On its July 18, 2009, edition The Economist on article on Bolivia ("Bolivia's divisive president. The Permanent Campaign", July 18), asserted that “Venezuelan troops helped quell a rebellion centred on the airport at Santa Cruz in the east in 2007.” The article did not bother to substantiate such a serious charge against Venezuela and is buried as one of several unjustified and unsubstantiated allegations against the president and government of Bolivia.]

Economist Backs Down over Misleading Readers on Venezuela

August 5th, by Francisco Dominguez - Venezuela Solidarity Campaign

On its July 18, 2009, edition The Economist on article on Bolivia ("Bolivia's divisive president. The Permanent Campaign", July 18), asserted that “Venezuelan troops helped quell a rebellion centred on the airport at Santa Cruz in the east in 2007.” The article did not bother to substantiate such a serious charge against Venezuela and is buried as one of several unjustified and unsubstantiated allegations against the president and government of Bolivia,

The piece "Bolivia's divisive president. The Permanent Campaign" does not even pretend to be 'even-handed' or 'balanced.' Some of the statements in it are simply unalloyed anti-Morales propaganda. Putting the blame squarely on Evo Morales, for example, for the diplomatic difficulties Bolivia has been having with the US (without informing the readers that Bush unilaterally had ended Bolivia's export preferential treatment on some exports or that Bolivia expelled US ambassador Mr Phillip Goldberg because he had been actively supporting secessionist efforts in Santa Cruz), and with Peru (without telling readers that Peru gave asylum to Bolivian Cabinet minister indicted for civilian deaths resulting from military repression of protests six years ago during the government of Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada), but explaining them as a deliberate Morales drive to isolate Bolivia because, according to The Economist, "Many in the government dream of an economic autarky, powered by gas." The article goes even further by quoting government’s opponents in Santa Cruz, who describe Morales as an “indigenous fascist” with The Economist accepting such a highly inflammatory label with no qualification whatsoever. And, if there was any doubt as to where The Economist stands on the Morales government, the piece ends by sympathetically paraphrasing one pundit who says "Bolivia is suffering a classic bout of Latin American populism: personalised politics, mild paranoia, bad economic policy and a weak opposition." No journalistic objectivity or even the pretension of it. Venezuelan Ambassador to the United Kingdom, HE Samuel Moncada, responded to the allegation regarding the participation of Venezuelan troops in the suppression of a rebellion in Santa Cruz in 2007, with letter to Michael Reid, The Economist's Latin American editor, in which he stated that “Unfortunately, dangerous and negative consequences in the region may arise due to this blunder published in your magazine. I would therefore demand a correction of such fallacy”. (The Ambassador's letter can be found in full at http://www.vicuk.org/index.php?ption=com_content&task=view&id=503&Itemid=30).

(click here to view entire article)

Community Media: The Thriving Voice of the Venezuelan People

2009-08-09T01:30:00.000-07:00

[In Venezuela today a grass-roots movement of community and alternative media is challenging the domination of private commercial media. Part of this transformation is the understanding of freedom of speech as a positive and basic right.]

Community Media: The Thriving Voice of the Venezuelan People

July 31st 2009, by Liz Migliorelli and Caitlin McNulty

In Venezuela today a grass-roots movement of community and alternative media is challenging the domination of private commercial media. Community oriented, non profit, non commercial, citizen and volunteer run media outlets are a crucial part of the democratic transformation of society that is occurring throughout Venezuela. Part of this transformation is the understanding of freedom of speech as a positive and basic right. This right includes universal access to a meaningful space for communication in addition to freedom from censorship. Freedom of expression as a positive right provides universal access to the means of communication. Political Analyst Diana Raby reiterates; "the technology of modern communications has to be made accessible to all, not merely as consumers but as participants and creators."[1] Community media is beginning to fill this role in Venezuela.

(click here to view entire article)

Siding with the Generals: The Independent on Honduras

2009-08-05T07:12:00.000-07:00

August 5th 2009, by Media Lens

Iran’s June 12 presidential elections have been widely criticised, both domestically and abroad, as lacking credibility. During the popular protests that followed, some 30 people were killed by government forces with hundreds more arrested. These events have been subject to intense and continuous US-UK media scrutiny.

Also in June, a military coup overthrew the democratically-elected government of Honduras. President Manuel Zelaya was kidnapped and deported to Costa Rica on June 28. Initial clashes between troops loyal to the coup plotters and Zelaya supporters left at least one person dead and 30 injured. On July 30, as many as 150 people were arrested, with dozens injured, when soldiers and police attacked demonstrators with tear gas, water cannon, clubs and gunfire. One of the wounded, a 38-year-old teacher, was left fighting for his life after being shot in the head. Journalists reporting from the scene were also attacked. (Bill Van Auken, ‘Honduran coup regime launches brutal crackdown,’ August 1, 2009, World Socialist Web Site;http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/hond-a01.shtml)

(click here to view entire article)

Free press? Venezuela beats the US

2009-08-05T00:16:00.000-07:00

[Of course Chávez's new media law is bad. But it won't make a dent in the huge amount of press freedom in Venezuela]

Free press? Venezuela beats the US

August 4th 2009, by Mark Weisbrot - Comment is Free (The Guardian)

Denis MacShane attacks the British left for defending Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president, against an onslaught from the media, "new cold warriors", and rightwing demagogues throughout the world. His rhetorical trick is to tar the left with a new media law currently being debated in the Venezuelan congress, which he says "would impose prison sentences of up to four years for journalists whose writings might divulge information against 'the stability of the institutions of the state'."

Of course this is a bad law. There are a number of bad laws on the books in Venezuela, and in fact numerous countries in the region havedesacato (pdf) laws that make it a crime to insult the president. Do MacShane's targets – he mentions Ken Livingstone and Richard Gott – support such laws? I would bet serious money that they do not. So his main line of attack is misleading if not downright dishonest.

(click here to view entire article)

Venezuela to Transfer Private Media Concessions to Community Media

2009-08-05T00:10:00.000-07:00

[The head of Venezuela's telecommunications agency (CONATEL), and minister of housing and infrastructure, Diosdado Cabello, announced on Saturday the immediate closure of 32 privately owned radio stations and 2 regional television stations, as their broadcast licenses had expired or they had violated regulations. Cabello said the recuperated licenses would be handed over to community media.]

Venezuela to Transfer Private Media Concessions to Community Media

August 3rd 2009, by Kiraz Janicke - Venezuelanalysis.com

Caracas, August 3rd 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) - The head of Venezuela's telecommunications agency (CONATEL), and minister of housing and infrastructure, Diosdado Cabello, announced on Saturday the immediate closure of 32 privately owned radio stations and 2 regional television stations, as their broadcast licenses had expired or they had violated regulations. Cabello said the recuperated licenses would be handed over to community media.

The minister said many of the stations were operating illegally and had failed to register or pay fees to CONATEL. Decisions are still pending on a further 206 stations.

(click here to read entire article)

Thursday August 20th: London Premiere of Inside the Revolution: A Journey into the Heart of Venezuela (New Documentary on Venezuela)

2009-07-27T00:17:00.001-07:00

Alborada presents a screening of the new documentary

Inside the Revolution: A Journey into the Heart of Venezuela (Director Pablo Navarrete, 65min, 2009)

Introduced by the director

Thursday August 20th, 6.30-8.30pm, Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS, London (Full details below)

Synopsis: February 2009 marked 10 years since Hugo Chavez took office, following a landslide election victory, and launched his revolution to bring radical change to Venezuela. While wildly popular with many in the country, Chavez's policies and his outspoken criticisms of the U.S. government have made him powerful enemies, both at home and abroad, especially in the media.

Filmed in Caracas in November 2008, on the eve of the 10th anniversary of Chavez's controversial presidency, this feature-length documentary takes a journey into the heart of Venezuela's revolution to listen to the voices of the people driving the process forward.

"This is a rare film about Venezuela, a country in extraordinary transition. Watch this film because it is honest and fair and respectful of those who want to be told the truth about an epic attempt, flaws and all, to claim back the humanity of ordinary people." - JOHN PILGER (Journalist, author and documentary filmmaker)

Event details: 6.30-8.30pm, Thursday August 20th (film starts 7pm)
Khalili Theatre,School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS),University of London,Thornhaugh Street,Russell Square,London WC1H OXG. Nearest Tube: Russell Square

£4 suggested donation

::: More info: info[a]alborada.net; http://www.alborada.net/

Watch the documentary's trailer here:http://www.youtube.com/alboradafilms

Facebook ‘event’ page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=111688852395&ref=mf

Supported by Movimientos and the SOAS Palestine Society

Inside the Revolution: A Journey into the Heart of Venezuela (New Documentary on Venezuela)

2009-07-24T10:38:00.000-07:00

February 2009 marked 10 years since Hugo Chavez took office, following a landslide election victory, and launched his revolution to bring radical change to Venezuela. While wildly popular with many in the country, Chavez's policies and his outspoken criticisms of the U.S. government have made him powerful enemies, both at home and abroad, especially in the media.

Filmed in Caracas in November 2008, on the eve of the 10th anniversary of Chavez's controversial presidency, this feature-length documentary takes a journey into the heart of Venezuela's revolution to listen to the voices of the people driving the process forward.

"This is a rare film about Venezuela, a country in extraordinary transition. Watch this film because it is honest and fair and respectful of those who want to be told the truth about an epic attempt, flaws and all, to claim back the humanity of ordinary people." - JOHN PILGER (Journalist, author and documentary filmmaker)

Released by Alborada Films.

Screenings and DVD copies from mid-August 2009.

***London Premiere: Thursday 20th August (7pm)***

Watch the trailer here.

More info: www.alborada.net
www.youtube.com/alboradafilms

Venezuela Reviews Relations with Colombia as More US Bases Established

2009-07-22T00:00:00.000-07:00

[Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced on Monday night that bilateral relations with neighbouring Colombia are being fully reviewed following the decision by Colombia to allow the United States to use five military bases in its territory.]

Venezuela Reviews Relations with Colombia as More US Bases Established

July 21st 2009, by Kiraz Janicke

Caracas, June 21, 2009 (venezuelanalysis.com) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced on Monday night that bilateral relations with neighbouring Colombia are being fully reviewed following the decision by Colombia to allow the United States to use five military bases in its territory. A high-level bilateral meeting of the Colombia-Venezuela Commission, which was set to meet Tuesday July 21^st, was also suspended.

Chavez said he had instructed Venezuelan Foreign Relations Minister Nicolas Maduro to conduct a full review of bilateral relations, including diplomatic relations because Colombia's decision represents a threat to Venezuela.

(click here to view entire article)

Reporters Without Borders Lies About Venezuela

2009-07-19T03:06:00.000-07:00

[Reporters Without Borders (RWB) alleges Globovisión, a "privately-owned news channel", in Venezuela is being "hounded by the government and the administration." However, contrary to what RWB asserts, the reality is different and has been carefully avoided by the French organization for "the defense of press freedoms."]

Reporters Without Borders Lies About Venezuela

July 13th 2009, by Salim Lamrani - Znet

On May 29, 2009, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) published an open letter to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in which the organization denounced the government's actions againstGlobovisión, a "privately-owned news channel", alleging it was being "hounded by the government and the administration." According to the Paris-based organization, Globovisión was being "targeted by official proceedings that could lead to it being taken off air for 72 hours" for "quoting statistics provided by the US Geological Survey"¹while reporting on the May 4, 2009 earthquake.¹Venezuelan authorities are accusing the channel of "violating Article 29 of the Law of Social Responsibility in Radio and Television (Ley RESORTE), which sanctions media outlets that ‘promote, justify or incite war; promote, justify or incite disruption of public order.'" RWB asks: "In what way does reporting on an earthquake, however poorly, fit within this definition of an offense?"² Presented in this way, the matter might shock international public opinion. However, contrary to what RWB asserts, the reality is different and has been carefully avoided by the French organization for "the defense of press freedoms."

(click here to view entire article)

Marxists Must Stand Firm Against Ahmadinejad

2009-07-19T01:47:00.000-07:00

[Open letter to the workers of Venezuela on Hugo Chávez's support for Ahmadinejad.]

Marxists Must Stand Firm Against Ahmadinejad

July 12th 2009, by Maziar Razi - London Progressive Journal

Open letter to the workers of Venezuela on Hugo Chávez's support for Ahmadinejad.

Honourable workers of Venezuela,

The Revolutionary Marxists of Iran are aware of your achievements as part of the Bolivarian Movement and have always supported this movement against the widespread lies and the open and covert interference of imperialism. In order to defend your invaluable movement and to confront the attacks and interference of US imperialism in Venezuela, labour and student activists in Iran have set up the ‘Hands Off Venezuela' campaign in Iran and during the past few years have stood together with you in confronting the imperialist attacks. It is obvious that your achievements were gained under the leadership of Hugo Chávez and, for this reason, you reserve deep respect for him.

(click here to view entire letter)

Latin American Studies Professors Slam AP for False Reports on Venezuela

2009-07-19T01:25:00.000-07:00

July 18th 2009, by BoRev.net

Man oh man, how bad does AP reporting have to get before a group of Latin American studies professors from top U.S. universities decides they need to take out a FULL PAGE AD in the Columbia Journalism Review to respond?

(click here to view entire blog post)

British Media Remain Silent Over the Expelling of Telesur and VTV Journalists from Honduras

2009-07-18T10:58:00.000-07:00

July 17th 2009, by Press Office - Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the United Kingdom

Unlike Venezuela and other countries, a majority of the British public ignores the recent events that occurred last week when six Venezuelan journalists from Telesur and VTV (Venezuelan Television) were expelled from Honduras by the de facto President Roberto Micheletti. Since the coup took place on 28th June 2009 there has been a great level of misinformation in Great Britain about what has been happening in Honduras, and the fact that six Venezuelan journalists were expelled from Honduras was not worth reporting by British newspapers.

For instance, Rory Carroll, The Guardian Latin American correspondent, has written in the past seven days about the death of a hippopotamus belonging to deceased drug-trafficker Pablo Escobar in Colombia and the visit of the Royal Ballet of Great Britain to Cuba. Yet, Carroll has not published anything about the expelled Venezuelan journalists in Honduras. Other British newspapers, such as: The Times and The Financial Times have chosen to ignore this subject, despite having correspondents in the region.

(click here to view entire press release)

The Economist Increases its Smear Campaign Against Venezuela by Making up a Venezuelan Military Intervention in Bolivia

2009-07-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

July 17th 2009, by Press Office - Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the United Kingdom

As part of its smear campaign against Venezuela, the British magazine The Economist published an article about the political situation in Bolivia titled “The Permanent Campaign” (July 18 – 24 2009, page 51), which states that “Venezuelan troops helped quell a rebellion centered on the airport at Santa Cruz in the east in 2007”.

It is well known, however, that Venezuelan soldiers have never participated in any type of operation against Bolivian civilians. This false accusation made up by The Economist has also been repeated by the fascist opposition of Santa Cruz.

(click here to view entire press release)

Chavez: US Government Giving Oxygen to Honduran Coup

2009-07-17T00:08:00.000-07:00

[Speaking during his weekly television show, Hello President, on Sunday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on United States President, Barack Obama to withdraw all support for the coup government in Honduras that deposed the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya on June 28.]

Chavez: US Government Giving Oxygen to Honduran Coup

July 13th 2009, by Kiraz Janicke - Venezuelanalysis.com

Caracas, July 13 2009, (Venezuelanalysis.com) - Speaking during his weekly television show, Hello President, on Sunday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on United States President, Barack Obama to withdraw all support for the coup government in Honduras that deposed the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya on June 28.

Although the Obama and secretary of state, Hilary Clinton have made comments condemning the ouster of Zelaya, the US government has thus far refused to legally recognize the coup as a "coup", maintained diplomatic ties with the illegitimate coup government in Honduras, and continued to send millions of dollars in aid.

(click here to view entire article)

Microsoft Versus Venezuela

2009-07-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

[The Venezuelan government and a grassroots technology movement here are both promoting the use and creation of open source (free) software, so it's no surprise that software tyrant, Microsoft, is lambasting Chavez.]

Microsoft Versus Venezuela

July 15th 2009, by Tamara Pearson – Venezuelanalysis.com

Yesterday, Microsoft MSN (Spain) featured a montage photo of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and the ex president of Cuba, Fidel Castro, wearing king's crowns, accompanied by the colourful title, "When power corrupts: Striving to be kings." The Venezuelan government and a grassroots technology movement here are both promoting the use and creation of open source (free) software, so it's no surprise that software tyrant, Microsoft, is lambasting Chavez.

(click here to view entire article)

Honduran Coup Tries to Halt Advance of Latin American Left

2009-07-16T23:53:00.000-07:00

[The coup against Manuel Zelaya of Honduras represents a last ditch effort by Honduras’ entrenched economic and political interests to stave off the advance of the new left governments that have taken hold in Latin America over the past decade.]

Honduran Coup Tries to Halt Advance of Latin American Left

July 3rd 2009, By Roger Burbach - New American Media

The coup against Manuel Zelaya of Honduras represents a last ditch effort by Honduras’ entrenched economic and political interests to stave off the advance of the new left governments that have taken hold in Latin America over the past decade. As Zelaya proclaimed after being forcibly dumped in Costa Rica: “This is a vicious plot planned by elites. The elites only want to keep the country isolated and in extreme poverty.”

(click here to view entire article; click here to view a Spanish version of the article)

Venezuela & Iran: Whither the revolutions?

2009-07-05T11:53:00.000-07:00

[June was a busy month for two of Washington's real ‘Axis of Evil'. Venezuela's Chavez completed his nationalisation of oil and Iran's Ahmedinejad stemmed a Western-backed colour revolution, leaving both bad boys in place.]

Venezuela & Iran: Whither the revolutions?

July 5th 2009, by Eric Walberg - Axisoflogic.com

What drives US foreign policy? Is it primarily the domestic economy, as it logically should be, or, as many argue, the powerful Israel lobby, or as other argue, the need to secure energy sources? Of course, the answer is all three, in varying degrees depending on the geopoltical importance of the country in question. And woe to any country that threatens any of the above.

Russia is perhaps a special case, as US politics was dependent for so long on the anti-communist Cold War that ideologues found it impossible to dispense with this useful bugaboo even after the collapse of Communism. But it was not only Sovietologists like Condoleezza Rice that perversely prospered from this obsession, but the US domestic economy itself, which was transformed into what is best described as the military-industrial complex (MIC). It would take very little to placate today's Russia -- pull in NATO's horns and stop pandering to the Russophobes in Eastern Europe -- but that would hurt the MIC and would hamper the US plans for empire and oil. So it remains an enemy of choice, though not part of the Axis of Evil.

(click here to view entire article)

Chavez: U.S. and Venezuelan Right Wing Support Coup in Honduras, a Challenge to Obama

2009-07-05T11:48:00.000-07:00

[Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez accused the "extreme right wing" of the United States and Venezuela of being involved in last Sunday's military coup in Honduras, perhaps behind U.S. President Barack Obama's back.]

Chavez: U.S. and Venezuelan Right Wing Support Coup in Honduras, a Challenge to Obama

July 3rd 2009, by James Suggett

Mérida, July 3rd 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez accused the "extreme right wing" of the United States and Venezuela of being involved in last Sunday's military coup in Honduras, perhaps behind U.S. President Barack Obama's back.

"It could be that Obama did not know. But I am sure the ambassador of the United States in Honduras [Hugo Llorens], who is the same as [former U.S. President George W.] Bush's, knew about the coup," Chavez said on a special edition of his weekly talk show, "Hello, President."

(click here to view entire article)

Obama's First Coup d'Etat: Honduran President has been Kidnapped: Updates 1, 2, 3

2009-06-28T14:43:00.000-07:00

[As of 10:30am, Sunday morning, no statements have been issued by the Washington concerning the military coup in Honduras.]

Obama's First Coup d'Etat: Honduran President has been Kidnapped: Updates 1, 2, 3

June 28th 2009, by Eva Golinger

Caracas, Venezuela - The text message that beeped on my cell phone this morning read "Alert, Zelaya has been kidnapped, coup d'etat underway in Honduras, spread the word." It's a rude awakening for a Sunday morning, especially for the millions of Hondurans that were preparing to exercise their sacred right to vote today for the first time on a consultative referendum concerning the future convening of a constitutional assembly to reform the constitution. Supposedly at the center of the controversary is today's scheduled referendum, which is not a binding vote but merely an opinion poll to determine whether or not a majority of Hondurans desire to eventually enter into a process to modify their constitution.

(click here to view entire article)

North American Imperialism and the Extreme Right are Behind Coup in Honduras: Chavez

2009-06-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

[The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez Frias, manifested his rejection, this Sunday, of the kidnapping of the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, by that nation's military, and said that North American imperialism and the extreme right are behind this act.]

North American Imperialism and the Extreme Right are Behind Coup in Honduras: Chavez

June 28th 2009, by ABN / Tamara Pearson - Venezuelanalysis.com

This morning military personal kidnapped Honduran president Manuel Zelaya. According to one witness, 200 soldiers arrived at the president's house at 6am this morning, 4 shots were fired and later they left in vehicles towards the air base. The soldiers also took over the government television station, Channel 8, and took it off air. Zelaya is currently speaking live on Telesur TV, from Costa Rica.

In Venezuela, protests are starting in main city plazas and outside the Honduran Embassy. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez spoke on Telesur earlier, with this statement, reported by the Bolivarian News Agency (ABN) and translated by Venezuelanalysis.com.

(click here to view entire article; click here to listen to the Telesur interview with Chavez in Spanish)

The Development of Venezuela's Popular Economy, Pt. 1

2009-06-08T11:05:00.000-07:00

[Certainly, the Chavez government has broken with the neoliberal agenda of the preceding decades. But has it developed instead a shift toward a participatory and democratic economy as the core of 21st Century Socialism?]

The Development of Venezuela's Popular Economy, Pt. 1

May 21st 2009, by Jan Ullrich – Venezuelanalysis.com

Part 1: Experiences and LegislationVenezuela has experienced five years of continual economic prosperity. Its gross domestic product almost doubled between 2003 and 2008. Poverty significantly declined, and the shift of the GINI-Coefficient represented a large reduction in inequality [1]. While those macro-economic indicators are recognized by most critics of Venezuela's economic policies, the qualitative economic development of the country is the subject of polemical discussions from different scientific, political, and ideological points of views.

Certainly, the Chavez government has broken with the neoliberal agenda of the preceding decades. But has it developed instead a shift toward a participatory and democratic economy as the core of 21st Century Socialism? The new "Law for the Development of a Popular Economy," which I will refer to as the Popular Economy Law in this article, could be counted as a step toward a participatory and democratic economy, because it promotes the democratization of the relationship between communities and production and consumption. The concrete experiences of "Solidarity Exchange Groups" that were defined in this law and established in ten communities across the country illustrate how the relationships of communities to production and consumption could be re-organized.

(click here to view entire article)

US Policy and Democracy in Latin America: The Latinobarómetro Poll

2009-06-08T10:51:00.000-07:00

[Does the US government really craft its policy toward specific regimes based on those regimes' respect for democracy? The general trend is one of US support for the more undemocratic regimes in the region, and US antagonism of varying sorts and degrees toward the more democratic ones.]

US Policy and Democracy in Latin America: The Latinobarómetro Poll

May 29th 2009, by Kevin Young - ZNet

Each fall the Chilean non-profit polling organization Latinobarómetro publishes a detailed Spanish-language report on public opinion in Latin America. The 2008 report, released this past November, offers a broad synoptic view of popular opinion in the seventeen major countries of mainland Latin America plus the Dominican Republic, focusing on Latin American citizens' political opinions and their satisfaction with their governments. Though November's report went entirely unreported in almost all of the world's major media outlets—and only small snippets selectively analyzed by writers at the Economist, Christian Science Monitor, and Washington Times—it constitutes perhaps the most thorough source available of the broad contours of public opinion in Latin America, and thus deserves careful consideration [1].

The poll's results are particularly relevant for those whose government has been the most active foreign power in Latin America, in economic, political, and military terms, for much of the past two centuries. For US citizens the key question should be the extent to which their government is supporting democracy and human rights through its foreign policy; in other words, does the US government really craft its policy toward specific regimes based on those regimes' respect for democracy and citizens' rights, as the rhetoric of policymakers and pundits assures us? Answering this question requires three steps: identifying US friends and enemies in the region; measuring the level of democracy in each of those countries; and determining the extent to which US policy favors the more democratic governments in the region. After identifying the major US friends and antagonists, I examine the recent Latinobarómetro report as well as its 2006 and 2007 predecessors to measure the level of democracy in those countries based on their citizens' own appraisals. The general trend, though not uniformly apparent in all categories, is one of US support for the more undemocratic regimes in the region, and US antagonism of varying sorts and degrees toward the more democratic ones. The final section of this essay ventures an explanation for this pattern, locating it in the history of US policy toward Latin America.

(click here to view entire article)

Chavez Talks of CIA Assassination Plot

2009-06-03T03:46:00.000-07:00

[Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has accused the US Central Intelligence Agency of conspiring to assassinate him during his planned visit to El Salvador.]

Chavez Talks of CIA Assassination Plot

June 3rd 2009 - Press TV

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has accused the US Central Intelligence Agency of conspiring to assassinate him during his planned visit to El Salvador. Chavez called off a trip to the Latin American state of El Salvador on Monday in order to forestall alleged efforts meant to murder him on the plane. The Venezuelan leader stated that the country's intelligence services hold "very precise information" that incriminates the CIA of the alleged plot.

(click here to view entire article)

Battling Murder in Venezuela's Participatory Republic

2009-06-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

[If participatory democracy is to offer an alternative it must rise to the direst of challenges. In Venezuela, where the 1999 Bolivarian Constitution explicitly aims to create a "democratic, participatory and self-reliant" society, yet over 100,000 people were killed in a decade, this challenge is insecurity.]

Battling Murder in Venezuela's Participatory Republic

May 28th 2009, by George Gabriel - OpenDemocracy.net

Increasingly, the Left's response to representative institutional frameworks - "participatory democracy" - demands a further empowerment of the people, the antidote to an at times suffocating conglomeration of modern elites. This suffocation gave birth to the Venezuelan Caracazo in 1989, where in response to popular protest against the imposition of neo-liberal reforms the security forces massacred Caracas slum dwellers in their homes. If participatory democracy is to offer an alternative it must rise to the direst of challenges. In Venezuela, where the 1999 Bolivarian Constitution explicitly aims to create a "democratic, participatory and self-reliant" society, yet over 100,000 people were killed in a decade, this challenge is insecurity.

Professor Ross Hastings of Ottawa University identifies three determinants of a person's engagement in criminal activity: personal disposition, personal situation, and lack of fear of the justice system. In Venezuela, with poverty halved since 2003, the stand out cause of homicides must be considered the impunity with which they are carried out. Barely 3% of murders result in a sentence. Yonny Campos, Commissioner of the Caracas-wide Metropolitan Police explains, "they commit homicides, 2,3,15,20, and no one denounces them, no one chases them, no one takes action."

(click here to view entire article)

After The Handshake

2009-06-01T11:03:00.000-07:00

[Latin America has welcomed the election of Barack Obama. But how far do the US president’s policies point to a real change in US/Latin American relations? And even if Obama personally wants such a change, does he have the power to deliver?]

After The Handshake

June 2nd 2009, by Grace Livingstone - Red Pepper (June/July 2009)

When Hugo Chávez thrust a book into the hands of a quizzical Barack Obama at the Fifth Summit of the Americas in mid-April, two things happened. The book, Open Veins of Latin America, a classic for Latin America’s left, became an instant best-seller on Amazon. More importantly, commentators began to talk about a new era of US/Latin American relations. Not only had Obama shaken the hand of Venezuela’s left-wing president, a man US TV networks insist on calling a dictator even though he is elected, but Obama also spoke of ‘a new beginning with Cuba’, raising hopes that the 50-year cold war between the US and the Caribbean communist state might at last thaw.

Obama has set a new tone in the relationship between the US and Latin America, a relationship that not only reached a historic low under George Bush, but that for two centuries has been marred by repeated US military intervention, support for dictators (of the unelected, military variety), death-squads and CIA destabilisation campaigns – which may sound like the fodder of conspiracy-obsessed bloggers, but is in fact verified by declassified US documents and congressional reports.

Change: from rhetoric to reality

Latin American governments have cautiously welcomed Obama’s election, hoping it will mark the end of the constant US interference in their nations’ affairs and an end to the blanket imposition of the free market dogma that has failed so dramatically in the region. Obama won applause from Latin American leaders at the recent summit when he pledged to seek ‘an equal partnership’, adding that ‘there is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations’.

A new tone was also evident in his approach to Mexico, which is wracked by drugs-related violence. Both Obama and Hillary Clinton have acknowledged that demand for drugs in the west is fuelling the trade, a point frequently made by Latin Americans who dislike the US’s high-handed and frequently militarised approach to the ‘drugs war’. Obama has also tentatively welcomed Cuba’s offer of talks and has removed curbs on Cuban-Americans’ travel and remittances to the island. This move actually has very little political cost for Obama because the restrictions, which were introduced by Bush, were unpopular even with right-wing Cuban Americans. Their removal does not change the substance of the trade embargo, which is still in place 49 years after it was imposed by the Eisenhower government. Nevertheless, Obama’s actions have symbolic importance and may lead to a fuller rapprochement with Cuban president Raúl Castro, who is clearly making overtures towards the White House.

This more nuanced approach is in marked contrast to the Bush years, when relations with Latin America reached a nadir. Latin America pulsed with revolt against free market economics, and governments widely considered left-wing were elected across the region – in Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua. Meanwhile, the White House was governed by hard-line right-wing ideologues who not only continued to promote the neoliberal economics that had so clearly failed in Latin America, but after 9/11 also began to paint the region as a haven for terrorists, drugs gangs and criminals.

The Bush administration revived memories of the cold war when it supported a short-lived coup against President Chávez in 2002 and meddled in the elections of Nicaragua and Bolivia, trying (unsuccessfully) to prevent left-wing presidents taking power. Bush’s neocons also worked with allies of the old military regime in Haiti to oust an elected president and quietly, while all eyes were on the Middle East, stepped up involvement in the counter-insurgency war in Colombia.

It comes as no surprise then, that Latin Americans have welcomed the election of Obama. But how far do Obama’s policies so far and his rhetoric for the region point to a real change in US/Latin America relations? And even if Obama personally wanted such a change, does he really have the power to deliver?

US foreign policy: who’s the boss?

Since 1823, when US president James Monroe warned European powers to keep out of the hemisphere, the US has regarded Latin America as its ‘sphere of influence’ and a source of commodities, markets and cheap labour. Historically there has been remarkable continuity in US policy towards the region regardless of whether there have been Democrats or Republicans in the White House. All US administrations have favoured stable, pro-capitalist regimes – democracies if possible, dictatorships if necessary.

The US also wants the use of military bases, airstrips, ports and radar systems throughout the hemisphere, so that it can maintain its status as a global superpower and hegemony over its own ‘backyard’. This is particularly important today when the US no longer has the Panama Canal Zone (it left in 1999) and has to lease military bases from friendly governments. The left-wing president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, for example, plans to expel the US from the base in Manta, northern Ecuador, when the lease expires this year. If Obama wants to change some of the US’s most damaging policies in Latin America he will come up against entrenched corporate interests, a powerful state machinery and centuries of cultural assumptions.

Take the case of Colombia. 70 per cent of all US military aid in Latin America is devoted to Colombia, which is home to a still-significant left-wing guerrilla force, the FARC. US forces are heavily involved in the counter-insurgency war, providing air cover and supply lines, as well as radar, satellite and other intelligence assistance. The United States also continues to fund and promote the aerial spraying of herbicides on farms growing coca, which is the basis of cocaine after chemical processing. These herbicides kill food crops as well as coca; they have killed animals, caused human illnesses and may be doing long term damage to the Colombian environment.

Obama’s Colombia policy may change in minor ways. Some congressional Democrats have raised concerns about herbicide use and Obama himself signed letters condemning human rights abuses when he was a senator. Conditions may be imposed on military aid. But the basic war thrust of the policy is unlikely to change because it is being driven by the Pentagon. The commander of the US southern command, General Charles E Wilhelm, identified Colombia as the most ‘threatened nation’ in the region in 2000, because of the strength of the FARC guerrillas. The US poured billions into Plan Colombia, nominally a counter-drugs programme, but one with a clear counter-insurgency aim. Now that the FARC has been weakened, driven out of the cities and pushed back into isolated rural backwaters, the Pentagon wants to go on to ‘finish the job’. The US military establishment is pushing the Colombian elite to hold out for total victory, regardless of how elusive that may be and how much bloodshed it causes.

All US presidents have traditionally deferred to the military on issues of national security – and under George Bush the Pentagon became even more influential, usurping the role of the State Department in shaping foreign policy. So far, Obama has said he will continue the war against the FARC, but if he wanted to pursue a different course in Colombia, and use the guerrillas’ weakness as an opportunity to press for peace, he could feel the weight of the US military and intelligence establishment bear down on him.

Similarly, the Pentagon and intelligence community are pushing for a hawkish policy towards Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. Not only do they regard oil as an issue of national security (Venezuela is the US’s fourth largest oil supplier), they are alarmed by Chávez’s ‘destabilising’ influence both in the Americas and the wider third world – in particular, his relationship with Iran and China. A pamphlet published by the US Army War College, entitled Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, Bolivarian Socialism and Asymmetric Warfare, warns that ‘Chávez and Venezuela are developing the conceptual and physical capability to challenge the status quo in Latin America and to generate a “Super Insurgency” intended to bring about fundamental political and economic change in the region’. It goes on to caution that ‘inaction [against Chávez] could destroy the democracy, free market economies, and prosperity that has been achieved’. Obama may have shaken Chávez’s hand at the recent summit, but in the short time he has been in office he has also described him as a ‘demagogue’ and accused him of ‘impeding progress in the region’ and ‘exporting terrorist activities’. The policy of trying to isolate Venezuela within the region and divide Chávez from the more moderate left-wing administrations (Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina) is likely to continue.

Free trade and the future

A key question is whether the US will continue to promote free trade. US corporations were behind the aggressive push for free trade in the Americas over the past decade because they needed to compete with cheap Chinese imports. Free trade allowed them to produce cheap goods in Mexican and central American maquiladoras (assembly plants), which they could then send back to the US duty free, allowing them to compete with Asian imports in the US domestic market. A related aggressive corporate search for new markets in services – banking, telecoms, water, electricity – was behind the wave of privatisations and deregulation in Latin America in the 1990s.

The right of corporations to influence policy is accepted unquestioningly by all US administrations. Business representatives shape policy both as paid lobbyists and, more effectively, as specialist advisers. Corporations have played a direct role in designing the framework and rules for free trade in the past two decades. Much of the bargaining for World Trade Organisation (WTO) treaties, for example, takes place in closed, private meetings, which are by invitation only. Business groups are invited to informal talks and take part as technical advisers. After the WTO meeting in Seattle, the African delegation and a group of Latin American and Caribbean countries issued a statement complaining of ‘being marginalised and generally excluded on issues of vital importance for our peoples and their future’.

The largest free trade area in the Americas is covered by NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which comprises the US, Mexico and Canada. Introduced in 1994, NAFTA has benefited large corporations and landowners in the US and Mexico at the expense of smallholders, small businesses and workers. Manufacturing wages have fallen on both sides of the border and thousands have lost jobs and land. During his election campaign, Obama promised to renegotiate NAFTA, but this would bring him into conflict with some of the largest corporations in the US, as well as the pro-business conservative Mexican government, so it remains to be seen whether he will keep his promise.

NAFTA illustrates that the economic models pursued by the US affect all other areas of policy, including migration, security and even drugs. NAFTA allows for free movement of goods and capital, but it does not permit the free movement of people. So when Mexican unemployed migrants cross the border into the US, they are deported back, leaving some to feel they have little choice but to take the dollars of the drugs gangs. Although Obama’s more conciliatory tone in the drugs debate is welcome, his administration will have to face the complex reality that, in Mexico and Colombia, drugs violence is rooted in socio-economic inequalities, and economic policies that increase landlessness and unemployment simply provide more manpower for the armed groups.

Whatever Obama’s real intentions for Latin America, he will be forced to confront the fact that the so-called ‘pink tide’ of governments across the region are bullishly espousing their independence and most economies have diversified so that they are less dependent on the US. Most of the region’s countries have rejected neoliberal dogma and are trying alternative models. Although they will be severely tested by the current economic crisis, the new wave of progressive governments is demanding respect from whoever is in the White House.

Grace Livingstone is the author of 'America’s Backyard: the United States and Latin America from the Monroe Doctrine to the War on Terror' (Zed Books, 2009). Click here for more information about the book and how to buy it.

Fresh Off Worldwide Attention for Joining Obama’s Book Collection, Uruguayan Author Eduardo Galeano Returns with “Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone”

2009-05-31T01:48:00.000-07:00

[We spend the hour with one of Latin America’s most acclaimed writers, Eduardo Galeano. The Uruguayan novelist and journalist recently made headlines around the world when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave President Obama a copy of Galeano’s classic work, The Open Veins of Latin America. Eduardo Galeano’s latest book is Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone. We speak to Galeano about his reaction to the Chavez-Obama book exchange, media and politics in Latin America, his assessment of Obama, and more.]

Fresh Off Worldwide Attention for Joining Obama’s Book Collection, Uruguayan Author Eduardo Galeano Returns with “Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone”

May 28th 2009, by Democracy Now!

Guest:
Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and journalist. He is one of the most celebrated writers in Latin America. He is author of many books, including Open Veins of Latin America and the trilogy Memory of Fire. His latest book is titled Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone.

JUAN GONZALEZ: We’re joined today for the hour by one of Latin America’s most acclaimed writers, Eduardo Galeano. The Uruguayan novelist and journalist made headlines last month when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave President Barack Obama a copy of one of Galeano’s books during a brief encounter at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago. The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent soon shot to near the top of the bestseller list.
Hugo Chavez later told reporters, quote, “This book is a monument in our Latin American history. It allows us to learn history, and we have to build on this history.”
Since its publication in 1971, The Open Veins of Latin America has sold over a million copies worldwide, despite being banned in the 1970s by the military governments in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.

(click here to view entire interview)

Chavez Calls on Workers to Push for Workplace Democracy in Venezuela

2009-05-30T06:51:00.000-07:00

[President Chavez recently announced a series of new nationalisations, but he also stressed the need for workers' control, planning and socialism. What now needs to be done is to act on these words and the only force that can do that is the working class.]

Chavez Calls on Workers to Push for Workplace Democracy in Venezuela

May 28th 2009, by Hermann Albrecht - In Defence of Marxism

At a recent gathering in the State of Guayana President Chavez announced a series of new nationalisations, but he also stressed the need for workers' control, planning and socialism. What now needs to be done is to act on these words and the only force that can do that is the working class. Otherwise all the good proposals can be buried by the myriad of reformists and bureaucrats who infest the movement.

On Thursday, May 21, at a workshop with the workers of the basic industries in the state of Guayana, President Chavez announced the nationalisation of the following iron briquette and steel companies: Orinoco Iron, Venezolana de Prerreducidos of Caroní (VENPRECAR), Materiales Siderúrgicos (MATESI), and the Complejo Siderúrgico de Guayana (COMSIGUA), as well as Tubos de Acero de Venezuela (TAVSA) and Cerámicas Carabobo.

He also confirmed the collective bargaining agreement of CVG Ferrominera and spoke of the creation of an industrial steelworks complex, indicating that, "These companies must be placed under workers' control; that's how it has to be." He continued, "let's start the process of nationalisation in order to create this industrial complex," adding that these measures should have been taken a long time ago.

(click here to view entire article)

Latin America’s Pro-Capitalist Elite Hold Anti-Chávez Conference in Venezuela

2009-05-30T06:10:00.000-07:00

[Hundreds of right-wing political leaders and representatives of pro-capitalist think tanks from across the world gathered in Venezuela's luxurious Caracas Palace Hotel this week for an exclusive event titled "International Conference for Freedom and Democracy: The Latin American Challenge."]

Latin America’s Pro-Capitalist Elite Hold Anti-Chávez Conference in Venezuela

May 29th 2009, by James Suggett – Venezuelanalysis.com

Mérida, May 29th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) -- Hundreds of right-wing political leaders and representatives of pro-capitalist think tanks from across the world gathered in Venezuela's luxurious Caracas Palace Hotel this week for an exclusive event titled "International Conference for Freedom and Democracy: The Latin American Challenge."

A major theme of the conference was how to put an end to the political changes been carried out by President Hugo Chávez and a wave of other progressive presidents who have been elected across the region over the past ten years.

Peruvian author and former Peruvian presidential candidate Mario Vargas Llosa, one of the high profile keynote speakers at the event, framed the Chávez government as the chief obstacle to the progress of capitalist free markets in the region.

(click here to view entire article)

Challenges and Possibilities: Learning from ALBA and the Bank of the South

2009-05-25T04:23:00.000-07:00

[At the same time capitalism’s credibility as an engine of development (in both free-market and state-directed forms) is being weakened, the governments of a number of South American countries are working to advance new regional initiatives that have the potential to promote and strengthen socialist-inspired development alternatives-the most important are the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) and the Bank of the South. Although these two initiatives do not have the explicit mission of promoting socialist transformation, they are critically important because they concretize the existence of alternatives to capitalist growth strategies and, in the case of ALBA, offer support to governments that are themselves pursuing a socialist-inspired process of transformation.]

Challenges and Possibilities: Learning from ALBA and the Bank of the South

May 22nd 2009, by Martin Hart-Landsberg - International Debt Observatory

This is a time of great challenges and also great possibilities. The first decade of the 21st century may well mark an important turning point in the international struggle to supplant capitalism.

For decades the great majority of third world governments have followed neoliberal policies despite the failure of those policies to deliver their promised export-led growth. As a consequence, anti-neoliberal political movements have grown in strength throughout Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. While an important political development, the emancipatory potential of those movements has remained limited, in large part, because of their focus on neoliberalism as the primary impediment to progress. More specifically, many participating activists and academics continue to draw a sharp distinction between neoliberalism and capitalism; while they strongly oppose the former, they remain largely unwilling to reject the latter.

Most tend to blame the development failures of their respective nations on government policies (often implemented under pressure) that liberalized, deregulated, and privatized economic activity. They believe that the East Asian experience of high-speed, export-led growth and industrial transformation demonstrates that active state intervention and direction of economic activity can produce successful capitalist development. Therefore, they have often directed their efforts at enhancing the state capacities of their respective countries in an attempt to recreate East Asian economic successes.

However, we are now at a point where it may be possible to win a strong majority of these activists and intellectuals to an anti-capitalist perspective, a critical change if we are succeed in building the movement clarity and strength necessary to advance a socialist alternative. One reason is that the exploitative and contradictory nature of the East Asian growth strategy is becoming clearer. Ever more intense intra-regional competition has begun to undermine East Asia’s past social and economic gains and generate worker resistance. Perhaps even more dramatic, the region’s export-led growth strategy has finally run up against its own limits, as an ever deepening global economic crisis triggered by imbalances in the U.S. economy has thrown East Asian economies into their own downward economic spiral.

(click here to view entire article)

Globovisón: The Loose Cannon of Venezuelan Media

2009-05-24T06:39:00.000-07:00

[Venezuela’s socialist national project is well underway and making ever more significant strides, in spite of an entrenched, privileged minority in opposition, relentlessly spurred on by the corporate media and its vociferous attacks.]

Globovisón: The Loose Cannon of Venezuelan Media

May 2oth 2009, by Carlos Ruiz - VenCentral

In their classic 1988 book Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky demonstrated how corporate media select topics, place emphasis, set boundaries, ask questions and shape content in accordance with broad capitalist imperatives. It’s a largely unconscious process driven by conformist human beings, and infinitely more effective than the heavy-handed methods of past communist regimes.

During the 20th century, ballooning marketing budgets played a crucial role in the marginalization, and ultimate extinction of influential labor-based/progressive media. Today’s mass media subservience to elite power structures is an inevitable consequence of the pursuit of profit. Advertising revenues continue to flow to any given publication, radio or TV station on the condition that its reporting and general content supports a business-friendly status quo.

(click here to view entire article)

Arabs’ New Favourite Leader: Hugo Chávez!?!

2009-05-24T01:39:00.000-07:00

[The Venezuelan leader blew away all others as Arabs' favorite world leader in this week's University of Maryland and Zogby International's 2009 Annual Arab Public Opinion Survey.]

Arabs’ New Favorite Leader: Hugo Chávez!?!

May 20th 2009, by Matthew Clark - Christian Science Monitor

That’s right. The colorful Latin leftist has some serious crossover appeal.

He’s now huge – or, as Donald Trump would say, “uuuuuge” – in the Middle East.

So big that he’s surpassed the usual favorites: Osama bin Laden, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedenejad. At least that’s the result of this week’s University of Maryland and Zogby International’s 2009 Annual Arab Public Opinion Survey. (President Obama didn’t place, although George W. Bush still did quite well in the “worst world leaders” category, as Foreign Policy points out.)

It may seem surprising, but a quick look back Mr. Chávez’s statements and visits over the past few years reveal why he’s now a hero for the “Arab Street,” earning nicknames like “Chávez of Arabia.”

(click here to view entire article)

Documentary: Beyond Elections: Redefining Democracy in the Americas

2009-05-21T05:26:00.000-07:00

[Watch the first part of the documentary, Beyond Elections: Redefining Democracy in the Americas, by Michael Fox and Silvia Leindecker, below. The documentary's website (http://www.beyondelections.com/) has links to watch the movie in English, Spanish or Portuguese and information about how to buy a copy of it. Click here to watch the remaining parts of the documentary.]

British Government Foreign Office Minister Praises Venezuela’s Anti-Poverty Measures

2009-05-20T01:55:00.000-07:00

[British Government Foreign Office Minister Gillian Merron and over 40 Parliamentarians attended a House of Commons reception on 13 May to mark a decade of social progress in Venezuela under the Hugo Chávez-led government. At the reception, Gillian Merron praised Venezuela’s anti-poverty measures.]

British Government Foreign Office Minister Praises Venezuela’s Anti-Poverty Measures

May 14th 2009, by VICUK

British Government Foreign Office Minister Gillian Merron and over 40 Parliamentarians attended a House of Commons reception on 13 May to mark a decade of social progress in Venezuela under the Hugo Chávez-led government. They were joined by more than 100 personalities from the media, trade unions and the wider Labour Party.

At the reception, Gillian Merron MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign & Commonwealth Office said:

“We all welcome policies that help the most vulnerable and the poorest people in our communities -- wherever those communities might be. That is why we very much welcome the efforts of President Chavez, democratically backed by the people, to help the most needy in Venezuelan society. Those efforts undoubtedly have our support.”

She explained that the British governments engages “with Venezuela on many social justice initiatives” and called for more “communication and co-operation” so that both countries “work closer and better together for the benefit of both of our peoples.”

(click here to view entire article)

Separating Fact from Fiction: An Analysis of Venezuela’s Military Power

2009-05-19T05:52:00.000-07:00

[Exercises like those carried out with the Russian navy in November 2008 are good for morale, and also helps mold the Venezuelan military into an authentic regional power, though certainly not a hemispheric security threat, given its still very limited capacity to project its force.]

Separating Fact from Fiction: An Analysis of Venezuela’s Military Power

May 13th 2009, by Alex Sánchez - COHA

Following the recently concluded Summit of the Americas held April 17-19, in Trinidad and Tobago, President Barack Obama claimed that the U.S. defense budget was 600 times greater than that of Venezuela. While it is true that, in conventional warfare, a Venezuelan victory over this country is totally beyond any credulity, the question remains regarding how much relative military strength does Venezuela actually project. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is widely acknowledged as having carried out an aggressive policy of military acquisitions in recent years, which has had far-reaching implications particularly through purchasing Russian military equipment. In effect, this arms program made Chávez appear on Washington’s SOUTHCOM security radar screen as well as those of neighboring South American nations, especially Colombia.

Military Overseas’ Providers in the Chávez Era

A key facet of the Russian-Venezuelan military partnership has been Chávez’s continued interest in purchasing state-of-the-art Russian weaponry. This process, which can be traced back to 2006, at the same time marked the beginning of Moscow’s active return to the western hemisphere, as its influence in the region continually has spread through various precise spheres (military cooperation, commerce, trade and cultural relations). Meanwhile, Venezuela significantly has linked itself to Moscow and made Russia its most important military arms-provider in the region. This inevitably has fomented a comparison of the Caracas-Moscow relationship with the Havana-Soviet relationship dating back to the origins of the Cold War, even if such a comparison is not entirely warranted.

(click here to view entire article)

Venezuela Combats Crisis by Fighting Corruption, Bureaucracy

2009-05-07T14:11:00.000-07:00

[Confronted by the global economic crisis and a sharp drop in oil prices, the Venezuelan government has launched an offensive against corruption as part of its austerity drive.]

Venezuela Combats Crisis by Fighting Corruption, Bureaucracy

May 2nd 2009, by Federico Fuentes - Green Left Weekly

Confronted by the global economic crisis and a sharp drop in oil prices, the Venezuelan government has launched an offensive against corruption as part of its austerity drive.
This has included measures to cut down on superfluous expenses and bloated salaries of high-ranking public officials. The public prosecutor has also initiated a number of court cases against former and current elected officials for alleged corruption.

(click here to view entire article)

Book Launch: America's Backyard: The United States and Latin America from the Monroe Doctrine to the War on Terror by Grace Livingstone

2009-05-06T07:37:00.000-07:00

Monday 18th May 6.30pm-8.30pm

Hancock Room
Institute of Commonwealth Studies
University of London
28 Russell SquareLondon WC1B 5DS
United Kingdom

http://www.zedbooks.co.uk/book.asp?bookdetail=4267

Toward A Loyal Opposition

2009-05-05T11:13:00.000-07:00

[In recent statements and proclamations Venezuela's political opposition declared that President Hugo Chavez has initiated "a reign of terror" against his opponents. It also proclaims that the government is weaker than ever and that the time is ripe for a new round of massive street protests.]

Toward A Loyal Opposition

April 29th 2009, by Zachary Lown – Venezuelanalysis.com

In recent statements and proclamations Venezuela's political opposition declared that President Hugo Chavez has initiated "a reign of terror" against his opponents. It also proclaims that the government is weaker than ever and that the time is ripe for a new round of massive street protests.

This opposition narrative, as it has unfolded over the past two weeks, comes in reaction to a series of centralizing measures and the persecution of oppositionist officials charged with corruption by the Chavez government. Venezuela's divided but vitriolic political opposition is constituted in political parties, the Catholic Church, the universities and the private media.

(click here to view entire article)

Venezuela Rejects U.S. Terrorism Report

2009-05-05T11:09:00.000-07:00

[On Thursday, the U.S. State Department released its Country Reports on Terrorism for 2008, in which it asserts that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's "ideological sympathy" with the Colombian guerrillas "limited Venezuelan cooperation with Colombia in combating terrorism."]

Venezuela Rejects U.S. Terrorism Report

May 2nd 2009, by James Suggett – Venezuelanalysis.com

Mérida, May 2nd 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) -- On Thursday, the U.S. State Department released its Country Reports on Terrorism for 2008, in which it asserts that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's "ideological sympathy" with the Colombian guerrillas "limited Venezuelan cooperation with Colombia in combating terrorism."

The report criticizes Venezuela for not systematically policing its 1,400 mile border with Colombia, which left-wing guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries from Colombia are believed to have crossed to take refuge and raise funds illegally.

(click here to view entire article)

Venezuelan President Calls for “Re-definition” of Socialist Party

2009-05-05T10:57:00.000-07:00

[On his weekly talk show Aló Presidente on Sunday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), of which he is president, will undergo a "re-definition" in which sectarianism and corrupt party leadership must end and the party must strengthen its ties to social movements.]

Venezuelan President Calls for “Re-definition” of Socialist Party

May 4th 2009, by James Suggett – Venezuelanalysis.com

Mérida, May 4th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) -- On his weekly talk show Aló Presidente on Sunday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), of which he is president, will undergo a "re-definition" in which sectarianism and corrupt party leadership must end and the party must strengthen its ties to social movements.

The PSUV is "on course toward the redefinition of many things in the party's internal operating," Chávez said on the nationally televised talk show. "In the PSUV, we must distance ourselves from the tendencies of the past; we cannot let ourselves be trapped by sectarianism," he said.

(click here to view entire article)

Seminar: Venezuela's 'Bolivarian' Process: Achievements, Challenges and Prospects after 10 Years

2009-04-30T02:29:00.000-07:00

LSE IDEAS Centre presents

Latin America Initiative Seminar:

Venezuela's 'Bolivarian' Process: Achievements, Challenges and Prospects after 10 Years

6th May 18.00 – 20.00

Venezuela’s ambassador to the UK, his Excellency Dr Samuel Moncada and Dr Julia Buxton (University of Bradford) explore the achievements of the Bolivarian process and the challenges it faces within a regional and broader international context. They will then examine the future prospects of the process given the current political and economic environment.

The presentations will be followed by an open discussion.

6th May 18.00 – 20.00
LSE IDEAS Columbia HouseRoom B212
(Aldwych)

More info: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/IDEAS/events/forthcomingEvents.htm

Venezuela: 21st Century Technology for 21st Century Socialism

2009-04-27T10:51:00.000-07:00

[One of the cornerstones of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian revolution, as the process led by President Hugo Chavez of changing Venezuela to meet to needs of the poor is known, is the use of technology to improve the lives of the majority of the population that lives near or below the poverty line.]

Venezuela: 21st Century Technology for 21st Century Socialism

April 18th 2009, by Lainie Cassel - Green Left Weekly

Nestled in the heart of Barrio 23 de Enero, a large impoverished neighbourhood in Caracas, among the man-made ranchos with red brick walls and metal roofing, stands the Ramon Ismael Ramos Infocenter.

Filled with over 70 state-of-the-art computers and flat-screen monitors, the space offers a sharp contrast to the surrounding barrio.

One of the cornerstones of the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian revolution, as the process led by President Hugo Chavez of changing Venezuela to meet to needs of the poor is known, is the use of technology to improve the lives of the majority of the population that lives near or below the poverty line.

In a country where nearly all major media outlets are controlled by a handful of the country's richest citizens, and are hostile to the process of change, the government sees access to technology as a crucial tool to democratise the media.

(click here to view entire article)

Cuba, Venezuela, and the Quest for Socialism: One and the Same?

2009-04-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

[When discussing Latin America's so-called Left Turn, Cuba and Venezuela are often paired together as being of the more radical, militant faction of countries located on the Left within the region. There are indeed some legitimate grounds for such generalizations, but lost in this interpretation are many of the profound differences between each country's respective efforts and methods toward building a socialist society.]

Cuba, Venezuela, and the Quest for Socialism: One and the Same?

March 29th 2009, by John Kane - Znet

When discussing Latin America's so-called Left Turn, Cuba and Venezuela are often paired together as being of the more radical, militant faction of countries located on the Left within the region. There are indeed some legitimate grounds for such generalizations, but lost in this interpretation are many of the profound differences between each country's respective efforts and methods toward building a socialist society.

Cuba, Venezuela, and the Role of Democracy

In much analysis of both Cuba and Venezuela, social gains are often counterbalanced with criticism of each country's practice of democracy -- or lack thereof.[1] While I can't offer a thorough examination of each country's democratic structures here, the role of democracy does in fact play an interesting role in each country's prospects for building socialism.

(click here to view entire article)

Obama's Real Plan in Latin America

2009-04-26T06:39:00.000-07:00

[While Obama humbly discussed hemispheric issues on an “equal footing” with his Latin American counterparts at the recent Summit of Americas, he has subtly signaled that U.S. foreign policy will be business as usual.]

Obama's Real Plan in Latin America

April 22nd 2009, by Shamus Cooke

At first glance Obama seems to have softened U.S. policy toward Latin America, especially when compared to his predecessor. There has been no shortage of editorials praising Obama’s conciliatory approach while comparing it to FDR’s ”Good Neighbor” Latin American policy.It’s important to remember, however, that FDR’s vision of being neighborly meant that the U.S. would merely stop direct military interventions in Latin America, while reserving the right to create and prop up dictators, arm and train unpopular regional militaries, promote economic dominance through free trade and bank loans, conspire with right-wing groups, etc…

(click here to view entire article)

Chávez's Perfect Gift to Obama

2009-04-21T04:12:00.000-07:00

[Presenting Eduardo Galeano's book, Open Veins of Latin America, to Barack Obama was a brilliant idea.]

Chávez's Perfect Gift to Obama

April 20th 2009, by Richard Gott - Comment is Free (The Guardian)

Some surprise has been expressed in the Anglo-Saxon world that Hugo Chávez should have presented a book to Barack Obama by Eduardo Galeano. Ignorance can be the only defence, the very fault that the Venezuelan president had earlier accused his US counterpart of suffering from. For Galeano is one of the most well-known and celebrated writers in Latin America, up there with Gabriel García Márquez, and his huge output of fact and fiction, as well as his journalism, has been published all over the continent. His books have been continuously in print since the 1960s, read voraciously by successive generations.

It was a brilliant idea of Chávez's to give Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America to Obama, since this book, first published in 1971, encapsulates a radical version of the history of Latin America with which most Latin Americans are familiar.

(click here to view entire article)

Another Left Turn In Venezuela

2009-04-17T08:51:00.000-07:00

[The development of the Bolivarian Revolution, including using the institutional gains achieved to date to meet human needs and develop popular potentials via humane policies, as well as establishing further institutional gains, has encountered three major obstacles: residual capitalists, residual oligarchic government, and residual mainstream media.]

Another Left Turn In Venezuela

March 30th 2009, by Michael Albert - ZNet

On the top page of ZNet, in the box in the center column labeled Venezuela, for example, you will see some interviews, including one with Julio Chavez, Carlos Lanz, and Fernando Torrealba respectively, at the time of the interviews, Mayor of Carora in Venezuela, Venezuelan vice minister of Education and former activist within the economy, and Supreme Court Justice, again, in Venezuela. In addition, on the Audio page linked from the ZNet top page under the ZNet tab, you will see a link as well to a talk by myself and one by Noam Chomsky - both recorded at an event at MIT a week ago, where Julio Chavez spoke as well, but in Spanish, so that his talk isn't online as yet.I draw your attention to these pieces because of their special cumulative relevance to the discussion below.

The Bolivarian Revolution

The development of the Bolivarian Revolution, including using the institutional gains achieved to date to meet human needs and develop popular potentials via humane policies, as well as establishing further institutional gains, has encountered three major obstacles: residual capitalists, residual oligarchic government, and residual mainstream media.

Many people look at Venezuela as an established society of the future and ask, okay, what are its features, what are their benefits and costs, are they worthy, do they meet our most exalted desires? This is a mistake.

Revolutions take time to undertake gigantic transformations of attitudes, habits, and structures. Usually a revolution takes many years, or even decades, to increase popular commitment and raise popular consciousness, as well as win positive improvements - finally reaching a turning point where mass consciousness is sufficiently high, aroused desire is sufficiently high, and organized movements are as a result able to direct development thereafter not from a position of opposition, but due to being in possession of organized power.

(click here to view entire article)

The Revolution Will Not Be Destabilized: Ottawa's Democracy Promoters Target Venezuela

2009-04-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

[Part of the 'hidden wiring' of the US-Canada relationship is premised on the belief that there is a role for Canada in places where the US carries a lot of counter-productive baggage. New records obtained by The Dominion show just how actively intertwined Canada's foreign policy is with the US-led 'democracy' promotion project in Venezuela.]

The Revolution Will Not Be Destabilized: Ottawa's Democracy Promoters Target Venezuela

April 3rd 2009, by Anthony Fenton - The Dominion

As the country closer geographically, economically and militarily to the US than any other, Canada has often seen her foreign policy aspirations circumscribed by the whims of the world's lone Superpower.

Part of the 'hidden wiring' of the US-Canada relationship is premised on the belief that there is a role for Canada in places where the US carries a lot of counter-productive baggage. New records obtained by The Dominion show just how actively intertwined Canada's foreign policy is with the US-led 'democracy' promotion project in Venezuela.

(click here to view entire article)

Human Rights and Police Reform in Venezuela: A Venezuelan Perspective

2009-04-17T01:03:00.000-07:00

[Seeking an experienced, nuanced, and Venezuelan perspective on human rights and insecurity in Venezuela, Venezuelanalysis.com spoke with the Venezuelan human rights organization Red de Apoyo por la Justicia y la Paz (Support Network for Peace and Justice).]

Human Rights and Police Reform in Venezuela: A Venezuelan Perspective

April 3rd 2009, by Pablo Fernández Blanco, Maryluz Guillén, and James Suggett – Venezuelanalysis.com

Recent reports by Human Rights Watch and the U.S. State Department have put the issue of human rights in Venezuela under much international scrutiny. Seeking an experienced, nuanced, and Venezuelan perspective, Venezuelanalysis.com spoke with the Venezuelan human rights organization Red de Apoyo por la Justicia y la Paz (Support Network for Peace and Justice). The Red de Apoyo was founded in 1985 to denounce abuses of power by the police and military and to support its victims. Since then, the non-governmental organization has expanded to include work on a variety of economic, social, cultural, and civil rights. General Coordinator Pablo Fernández Blanco and Coordinator Maryluz Guillén speak about the ways in which the Chávez government has progressed, the areas where there is still much work to be done, the government's attitude toward human rights activists, the situation before Chávez was elected, and the potential impact on human rights of the February 15th referendum, in which voters approved an amendment to abolish term limits on elected offices.

(click here to view interview)

Obama's Reality Check

2009-04-16T02:02:00.000-07:00

[Barack Obama needs to face up to the fact that existing US policies have caused havoc throughout South America.]

Obama's Reality Check

April 15th 2009, by Mark Weisbrot - Comment is Free (The Guardian)

Many people, including most of the presidents and leaders of South America, were hoping that President Obama would initiate a serious change in US-Latin American relations, after the low point reached during the Bush years. Change will certainly come – it is happening every week - but there are few if any signs that the initiative will come from the north.

The Obama administration announced yesterday that it would allow Cuban-Americans with relatives in Cuba to visit and send money, and that some communications links would be opened. This was widely expected, and as the Financial Times noted, it was "the minimum necessary to make sure that Obama gets a good response" at the Summit of the Americas, where 34 heads of state will meet this weekend in Trinidad and Tobago.

(click here to view entire article)

What's Next for Venezuela's Opposition?

2009-04-15T01:04:00.000-07:00

[A few distinct tendencies have become visible in Venezuela's opposition since February's referendum: from re-engagement with the political process and an attempt to broaden appeal, to a more thorough self-analysis and a recognition of the need to address poverty and inequality.]

What's Next for Venezuela's Opposition?

March 30th 2009, by Max Ajl - NACLA

When Venezuelan voters approved a referendum allowing for indefinite re-election on all elected posts, commentary immediately turned to what the reform meant for chavistas-particularly, the prospect of having Hugo Chávez as president until 2019 or later. Far less attention was paid to what the defeat meant for the opposition, or to its reaction.

A functioning opposition could have good effects on Venezuelan society. If it were to advocate, say, a corruption-free, developmental state-capitalism, it would force the Chávez government to put its program and its sometimes-hazy ideology into sharper relief. It also could compel the government to scrape out corruption and, perhaps, accelerate structural change.

A great many opposition groups, linked to the 2002 imperial coup d'état and U.S. financial support, ideologically bankrupt, are hardly speaking in such terms. But for others, the referendum's passage has occasioned deep self-evaluation.

(click here to view entire article)

Conspiracy and Propaganda Centers: Illegal US Consulates in Venezuela

2009-03-30T11:06:00.000-07:00

[At the end of 2005, the Embassy of the United States in Venezuela inaugurated the first of what would become a total of four seats of "virtual consulates", known as "American Corners" in Latin America. These are no typical diplomatic seats.]

Conspiracy and Propaganda Centers: Illegal US Consulates in Venezuela

March 28th 2009, by Eva Golinger - Axis of Logic

At the end of 2005, the Embassy of the United States in Venezuela, under the leadership of then Ambassador William Brownfield (present U.S. Ambassador in Colombia), inaugurated the first of what would become a total of four seats of "virtual consulates", known as "American Corners" in Latin America. These are no typical diplomatic seats, given the fact that they do not have any authorization from the Foreign Ministry of the respective countries in which they are situated; neither do they offer services to the US citizens who reside in the country. Documents of the US State Department, recently declassified in the realm of my investigations, explicitly emphasize that the purpose of these "American Corners" is to facilitate an "unfiltered" dialogue and relation between the Embassy of the United States and the Venezuelan people. In a clear flagrancy [of their disregard] for international law and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations in particular, Washington intends to ignore the authority of the Venezuelan government in order to manage establishing bilateral relations directly with sectors of the Venezuelan society.

Since President Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution came to power in 1998, Washington has intended to undermine the Venezuelan democracy through different acts of destabilization, including the coup d'état of April 2002, the economic sabotage and the sabotage of the petroleum industry of 2002-2003, Guarimbas¹, electoral interventions, media warfare, and a constant flow of dollars into the pockets of the violent and anti-democratic groups of the opposition. Hence, when the Embassy of the United States seeks to establish an "unfiltered" relation with the Venezuelan people, it cannot be understood other than that they have the same intentions as always; their objective continues to be the overthrow of President Chávez and the destruction of the Bolivarian Revolution.

(click here to view entire article)

Chávez Sweeps Away Budget Predictions of Venezuela's Opposition

2009-03-30T06:05:00.000-07:00

[President Chávez outlined new economic policy for Venezuela, designed to protect the national economy from the effects of the global economic collapse. These new policies neutralise all the arguments and predictions of the opposition economists and their media.]

Chávez Sweeps Away Budget Predictions of Venezuela's Opposition

March 23th 2009, by Arturo Rosales - Axis of Logic

The so called "economic adjustment package" announced by President Chávez on Saturday was predicted by the opposition media to look something like this:

Devaluation of the local currency, the Bolivar by some 40%
A 400% increase in the price of gasoline
28% tax on the purchase of new vehicles
25% increase in gas and electricity prices
Freezing of the minimum wage
Cutting social programs
Reintroduction of the tax on all bank transactions
An increase of 10% in VAT (purchase tax) taking it up to 19%

In other words, the opposition predicted a traditional neoliberal package of measures designed to shore up government coffers and stop the country "falling off the cliff" at the expense of the public. Not surprisingly, the measures they predicted would have followed a capitalist model.

In Venezuela the word "package" harkens back to the 1989 economic package imposed by the then Pérez government on February 27th of that year which sparked countrywide riots and looting and almost overthrew the regime. Thousands were slaughtered in the streets as the Pérez government used fully armed troops to quell the rioting and protect the sacred cow of private property.

(click here to view entire article)

Gender Advance in Venezuela: A Two-Pronged Affair

2009-03-30T00:17:00.000-07:00

[Though the last decade of Hugo Chávez's "socialist democratic" government has never been far from the media spotlight, key elements of the proclaimed Bolivarian process have been overlooked: chiefly the struggle for female emancipation.]

Gender Advance in Venezuela: A Two-Pronged Affair

March 13th 2009, by George Gabriel - OpenDemocracy.net

Though the last decade of Hugo Chávez's "socialist democratic" government has never been far from the media spotlight, key elements of the proclaimed Bolivarian process have been overlooked: chiefly the struggle for female emancipation. Yet these ten years have seen Venezuelan patriarchy increasingly challenged from both above and below, by rising tides of female participation and a new swathe of innovative institutions.

Kristen Sample's overview of women's gains over the past decade in Latin America chronicles the potency of electoral law change for the realisation of effective female representation. This has also had its impact in Venezuela, where party list quotas have largely realised gender parity at the level of state legislature and the number of female mayors tripled to 19% in November's regional elections.

Yet as noted by Sample, such changes cannot alone guarantee equal representation, let alone translate into a broader social equality. She suggests a complementary group of strategies involving all sectors of society is needed to bring about female emancipation. Raquel Barrios, a committed young feminist identifies three key target areas for such strategies in Venezuela: "domestic violence, discrimination at work, and a deep moral questioning" that must come from the whole of society.

(click here to view entire article)

Defining 21st Century Socialism in Venezuela

2009-03-26T12:07:00.000-07:00

[Leftist visitors and international observers often ask of the Bolivarian process, "What does 21st century socialism mean? What is it?" Those same leftists must be wary of answering that question. To interpret events is to participate in them, to define events is to exercise control over them.]

Defining 21st Century Socialism in Venezuela

March 7th 2009, by George Gabriel

Leftist visitors and international observers often ask of the Bolivarian process, "What does 21st century socialism mean? What is it?" Those same leftists must be wary of answering that question. To interpret events is to participate in them, to define events is to exercise control over them. It is about time that observers recognised the virtues of an undefined, uncertain, creative and rebellious movement; where ends remain a swirling vortex of values and passions and our means are less readily sacrificed to them. We leftists must not forget the lessons paid for in blood and sweat in "slave camps under the flag of freedom,"[1] in Russian Gulags and in the prison camps of the Khmer Rouge.

Nowhere has domination by categorisation been felt stronger than in the Middle East. Edward Said's groundbreaking Orientalism examines the historic process by which Europeans codified the "Middle East" into an exotic, sensual, chaotic, and immoral Other. The constructed Other, authored by European experts, was juxtaposed against the Occidental European reason, order, and Christianity, grounding a European identity that is still very much alive today. This process in the words of Said robbed the region's peoples of the chance to be "free subject(s) of thought or action."

(click here to view entire article)

Members of U.K. Parliament Praise Venezuelan Government

2009-03-15T12:29:00.000-07:00

[During a parliamentary debate about U.K.-Latin American relations last week, several members of parliament supported the Venezuelan government’s anti-poverty programs, including the British Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs.]

Members of U.K. Parliament Praise Venezuelan Government

March 6th 2009, by James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com

Mérida, March 6th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) -- During a parliamentary debate in the United Kingdom about U.K.-Latin American relations Tuesday, several members of parliament supported the Venezuelan government’s anti-poverty programs and nationalizations of strategic industries, and urged the British government to take a more constructive approach to the South American nation. Also, the British Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, expressed support for Venezuela’s anti-poverty programs.

Introducing the debate, MP Jeremy Corbyn highlighted that in Latin America today, “there is in the air a sense of optimism and, in many countries, of liberation from past oppressions.”

“The huge changes that have recently taken place in Venezuela… show that there are different paths to development and out of poverty. Those paths do not necessarily rely solely on the traditional development of trade patterns,” Corbyn continued.

(click here to view entire article)

Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) against Venezuela

2009-03-15T12:24:00.000-07:00

[A secret document of the US Army National Ground Intelligence Center, recently declassified in part, confirms that the Pentagon's most powerful team for psychological operations is employing its forces against Venezuela.]

Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) against Venezuela

March 15th 2009, by Eva Golinger - Axis of Logic

A secret document of the US Army National Ground Intelligence Center, recently declassified in part, through the application of the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), confirms that the Pentagon's most powerful team for psychological operations is employing its forces against Venezuela.1 The document, dating from the year 2006, analyses the border situation between Colombia and Venezuela. It was drafted by the US Army's 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) (4th PSYOP Group (A) or 4th POG) and the US Army National Ground Intelligence Center, a fact that thus reaffirms that the same psychological warfare team operates in the region against Venezuela.

The small part of the text of the secret document which was left uncensored explains how the Plan Patriot (previously known as Plan Colombia) has successfully pushed the activities of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ((FARC), Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) into Venezuelan territory. It is explicitly being emphasized in the secret document that

"...the offensive operations of Plan Patriot and its counterparts of the Colombian military have had an important impact on the activities of the Eastern Bloc [of the FARC]...due to the success achieved against some fronts of the Eastern Bloc in Colombia, several fronts of the Eastern Bloc are conducting more combat and regenerated their activities at the Colombian-Venezuelan border. The Mini-Blocs in the Llanos and the eastern zone... have assumed distinct strategic roles in response to the Plan Patriot 2B..."

The arrival of the US Army's 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) in Colombia in the year 2006 and the strategy of pushing the FARC and the Colombian civil conflict into Venezuelan territory cannot be taken as a coincidence; for it is exactly the moment when the US State Department and the Pentagon also started to publicly accuse Venezuela of collaborating with terrorism, specifically by referring to alleged dealings with the FARC.

(click here to view entire article; click here to view original Spanish version of this article)

“The People Won the Vote, Now The People Must Become the Government”

2009-02-28T00:51:00.000-08:00

[Journalist and activist of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) Vanessa Davies spoke with Venezuelanalysis.com about the meaning of the referendum, the next steps and challenges ahead for the PSUV, gender in the Chávez government, the media, and U.S. President Barack Obama.]

“The People Won the Vote, Now The People Must Become the Government”

February 25th 2009, by Vanessa Davies & James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis

Two days after the referendum in which 54.9% of Venezuelans approved a constitutional amendment to lift term limits on elected officials, journalist and activist of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) Vanessa Davies spoke with Venezuelanalysis.com about the meaning of the referendum, the next steps and challenges ahead for the PSUV, gender in the Chávez government, the media, and U.S. President Barack Obama.

Vanessa Davies, could you please describe your role in the Bolivarian process?

I am a journalist. I worked for many years in a very right-wing newspaper. I have always been an activist of the Left. I have always been connected to the revolution. I do volunteer work in [the Venezuelan state television channel] VTV, and I do volunteer work with other alternative media. I collaborate with everything I can that will support the revolution.
Since the year 2008, I have participated in the national leadership of the PSUV, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. We campaigned for the regional elections last November. In this campaign, the campaign for the amendment, personally, I dedicated myself to travelling around the country, to campaign face-to-face, and to work with the pro-amendment committee of VTV.

What is the significance of the results of Sunday's vote?

I think they show the revolutionary will of the majority of our people, their will toward transformation. Our oppressed and discriminated people are asserting their role in making the Bolivarian Revolution continue. Also, the majority of the people believes in and vouches for the leadership of Commander Chávez.

I think that when looking at the results we must also see who was defeated. I think the private communications corporations, incorrectly labeled the mass media, were defeated. These corporations act like political parties, and even beyond this, like conspiratorial groups, as in the case of Globovisión. I think they were defeated in the referendum. They had a campaign of lies, of terror. It is a campaign that we've dealt with throughout the Bolivarian Revolution, a campaign of deception, of manipulation of the middle class that has historically been very anti-communist in our country.

(click here to view entire article)

Washington's Praise of Poll Suggests Detente with Venezuela

2009-02-21T01:35:00.000-08:00

[Praise by the U.S. State Department for Sunday's referendum in Venezuela suggests that President Barack Obama is hoping to ease long-strained relations with President Hugo Chavez, according to US-based Latin America experts.]

Washington's Praise of Poll Suggests Detente with Venezuela

February 17th 2009, by Jim Lobe - IPS

WASHINGTON, Feb 17 (IPS) - Praise by the U.S. State Department for Sunday's referendum in Venezuela suggests that President Barack Obama is hoping to ease long-strained relations with President Hugo Chavez, according to regional experts here.

While State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid Tuesday noted that Washington had received "troubling reports of intimidation," he added that, "for the most part, this was a process that was fully consistent with [the] democratic process."

Asked whether Washington approved of the poll's results - which changes the country's constitution to enable Chavez to run for a third term in 2012 - Duguid said the question "was a matter for the Venezuelan people".

Washington's reaction marked a distinct change in tone from the consistently hostile rhetoric of the administration of President George W. Bush, which had welcomed a coup attempt against Chavez in 2002, and follows a remarkably conciliatory statement by the populist leader on the eve of the referendum, which Chavez won with a solid 54 percent of the vote.

Only last month, Chavez had denounced Obama - even comparing his "stench" to Bush - for publicly admonishing Caracas for its alleged support of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) insurgency. On Saturday, however, he said he was ready to engage in direct talks with the new U.S. president in order to restore better ties.

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Hugo Chávez: Tides of Victory

2009-02-21T01:17:00.000-08:00

[The referendum victory of Venezuela's president is founded on an extension of the understanding of democracy that has both national roots and regional parallels.]

Hugo Chávez: Tides of Victory

February 20th 2009, by Julia Buxton - Opendemocracy.net

The Venezuelan electorate is bent on using democratic mechanisms to fuel the demagogic ambitions of its populist president, Hugo Chávez. The voters have backed him and his party in thirteen of the fourteen elections and referendums held in the country since Chávez was inaugurated in February 1999. Now, on 15 February 2009, a majority of them went so far as to grant him his wish of being president for life: for in the referendum on that day 56% voted to lift term-limits on elected officials, thereby eroding a noble Latin American tradition of safeguarding democracy by limiting incumbency.

The distant hope

So argue Hugo Chávez's opponents at home and overseas - particularly in Washington, were the anti-Chávez lobby is striving to maintain the disproportionate influence it had under George W Bush into the Barack Obama administration. After the 15 February referendum, media and academic commentators have painted a frighteningly dystopian vision of Venezuela's political future. It all amounts to significant pressure on the new Democratic administration to follow the Bush policy of isolating and destabilising Chávez.

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Venezuelans Vote to Eliminate Two-Term Limit on All Elected Office 54.4% to 45.6%

2009-02-16T01:11:00.000-08:00

[At 9:35pm local time, with 94.2% of voted counted, Venezuela’s National Electoral Council announced that Venezuelans had voted 54.4% to 45.6% in favor of a constitutional amendment to eliminate the two-term limit on all elected office.]

Venezuelans Vote to Eliminate Two-Term Limit on All Elected Office 54.4% to 45.6%

February 15th 2009, by Venezuelanalysis.com

February 15, 2009 (venezuelanalysis.com)— At 9:35pm local time, three and a half hours after polls closed and with 94.2% of voted counted, Venezuela’s National Electoral Council announced that Venezuelans had voted 54.4% to 45.6% in favor of a constitutional amendment to eliminate the two-term limit on all elected office. Chávez supporters celebrated the nearly 9-point victory margin with enthusiasm, as it will allow President Hugo Chávez to run for a third full term in 2012.

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Venezuela's Term Limits

2009-02-16T00:49:00.000-08:00

[If there is one thing that Chavista and anti-Chavista pollers share, it's a significant shift in support for the referendum in recent weeks. To fully grasp why this has happened, we need to look more closely at the political dynamics underlying the process, and how these dynamics have come to bear on the impending election.]

Venezuela's Term Limits

February 14th 2009, by George Cicariello-Maher - CounterPunch

The story is a familiar one. Amid the collapse of two-party dominance, an independent leader rises to power. In an effort to calm frazzled nerves, he insists he will respect the rule of law and the will of the voters by maintaining the peaceful transfer of power at the end of his legally-established term. "There's no organization that I know that would put somebody in charge for a long period of time," he insists, "you always want turnover and change." But in power for nearly eight years, having established a fervent support base and concentrated power in his own hands, our fair leader no longer feels the need to comfort his opponents, and his discourse radicalizes as his view of term limits shifts. Dismissing his opposition as rigid "dogmatists," the leader now insists on the need to change course flexibly to meet circumstances. True and sustained change, he argues, requires the continuity of his successful leadership.

Unsurprisingly, his opponents fiercely oppose the move as dangerous: "It shows a fundamental contempt for the democratic process," one maintains, "and it's changing the rules to benefit yourself directly." Ironically, it was this very same argument that the leader himself had made five years prior, when vetoing efforts to loosen term limits. Not without controversy, then, was the decision of the region's largest newspaper--aligned politically with the leader--to wade into these conflictive waters with the following declaration:

The bedrock of... democracy is the voters' right to choose. Though well intentioned... the term limits law severely limits that right, which is why this page has opposed term limits from the outset... Term limits are seductive, promising relief from mediocre, self-perpetuating incumbents and gridlocked legislatures. They are also profoundly undemocratic, arbitrarily denying voters the ability to choose between good politicians and bad.

While the paper had previously insisted that any change to term limits come through popular referendum, it now reverses this view, taking the position that for reasons of political expediency, a simple vote in the small executive council will do.

Of which banana republic are we speaking, where thinly-veiled authoritarianism threatens democratic checks and balances, and weak-kneed apologists parade about under the banner of free press? Why, the place is none other than New York City, the leader none other than Michael Bloomberg, and the newspaper none other than the New York Times. Patience: we haven't even gotten to the hypocrisy part yet.

"Hugo Chávez's Choice"

Term limits have a long history, dating from ancient Greece and Rome and Aristotle's concept of "ruling and being ruled in turn." With a trademark selectiveness (see, e.g., Senate Report 104-158), those upholding the sanctity of this standard in U.S. politics do so with no mention of the other elements Aristotle would associate with democracy, most obviously the filling of all positions by random lot (except for generals, or strategoi, who in an intriguing inversion of our own system, were to be elected). And nor is there much mention of those countries in the wealthy world which see no need for such limitations, or those celebrated leaders who have accomplished purportedly historic tasks without such fetters: Tony Blair served for 10 years, Margaret Thatcher for 11. Franklin D. Roosevelt, consistently ranked among the greatest U.S. presidents served for 12, and would have served for 16 had he survived. And this is not to mention the unlimited terms available to U.S. senators and representatives.

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Robbery, Not Anti-Semitism, Motive for Attack on Venezuelan Synagogue

2009-02-13T09:22:00.000-08:00

[Following a weeklong investigation of the burglary and vandalizing of a prominent Caracas synagogue, Venezuelan authorities have arrested eleven suspects whose motive appears to have been robbery, Interior and Justice Minister Tarek El-Aissami announced Monday.]

Robbery, Not Anti-Semitism, Motive for Attack on Venezuelan Synagogue

February 10th 2009, by James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com

Mérida, February 10th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com)-- Following a weeklong investigation of the burglary and vandalizing of a prominent Caracas synagogue, Venezuelan authorities have arrested eleven suspects, including a rabbi’s bodyguard who planned the crime, and a security guard who assisted the break in, Venezuelan Interior and Justice Minister Tarek El-Aissami announced Monday.

The attack on the synagogue occurred in the early morning of January 31st. Burglars tampered with security cameras, stole property, defaced sacred items including the Torah, and spray-painted the walls with anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli phrases.

A confession by security guard Víctor Escalona revealed that a personal struggle over money was the motive of the crime. Edgar Cordero, a Caracas police officer and bodyguard of Rabbi Isaac Cohen had been denied a loan by the rabbi, so he planned to rob money from the synagogue’s coffers, and approached Escalona for assistance, according to investigators from the from Venezuela’s national Criminal, Penal, and Scientific Investigations Unit (CICPC).

El Aissami said anti-Semitism was not the motive, but rather a tactic used for two purposes, “First, to weaken the investigation, and second, to direct the blame toward the national government.”

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Why The Venezuelan Amendment Campaign Is So Important

2009-02-13T09:09:00.000-08:00

[The real problem is – and everyone knows this, they just don't want to discuss it – that Chávez represents the continuation of the Bolivarian project, a popular revolution which has transformed Venezuela and inspired similar transformations in several other Latin American countries.]

Why The Venezuelan Amendment Campaign Is So Important

February 11th 2009, by Diana Raby

Next Sunday, 15 February, Venezuelans vote in a referendum on a proposed Constitutional Amendment that will allow for any candidate to stand for the Presidency, or indeed for any elective office, without restriction on the number of terms they may serve. Only the people's vote will decide whether they are elected and how many terms they serve.

In other words, if President Hugo Chávez, who is already serving his second term under the provisions of the 1999 Constitution, wishes to stand for a third term, he may do so. Equally, the opposition mayor of Greater Caracas, Antonio Ledezma, may stand three or four times if he wants (and if the people vote for him).

This is no different from the practice here in the UK, where Margaret Thatcher won four elections for the Conservatives (although we did not have the privilege of voting for her personally as Prime Minister), and Tony Blair won three times for Labour. It is of course different from the situation in the US, where some sixty years ago a limit of two consecutive terms was introduced for the presidency.

But why is there such a fuss about this proposal in Venezuela? Once again, as so many times before in the last ten years, the media are full of stories about Chávez' dictatorial tendencies or being President for life, and the opposition goes on about "the principle of alternation [alternabilidad]". But they know perfectly well that Chávez will only be re-elected in 2012 if the people vote for him in elections which have been certified time and again as impeccably free and honest, and that the possibility of mid-term recall still exists and will be maintained. And alternation, as the experience here in the UK and in so many "advanced democracies" shows, is all too often a neat device to prevent any real change while giving the appearance of choice with a superficial change of personnel.

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The Chávez Administration at 10 Years: The Economy and Social Indicators

2009-02-10T02:52:00.000-08:00

[This paper looks at some of the most important economic and social indicators during the 10 years of the Chávez administration in Venezuela, as well as the current economic expansion. It also looks at the current situation and challenges.]

The Chávez Administration at 10 Years: The Economy and Social Indicators

February 5th 2009, by Mark Weisbrot, Rebecca Ray and Luis Sandoval - CEPR

For the full report in its original PDF format, click here (255kb).

Executive Summary
This paper looks at some of the most important economic and social indicators during the 10 years of the Chávez administration in Venezuela, as well as the current economic expansion. It also looks at the current situation and challenges.

Among the highlights:
The current economic expansion began when the government got control over the national oil company in the first quarter of 2003. Since then, real (inflationadjusted) GDP has nearly doubled, growing by 94.7 percent in 5.25 years, or 13.5 percent annually.

Most of this growth has been in the nonoil sector of the economy, and the private sector has grown faster than the public sector.

During the current economic expansion, the poverty rate has been cut by more than half, from 54 percent of households in the first half of 2003 to 26 percent at the end of 2008. Extreme poverty has fallen even more, by 72 percent. These poverty rates measure only cash income, and does take into account increased access to health care or education.

Over the entire decade, the percentage of households in poverty has been reduced by 39 percent, and extreme poverty by more than half.

Inequality, as measured by the Gini index, has also fallen substantially. The index has fallen to 41 in 2008, from 48.1 in 2003 and 47 in 1999. This represents a large reduction in inequality.

Real (inflationadjusted) social spending per person more than tripled from 1998-2006.

From 1998-2006, infant mortality has fallen by more than onethird. The number of primary care physicians in the public sector increased 12fold from 1999-2007, providing health care to millions of Venezuelans who previously did not have access.

There have been substantial gains in education, especially higher education, where gross enrollment rates more than doubled from 1999/2000 to 2007/2008.

The labor market also improved substantially over the last decade, with unemployment dropping from 11.3 percent to 7.8 percent. During the current expansion it has fallen by more than half. Other labor market indicators also show substantial gains.

Over the past decade, the number of social security beneficiaries has more than doubled.

Over the decade, the government's total public debt has fallen from 30.7 to 14.3 percent of GDP. The foreign public debt has fallen even more, from 25.6 to 9.8 percent of GDP.

Inflation is about where it was 10 years ago, ending the year at 31.4 percent. However it has been falling over the last half year (as measured by threemonth averages) and is likely to continue declining this year in the face of strong deflationary pressures worldwide.

The current situation and challenges:

(click here to view entire press release)

Hillary Clinton and James Steinberg "Talk Tough" on Latin America

2009-02-09T14:47:00.000-08:00

[While President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and their appointees emphasise a return to diplomacy in foreign relations, so far they show little inclination to be diplomatic toward leftist governments in Latin America, including Venezuel. In fact, comments by Clinton and other recent appointees show a continuation of an antiquated analysis and a lack of understanding of recent Latin American social movements and regional integration.]

Hillary Clinton and James Steinberg "Talk Tough" on Latin America

February 2nd 2009, by April Howard - upsidedownworld.org

While President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and their appointees emphasize a return to diplomacy in foreign relations, so far they show little inclination to be diplomatic toward leftist governments in Latin America. In fact, comments by Clinton and other recent appointees show a continuation of an antiquated analysis and a lack of understanding of recent Latin American social movements and regional integration.

On a visit to the State Department on January 23, Clinton promised "I will do all that I can, working with you, to make it abundantly clear that robust diplomacy and effective development are the best long-term tools for securing America's future." Obama made similar assertions in a speech to diplomats, and 'diplomacy', symbolizing a return to international peace and prosperity, was the word of the week.

Most recently, however, newly appointed Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, boldly stated that "Our friends and partners in Latin America are looking to the United States to provide strong and sustained leadership in the region, as a counterweight to governments like those currently in power in Venezuela and Bolivia which pursue policies which do not serve the interests of their people or the region." This begs the question of exactly who "our friends and partners in Latin America" are, as many Latin American countries are happily accepting funding for humanitarian projects from Venezuela, and Bolivia is hardly in an economic position to pull strings around the continent. These and other comments by Clinton show that the Obama administration intends to continue a foreign policy in Latin America based on corporate benefit and a misplaced fear of Latin American nationalism.

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