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

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

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

January 29th 2009, by Seamus Milne - The Guardian

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

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

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

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

(click here to view entire article)

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

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

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

January 20th 2009, by Garry Leech - Colombia Journal

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

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

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

(click here to view entire article)

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

MOVIMIENTOS @ The Salmon & Compass
Thursday 5th February

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

::: Upstairs

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

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

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


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

Salmon and Compass, 58 Penton Street Angel, N1

7pm-2am / £3 / Donations before 9pm

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

Why Obama Should Meet With Hugo Chavez

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

Why Obama Should Meet With Hugo Chavez

January 18th 2009, by Chesa Boudin - UpsideDownWorld

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

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

(click here to view entire article)

Chavez: “Obama Is Confusing Me with Bush”

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

Chavez: “Obama Is Confusing Me with Bush”

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

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

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

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

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

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

(click here to view entire article)

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

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

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

January 14th 2009, by Miguel Tinker Salas - NACLA

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

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

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

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

Chavez Turns Into Palestinian Hero

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

Chavez Turns Into Palestinian Hero

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

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

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

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

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

(click here to view entire article)