tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53728081526295708612024-03-14T03:51:28.508-04:00Venezuela We Are With You CoalitionCoalición Venezuela Estamos ContigoThe Venezuela We Are With You Coalition (CVEC), based in Toronto, is a coalition of<br>organizations and individuals with various points of view and approaches,<br> united in support of the Bolivarian Revolution.Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.comBlogger347125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-43501056278004625832019-08-03T13:26:00.000-04:002019-08-03T13:26:27.813-04:00Amidst misinformation about Venezuela: three key questions<b>Disturbing echoes of History</b><br />
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<i>by Maria Paez Victor</i><br />
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JULY 31, 2019 - Amidst the cacophony of misinformation about Venezuela there are three key questions that need answers: 1) What is really happening in Venezuela, 2) Why is it happening, and 3) What will happen next?<br />
What is really happening in Venezuela?<br />
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<b>There is a Political Campaign against the Venezuelan Government</b><br />
The United States, Canada and Europe are relentlessly attacking the legitimate, democratically elected Venezuelan government that represents the hitherto marginalized, impoverished, traditionally abandoned popular classes. It is a worldwide campaign to demonize Nicolás Maduro repeating ad nauseam that he is a dictator, without any evidence and despite free elections. It is similar to the “weapons of mass destruction” canard that opened the way to the devastation of Iraq. For example, social media sends out more than 3,600 false news on Venezuela daily.[1]<br />
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It’s a curious dictatorship that, in 20 years of the Bolivarian Government, has held 23 elections for president, governors, and municipal representatives and in which the governing party has been defeated three times. And it is one of very few democracies that has a constitutional procedure for removing an elected president or governor.<br />
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The USA and its allies are backing the fascist forces in Venezuela, – the upper-class elites that governed with impunity and now lead the opposition. Since the start of the last century this comprador class overwhelmingly benefitted from Venezuela’s oil revenue bounty. Until the election of Hugo Chávez as president in 1999, the Venezuelan state was the instrument of domination by the upper classes over the lower classes, just as Marx described. It preserved the concentration of economic and political power typical of a capitalist state but contrary to real democracy.<br />
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Now there is a class struggle being fought in Venezuela. It is evident, it is inevitable, it is irreconcilable. The Bolivarian Revolution managed to wrestle the apparatus of the state away from the governing elites and facilitated participation of the vast majority in public affairs. It is not perfect, it has problems, but it is happening, hence the loathing of the upper classes and their all-out, US supported and led, opposition to the elected government.<br />
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<b>A Hybrid War has been ongoing</b><br />
The USA is applying a new war strategy: hybrid warfare, a combination of new technology (social media, drones and cyber-attacks) as a weapons test for their further domination of the region and other countries. Hybrid warfare, or war of the second generation, is “a military strategy, which employs political warfare and blends conventional warfare, irregular warfare and cyber-warfare with other influencing methods, such as fake news, diplomacy, lawfare and foreign electoral intervention.”[2]<br />
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The defeat of the USA in the Vietnam War is an historic precedent that is very relevant for the situation today in Latin America.[3] The routing of the most technologically advanced and powerful army in the world by poor but well organized and determined guerrilla fighters defending their homeland forced the USA military to realize that brute force bombing and chemical warfare were not enough to hold a country when the oppressors were not supported by the people. This caused the USA military establishment to seek a different type of war, one that would make the civilian population the main focus of violence, psychological, cultural, and economic tactics: hybrid warfare.[4] Multitude ways are now used to distort perceptions, to create general instability, fear, anxiety and dissatisfaction and ultimately provoke civil war.<br />
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The untimely and mysterious death of Hugo Chávez and the fall of international oil prices happening together spurred the USA and its allies to intensify their war against Venezuela. During the presidency of Nicolás Maduro the aggression has escalated: with a foreign backed opposition, world-wide media demonization, sabotage, paramilitary attacks, coup attempts, street violence and an economic and financial assault that has devastated its economy.<br />
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<b>The illegal sanctions are a crime against humanity</b><br />
Venezuela’s vulnerability has been the economy. The country has been subject to brutal economic sanctions that severely restrict the import of food, medicines and essential goods, drastically reduce the export of oil, and prevent Venezuela’s participation in international financial markets. Economic sanctions are tantamount to a blockade, they are not “instead of war” they are war. They have caused tremendous impacts and cost to the nation. From August 2017 to December 2018 alone it is estimated that the sanctions cost the Venezuelan economy $23 billion.[5] At the same time, $30 billion of Venezuelan assets have been frozen in the USA. Alarmingly, this includes appropriation by the USA of Venezuela’s gasoline company CITGO worth $7 billion plus $11 billion incoming this year [6], and distribution of CITGO’s funds to opposition leaders. Oil exports, which accounted for 95% of the country’s export income has been drastically reduced because of the sanctions imposed by the US on refineries and shipping.[7] International banks are prohibited from carrying out transactions involving Venezuelan accounts. USA and European banks have stolen Venezuelan funds to the amount of $5.4 billion.[8] The Bank of England has appropriated Venezuelan gold in its vaults worth $1.5 billion. This is a chilling message, which says that Britain’s central bank can keep the gold of any country its government disagrees with. This has consequences. Germany took back its gold worth $40 billion last year.[9] Poland and Hungary have requested the return of their gold. Trust in the capitalist controlled banking system is beginning to waver.<br />
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Money is one thing, human lives are another. The US, Canada and their allies are truly terrorizing the Venezuelan population, trying to starve them to death and keep crucial medicines from the most vulnerable people, the infirm, children and the poor. “The Venezuelan Pharmaceutical Association reported an 85% shortage of essential medicines in 2018.”[10] Due to the sanctions, 180,000 medical operations have been cancelled and 823,000 chronically ill patients are awaiting medicines.[11]<br />
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Two UN Human Rights Rapporteurs, Dr. Alfred De Zayas and Idriss Jazairy, denounced the sanctions on Venezuela as illegal, equating them to medieval sieges and considering them crimes against humanity.[12] Economists Mark Weisbrot and Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs estimate that between 2017 and 2018 the sanctions killed 40,000 Venezuelans.[13] Unsurprisingly, their report has not been given the media attention it deserves.[14]<br />
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As many commentators have noted, unilateral economic sanctions of the kind to which Venezuela is being subjected are illegal. They are a weapon of war and a crime against humanity. Sanctions negate or usurp the sovereign rights of nations, violating the principles of non-intervention and non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states as expressed in numerous international agreements including:<br />
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* Article 2 of the United Nations Charter which states that “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state”.<br />
* Chapter IV articles 19 and 20 of the Charter of the Organization of American States which state that “No state or group of states has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatsoever, in the internal or external affairs of any other state.”<br />
* Article 33 of the Geneva Convention which states “Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.”<br />
* The Vienna Declaration which says that: “No state may useor encourage the use of economic, political or any other type of measures to coerce another State in order to obtain from it the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights.”<br />
* Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court which considers sanctions as crimes against humanity.<br />
* And any number of international commercial regulations and agreements.<br />
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This looting of Venezuelan assets has not turned out as planned. Juan Guaidó, opposition leader who self-proclaimed himself “president” of Venezuela in January 2019, has agents who are simply putting the money into their own personal accounts.[15] This has incensed other Venezuelan opposition leaders who have been left out of this munificent distribution.[16] US Senator Marco Rubio admitted publicly that they put $117 million in Guaido’s personal account.[17]The PanAm Post, which describes itself as ‘your leading source for news and analysis in the Americas’, from a mainstream perspective, reported on the misappropriation of these ill-gotten funds. They report that Colombian intelligence revealed to them that Guaido’s agents in Colombia stole the funds to help the 354 army deserters there. Guaidó’s supposed representative in Washington, Carlos Vecchio, an outlaw wanted by Venezuelan judicial authorities, has personally appropriated $70 million.[18]<br />
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What would be the reaction in North America or Europe if a foreign politician admitted they had put millions in the personal account of self-appointed, political opposition leaders?<br />
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<b>Nicolas Maduro was duly elected and cleanly won the presidency</b><br />
On 20 May 2018, Nicolás Maduro was re-elected with 6.3 million votes (67%).[19] Six opposition candidates representing 16 democratic opposition parties also took part in the elections.[20] In 2012, former USA president Jimmy Carter, after monitoring 93 world elections concluded that the Venezuelan electoral process is the best in the world. More than 150 independent, international observers testified the election in 2018 was clean and transparent.[21] That three other opposition parties chose not to participate, or more exactly were ordered not to by the USA, does not invalidate the elections. [22]<br />
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It is indeed a serious blow to democracy to discount elections beforethey have taken place and urge that they do not take place, and yet that is exactly what the opposition and the USA and allies did: they told Venezuelans not to vote. To its shame, Canada did not allow Venezuelans living there to vote in the Venezuelan consulates – a reprehensible denial of the legal right of Canadians with dual citizenship to participate in an election in another country. So much for Canada’s often touted respect for the “rule of law”.<br />
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But let us not accept the farce that the quarrel with Venezuela is about legitimacy and democracy. This is a blatant neo-colonial war against Venezuela to reduce it to a puppet state, balkanize it and take possession of its plentiful oil, gold and other resources. These are modern pirates acting on behalf of corporate capital.<br />
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<b>The Venezuelan opposition is a violent opposition</b><br />
The Venezuelan extreme right is a violent opposition, not engaged in ordinary politics but in a desperate class struggle trying to provoke chaos and/or civil war, which would give the excuse for foreign military intervention that would then hand power over to them. If they should succeed in this manner, the only way they could retain that power would be by brutal oppression, just like Pinochet in Chile. The overwhelming majority of the Venezuelan population is black, brown, indigenous, and knows that whatever its shortcomings, the Bolivarian government is their government. It is a government that has striven to pull them out of poverty and exclusion and Venezuelans would not acquiesce to a dictatorship.<br />
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There are democratically minded opposition groups, but the extreme right opposition is prevalent. It is not interested in an electoral process that they cannot corrupt or win and want to become the government by other means.<br />
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More than 300 rural campesino leaders have been assassinated by mercenaries, as well as Chavista leaders, which the mainstream press hardly ever mentions. Between 2013 and 2017, there were 123 victims of the opposition violence who were lynched, beheaded, burnt, assassinated.[23]<br />
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Violent opposition events are then interpreted by the NGOs as human rights abuses by government forces, and never as abuses of the paid opposition mercenaries that kill, maim, destroy and disrupt the peace.[24] For example:<br />
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Street violence 2014-17: Leopoldo López, son of two of the most traditional and richest families in the country is leader of the right-wing party Voluntad Popular which although very small, is the most violent and extreme right wing party in Venezuela and, not by chance, is backed by the USA. It does not want elections or negotiation, only forceful “regime change”. In 2014, López before TV cameras openly instigated violence to overthrow the government causing millions of dollars in damages to public property and the deaths of 47 innocent people. For this he was given a fair trial and sentenced to 14 years in jail but is considered by the USA as a “political prisoner”.<br />
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Helicopter bombing: On 26 June 2017, ex-officer Oscar Pérez, on a stolen army helicopter terrorized the city of Caracas and threw grenades at the building of the Supreme Court. Two policemen died. This crazed criminal was lauded both by the opposition and foreign press as some sort of poster boy freedom fighter.<br />
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Assassination attempt by drones: On August 4th2018 at a military parade, Nicolás Maduro became the first head of state anywhere to suffer an assassination attempt by drones. If successful it would have eliminated in one swoop all the leaders of the government, a truly devastating blow.<br />
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Attempt at creating a parallel puppet government: On 23 January, 2019 Juan Guiadó, a CIA trained, hitherto unknown deputy for the Voluntad Popular extremist party stood in the middle of a street, raised his hand and self-proclaimed himself president of Venezuela. There were no elections and no basis in law.[25] He did have however the complete backing of the USA for this charade. In fact, Guaidó cannot muster the obedience of a single policeman, yet the usual suspect nations close to Trump hurried to recognize him. Not so the 125 plus Non-Aligned UN member states who continue to recognize President Maduro as the only legitimate Venezuelan president and understand this is an outrageous attempt to create a parallel puppet president.<br />
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Invasion via false humanitarian aid: On February 20th, 2019, the self-proclaimed Guaidó staged a humanitarian aid stunt, which did not have UN or Red Cross support. Attempting to forcefully enter Venezuela from Cucuta, Colombia with USA and Colombian troops standing by, this political theatre proved a failure. Guaidó promised there would be mass desertion by the Venezuelan military on the other side of the unused border bridge. They witnessed instead the impressive sight of the Venezuelan army, steadfast defenders of the Constitution, standing in solid formation wall-like, impervious to insults, taunts and promises and right behind the soldiers, standing with their army, was a sea of civilians showing their support. At this point, the head of the Colombian army informed Colombian President Duque that they could not possibly invade with that powerful Venezuelan showing of military-civil strength.<br />
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Men on the Colombian side set fire to the supposed “aid” trucks revealing that they contained not food but material for street riots. Even the New York Times reported this. USA vice-president Pence and the Presidents of Columbia and Chile were there witnessing this debacle. The powerful military-civic union of the Bolivarian forces diminished any hope that an invasion of Venezuela would be an “easy” win for Trump to tout into the next US presidential elections.<br />
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<b>Cyberattack on the electricity system</b><br />
Two weeks later, on 6 March 2019, the entire electrical capacity of the country failed due to a cyber-attack on the country’s main electricity generating system, causing a terrifying 6-day, nation-wide blackout. The attack severely damaged the country’s electrical system in ways never imagined. No lights, no elevators, no water since pumps were not working. Schools were canceled; clinics and hospitals had to suspend medical operations. It was however remarkable beyond any expectation that no riots, no social unrest occurred: the people were calm, knowing they were under attack and that this was not the inefficiency of their government. Engineers were baffled never having considered such a blackout of this magnitude was even possible.[26] What seemed to be only science fiction turned out to be science. The USA army branch, the Pentagon Cyber Command, has been dedicated to cyber-attack warfare since 2009.[27] President Maduro claims to have solid evidence that the grid was indeed attacked by the USA. [28] Five hours before the blackout, US senator Marco Rubio, reported to the US House of Representatives that Venezuelans are just about to experience the most dramatic shortage that they have ever felt”.[29] Quite a coincidence. Guaidó next day also admitted a hand in it. Since then there have been several more cyberattacks on the electrical system that have been dealt with expeditiously by Venezuelan engineers learning what they are up against.<br />
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Attempted Coup d’etat: If there was any doubt that the supposed “president Guaidó” held no authority whatsoever, it was made clear on the 30th of April, when he attempted a coup d’etat. Having no popular or military following it failed. A small military unit was lured there under false pretenses and promptly left. Guaidó did manage to spring Leopoldo López from his house arrest, who fled to the Spanish embassy. Guaidó was left to wander the streets, with another failure on his hands. The government did not fall into the trap of arresting him and making a martyr out of a malcontent.<br />
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Mexican intellectual Fernando Buen Abad, has said that “Venezuela has been the target of the most irrational and unjust attacks; all the most obscene and vile dirty tricks; all the most crude and unacceptable injustices.”[30]<br />
Lenin insightfully described the situation in which Fidel, Chávez and now Maduro find themselves: “During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes have invariably meted out to them relentless persecution, and received their teachings with the most savage hostility, most furious hatred, and a ruthless campaign of lies and slanders.”[31]<br />
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<b>International NGOs play a nefarious role</b><br />
International NGOs such as USAID, NED, NDI, IRI are agents of destabilization of the Venezuelan political order. The local NGOs that they support are spies and saboteurs that defame the government internationally and spread malign propaganda. In Venezuela alone, between the years of 2002 and 2012, NED (National Endowment for Democracy) spent more than $100 million and created 300 new NGOs backing the opposition groups. These local NGOs “spin” accusations against the government, creating tensions within the country and criticism abroad. [32]<br />
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Social problems that are commonplace in other countries are blamed on the socialist policies of Maduro’s government, such as, for example migration. It is not true that millions of Venezuelans have fled the country. Ironically enough the CIA World Fact Book gives Venezuela’s net migration rate in 2018 as 1.2 per 1000 population. Therefore the difference between people leaving Venezuela in 2018 exceeded those arriving in the country by only 38,000 [33], not several million as is so often reported.<br />
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But human rights especially have become the latest weapon against Venezuela, a politicized punching bag distorted out of all recognition.[34] Widespread killing of journalists and activists in Colombia are played down by the western media but opposition leaders in Venezuela, who are duly and properly jailed for crimes, not ideas, become human rights victims.[35] When the opposition orchestrated street violence in 2014 they set fire to several young men who were dark skinned and “looked” Chavista. There was no outrage among the “human rights industry” when 20 year old Orlando Figuera was burned to death in front of TV cameras. Only Chavistas mourned him.<br />
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The latest human rights travesty was the blatantly biased report by former Chilean President Michelle Bachelett. 82% of those interviewed for the report lived outside the country. The report deliberately ignored copious information provided by the Venezuelan government about nutrition and all kinds of social programs. Bachelett’s report contained 70 factual errors and it was rejected outright by the UN Human Rights Council on July 9, 2019.[36]<br />
<b><br />
Why is it Happening?</b><br />
<i>The Venezuelan elites are a fascist force backed by the USA</i><br />
The Patriot Army that finally defeated the Spanish Empire army in the second decade of the 1800s included all the people: the slaves, the indigenous peoples, and the “pardos” mixed lower class, in the aims and practice of the War for Independence. The Venezuelan elite, which was comfortable with the Spanish overlords, resented that one of their kind, the great Simón Bolívar, was leading the independence movement and his abolitionism was threatening to deprive them of their slaves.<br />
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The USA, nor the Europeans, did nothing to aid the Patriot’s war against Spain. This was not a new agenda. Thomas Jefferson said most explicitly in 1786: “Our Confederation should be considered the nest from which all America both North as well as South, should be settled. …For now, those countries are in the best of hands (Spain), and I only fear that they will be too weak to keep them subjected until our population has grown enough to go on to snatch them up piece by piece.” [37]<br />
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Immediately after independence, the USA set out to manipulate and dominate the new republics. The USA Monroe Doctrine of 1823, seemingly intended to protect the region from further European colonization, in fact asserted the interests of the USA in the region. It led all successive governments to consider Latin America and the Caribbean their “backyard” populated by backward and corrupt people who need their “guidance”.[38] The farce of the USA being any sort of “defender” of the region from Europe was clearly laid bare when in 1982 the USA backed Margaret Thatcher’s unconscionable war against Argentina over the Islas Malvinas (Falkland Islands).<br />
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USA President Theodore Roosevelt’s Carrot and Stick Doctrine led USA administrations to co-opt local comprador elites willing to accept any carrot offered for their betrayal. Over the years, the USA opposed each and every one of the enlightened, progressive leaders and governments of Latin America and the Caribbean and helped maintain rule by elites. This includes at least 80 invasions, coup d’etats and interventions to destabilize and even assassinate leaders of said governments. During the 20th century every Venezuelan administration that however mildly, tried to assert some degree of sovereignty over Venezuela’s petroleum resources was overthrown by Washington.[39] As Simón Bolívar observed:<br />
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“The United States appear to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.”<br />
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In 1999, after several decades of gross human rights violations and increasing corruption that left the democratic process in disrepute, and to the dismay of the ruling elites, a complete outsider won the presidential election in Venezuela with a landslide victory: Hugo Chávez. Yet, this comprador upper-class that now leads the opposition in Venezuela has maintained a great deal of its economic power, both commercial and financial, and media ownership. Contrary to opposition propaganda about media freedom, the Venezuelan private sector still owns most of the media, 6 out of 10 TV stations and 97.2% radio outlets.[40]<br />
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One of the salient characteristics of this class is racism towards their own people, a legacy of their slave-owning past, which in many subtle yet real ways persists. President Chávez was ridiculed for his humble rural background and Black and indigenous ethnicity. His successor, President Maduro, is scorned for being born in a poor urban barrio and his 9-years employment as a bus driver in Caracas. Racism and classism thrive in the Venezuelan bourgeoisie. The revolutionary struggle for equality in Venezuela necessarily means opposing the ideology of white supremacy of the upper classes, many who even deny that such obvious racism exists.[41] As David William Pear has stated: “The US and Canada are not supporting “the return of democracy” in Venezuela as they claim… They are crushing democracy in Venezuela by exploiting class and race warfare, being carried out by an elite white-supremist minority against the poor, Afro-Indigenous, and other Venezuelans of color.”[42]<br />
<b><br />
The Discovery of Oil</b><br />
The discovery of oil in Venezuela at the turn of the last century, transformed the functioning of the economy and the State. The State became the distributor of income derived from the sale of exported petroleum, doling out this bounty according to the interests of those closest to it: the upper classes. The private sector did not become an engine of economic development, employment and innovative production, as in a genuine capitalist economy. The typical dependency of the State on the owners of capital is reversed in oil exporting nations. The capitalists depend on the State, not the reverse. This is why the analysis of an oil exporting economy has to be different from the analysis of a conventional capitalist economy.<br />
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The Venezuelan upper classes want to regain the largess of the State on which they depended until the election of Chávez. The supposed “capitalist” class in Venezuela, with relatively few exceptions, is a comprador class, with strong links to foreign capital. It is a parasitic private sector dependent on lucrative import transactions with the help of state funds, loans and contracts. A private sector such as this prevented Venezuela from developing a thriving diversified economy.<br />
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Venezuela has the largest known petroleum reserves in the world. That it takes 43 days for an oil tanker to go from the Middle East to Texas, while it only 4 days from Venezuela, makes Venezuelan oil especially attractive to the USA. This is a powerful clue to the USA’s desire to utterly control Venezuela. John Bolton openly stated that the goal is to gain control of Venezuela’s oil.[43] President Trump said, gangster-like, that he did not understand why they were not at war with Venezuela “because they have all that oil and are right on our back door”[44]<br />
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The Constitution of 2000 created a new state</b><br />
One of the most enduring legacies of President Hugo Chávez has been the Venezuelan Constitution that defined the new Bolivarian Venezuelan state. Country-wide representatives were elected to a National Constitutional Assembly to draft a new constitution. After extensive public consultations the new constitution was ratified by referendum. The Constitution is anchored in the concepts of both individual and social rights, such as the right to education, clean water and health services. It combines participatory democracy with socialist and communitarian features. It enshrines human rights hitherto muted or absent, such as the rights of women, children, all indigenous peoples, handicapped and the environment. It closed some of loopholes by which the upper classes had ruled and it asserted the sovereignty of Venezuela over its own resources. Its impact inside the country has been immense. It has also been influential in the region having inspired the new constitutions in Ecuador and Bolivia.<br />
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Now, after 19 years, the Constitution, which is a living document, is being revised by another elected National Constitutional Assembly to correct certain vestiges of the bourgeois liberal framework still there and to deepen socialist principles.<br />
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One would agree with Marx who stated that society is not based on the law but that the law must be based on society expressing its common interests and needs.[45] Just so, the Bolivarian constitution expresses the longing for rights and sovereignty of a majority of the people that had long been marginal to the affairs of state, whose human rights were only nominally recognized, and their desire for an alternative society to “savage capitalism” as Hugo Chávez used to call it. The Venezuelan working classes recognize that, however faulty, the State now defines itself by their interests and that the anti-democratic sector of the opposition makes no promises they could possibly believe.<br />
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In 2007, Hugo Chávez was re-elected with the promise of building Venezuelan socialism, calling it socialism of the 21st century. It owes its roots not only to European thinkers such as Marx and Engels, but also to the intellectual legacy of Simón Bolívar’s ideas about sovereignty, egalitarianism, abolition of slavery and imperialism, regional integration, and to other Venezuelan leaders such as Simón Rodriguez, Ezequiel Zamora and the communitarian ancient traditions of Venezuelan indigenous peoples.[46] Hugo Chávez rooted Venezuelan socialism in its history, cultures and cosmological and spiritual traditions. Liberation theology for example, has greatly influenced the Bolivarian Revolution. This is a revolution that is recognized by the Venezuelan people as “their” socialism. This was Chavez’s genius and his contribution to socialism world-wide. He dared proclaim it, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, after the dissolution of the USSR and after the false rumors that history had come to an end; and he showed the world that socialism was still a force to be reckoned with.<br />
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<b>It is Bolivarian Socialism.</b><br />
There are those who deny that what is happening in Venezuela is a revolution or that it is even socialism. Some of these cosmopolitan theorists of the northern countries have too often disdained the Bolivarian Revolution because it did not “fit” within their narrow Eurocentric theoretical framework, because it is also humanistic and spiritual, as well as socialist, participatory and democratic. Many of them who claim to know so much about the conduct of revolution, want to dictate to the Venezuelan people what is and what is not real, yet they have not been able to make a revolution in their own countries in the USA, Canada, or Europe.<br />
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History shows us that revolution occurs when the people stand up and defy empires, when they bear the brunt of their malice and yet stand firm and defend their rights, land and self–determination. The people know. As Atilio A. Boron, a Latin American writer, explains, and Marx and Engels understood, revolution is not a creation event in a single explosion of violence but an historical, dialectical process where the encounters of the class struggle and counter-revolution determine the outcomes. He recalls that Fidel Castro said: “The main mistake we made in Cuba was thinking that someone knew how to make a revolution.”[47] The Bolivarian Revolution, like all strong social transformations is a historic movement with gains and losses, missteps and complexities that over-ride the status quo, the traditional forms of making politics.[48]<br />
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President Maduro has clearly stated that Venezuela “…is decided and determined to create a world that is multipolar, pluri-polar, multi-centric. There is no one single economic model, we cannot permit that they impose upon us a single economic model, a single way of thinking.”[49]<br />
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Building socialism in Venezuela meant changing the very organization of the state designed by elite rule. The Communal Councils and Communes have been at the forefront of that transformation. [50] Venezuela’s Revolution is real, just observe the enemies ranged against it. They certainly think it’s socialism in the making and they want none of it. The Revolution is a process of revindication, of increasing consciousness of the people, and of defense of their sovereignty. It is a work in progress, “el proceso” (the process) as Venezuelans call it, and the Venezuelan people hold the key to its future.<br />
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The current USA aggression is not simply against a regime, but against the Venezuelan nation itself, with plans to dismember it, as they did in in the past in Colombia (to create Panama and own the Canal), and more recently in Yugoslavia, Kosovo and Ukraine. They wish to divide it up among their willing allies: the oil rich western borderlands for Colombia, the eastern Esequibo for Guyana, the south-eastern Amazonic borderland for Brazil, and Paraguay will have its huge debt to Venezuela cancelled. In what is left of the nation, Canada gets the gold mines and the USA oil corporations get the oil. We cannot allow this to happen.<br />
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<b>The aim is to deny Venezuela’s achievements</b><br />
USA aggression towards Venezuela also stems out of concern that the remarkable achievements of this emerging socialism represents a real alternative to capitalism. The Bolivarian Revolution has had many successes that in any other country would have been universally hailed as such:<br />
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* An increase in the country’s rank in the UN Human Development Index by 7 places; now rated as having high human development Venezuela out performs the majority of the Lima Group countries.[51]<br />
* UNESCO declared Venezuela illiteracy free in 2005<br />
* A 50% reduction of poverty; extreme poverty reduced to 4.4% between 1990-2010 [52]<br />
* A reduced infant mortality rate from 25/1000 to 13/1000 (1990-2010); down to 12/1000 in 2017, which was lower than Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil and Peru.[53]<br />
* Provision of universal free health services, subsidized drugstores<br />
* The FAO awarded Venezuela for reducing malnutrition from 13.5 % in 1990-92 to 3.6% in 2012. The illegal sanctions have increased malnutrion to 11.7% (2017)[54]<br />
* An increase in food security through a food distribution network, nutrition programs, subsidized packages (CLAP), free school meals, and communes producing food for cities.<br />
* Free tuition for education from nursery care to university; high enrolment at all levels<br />
* 2.7 million housing units have been built in integrated housing zones with all public services programs between 2012-2019.[55] 9.5 million Venezuelans have been given a new home. In 2019 the UN recognized Venezuela as one of the top countries for guaranteeing people’s right to housing. This housing achievement of Bolivarian Venezuela is unrivaled in any other country to date.[56]<br />
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The achievements have been ignored, muted, denied or disparaged by the USA, its allies and the disgraceful corporate mainstream press.[57] Since January 2019, for example, the New York Times, Wall St. Journal and Washington Post have run a combined 800 articles on Venezuela. Only 4 of them refer to the Bolivarian government’s social programs and achievements and then only to dismiss them.[58]However, the achievements have been recognized by many other countries, by the UN and several of its agencies, and other international organizations.<br />
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<b>What will happen next?</b><br />
<i>Disturbing echoes of History</i><br />
During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) the Phalange, the fascist forces of Francisco Franco, waged war against the elected, liberal, Republican Spanish government. What ensued was a savage, vicious civil struggle in which an estimated one million lives were lost.<br />
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Fascism was the preferred ideology of the Spanish upper classes. The Axis powers, Germany and Italy specifically, backed Franco with resources and soldiers. The Nazis introduced a new diabolical war tactic: mass bombing of unarmed civilian populations with a new technology, their stukka dive bombers. Who can look at Pablo Picasso’s masterpiece GUERNICA and not tremble with horror at the depiction of a brutal assault on innocent unsuspecting civilians fleeing fire falling on them from the skies?<br />
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Russia backed the Republic and thousands of principled foreign individuals volunteered to defend it by joining the XV International Brigade, which included the Canadian volunteers of the Mckenzie-Papineau Battalion. The Spanish Civil War became an international struggle of fascism against democracy, liberalism, and communism. But the governments of North America and Europe all turned their backs on the Republic and failed to substantially defend democracy. By doing so they unwittingly gave the Nazis encouragement to pursue their war plans to dominate Europe and more. Seeing how the leading powers Britain and France did not defend Spain, the Nazis surmised that they also would not defend Czechoslovakia if they invaded which they did in early 1939, a precursor to WWII. In the end, fascism won, the Republic was lost, Franco governed Spain for decades afterwards, the Nazis were powerfully emboldened and strengthened to follow their demonic ambitions of domination and implement the horrors of the Holocaust.<br />
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The parallels with the war that is being waged against Venezuela are frightening. As in Spain, the targets are innocent people, an entire population, not soldiers. Through hybrid warfare, new technologies are in use such as sanctions, cyberattacks, terrorism. Already tens of thousands of Venezuelans have died due to the illegal sanctions. And Canada and Europe are turning their backs on a democracy that is victim to these atrocities. Worse still, they are aiding and abetting the USA in its efforts to crush the Venezuelan economy, whatever the cost to the population, and to overthrow the Venezuelan government. Who’s next?<br />
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<b>Will the USA Invade?</b><br />
Trump has not ruled out an invasion and neither have his key advisors, Pompeo, Bolton and Abrams, who continue to threaten it. Bolton’s policy paper on Venezuela shamelessly contains 6 scenarios of attack: coup d’etat, military invasion by border states, economic collapse, civil war, paramilitary attacks and direct invasion and bombing by the USA.[59] Peaceful negotiation and diplomacy are not included. The paper attests to an integration of USA foreign policies such that its diplomatic, economic and financial policies are no longer distinct from its military objectives. The private and public spheres have been combined with militarization in US international relations.[60]<br />
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However, as Nino Pagliccia insightfully observed: “A realistic successful military intervention can only take place if the Venezuelan high-ranking officers of the armed forces deserted in mass. This is not likely to happen.”[61] The Venezuelan military, well-schooled by Chávez, is a firm defender of the nation’s Constitution and has vowed never to turn their arms against their people. They are supported by a civilian militia of more than 2 million Venezuelans who are trained and on standby to defend their homeland. Any misguided military invasion of Venezuela is certainly to trigger a protracted regional conflict of dire proportions.<br />
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<b>Will President Maduro’s government survive?</b><br />
The question most asked is, how can the government of President Maduro survive all these ongoing economic, financial, media, cultural, diplomatic, cybernetic and violent attacks? Why does it still receive obvious and enthusiastic backing of a majority of the population that has been deprived of so much by foreign sanctions, sabotage, violence and international defamation? The answer lies in the following:<br />
<br />
(a) The solid achievements of the Bolivarian Revolution especially its reduction of poverty<br />
(b) The military-civil union with military forces that fiercely defend the Constitution<br />
(c) The international solidarity that Venezuela has garnered from Cuba, Russia, China, the Caribbean countries and all the Non-Aligned UN members.<br />
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The Bolivarian Revolution turned Venezuela from a country with more than a third of the population in poverty into one of the most prosperous and egalitarian nations in the Latin American region. It did this by investing oil revenues in numerous programs to address the social needs of the population and a plethora of participatory democracy initiatives that affected the actual way that the State was administered. These measure are now under severe threat from the sanctions and the backward looking opposition. Venezuelans know this. Meanwhile President Maduro continues to resist the pressures and to seek a peaceful accommodation with the opposition providing they accept the legitimacy of the elected government. Thousands of communal councils, communes and collectives of all sorts are organizing, planting, feeding, building, helping Venezuelans endure the aggression to which they are subjected. They direct and implement many of the government social programs, most of them led by women.<br />
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Another reason for Venezuelan’s resiliency is the international solidarity it has received while striving to bring about regional integration and mutual support for all the global south. More than one hundred and forty UN members, including all the Non-Aligned Members, recognize Nicolas Maduro as the only legitimate president of Venezuela.[62] The continuing support of Russia and China is a major reason the USA has not invaded. Russia and China have been a lifeline to beleaguered Venezuela sending medicine, food and other goods, and bringing industrial investments that transfer know-how to Venezuelans in a demonstration of real international solidarity. Cuba has provided unique and fundamental help from the start especially in providing health and education programs. The solidarity of many if not most of the small Caribbean islands has been nothing short of heroic. They have proudly withstood USA threats and blackmail and have not betrayed the friendship that Venezuela offered them through many programs, but especially through PETROCARIBE, providing them with oil at preferential prices.<br />
For 60 years USA aggression towards Cuba has failed to overthrow the revolutionary Cuban government despite enormous economic losses and truly incalculable human suffering. So, while economic war can devastate an economy, it is obviously not enough to change minds and overthrow a truly popular government. As President Maduro said to the UN: “Venezuela is stronger than ever, we know how to resist, we are standing and determined to go forward constructing our own social model, that of the revolution of socialism of the XXI century…we are confident in the noble people of Venezuela who will not surrender.” [63]<br />
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If President Nicolás Maduro does tragically fall to an assassin’s bullet, it is clear that there are many able members of the government ready to take his place. As the death of Chávez showed, the Bolivarian process has not been a one-man show, but a profound social transformation of the society.<br />
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There are wider regional and global implications to this war against Venezuela<br />
The ramifications of this assault on Venezuela’s Bolivarian socialism erodes the very assumptions on which states have hitherto based their security. The Westphalian principle of state sovereignty, which has stood since 1648 and which created the modern nation state, is in real danger from the push of powerful corporations. They see national sovereignty and popular democracy as a true threat to their accumulation of capital through exploitation of land, water and peoples. A participatory democracy such as Venezuela is a particular threat. Corporations are accustomed to working with economic, cultural, and especially political elites, through “representatives” in a representative democracy. The unpredictable and often uncontrollable exercise of popular power in communes, in communal councils, in collectives, in congress, and at the ballot box, becomes a force that corporations counter with implacable determination. In Venezuela, the class struggle has broken through some formidable boundaries with its participatory democracy. It has set a regional example that the USA considers counter to its hegemony, and so it should. As Cellina Della Croce has observed, “[Venezuela] lies at the crux of a geopolitical war waged by global capital, with the USA at its head, to destroy the threat of a people-centred agenda once and for all”.[64]<br />
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Make no mistake about this: the struggle of the Venezuelan people today, as it was in the 1800s, will define the destiny of the region.<br />
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This is no exaggeration. If the USA and its allies destroy Bolivarian Venezuela, it will immediately go after Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia, as they have openly stated.[65] In fact, it will impede any other regional government from exercising any real self-determination if it does not suit the interests of the USA and corporate capitalism. The fate of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution will determine also in great measure, the triumph or failure of any sort of socialism as a viable alternative to savage capitalism<br />
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<b>Conclusion</b><br />
In conclusion, the economic war against Venezuela has global political implications in that:<br />
1) Fundamental international laws and treaties that for years have kept the peace between sovereign states and regulated the conduct of war are being openly violated.<br />
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2) Regulations and principles of ownership and banking are being ignored; that banks appropriate other countries’ assets erodes the banking system; that duly established corporations can be taken over by another country for political reasons erodes the legal security of publicly owned corporations.<br />
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3) Diplomatic conventions guaranteeing the safety of foreign embassies has been shattered by the assault and take over of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington DC.<br />
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4) Powerful nations have refused to acknowledge legitimately elected government representatives and have attempted to set up and support a bogus shadow government.<br />
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5) Human rights and humanitarian issues are callously misused as political weapons, endangering large numbers of innocent people.<br />
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6) Illegal and immoral economic sanctions have become an instrument in an undeclared war, punishing collectively an entire population causing tens of thousands of deaths, and contravening the Geneva Convention.<br />
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However, Venezuela, representing socialism in the 21st century, is not responding as they wish. Along with, Cuba it is withstanding the pressures. Venezuelans have demonstrated even under harsh attacks, that they are determined to be free to chose their own government and use their plentiful resources for the common good. As Della Croce has pointed out, like Viet Nam, Venezuela is the domino that will not fall.[66]<br />
<br />
María Páez Victor, Ph.D. is a Venezuelan born sociologist living in Canada. <br />
<a href="http://Counterpunch.org/2019/07/31/venezuela-disturbing-echoes-of-history/">Counterpunch.org/2019/07/31/venezuela-disturbing-echoes-of-history/</a><br />
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Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-27010377326548347132019-07-21T18:59:00.001-04:002019-07-21T18:59:29.322-04:00Why the Canadian Government is Confronting Venezuela<b>Canada weighs economic sanctions on Venezuea which recent studies have termed genocidal</b><i><br />
by Arnold August</i> <br />
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July 21, 2019 -Indeed, US-Lima Group policy represents a declaration of war, even though there has yet to be any military intervention as such.<br />
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Since the attempted U.S. coup against Venezuela on January 23, backed by the Lima Group of which the Justin Trudeau government is an active member, Canada’s corporate media have joined in a chorus of hate and disinformation against the Bolivarian Revolution, with the criticism focusing on Nicolás Maduro, the country’s constitutionally elected president.<br />
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In response to the nationalization of certain companies by the previous Chávez government, a number of Canadian companies have undertaken legal battles.<br />
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<b>The truth is that Canada has corporate interests in gold</b><br />
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At the same time, a debate has arisen among workers, trade unionists, and social and political activists. A few months ago, the Cuban daily Trabajadores reported the response of Canadian affiliates (over 5 million workers speaking through their unions) in support of Venezuela’s right to self-determination and to be free from interference by the United States and the Lima Group in its internal affairs. New actions and statements are still emerging from the grassroots.<br />
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Examples include a series of articles that have appeared in the alternative press and on Canadian social networks, especially those representing left-wing and progressive forces; indeed, anyone who opposes foreign interference. These pieces lead us to wonder: what is Canada up to and why?<br />
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These authors bravely question the traditional media, which only have space for writers who make sure to use key words like “contested elections” and to call Maduro an “authoritarian” in their pieces. Such phrases afford credibility to the narrative put forward by the United States and the Lima Group to the effect that interference in Venezuela’s affairs is a putative matter of “humanitarian” necessity.<br />
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The corporate media suppress any attempt to give a serious answer to the question: why Canada? In this way, despite Canada’s pretense of being a paragon of freedom of expression and the press, the truth is being hidden from the public.<br />
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<b>What Progressive Canadian Journalists and Writers are Saying</b><br />
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Canadian academic Nino Pagliccia, in a piece recently published, writes:<br />
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The search for gold in the mythical place of El Dorado in Latin America drew armies of Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century and caused many deaths of indigenous people. The gold remained elusive, but Spain colonized most of the region and exploited other riches until the Latin American independence movements of the 19th century.<br />
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But the search for gold never really ended, be it black gold – crude oil – or real gold of which Venezuela has plenty. The United States has publicly declared that is interested in the black gold. In the meantime, Canada has remained more secretive about its aspirations in its ventures in Venezuela. The truth is that Canada has corporate interests in the mining sector, and gold in particular.<br />
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<b>We ask, is Venezuela Canada’s modern day El Dorado?</b><br />
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Canadian political analyst Yves Engler’s recent blog post also deserves to be quoted at length:<br />
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In a bid for a greater share of oil revenue, Venezuela forced private oil companies to become minority partners with the state oil company in 2007. This prompted Calgary-based Petro-Canada to sell its portion of an oil project and Canadian officials to privately complain about feeling ‘burned’ by the Venezuelan government…<br />
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A number of Canadian companies clashed with Hugo Chavez’ government over its bid to gain greater control over gold extraction. Crystallex, Vanessa Ventures, Gold Reserve Inc. and Rusoro Mining all had prolonged legal battles with the Venezuelan government. In 2016 Rusoro Mining won a $1 billion claim under the Canada-Venezuela investment treaty. That same year Crystallex was awarded $1.2 billion under the Canada-Venezuela investment treaty. Both companies continue to pursue payments and have pursued [sic] the money from Citgo, the Venezuelan government owned gasoline retailer in the US.<br />
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In 2011, the Financial Post reported that ‘years after pushing foreign investment away from his gold mining sector, Venezuelan President Chavez is moving on to the next stage: outright nationalization.’ Highlighting its importance to Canadian capital, the Globe and Mail editorial board criticized the move in a piece titled “Chavez nationalizes all gold mines in Venezuela… Barrick Gold founder Peter Munk wrote a 2007 letter to the Financial Times headlined ‘Stop Chavez’ Demagoguery Before it is Too Late.’” <br />
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Munk wrote] … “aren’t we ignoring the lessons of history and forgetting that the dictators Hitler, Mugabe, Pol Pot and so on became heads of state by a democratic process? … autocratic demagogues in the Chavez mode get away with [it] until their countries become totalitarian regimes like Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, or Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia… Let us not give President Chavez a chance to do the same step- by-step transformation of Venezuela…<br />
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Canadian mining investment in Latin America has exploded since the 1990s… No Canadian mining firm operated in Peru or Mexico at the start of the 1990s yet by 2010 there were nearly 600 Canadian mining firms in those two countries. Canadian mining companies have tens of billions of dollars invested in the Americas. Any government in the region that reverses the neoliberal reforms that enabled this growth is a threat to Canadian mining profits.<br />
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The banks too, says Engler, have worked to bring about this liberalization: A few days after Chavez’s 2013 death the <i>Globe & Mail</i>’s ‘Report on Business’ published a front-page story about Scotiabank’s interests in Venezuela, which were acquired just before his rise to power. It noted: ‘Bank of Nova Scotia [Scotiabank] is often lauded for its bold expansion into Latin America, having completed major acquisitions in Colombia and Peru. But when it comes to Venezuela, the bank has done little for the past 15 years – primarily because the government of President Hugo Chavez has been hostile to large-scale foreign investment.’<br />
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<b>Canadian mining investment in Latin America has exploded since the 1990s…</b><br />
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These considerations no doubt explain why the Trudeau government has been involved in Donald Trump’s attempted coups against Venezuela. Canada is also spearheading the economic sanctions imposed on the country, which recent studies have termed genocidal. Indeed, US-Lima Group policy represents a declaration of war, even though there has yet to be any military intervention as such.<br />
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Is this the only way Canada can defend the interests of its companies in Venezuela? Surely not. There must be much more “Canadian” approaches that it can draw upon.<br />
<a href="http://orinocotribune.com/why-the-canadian-government-is-confronting-venezuel"></a><br />
Source URL: Telesurenglish<br />
https://orinocotribune.com/why-the-canadian-government-is-confronting-venezuelaSuzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-83475651553145328442019-06-22T11:18:00.002-04:002019-06-22T11:18:58.647-04:00Venezuelan President Denounces International Attacks to 'Steal Wealth'Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro gave the last National Address of 2018<br />
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The Venezuelan worker President Nicolas Maduro gave a speech for his people on the last address to the nation in 2018. President Maduro thanked the effort and firm commitment of the people in defense of sovereignty and peace.<br />
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Maduro talked to all Venezuelans, "thanks for so much solidarity with our country, for your firm commitment with peace, for your democratic vocation," stated the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. For the leader, 2018 was the year of the institutionalization of the social programs and consolidation of rights, when the "democracy was armored" and the year when the government of the Bolivarian Revolution "demonstrated that this sacred land filled with history and future has only one owner and it the Venezuelan people."<br />
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"In 2018 we managed to reach 4 million, 300 thousand pensioners. We achieved the goal of 100 percent of pensioners. In addition, 5 million families are already included and protected in the Great Mission Homes of the Homeland," said President Nicolas Maduro.<br />
President Nicolás Maduro reiterated the call for a dialogue with the political sectors willing to work for peace and stability in Venezuela. He also thanked his people "because, in the middle of a bloody economic war, we were united in hope and faith to ourselves, we have laid the groundwork to make 2019 a year of stability and economic prosperity." This will continue with the project of the 21st Century Socialism.<br />
Maduro also thanked Venezuelans for the Unity, "as only together will we be able to defend that what was achieved," by the Bolivarian Revolution "as well as change what needs to be changed." It Is the Venezuelan people who need to adjust the things that need to be changed, and interventionist and coup attempts won't be permitted by Venezuela. Maduro rejected any attempts that go against the principle of self-determination of the peoples.<br />
Maduro stated that peace is the way for Venezuela, and he agreed to meet with the opposition in new dialogue tables that will allow that peace. But peace dialogues under the rule of law and no coup attempt will be accepted. "2019 will be the year of the fight against imperialism."<br />
https://bit.ly/2TiZzAY<br />
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Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-78370973973622351272019-06-22T11:18:00.001-04:002019-06-22T11:18:33.124-04:00 From coup leaders to con artists: Juan Guaidó’s gang exposed for massive humanitarian aid fraudVENEZUELAJune 17, 2019<br />
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<i><br />
An explosive new report reveals how Guaidó representatives in Colombia embezzled $125,000 meant for humanitarian aid, suckering deserting soldiers and blowing the aid money on luxury goods. <b></b></i><br />
<i><br />
by Dan Cohen</i><br />
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A new investigation has exposed members of Venezuelan coup leader Juan Guaidó’s inner circle for embezzling tens of thousands of dollars designated for humanitarian aid and spending it on luxury goods and lavish accommodations for themselves. Guaidó had been aware of the fraud for weeks and stubbornly defended his cohorts until a leak from Colombian intelligence forced him to acknowledge the scandal.<br />
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The scandal unfolded this February, when Venezuelan opposition figures and their supporters descended upon the border town of Cúcuta, Colombia for what was billed as a Live Aid concert to raise millions of dollars for humanitarian aid for Venezuelans suffering the effects of an economic crisis.<br />
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The operation was supposed to have climaxed with a Live Aid concert hosted by billionaire Virgin Group founder Richard Branson while trucks full of US aid blasted across the Venezuelan border. Instead, as Branson gathered his performers on stage for a cringeworthy rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” opposition hooligans set fire to the truckloads of aid with molotov cocktails as they failed to reach the border.<br />
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Now, a report by the staunchly anti-Maduro PanAm Post editor-in-chief Orlando Avendaño has revealed a shocking scheme of fraud and embezzlement behind the aid imbroglio. According to Avendaño, Guaidó’s lieutenants embezzled huge sums of money that had been promised to Venezuelan soldiers who deserted their positions and snuck across to the Colombian side at Guaidó’s urging.<br />
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The cash that was used to entice desperate soldiers and would-be mercenaries to defect became a slush fund for the US-backed coup leader and his gaggle, who spent it lavishly on hotels, expensive dinners, nightclubs and designer clothes. As Guaidó’s gang lived the high life, he covered for their fraud, keeping his lips sealed until it was exposed through a leak by the Colombian intelligence services.<br />
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At a press conference on June 17, Guaidó attempted to downplay his responsibility and redirect public anger back towards Maduro. “The government does not manage [public] resources because we are in the process of transition,” he said. “The dictatorship has begun a process of disinformation.”<br />
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But then the defecting Venezuelan soldiers announced plans for a press conference where they pledged to provide even more evidence of fraud.<br />
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Constructing an interventionist sham show</b><br />
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It was apparent upon Branson’s announcement of the February 23rd aid concert that the event had little to do with providing relief to hungry Venezuelans. It was a transparent propaganda stunt engineered to destabilize the Maduro government and achieve a long-standing US foreign policy goal.<br />
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As Father Sergei San Miguel, a Colombian government-affiliated priest responsible for guiding the deserting Venezuelan soldiers told me in Cúcuta, the successful entrance of the meager amount of supplies into Venezuela was intended to demonstrate Maduro’s loss of sovereignty in front of the global stage and foment an uprising across the country that would finally depose him.<br />
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Branson pledged that his event would rustle up 100 million dollars for humanitarian aid. But organizers had omitted how and to whom the funds would be distributed. On February 28th, Venezuela Aid Live organizers announced they had raised just 2.5 million dollars – a tiny fraction of the sum they had promised and likely less than the cost of staging a massive production on one week’s notice.<br />
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The weekend of the concert offered a preview of this month’s corruption revelations, with several embarrassing incidents involving Guaidó’s confidantes. Early in the morning of February 23, Popular Will party members Freddy Superlano and his cousin and assistant Carlos José Salinas were found unconscious in a motel in Cúcuta. According to police reports, the two had been drugged with scopolamine and robbed by women, presumably prostitutes, they met in the red-light district. After the women made an early morning dash from the motel room, staff found the two men unconscious and called police. Salinas died shortly after being hospitalized.<br />
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Days later, another top Venezuelan opposition figure, Lorent Saleh, was arrested in Cúcuta after he allegedly attempted to sexually abuse two women. He was released after figures close to Guaidó mediated with Colombian authorities. Saleh – a recipient of funds from the US government under the guise of “democracy promotion” – had previously been deported by Colombia to Venezuela after plotting terrorist attacks and assassinations in the latter country.<br />
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Dan Cohen<br />
@dancohen3000<br />
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<i><br />
“Colombian police arrest Lorent Saleh, who under the influence of drugs had tried to sexually abuse two women. Then they left him free through the mediation of people close to Juan Guaidó” via @MaisantaDigital </i><br />
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But the revelations of fraud are a new level of embarrassment for the Guaidó coup operation, and threaten to undercut support both inside Venezuela and from his foreign patrons. The fraud scheme was revealed through leaked receipts and documents obtained by Colombian intelligence as part of an ongoing investigation. The receipts Avendaño published show Guaidó’s representatives blew more than $125,000 on luxury goods and personal expenses, including nearly $40,000 on expenses in April. Avendaño has yet to publish all of the documents he received, so the total that was stolen remains unknown.<br />
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<b>Suckering the soldiers</b><br />
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Popular Will party members Rossana Barrera and Kevin Rojas are the main subjects of the corruption investigation. Barrera replaced Roberto Marrero as Juan Guaidó’s chief of staff after Marrero was arrested by the Venezuelan government on charges of plotting terrorist attacks. Rojas, for his part, is the regional coordinator of the Popular Will party in the border state of Tachira, and had been denounced for his role in violent destabilization plots by the state’s former governor, Jose Vielma Mora.<br />
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For months, Popular Will party parliamentarians Dr. José Manuel Olivares and Gaby Arellano had been tasked with overseeing the aid operations, and according to Avendaño, Olivares was preparing for a collapse in the military’s command and control structure on the border that would allow the opposition to ram the aid trucks through.<br />
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Yet Olivares and Arellano were replaced without explanation on direct orders from Guaidó. I reached out to Olivares via Whatsapp for comment, but he declined to respond. However, the two released a statement expressing confidence in the investigation while blaming their disgraced counterparts, Barrera and Rojas.<br />
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“We don’t have any responsibility with respect to the soldiers that are in Colombian territory that began to enter on February 23rd through the bridges where we were,” they remarked. “We must highlight that the person in charge of this process of the Venezuelan officers into Colombian territory is the ambassador, Humberto Calderón Berti, and the president’s appointees in Cúcuta: Kevin Rojas and Rossana Barrera.”<br />
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While the attempt to push aid trucks across Venezuelan borders was a resounding failure, the desertion by scores of Venezuelan soldiers to Guaidó’s cause was spun as a major success. Soon, Guaidó and his partymates promised, thousands more soldiers would break ranks and Maduro’s government would dissolve. The soldiers had been promised amnesty and stays in hotels, schooling for their children, medical care and employment. Chilean president Sebastián Piñera even offered renewable one-year visas with the possibility of permanent residency.<br />
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On February 25th, I spoke to three defector soldiers in Bogotá who expressed optimism that Maduro would soon be ousted and their conditions would improve dramatically. “This country has extended its hand and helps us,” Sergeant Major Jose Luis Suarez told me. “As a Venezuelan soldier, I’m very thankful to Colombia.”<br />
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At first, the turncoat soldiers were put up in nine hotels in Cúcuta at $30,000 per night, paid for by the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and Juan Guaidó’s ad hoc Humanitarian Aid Coalition.<br />
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However, just one day after they arrived, representatives from the Coalition for Humanitarian Aid in Cúcuta told soldiers to stop coming across the border because they were in “a complicated situation” with an insufficient budget.<br />
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Optimism soon turned to outrage as the benefits the soldiers had been promised failed to materialize. By mid-March, funds for the deserters had completely dried up. The UNHCR attempted to expel a group of soldiers from one shelter, giving each a stipend of 350,000 Colombian pesos ($106), a mat, and a sheet to sleep on.<br />
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“We are desperate. We do not want to stay in Colombia, we want to return to Venezuela, but not in the conditions that are being lived now. We do not know what to do,” one deserter complained.<br />
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The soldiers’ families paid an especially heavy toll. Several of their wives were pregnant and were denied access to medical attention. One woman was forced to give birth in an emergency room and could not pay for a taxi to leave. The 130 children of the deserters were so poorly fed that twenty percent were assessed to be suffering from malnutrition.<br />
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Unable to work, some defectors joined paramilitaries and drug trafficking operations along the Colombian-Venezuelan border and received training in high-powered weapons. Others drank away their misery, descended into violence and cast about for prostitutes.<br />
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By the beginning of May, Guaidó’s representatives had cut off all communication with the soldiers. Having sold out in pursuit of promises that turned out to be hollow, the lost army was set to turn on Guaidó’s gaggle.<br />
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‘Transparency above all!’</b><br />
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According to Avendaño’s report, the two Popular Will figures appointed to oversee the funds and payment for the lodging of the deserters – Barrera and Rojas – spent 3,000,000 pesos ($915 USD) each night on hotels and nightclubs.<br />
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“About a thousand dollars in drinks and meals. Clothing expenses in very expensive stores in Bogotá and in Cúcuta. Vehicle rental reports and hotel payments at surcharge. Silver flowing. A lot of money,” the journalist wrote.<br />
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Barrera told the Popular Will leadership in Caracas that the funds were being dispersed among seven hotels that were providing housing for deserters and their families, but only two hotels had actually been paid.<br />
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What’s more, Guaidó’s representatives had falsely claimed there were more than 1,450 Venezuelan soldiers in Colombia. According to Avendaño, Colombian intelligence counted only 700. It turned out that Barrera and Rojas had inflated the number in order to embezzle more funds for their luxury spree.<br />
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In mid-May, Barrera and Rojas attempted to defraud even more money through a phony charity dinner in a luxurious Bogotárestaurant, falsely claiming the event had been convened to raise money for deserters and their families. Using a fake email account for Guaidó’s “ambassador” in Colombia, Humberto Calderón Berti, the two Popular Will activists invited representatives from foreign embassies, including those of the U.S. and Israel. The dinner was cancelled after Berti’s representatives informed embassies that they were not sponsoring the dinner.<br />
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By then, the reckless behavior of Guaidó’s appointees was known throughout the entire Colombian government. Soon after Barrera and Rojas were quietly removed from their positions.<br />
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Shortly after Avendaño’s article was published, it became clear to Guaidó that he could no longer shield the con artists he placed in charge of the aid operation. After ordering Berti to ask Colombian authorities for their investigation, he took to Twitter to declare, “Transparency above all!”<br />
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Minutes later, Berti announced he would get to the bottom of the case. The coup ambassador tweeted that the investigation was in its final phase, provoking many observers to point out that he and Guaidó had known about the fraud for months and covered it up. Shockingly, Berti confirmed the cover-up, responding that he had personally ordered the investigation two months ago after receiving information from Colombian intelligence.<br />
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At a June 17th press conference, Guaidó claimed that he immediately requested an investigation when Berti informed him of the fraud schemes. But according to Avendaño, Guaidó “showed a stubborn defense of both” of his disgraced party lieutenants, using blustery threats to shift blame onto his “embassy” in Colombia. Avendaño attempted to contact Guaidó and his press officer, but received no response.<br />
<b><br />
“They will burn it, I imagine”</b><br />
<br />
While the money intended for defecting soldiers padded the pockets of Popular Will leaders, hundreds of tons of food donated by the USAID and other countries that was stored in Cúcuta wound up rotting. The figure Guaidó had appointed as his liaison to USAID was Venezuelan businessman Miguel Sabal.<br />
<br />
Sabal is the president of the Present Future Association, which was founded by Popular Will member Yon Goicoechea after he won $500,000 from the Koch Brothers through the Cato Institute’s Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty. Back in 2010, Sabal participated in the Mexican Fiesta plot along with Guaidó and others where they received training from the CANVAS regime change group and plotted the assassination of Maduro.<br />
<br />
After the February 23 aid operation floundered, Sabal let the food rot in the steaming tropical heat. “Everything [Chilean] President Piñera sent is no longer useful,” a source told Avendaño. “It’s there. They do not know what to do with it [the rotten food] so that a scandal is not created. They will burn it, I imagine.” <br />
<br />
When I was in downtown Cúcuta last February, I saw desperation at every turn. Impoverished Venezuelan migrants could be found on street corners begging for money and food. Many had left Venezuela hoping for better conditions in Colombia only to find a situation that was at least as dire. One pregnant woman told me she was considering giving away her baby in order to give it a better life. Rather than hand the aid to the migrants around Cúcuta, Guaidó’s representatives apparently chose to burn it.<br />
<br />
For exposing the corruption in Guaidó’s inner circle, Avendaño has received an onslaught of hatred and harassment from opposition figures. The pushback has forced the anti-Maduro journalist into a defensive crouch.<br />
<br />
“It has cost me, it has deeply hurt me, to publish something that, I knew, would have immense consequences,” he wrote. “But I would never have forgiven myself that I had known that some traded in the misery of others, and not published it.”<br />
<br />
For Guaidó, the fall out is already beginning. Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General Luis Almagro – an anti-Maduro fanatic who has transformed the OAS into a playground for Venezuela’s opposition – has called for a full investigation. It is hard to see how an already deflated Guaidó will be able to recover from this massive blow to his credibility as a self-proclaimed reformer. While Guaidó’s support in the streets of Venezuela is rapidly deteriorating, the Trump administration has yet to address the scandal and continues to voice strong support for their man in Caracas.<br />
<br />
Dan Cohen is a journalist and co-producer of the award-winning documentary, Killing Gaza. He has produced widely distributed video reports and print dispatches from across Israel-Palestine, Latin America, the US-Mexico border and Washington DC. Follow him on Twitter at @DanCohen3000.<br />
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<a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2019/06/17/from-coup-leaders-to-con-artistry-juan-guaidos-gang-exposed-for-massive-humanitarian-aid-fraud/?fbclid=IwAR0se-1K0YihS-JDtFkZuj58P4IfiBaT0Aydu4K1DnMq78efn5MFqQfjwxY"></a><br />
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Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-39203578158378223552019-05-15T21:06:00.000-04:002019-05-15T21:06:35.477-04:00Venezuela’s Crisis: A View from the Communes<b>Grassroots communal organisations and the tension between popular power and sectors of the government</b><br />
<br />
by Federico Fuentes - <i>Green Left Weekly</i><br />
May 10th 2019 <br />
<br />
Within hours of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó calling for street mobilisations to back his attempted military coup against President Nicolás Maduro on April 30, Guaidó’s supporters had looted and set fire to the headquarters of the Indio Caricuao Commune in south-west Caracas.<br />
<br />
The building was used for local residents’ meetings and housed a commune-run textile enterprise, which funds projects in the community.<br />
Atenea Jiménez, from the National Network of Comuneros (commune activists) said: “Once again attacks on the communes by fascist sectors have begun.”<br />
<br />
She also noted however that comuneros “are facing persecution by sections of the government”, in reference to the March 23 arrest and 71-day long detention of 10 comuneros who occupied a state-owned rice processing plant in Portuguesa state. The occupation denounced the fact that private management who were hired to run it refused to work with local producers.<br />
<br />
“Why is this occurring? Because the commune is the only space that disputes power … it is one of the few, genuine, self-convened spaces for building direct democracy,” she said.<br />
<b><br />
Grassroots power</b><br />
<br />
Venezuela’s communes seek to bring together communal councils that encompass 200–400 families in urban areas and 20–50 families in rural areas, to tackle issues such as housing, health, education and access to basic services in the local community. Decisions about problems to prioritise and how to tackle them are made in citizen’s assemblies.<br />
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The idea of the commune is for local communities to take on bigger projects and become self-sustaining through enterprises owned and run by the community.<br />
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Former president Hugo Chavez viewed the communes as the fundamental building blocks of a new communal state based on self-management and participatory democracy.<br />
<br />
According to the Ministry of Communes, there are currently more than 47,000 registered communal councils and close to 3000 communes, though many of the activists I spoke to on my visit to Venezuela in March said they believed the number of genuine communes and councils was less.<br />
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Jimenez explained: “The comunero movement involves communes that have been consolidating themselves over the past 10 years.”<br />
During this time, “new communes have emerged, interesting advances have occurred and, of course, there have been communes that have fallen by the wayside.<br />
<br />
“But the communes remain active and have achieved a very interesting level of political and ideological consolidation — and a determination to continue advancing.<br />
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“What we have is the consolidation of 10 years of work and a strength based on the knowledge that there are problems, but that together we can resolve them through self-management.”<br />
<br />
<b>Self-management</b><br />
<br />
Gsus Garcia, from the Altos de Lidice Socialist Commune, which unites seven communal councils high up on Caracas’ hillside in La Pastora, explained that the commune came about because “local community councils realised they shared the same problems, but on their own they would not be able to resolve them.”<br />
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He added that the commune “is not simply about getting together to resolve problems, we want to go beyond that to build genuine self-government.”<br />
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While Garcia acknowledges that Chavistas (Chavez supporters) have been at the heart of the creation of the communes, Altos de Lidice Commune also includes residents who oppose Maduro.<br />
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“There are many who are discontented, there is a lot of opposition. And yet they involve themselves in the dynamic of the commune; they don't reject it, they accept it and little by little they understand that, together, we can do more.<br />
<br />
“They see that if we don't come together, both of us will suffer. So we have to have patience and understand each other.<br />
<br />
“I have been surprised by the level of patience. I think that in any other country, with everything that has happened this year and last year, that country would have exploded.”<br />
<br />
In the nearby 23 de Enero neighbourhood, the Panal 2021 Commune, involving eight communal councils and about 3600 families, is an example of the kind of local self-government many comuneros envisage.<br />
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Cucaracho, an activist with Panal 2021, explained that the commune began with activists raising funds through raffles and activities. The commune passed through a period of co-management, receiving state funds for projects, and was now self-managed.<br />
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Panal 2021 has its own bakeries, a textile and sugar packaging plant, and a food storage and distribution centre. Proceeds from these communally-run enterprises are deposited in a communal bank, with citizen’s assemblies deciding how funds are redistributed for community projects.<br />
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The ability of Panal 2021 to generate its own revenue, as with most of the communes that exist today, has been key to its ongoing existence. With the onset of the economic crisis, the state has largely stopped handing over funds to local communities.<br />
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Julian from the Bolivar and Zamora Revolutionary Current, a radical grassroots current within the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela), believes this has had an impact on the level of community organising. “When the government funded projects, it created certain expectations and encouraged participation, as people felt their problems could be resolved.<br />
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“But given the strong rentier culture that exists, what has happened is that many have said: ‘If we don’t receive anything, then we can’t do anything’. In those cases, community councils largely limit themselves to administering the distribution of government services such as gas bottles in their community.<br />
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“The error was that the focus was put on promoting initial participation while less attention was paid to helping build the capacity of communities to self-organise.<br />
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“Those communes that are most active today are the ones that don’t have much to do with the government and the [PSUV] doesn't control them.”<br />
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<b>Tensions</b><br />
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Producing and distributing food to meet community needs in times of crisis has become a priority for many communes, including in Caracas.<br />
Panal 2021 has linked up with communes in the countryside to bring food to the city and sell it at much cheaper prices than private supermarkets.<br />
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Jimenez said many communes are doing the same, “There are systems for the exchange of food and services between communes, which function with different levels of complexity but which have been improving.”<br />
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Despite — or perhaps because of — its importance, food production and distribution has been a key point of tension between the state and the comunero movement.<br />
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Several years ago, the National Network of Comuneros handed over a proposal to Maduro for the creation of a nationwide communal enterprise for food production and distribution.<br />
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The idea was that all the communes and campesinos could distribute their produce via a system controlled by the people rather than private intermediaries, to ensure cheap food reached those who needed it.<br />
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Jimenez explained: “Our vision for the enterprise was that everything produced in the countryside needs to be distributed and not lost, and that only after this should we import what we cannot produce — not the reverse.”<br />
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Instead, the government initiated the Local Committees for Food Distribution and Production, commonly known by their Spanish acronym, CLAPs.<br />
Jimenez notes that despite “the P — for production — being in its name, those that are producing, the campesinos and comuneros, were not included” in the process of forming the CLAPs. Instead, these committees are largely controlled by local PSUV officials and “everything that is distributed through the CLAPs is imported.”<br />
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Jimenez said this meant “putting to one side the organisations that exist because they're more difficult to control, because in a commune a proposal has to be debated in an assembly, whereas with the CLAPs you can simply tell people what to do.”<br />
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In practice this has meant that in many communities the CLAPs have surpassed the communes as the focus of community organising, according to Julian. “It's not that the other structures don't exist, it’s that the most dynamic structure is the CLAP because access to food is the most important issue for many.<br />
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“In some cases, the CLAPs have weakened the communes and I believe that this has been deliberate because the CLAPs respond to the party, but the communes don't.<br />
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“The party has never played a key role in promoting communes and communal councils, with the exception that in a few places; the party has concentrated more on electoral issues, on government.<br />
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“There is a conception that the comuneros are in permanent conflict with the party, with the local mayor or governor, due to the very dynamic of the communes, which are based on the idea of self-government.<br />
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“Comuneros have proposed the transfer of responsibilities from municipal councils to the commune to allow people to begin to self-govern.<br />
“This has created a tension between the comunero movement, on one hand, and the party and local government officials on the other, who don't want to transfer responsibilities such as rubbish collection in Caracas, because in many cases for them it's a business.<br />
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“I believe the conclusion the party came to with the CLAPs was that it had to create and control them. They could not control the communes because of their democratic, contestational, irreverent nature, but they could designate who ran the CLAPs.<br />
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“The strong rentier and clientalist culture that exists meant that people gravitated towards the CLAPs, which were being funded and supported by the government, and converted the CLAPs into the centre of organising in many places.”<br />
<b><br />
Love-hate relationship</b><br />
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Summing up the situation, Garcia said: “The state doesn't have the ability to resolve all the problems, given the current mess, but people are trying everywhere to resolve their issues.<br />
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“And yet one of the big problems that the government has is that it's difficult for it to cede space, it doesn't want to let go of the reins, so that the people can solve their problems.<br />
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“So what exists is a love-hate relationship between the government and the commune.<br />
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“Even with all its weaknesses and failures, it's our state, it's our government. At the same time, we have a relationship in which we have to struggle. We're not going to deny that.<br />
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“There are things that don’t get to us that we need to produce food, at a time when we are importing almost all the food we need. But instead of helping, the state puts up all these bureaucratic hurdles, when all we're trying to do is to guarantee that people have food and deal with the situation of children with malnutrition.<br />
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“We are clear, however, that only with this government can we do what we are doing with the communes. In another government, we would not have this possibility, much less with the type of right-wing government Guaido wants to install with his coup.”<br />
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Regardless of what happens next in Venezuela, Julian believes that the strong level of community organisation built up over the past two decades will not go away easily. “There's still a lot of strength, a high level of organisation. Wherever you look, you will find a commune, a cooperative, some kind of committee or organisation.<br />
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“If [the government] was to fall, that organisation will still be here; this huge spirit of participation will still exist, and it will be a problem for any government that tries to dismantle it.”<br />
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<i>The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff. <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/YUxz">https://venezuelanalysis.com/YUxz</a><br />
</i><br />
Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-13339274226935807622019-01-25T21:19:00.003-05:002019-01-25T21:19:56.242-05:00The U.S. and its allies must cease encouraging violence by pushing for violent, extralegal regime changeDear friends,<br />
<br />
The Maduro government: why illegitimate?<br />
<br />
By Pasqualina Curcio<br />
<br />
25/01/2019<br />
<br />
Have those who claim that Nicolas Maduro is a dictator, a usurper and that the 2019-2025 period lacks legitimacy asked themselves this question? Or do they just repeat what they hear?<br />
<br />
It was the 12 countries gathered in Lima that began to position this opinion matrix. Their communiqué reads: "...the electoral process carried out in Venezuela on May 20, 2018 lacks legitimacy because it did not include the participation of all Venezuelan political actors, nor the presence of independent international observers, nor the necessary international guarantees and standards for a free, fair and transparent process.”<br />
<br />
The leaders of the Venezuelan opposition, we refer to the non-democratic one, tirelessly repeat, and of course without arguments, that Maduro is a usurper.<br />
<br />
In an act of desperation, the Vice President of the United States himself, Mike Pence, when forced to personally call out the opposition march for January 23, due to the incompetence of the opposition leadership, insisted and repeated that President Nicolas Maduro is a usurper and illegitimate dictator.<br />
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The strategy is clear: to repeat the lie a thousand times in order to turn it into truth.<br />
<b><br />
Let us dismantle the lie:</b><br />
<br />
<b>1. There were presidential elections.</b> They were held on May 20, 2018, that is, before January 10, 2019, when, according to articles 230 and 231 of the Constitution, the presidential term 2013-2019 expires. It would have been a violation of the Constitution if the elections had been held after January 10, 2019, or worse still if they had not been held.<br />
<b><br />
2. It was the Venezuelan opposition that asked for the elections to be brought forward.</b> They were held in May and not in December, as was traditionally the case, because it was the opposition that requested it, within the framework of the dialogue in the Dominican Republic, that took place in the first trimester of 2018.<br />
<b><br />
3. In Venezuela, voting is a right, not a duty.</b> Those who freely decided, although influenced by some non-democratic political organizations that called for abstention, not to go to the polls, are in their full right, but in no way does this make the electoral process illegitimate, even less so when that would imply ignoring and disrespecting the 9,389,056 who decided to vote and democratically exercised their right to suffrage.<br />
<b><br />
4. Sixteen political parties participated in the electoral contest</b>: PSUV, MSV, Tupamaro, UPV, Podemos, PPT, ORA, MPAC, MEP, PCV, AP, MAS, Copei, Esperanza por el Cambio, UPP89. In Venezuela, it is not mandatory for all political parties to participate in electoral processes. They have the full right to decide whether or not to participate. Precisely because our system is democratic. The fact that three parties (AD, VP and PJ) freely decided not to participate does not make the electoral process illegitimate.<br />
<b><br />
5. Six candidates contended for the presidency:</b> Nicolás Maduro, Henri Falcón, Javier Bertucci, Reinaldo Quijada, Francisco Visconti Osorio and Luis Alejandro Ratti (the last two decided to withdraw).<br />
<b><br />
6. Maduro won by a wide margin, obtaining 6,248,864 votes, 67.84%;</b> followed by Henri Falcón with 1,927,958, 20.93%; Javier Bertucci with 1,015,895, 10.82% and Reinaldo Quijada who obtained 36,246 votes, 0.39% of the total. The difference between Maduro and Falcón was 46.91 percentage points.<br />
<b><br />
7. Around 150 people accompanied the electoral process, including 14 electoral commissions from 8 countries;</b> 2 technical electoral missions; 18 journalists from different parts of the world; 1 MEP and 1 technical-electoral delegation from the Russian Electoral Centre.<br />
<b><br />
8. The elections were held using the same electoral system used in the December 2015 parliamentary elections, in which the Venezuelan opposition won.</b> This system is automated and audited before, during and after the elections. This system guarantees the principles of "one elector, one vote" because only with a fingerprint is the voting machine unlocked; it also guarantees the "secrecy of the vote".<br />
<b><br />
9. Eighteen audits of the automated system were carried out. </b>The representatives of the candidate Henri Falcón participated in all 18 and signed the acts in which they express their conformity with the electoral system. The audits are public and televised live on the channel of the National Electoral Council. Once the audits have been carried out, the system is blocked and the only way to access it again is with the simultaneous introduction of the secret codes that each political organization holds.<br />
<b><br />
10. None of the candidates who participated in the electoral process contested the results.</b> There is no evidence of fraud, they did not present any evidence or concrete denunciation of fraud.<br />
<br />
The presidential elections of May 20, 2018 were free, transparent, reliable, secure and in accordance with the Constitution and the laws despite the anti-democratic call for abstention on the part of one sector of the opposition.<br />
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It is others who seek to usurp the office of President of the Republic with the argument of a supposed power vacuum, a figure that is not contemplated in our Constitution and the establishment of a "transitional government", a figure also not contemplated in the Magna Carta. And as if that were not enough, they intend to exercise power outside our borders in violation of Article 18 of the Constitution, which establishes that Caracas is the seat of public power.<br />
<br />
Things being as they are, the usurpers, those who are illegitimate and anti-democratic, are others. It is illegitimate and constitutes an attempted usurpation that some sectors of the opposition are trying to sustain themselves with the support of foreign actors coming from imperialist governments to exercise an authority that neither the people nor the Constitution gives them.<br />
<i><br />
Let us repeat these truths a thousand times.</i><br />
<br />
23/01/2019<br />
<br />
(Translated for ALAI by Jordan Bishop)<br />
<br />
Source: <a href="https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/197765">https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/197765</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Open Letter by Over 70 Scholars and Experts Condemns US-Backed Coup Attempt in Venezuela</b><br />
<br />
"For the sake of the Venezuelan people, the region, and for the principle of national sovereignty, these international actors should instead support negotiations between the Venezuelan government and its opponents."<br />
<br />
As many American lawmakers, pundits, and advocacy groups remain conspicuously silent in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to formally recognizeVenezuela's opposition leader as the "interim president"—a move that was denounced as open support for an attempted coup d'état—renowned linguist Noam Chomsky, filmmaker Boots Riley, and over 70 other academics and experts issued an open letteron Thursday calling on the Trump administration to "cease interfering in Venezuela's internal politics."<br />
<br />
"The U.S. and its allies must cease encouraging violence by pushing for violent, extralegal regime change."<br />
<i>—Open Letter</i><br />
<br />
"Actions by the Trump administration and its allies in the hemisphere are almost certain to make the situation in Venezuela worse, leading to unnecessary human suffering, violence, and instability," the letter reads. "The U.S. and its allies must cease encouraging violence by pushing for violent, extralegal regime change. If the Trump administration and its allies continue to pursue their reckless course in Venezuela, the most likely result will be bloodshed, chaos, and instability."<br />
<br />
Highlighting the harm American sanctions have inflicted upon the Venezuelan economy and people, the letter goes on to denounce the White House's "aggressive" actions and rhetoric against Venezuela's government, arguing that peaceful talks are the only way forward.<br />
<br />
"In such situations, the only solution is a negotiated settlement, as has happened in the past in Latin American countries when politically polarized societies were unable to resolve their differences through elections," the letter reads. "For the sake of the Venezuelan people, the region, and for the principle of national sovereignty, these international actors should instead support negotiations between the Venezuelan government and its opponents that will allow the country to finally emerge from its political and economic crisis."<br />
<i><br />
Read the full letter below:</i><br />
<br />
<b>The United States government must cease interfering in Venezuela’s internal politics, especially for the purpose of overthrowing the country’s government.</b> Actions by the Trump administration and its allies in the hemisphere are almost certain to make the situation in Venezuela worse, leading to unnecessary human suffering, violence, and instability.<br />
<br />
Venezuela’s political polarization is not new; the country has long been divided along racial and socioeconomic lines. But the polarization has deepened in recent years. This is partly due to US support for an opposition strategy aimed at removing the government of Nicolás Maduro through extra-electoral means. While the opposition has been divided on this strategy, US support has backed hardline opposition sectors in their goal of ousting the Maduro government through often violent protests, a military coup d’etat, or other avenues that sidestep the ballot box.<br />
<br />
Under the Trump administration, aggressive rhetoric against the Venezuelan government has ratcheted up to a more extreme and threatening level, with Trump administration officials talking of “military action” and condemning Venezuela, along with Cuba and Nicaragua, as part of a “troika of tyranny.” Problems resulting from Venezuelan government policy have been worsened by US economic sanctions, illegal under the Organization of American States and the United Nations ― as well as US law and other international treaties and conventions. These sanctions have cut off the means by which the Venezuelan government could escape from its economic recession, while causing a dramatic falloff in oil production and worsening the economic crisis, and causing many people to die because they can’t get access to life-saving medicines. Meanwhile, the US and other governments continue to blame the Venezuelan government ― solely ― for the economic damage, even that caused by the US sanctions.<br />
<br />
Now the US and its allies, including OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro and Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, have pushed Venezuela to the precipice. By recognizing National Assembly President Juan Guaido as the new president of Venezuela ― something illegal under the OAS Charter ― the Trump administration has sharply accelerated Venezuela’s political crisis in the hopes of dividing the Venezuelan military and further polarizing the populace, forcing them to choose sides. The obvious, and sometimes stated goal, is to force Maduro out via a coup d’etat.<br />
<br />
The reality is that despite hyperinflation, shortages, and a deep depression, Venezuela remains a politically polarized country. The US and its allies must cease encouraging violence by pushing for violent, extralegal regime change. If the Trump administration and its allies continue to pursue their reckless course in Venezuela, the most likely result will be bloodshed, chaos, and instability. The US should have learned something from its regime change ventures in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and its long, violent history of sponsoring regime change in Latin America.<br />
<br />
Neither side in Venezuela can simply vanquish the other. The military, for example, has at least 235,000 frontline members, and there are at least 1.6 million in militias. Many of these people will fight, not only on the basis of a belief in national sovereignty that is widely held in Latin America ― in the face of what increasingly appears to be a US-led intervention ― but also to protect themselves from likely repression if the opposition topples the government by force.<br />
<br />
In such situations, the only solution is a negotiated settlement, as has happened in the past in Latin American countries when politically polarized societies were unable to resolve their differences through elections. There have been efforts, such as those led by the Vatican in the fall of 2016, that had potential, but they received no support from Washington and its allies who favored regime change. This strategy must change if there is to be any viable solution to the ongoing crisis in Venezuela.<br />
<br />
For the sake of the Venezuelan people, the region, and for the principle of national sovereignty, these international actors should instead support negotiations between the Venezuelan government and its opponents that will allow the country to finally emerge from its political and economic crisis.<br />
<br />
<i>Signed:</i><br />
<br />
Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus, MIT and Laureate Professor, University of Arizona<br />
<br />
Laura Carlsen, Director, Americas Program, Center for International Policy<br />
<br />
Greg Grandin, Professor of History, New York University<br />
<br />
Miguel Tinker Salas, Professor of Latin American History and Chicano/a Latino/a Studies at Pomona College<br />
<br />
Sujatha Fernandes, Professor of Political Economy and Sociology, University of Sydney<br />
<br />
Steve Ellner, Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives<br />
<br />
Alfred de Zayas, former UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order and only UN rapporteur to have visited Venezuela in 21 years<br />
<br />
Boots Riley, Writer/Director of Sorry to Bother You, Musician<br />
<br />
John Pilger, Journalist & Film-Maker<br />
<br />
Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research<br />
<br />
Jared Abbott, PhD Candidate, Department of Government, Harvard University<br />
<br />
Dr. Tim Anderson, Director, Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies<br />
<br />
Elisabeth Armstrong, Professor of the Study of Women and Gender, Smith College<br />
<br />
Alexander Aviña, PhD, Associate Professor of History, Arizona State University<br />
<br />
Marc Becker, Professor of History, Truman State University<br />
<br />
Medea Benjamin, Cofounder, CODEPINK<br />
<br />
Phyllis Bennis, Program Director, New Internationalism, Institute for Policy Studies<br />
<br />
Dr. Robert E. Birt, Professor of Philosophy, Bowie State University<br />
<br />
Aviva Chomsky, Professor of History, Salem State University<br />
<br />
James Cohen, University of Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle<br />
<br />
Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, Associate Professor, George Mason University<br />
<br />
Benjamin Dangl, PhD, Editor of Toward Freedom<br />
<br />
Dr. Francisco Dominguez, Faculty of Professional and Social Sciences, Middlesex University, UK<br />
<br />
Alex Dupuy, John E. Andrus Professor of Sociology Emeritus, Wesleyan University<br />
<br />
Jodie Evans, Cofounder, CODEPINK<br />
<br />
Vanessa Freije, Assistant Professor of International Studies, University of Washington<br />
<br />
Gavin Fridell, Canada Research Chair and Associate Professor in International Development Studies, St. Mary’s University<br />
<br />
Evelyn Gonzalez, Counselor, Montgomery College<br />
<br />
Jeffrey L. Gould, Rudy Professor of History, Indiana University<br />
<br />
Bret Gustafson, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Washington University in St. LouisSuzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-14848623060036121882019-01-01T15:52:00.001-05:002019-01-01T15:52:54.145-05:002019 will continue the fight against imperialismVenezuelan President Nicolas Maduro gave the last National Address of 2018<br />
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The Venezuelan worker President Nicolas Maduro gave a speech for his people on the last address to the nation in 2018 and thanked the efforts and firm commitment of the people in defense of sovereignty and peace.<br />
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"Thanks for so much solidarity with our country, for your firm commitment with peace, for your democratic vocation," stated President Maduro of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. 2018 was the year of the institutionalization of the social programs and consolidation of rights, when the "democracy was armed," and the year when the government of the Bolivarian Revolution "demonstrated that this sacred land filled with history and future has only one owner and it the Venezuelan people."<br />
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"In 2018 we managed to reach 4 million, 300 thousand pensioners. We achieved the goal of 100 percent of pensioners. In addition, 5 million families are already included and protected in the Great Mission Homes of the Homeland," said President Nicolas Maduro.<br />
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President Nicolás Maduro reiterated the call for a dialogue with the political sectors willing to work for peace and stability in Venezuela. He also thanked his people "because, in the middle of a bloody economic war, we were united in hope and faith to ourselves, we have laid the groundwork to make 2019 a year of stability and economic prosperity." This will continue with the project of the 21st Century Socialism.<br />
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Maduro also thanked Venezuelans for the Unity, "as only together will we be able to defend that what was achieved," by the Bolivarian Revolution "as well as change what needs to be changed." It Is the Venezuelan people who need to adjust the things that need to be changed, and interventionist and coup attempts won't be permitted by Venezuela. Maduro rejected any attempts that go against the principle of self-determination of the peoples.<br />
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Nicolás Maduro stated that peace is the way for Venezuela, and he agreed to meet with the opposition in new dialogue tables that will allow that peace. But peace dialogues under the rule of law and no coup attempt will be accepted. "2019 will be the year of the fight against imperialism."<br />
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<a href="https://bit.ly/2TiZzAY"></a>Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-85483519960172460312018-11-25T11:15:00.000-05:002018-11-25T11:15:11.885-05:00Being Educated is the Only Way to be Free<b><br />
International Book Fair in Venezuela</b><br />
<i>by Alicia Jrapko </i><br />
November 23, 2018 <br />
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From November 8 to 18, 2018, Venezuela was the vibrant scene of the Fourteenth International Book Fair (FILVEN) that took place in the historic center of the city of Caracas. Bolívar Square, one of the most important and recognized public spaces in Venezuela, was decorated with shelves and displays of books from all over the world. The featured country this year was Turkey. Special tribute was also paid to the Venezuelan poet Ana Enriqueta Terán, as well as to the newspaper Correo del Orinoco which was founded by Simón Bolívar in 1818.<br />
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During the fair there were 111 exhibitions with more than 565 activities including book presentations, awards and tributes, a children’s pavilion, forums, conversations and meetings, workshops, poetry recitals and artistic performances.<br />
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I had the honor of being invited to participate in FILVEN along with a group of writers, authors, editors and representatives of social movements.<br />
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I am not oblivious to what is happening in Venezuela, I read daily what the alternative and corporate media publish. And I communicate with friends who live there through social networks. Having stayed in the country for only four days, I don’t pretend in any way to be an expert on the situation in Venezuela. But I do feel the need to write some personal observations and share what I could see in that short time.<br />
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The corporate media brazenly lies about Venezuela. If you let yourself be carried away by what you read or hear in the corporate media you would think that people are starving, that the country is empty because so many people have left, and that violence is prevalent. That’s not what I saw. Let me begin by saying that Venezuela is an extremely hospitable country, and Venezuelans are a cheerful people who enjoy themselves in spite of the difficulties.<br />
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On Thursday, November 8, during the inauguration of the Book Fair, President Nicolás Maduro welcomed all ambassadors present and the national and international guests by saying, “this has been 14 continuous years of promoting publishing, the debate of ideas, freedom of thought, freedom of belief, cultural dialogue, free knowledge and free access to information and culture.” For his part, Venezuelan Minister of Culture, Ernesto Villegas, explained that the fair included an exhibition on the waves of migrants that Venezuela has received throughout its history. “Today, when a wave of induced xenophobia seeks to turn Venezuela into a bad word, we are here to vindicate the hospitable nature of Bolivar’s homeland and our indestructible brotherhood with all the peoples of the world.”<br />
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I would be lying if I said that I saw a single person sleeping in the streets of Caracas like what I see every single day a few blocks from where I live in the city of Oakland, California. Here there are thousands living under the bridges of the great highways in the richest country in the world. On the contrary, on my way from the Maiquetía Simón Bolívar International Airport to the city I was able to see with my own eyes the big housing projects which are part of the Misión Vivienda. Called repressive by the US media, Venezuela began to emphasize housing of the people with the Hugo Chávez government and continues to do so under President Maduro, with another two million housing units created for low-income people. Venezuela gets the label “repressive” because it is guilty of being a good example.<br />
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In addition to speaking in two workshops I participated in several book presentations, all very well attended, where most of the attendees were Venezuelans, who asked questions and expressed their opinions, proud that their country gave them that freedom. I have no doubt that FILVEN is an important people’s event organized by and for the Venezuelan people.<br />
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During the weekend the fair was busier with families and especially many children. On Sunday afternoon I witnessed a public cultural event full of people in the Plaza Bolívar that also touched my heart. It was an event to commemorate the life of Alí Primera, who would have been 77 years old this year. Primera was a musician, singer, composer, poet and political activist. He was and continues to be “The Singer of the Venezuelan People.” His nephew Alí Alejandro Primera, current president of the National Music Center (part of the Ministry of Culture) was in charge of the tribute, and there were also Sol Musset, singer and wife and mother of four of his children, and the renowned singer-songwriter Lilia Vera.<br />
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In the early 1980s, Alí Primera’s songs caused a sensation among those of us who admired the Nueva Canción movement. In particular I remember Techos de Cartón: “how sadly the children live in the cardboard houses … Children, color of my land, with the same scars, millionaires of worms…”<br />
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Many years have passed since Alí Primera’s departure in 1985, but Alí’s songs continue to reflect the uncertain future in which we live, with the advent of new right-wing governments on the continent.<br />
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Being part of that cultural event fills me with joy and emotion, especially seeing so many people enjoying themselves, and singing in chorus the songs of this humble man who left his voice and the heartfelt lyrics of his songs to his people.<br />
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What was clear to me is that the FILVEN represents the will of a government under attack that despite the adverse conditions is able to organize a book fair, with few resources, so that the entire population could benefit by being able to access all this culture.<br />
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Venezuela is the victim of an all-out blockade that began with an executive order from Obama when he declared Venezuela a threat to U.S. national security. The order continues under Trump but he has taken it further by implementing a blockade that affects the daily lives of all Venezuelans. In addition to the blockade, Venezuela is a victim of terrorist acts such as the one that occurred on November 4, when three members of Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Guard died after a confrontation with Colombian paramilitary groups in the border state of Amazonas.<br />
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Humanitarian crisis? What could be more humanitarian than the organization of a Book Fair for the enjoyment of a nation? One of Cuban hero José Martí’s most remembered and repeated phrase is precisely, “To be educated is the only way to be free.”<br />
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There are governments who lack the will to educate their people and seem to do everything to do just the opposite, content to have a population lacking in critical thinking. Perhaps that is why there is not a Department of Culture in the United States.<br />
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If there is one thing I brought back with me besides the hugs, the warmth and hospitality of the Venezuelan people is that VENEZUELA WANTS TO LIVE IN PEACE.<br />
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Alicia Jrapko is a co-editor of Resumen Latinoamericano, US bureau, a co-chair of the National Network on Cuba and the US coordinator of the International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity.<br />
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Article printed from www.counterpunch.org: <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org">https://www.counterpunch.org</a><br />
URL to article: https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/23/international-book-fair-in-venezuela-being-educated-is-the-only-way-to-be-free/<br />
Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-62567072416031545192018-10-19T23:20:00.000-04:002018-10-19T23:20:51.632-04:00Pres. Nicolas Maduro speaks at the United Nationa<b>Transcript of Pres. Nicolas Maduro's speech, courtesy of the Venezuelan Foreign Ministr</b>y<br />
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Ambassadors, heads of delegations of the countries members of the United Nations Organization, President-elect of the General Assembly, Mrs. Maria Fernanda Espinoza, may I extend to you the congratulations on behalf of the delegation of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela – our government – on assuming the presidency of the 73rd session of the General Assembly as the first Latin-American woman to be president of a General Assembly session. In this occasion, we have been invited to work and address an important and vital issue, entitled as follows: “Making the United Nations Relevant to All People: Global Leadership and Shared Responsibilities for Peaceful, Equitable and Sustainable Societies”. So we are here to make the United Nations relevant for all people.<br />
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This is precisely a noble purpose up to what the United Nations system has to build in light of the 21st century: a century of great opportunities and certainly a century that will make the difference regarding the human liberation processes – political liberation, peoples’ liberation – that, sooner or later, will impact significantly on the future of the United Nations Organization.<br />
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The current United Nations Organization was born at the end of Second World War (1945). During the 20th century, its configuration expressed the conflicts and forms of actions by the bipolar world of the postwar years and, after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 90s, we moved to a unipolar world.<br />
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The correlation of forces in the world, regarding the world system, has always influenced the United Nations Organization, directly. However, in order to be relevant – according to the purpose of this 73rd General Assembly – this organization has to express the wishes, the way of being, the culture, the political thinking, the strength and the hopes of the majorities in the world.<br />
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That is why Venezuela is here today; to say its truth; I bring the truth of a combative, heroic and revolutionary world; I bring the voice of a homeland that, throughout history, has refused to surrender to injustice, to the empires of the past – slaver and colonialist – and the empires of today – equally slaver and neocolonialist. I bring the voice of a heroic people that arose from the heroic resistance of the aborigines, from the indigenous peoples that for centuries resisted the domination by colonial empires. I bring the voice of the people having the honor of being the great Liberator Simon Bolivar’s home, the most important leader of a generation of liberators of the Americas, who accomplished, 200 years ago, the heroic feat of founding a continent, a region, a dream: The independent republics of this world region.<br />
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Venezuela is a historic people which is both a home and a school of republican values; a home and a school of rebelliousness; a home and a school of dignity and values such as equality; such is our obstinate homeland that for centuries has searched its Independence and sovereignty.<br />
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I speak on their behalf before this scenario which has witnessed the most evil and embarrassing attacks in the last years; for our country is a harassed and attacked country. Yesterday, in this same place, the President of the United States of North America once again attacked the noble people of Venezuela and supported, as he said, the doctrine founded by the empire of the United States 200 years ago, which determined their interventionist role, their intended role of judge, party and police of the world: the Monroe Doctrine. Yes, the president of the most powerful imperial nation, the United States of North America, was in this same place, supporting James Monroe’s doctrine, who, at that time, said “America for Americans”, meaning that the rest of America had to belong to them as the backyard for the interests of Washington elite groups that already conducted the configuration of that nation as a former colony of the British empire.<br />
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He supported the Monroe Doctrine. And you may be wondering about the reason for such fierce attack by the American power, expressed at all levels by President Donald Trump. It is a historic conflict as we have said to the world many times, as our people well knows. It is the conflict between the interventionist imperial, neocolonialist Monroe Doctrine against the historic, Independence, republican, Simon Bolivar’s doctrine, of rebelliousness, dignity, justice, liberty and equality. It is an old conflict; an old contradiction due to an imperial doctrine aimed at dominating our region. During the 19th century, it was aimed at dominating our region only; however, in the 20th century, it was intended to dominate the world and in the 21st century it tries to continue governing, conducting, blackmailing and arranging the world as if it were their property. In our region, it is a 200-year contradiction between the republican libertarian flags which, in the 19th century – the time of Simon Bolivar and the liberators – advocated for a world of equilibrium and respect and the pro imperialist and interventionist flags that promoted the domination of the region by an elite group that already had the control of the power in Washington.<br />
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It is an old conflict we know very well. Today, Venezuela is a victim of a permanent aggression in the economic, political, diplomatic and media fields by those who govern the United States of North America and support the Monroe Doctrine to justify the ideological, political and diplomatic aggression against our beloved homeland.<br />
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Our reason for being here is the reason. Why is Venezuela being politically, economically and diplomatically attacked? First of all, Venezuela has built an autonomous project of democratic revolution, social vindication, and construction of a self and new model of society, which is based on the historical roots of our nation, on the identity of our country and on the own culture of our Latin-American region.<br />
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For 20 years, they have been intended to stop the course of our history, the development of a revolutionary project that arose from the own struggle root of our people and region. Secondly – and perhaps more understandable- for global geopolitical reasons, Venezuela is the nation with the largest oil reserve of the world, internationally certified. Venezuela as founder of OPEC, Venezuela a country with 100 years of oil production, discovered and certified internationally the largest oil richness of the world; Venezuela has also significant natural and mining richness. Today, according to international standards, our country is certifying the potentially biggest gold reserve of the world.<br />
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The world must know that currently, apart from being the biggest international oil reserve, Venezuela is certifying, under international standards, the biggest gold reserve of the world and the fourth gas reserve of the world as well. The significant natural resources, important geopolitical, geo-economic and geo-strategic position have lead the oligarchies of the continent and those who dominate from Washington, to consider dominating and controlling the political power in Venezuela. In the present, Venezuela is victim of a permanent aggression.<br />
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In the economic sphere, during the last two years, Venezuela has been subjected to a set of illegal unilateral measures of economic persecution and blockade; we have been restrained from using the international currency, –the dollar- via positions of use of dominion by the authorities of the US Department of Treasury. Currently, Venezuela cannot negotiate any international transaction in dollars. Did the world know that Venezuela is persecuted from an economic, commercial and monetary point of view? Today, Venezuela is target of a set of illegal and unilateral mechanisms of economic sanctions.<br />
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Yesterday, the President of the United States announced, precisely on this same platform, new and alleged economic and financial sanctions against our country in the sanctuary of the law and international legality. Did the United Nations System know that the unilateral sanctions, using the dominion, the status of the currency and the financial persecution are considered illegal from the standpoint of international law? Venezuela is subjected to a permanent media aggression as well; attempts to forge a file have been made to justify an international intervention. We know that it is an intended international intervention, a military intervention to control our country. At global level, a file has been forged through the media against our country to pretend a humanitarian crisis that uses the United Nations concepts to justify a coalition of countries led by the Government of the United States, and their satellite governments in Latin America, to get its hands on our country. A migration crisis, that goes without saying, has been forged by several means, aimed at diverting the attention from the real migration crises in the world that show the disadvantages of the southern countries. The migratory crisis in Central America, Mexico, and Latin America arising due to the announcement of a retaining wall against our peoples, a dividing wall against them. Nobody wants to talk about this situation. A double-standard treatment has been intended over the real status of the Caribbean and Latin American migrants who have been persecuted along the border with Mexico; they have been separated from their families, their kids have been kidnapped; and no response is given about this issue or about the serious migration crisis caused by the destruction in Libya by NATO and the war against Syria, resulting in the migration of thousands of African and Middle-East brothers. It is an issue that is intentionally masked.<br />
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A global media campaign about an alleged migratory crisis in Venezuela has been deployed to justify a humanitarian intervention, as announced for years. It is a plan similar to the weapon-of mass-destruction plan used in Iraq; it is the same plan that justified the intervention in other countries, this time under a form of a great brutal psychological warfare campaign. Today, Venezuela is also the victim of a diplomatic nature aggression. Yesterday – dear brothers and sisters of the governments of the world – we witnessed direct threats to cut aid, to withdraw aid or blockade aid from the international support and aid systems for the governments and peoples of the world on the need of it by the President of the United States.<br />
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We have listened to the statements issued by several governments demanding better mechanisms to access financing, to access development to which our peoples are entitled to. Yesterday, the President of the United States, in this very platform, threatened the governments of the world to submit to its designs, to its orders and to cooperate with its policies in the United Nations system, or he would act accordingly. Venezuela has been attacked with a fierce diplomatic offensive at all of the United Nations system bodies, supported by satellite kneeled governments blackening the honor of the peoples that they are called to represent.<br />
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Venezuela has been subjected to permanent political aggression. On September 8th, the New York Times published an article evidencing the participation of officials of the White House and the government of the United States, in meetings to bring about a military coup and cause a change of government, a change of regime in Venezuela. The investigation published by the New York Times – replicated by the Times magazine, the Washington Post and the world press – simply confirmed the conspiracy, the permanent aggression by factors of the government of the United States against a constitutional and strengthened democracy; a democracy supported by the people, such as the Venezuelan democracy. We had already denounced in due course, the attempts of violence against the Constitution, the attempts of disturbances and military coups against the constitutional and revolutionary government over which I preside in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, by popular will and popular vote.<br />
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After announcing and publishing the failed attempts of disturbances and military violence – the New York Times published details on how US officials in Colombia, supported by the Colombian government and Colombian institutions, met and offered their encouragement and support for this attempted change of regime. Should the United Nations system, Should the union – I am addressing my Latin American and Caribbean brothers – Should Latin America and the Caribbean accept these methods that so hurt our region in the entire 20th century? How many military interventions? How many coup d’états? How many dictatorships were imposed during the long and dark 20th century in Latin America and the Caribbean, and who did it favor? Did it favor the Peoples? What interests did they represent? The interests of the transnational companies, the unpopular interests; long dictatorships, like Augusto Pinochet’s in Chile, were faced by our peoples due to the stubbornness of the American elites and the Monroe Doctrine to deny the right earned by ourselves to govern our countries the way we need, and build specific economic, political and cultural systems of the region.<br />
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That is why I come here, to bring the truth of a fighting people; Venezuela has been targeted by a seemingly never-ending political and media campaign. That is why we bring our homeland’s truth to this honorable UN General Assembly; after the failure published and announced by the New York Times of these illegal, unconstitutional and criminal attempts of regime change, after the democratic presidential election, last May 20th, when I, Nicolas Maduro Moros, obtained 68% of the popular votes through free elections – the 24th election in 19 years, of which 22 have been won by the revolutionary forces of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, at different levels of approval, against the opposition forces of our country; after the failure of the attempted military coups, candidacies and electoral tactics supported by Washington, with the huge electoral victory attained by the People, last August 4th, I was a victim of a terrorist attack with drones that tried to kill me in a military event on one of the main avenues in Caracas. If it had been executed as planned, it would have been a massacre, an assassination of the institutional, political and military high command of our nation, Venezuela.<br />
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On August 4th, the perpetrators, the terrorists, those who attacked me with drones – this is the first attack with drones known in the world history of terrorist violence – were captured by the security bodies and State police agencies. The 28 perpetrators were captured thanks to different investigation procedures. They are convicted and sentenced. As I informed to different governments of the world, all the investigations about that terrorist attack indicate that it was prepared, financed and planned in the territory of United States of America. I have informed to the Government of United States – by diplomatic means – the name, the responsibility and the evidences of the intellectual perpetrators, financers and planners of this serious terrorist attack. According to investigations, this attempt and the actual perpetrators – as they have admitted – were trained and prepared for months in Colombian territory under the protection and support of Colombian authorities; and according to the latest investigations and captures – as unveiled to the media – the perpetrators mentioned some of the diplomatic members of the Government of Chile, Colombia and Mexico who would help them to escape after the terrorist attack.<br />
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I would like to ask the United Nations system to appoint a special delegate of the Secretariat of the United Nations to conduct an independent investigation internationally about the implications and responsibilities of this terrorist attack perpetrated in our country. Venezuela is opened; the doors of our country and our judicial system are opened in order to determine the direct responsibilities of this aggression, the most serious in the political history of our country for its implications. They tried to provoke a chaos in our homeland, they tried to rip the State’s head off to justify a domestic struggle, a domestic violence and justify the activation of mechanisms beyond the United Nations multilateral system, of a military intervention as occurred in other countries in the past.<br />
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Officially, Venezuela proposes -Ambassador, Minister for Foreign Relations – to conduct an independent international investigation to determine the truth about these events. I have expressed to the Government of United States – who has denied its participation in the preparation and execution of these attempts -, that it will be great if they heed my call to include high-level FBI professionals and scientists in this investigation to clarify and help the Venezuelan justice to find the truth.<br />
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When I arrived in New York this the afternoon, I heard that some journalists had asked President Donald Trump if he was willing to meet with Maduro (that’s how people call me) with Nicolas Maduro, President of Venezuela. Apparently, President Donald Trump in one of his today’s interventions said that if it helps Venezuela, he was willing to do so. Well, I ratify on this platform, that despite the great historical differences, ideological and social differences – since I am a worker, a bus driver, a man of the people, I am not a rich man, I am not a millionaire – despite all the differences deemed as enormous, the President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro Moros, is willing to shake hands with the U.S President. I am willing to sit and talk about the bilateral differences and the matters of our region.<br />
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I believe so. Venezuela is a friendly country. Venezuelans do not hate the United States; on the contrary, we appreciate the United States, their culture, their arts, their society. We differ from the imperial concepts that took over the political power in Washington since the foundation of that nation.<br />
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In 1826, our Liberator Simon Bolivar said prophetically: “The United States appear to be destined by Providence to plague America with hunger and misery in the name of liberty”.<br />
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It was a prophetic vision. It was hard to see at early times the future in the 20th century. Do we have differences President Donald Trump? Of course we do. But differences lead to dialogue. Those who are different are called to put their good will and words on the table. President Donald Trump said he is worried about Venezuela, that he wants to help Venezuela.<br />
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Well, I am willing to talk, with an open agenda about the topics that the United States Government wants to discuss, with humility, frankness and honesty. As president of the Non-Aligned Movement, Venezuela raises the flags of dialogue among civilizations. As president of the Non-Aligned Movement, Venezuela permanently promotes and practices the political and international dialogue, the solution of the international conflicts through the dialogue, the understanding and the pacific uses of politics and not by force.<br />
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Venezuela is significantly experienced in bodies such as OPEC, to manage situations of divergence and build consensus and agreements. Recently, in Algeria, we attended the meeting of the OPEC monitoring committee. It was an extraordinary meeting with the representatives of the monitoring committee, since we are part of it, and the representatives of 24 States with the greatest oil reserves and producers of the world. And despite the cultural, political, geostrategic and geopolitical differences, we reached an agreement, a single voice to continue stabilizing the oil market at fair, reasonable and stable prices.<br />
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We believe in the political dialogue as a way to find solutions and solve conflicts. They have tried to demonize the Bolivarian Revolution through an unprecedented brutal campaign. First, against Commander Hugo Chavez Frias, founder of our Revolution and eternal commander in the heart of Venezuelans, and then against this humble man who is standing here, bringing the voice of a people that supports its Revolution and democratically supports its actions.<br />
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Therefore, I reaffirm the desire for international and national political dialogue. I know that governments represented in this room are interested in reaching peace with sovereignty, independence and justice in Venezuela. I welcome all those from Africa, Europe, Asia, Latin America who wish to help respecting the country’s sovereignty, without interfering in Venezuela’s internal affairs so that they can support us, join us in a process of sovereign dialogue for Venezuela’s peace, democracy, justice, future and prosperity; a noble nation which deserves peace, a future and the best.<br />
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We bring good news from a country that has not given up and shall not do so. Good news from a nation that is consolidating its democracy; good news from a country that is building its own social model, its own welfare state by means of new formulas to protect its elders, its pensioners, its children, its young people, its women, the neediest sectors, its working class. We also bring good news regarding the efforts for an economic recovery; in fact, I activated, in August, an Economic Recovery, Growth and Prosperity Program which is succeeding in placing the bases of a new economy, not dependent on oil revenues, a diversified economy, of sustainable growth and prosperity building, heading towards a new kind of social model.<br />
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We believe in a different world; our generation witnessed the so-called bipolar world, the so-called Cold War which some apparently want to bring back again through attacks against China, Russia and modest countries like Venezuela. However, provoking a fight against countries like Russia and China is a contradiction of what a humanitarian international policy should be, meaning one which recognizes the emergence of new poles of power and the need to build a multipolar world.<br />
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Venezuela is a country which advocates for and is committed to the construction of a pluripolar and multicentric world, where all the different regions (Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, Europe, and North America) can live together in balance and peace, respecting our cultures, religions, idiosyncrasies, identities and economic and political models. There is not a unique economic model; we must not allow the imposition of a single cultural model, a single political model; they intend to impose a single thought for humanity. I say no. We vindicate the cultural, religious and political diversity of humanity of this world. Therefore, in the Non-aligned Movement, we advocate for the emergence of such a world of justice.<br />
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We assume and declare our solidarity with the Arab people of Palestine; justice shall arrive to Palestine so that their historic territories, established in 1967 by this United Nations Organization, are respected.<br />
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We carry with us the flag of the Palestinian people. We support the UN call for an end to the infamous and criminal 50-year-blockade against the Cuban people. We have had enough of anachronistic methods that they intend to continue imposing against the Cuban people, and now against other peoples like Venezuela.<br />
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So we raise our two hands to vote on the United Nations Resolution, which in the next few days will be carried out to reject the blockade and economic-financial persecution against Cuba, and demand its immediate lifting, in a world to be built, in a world to be made.<br />
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200 years ago, our region was plagued by colonies, slavery and injustice. 100 years ago, as peoples, we struggled for freedom. Today, in the 21st century, the moment has come, the opportunity has come. Undoubtedly, in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, with Simon Bolivar’s revolutionary ideas, with the example and legacy of Commander Hugo Chavez – whose voice still resonates here in this room demanding justice and justice for the world, demanding the cessation of the imperial practices of threats, coercion and extortion against peoples – we can say that in 20 years of revolution, the last 3 have been the hardest years: years of harassment, aggressions and attacks.<br />
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Today, on September 26th, 2018, I can say that we have faced political, media, diplomatic, economic and financial persecutions, but I also can say that today Venezuela is stronger than ever. We have learnt how to resist and draw the strength from our historic roots to stand up, victorious and willing to continue advancing in the construction of our own social model, which it is the Socialist Revolution of the 21st century; we say it to the four winds, it is a new revolution, of independence, dignity and justice.<br />
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Today, we are stronger than ever. Yes, I was a witness, we were witnesses two days ago of the tribute to Nelson Mandela; speaking about Mandela is speaking about rebellion. Many people have tried to create a wrong picture of Mandela like a dump person, somebody who did not fight. Mandela is synonym of rebellion against injustice, bravery, courage and the challenge to the oppressors. We are followers of Nelson Mandela’s legacy and the great African leaders who have raised the struggle for equality, justice and against slavery, racism and colonialism in all its forms.<br />
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We saw the tribute to Nelson Mandela and we thought how much this world has changed. Just 30 years ago Mandela was considered a terrorist by the United States Congress and the North American governments. Just a few years ago Nelson Mandela was still on the list of sanctioned people. It may sound familiar to you: Nelson Mandela, the terrorist, the sanctioned, the persecuted, and the abandoned. The world has changed a lot since then. Currently, Nelson Mandela is a flag that we embrace with love, with conviction. He is a symbol of what it is possible to do if the rebellion, the struggle, and justice are able to conquer the noble hearts and minds of the peoples.<br />
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I trust in the future of humanity, in the destiny of my country, in the common future of this community represented here in the United Nations Organization, and I must say, after having resisted coup d’état attempts, terrorist attacks, that: I trust the human being, the future of humanity. Venezuela says to the United Nations: We trust in the noble ideals of the Venezuelan people that do not give up, and will not surrender. Thank you very much, dear compatriots of the world. Count on Venezuela for the great causes of the future of this organization, and the future of a multipolar world! Good evening to all of you, thank you.<br />
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Source: https://gadebate.un.org/en/73/venezuela-bolivarian-republicSuzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-49634435957083234282018-09-26T15:00:00.000-04:002018-09-26T15:00:53.724-04:00US Disregard for International Law is a Menace to Latin America<br />
<i>by Nino Pagliccia </i><br />
<br />
At the 25th U.N. session of October 1970, the General Assembly adopted a resolution titled 'Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation Among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.' Not too many people would know that, therefore I think it is important to remember what those principles are (emphasis added):<br />
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* The principle that states shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.<br />
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* The principle that states shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered.<br />
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* The principle concerning the duty not to intervene in matters within the domestic jurisdiction of any state, in accordance with the Charter.<br />
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* The duty of states to co-operate with one another in accordance with the Charter.<br />
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* The principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.<br />
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* The principle of sovereign equality of states.<br />
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* The principle that states shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the Charter.<br />
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<b>The OAS Charter has similar principles</b><br />
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I have often criticized the U.N. for being ineffective and I still stand by that. I am going out on a limb by saying that the more 'principles' and 'resolutions' the U.N. issues, the more military interventions, invasions, terrorist actions, incitation to violence, wars, and of course punitive economic sanctions have occurred in the last 40 or more years. <br />
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However, I must clarify that a world organization like the U.N. is necessary, albeit one that should be radically modified to really live up to its promise stated in the principles listed above. At least one principle should be essential: the principle of sovereign equality of states.<br />
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But I don't think I am going out on a limb when I say that only one country, among the 193 U.N. member states, stands out as having committed consistently and relentlessly the large majority of international infractions: the United States.<br />
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Many of its infractions are clearly apparent. Many others occur behind the cover of 'diplomacy,' such as incitement to rebellion and coups, bribery and corruption. Often, the U.N. and other international bodies, including embassies, are the preferred venues for fomenting subversion. It is not unusual that this type of unlawful activity would also be 'delegated' to some so-called civil society organization or NGO.<br />
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Today we are seeing blatant examples of U.S. unlawful behavior to the point that it is a serious menace to Venezuela and the rest of Latin America. <br />
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<b>Overcoming Sanctions</b><br />
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I have already referred to the U.S. sanctions and their connection to the U.S.-centered financial system in the context of the recent monetary conversion in Venezuela. But unilateral U.S. sanctions have become the economic version of an epidemic. Cuba, Russia, Iran, Syria, and North Korea are current targets.<br />
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It is to be noted that the United States and other countries have consistently issued sanctions against Venezuela every time the Maduro government has undertaken important policy measures, the last one being issued on May 21 a day after Nicolas Maduro was re-elected president.<br />
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What is striking this time is that after the major monetary revolution, initiated by the Maduro government on Aug. 21, not a single new sanction has been issued. Surprisingly, one can say that U.S. sanctions stand out for their absence. This can have two possible interpretations. <br />
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The immediate one is that the Venezuelan monetary conversion, pegging their currency to the largest Venezuelan oil resources through the cryptocurrency Petro, is successfully rendering sanctions avoidable to a certain extent, and therefore less effective economic weapons. The United States dollar may be losing its thunder as the world's reserve currency with the consequent weakening of the U.S. financial system that is at the core of economic sanctions. <br />
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Other countries threatened by U.S. sanctions like Iran and Iraq are taking notice and are considering similar monetary policies dropping the dollar in their bilateral trade transactions. China and U.S.-sanctioned Russia are also increasing their financial interaction away from the dollar. The president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was more adamant, declaring: "Now we have to gradually end the domination of the dollar once and for all by using national money among us."<br />
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Even some opposition economists foresee that a more independent Venezuelan economy will free itself of the crippling foreign-induced inflation. And this can only lead to a healthy recovery in terms of availability of essential products. The prospect of economic recovery is quite real, as suggested by the positive response of the Venezuelan private sector. But a more encouraging sign is the willingness of many Venezuelans, who had left, to return home and are now receiving logistical support from the Maduro government to come back. We are seeing a 'migration crisis' myth destroyed.<br />
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This scenario will not only be a bad example for other nations, but it will also destroy other myths to justify a regime change in Venezuela such as 'humanitarian crisis.' No such thing has any real foundation, as recently reported by the U.N. independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, Alfred de Zayas, to the 39th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council.<br />
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<b>Military Intervention and Proxy War</b><br />
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So, given that sanctions are being overcome and are not anymore, at least for now, the weapon of choice of the United States for regime change in Venezuela, we are left with a second possible scenario that the United States is preparing for another course of action: military intervention or, equivalently, a proxy war. This would be a tragic decision and should sound an alarm to all Venezuela observers and governments of the region. There has never been a U.S. military intervention that has brought any positive outcome to the population anywhere. All 'gains' are only assured for U.S. corporations.<br />
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The latest report that the United States is somehow involved in building a Venezuelan military rebellion comes from the New York Times: "The Trump administration held secret meetings with rebellious military officers from Venezuela over the last year to discuss their plans to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro."<br />
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How is the military intervention to take place and what would the reaction be?<br />
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If we are to learn from past U.S. interventions in other conflict zones, the United States may not put its own troops on the ground in Venezuela, at least initially, but more likely will provide full logistic, intelligence and weaponry support to 'rebels.' This requires a 'rebel force' that is so far non-existent, despite attempts to manufacture one that gives the impression of 'hundreds' of Venezuelan military 'disaffected' with the Maduro administration.<br />
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However, in this possible scenario, infiltration attacks, including sabotage, would come from Colombia and less likely, for now, from Brazil due to the upcoming elections in October. But in the likelihood that Jair Bolsonaro is the winning Brazilian candidate, Venezuela will face two right-wing governments in the two border countries. They would be fully-prompted by the United States to act and they would comply. The Venezuelan border states to watch are Tachira, Zulia and Bolivar.<br />
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Ahead of an overt military intervention or proxy war, we will see an increase in the infowar that is already being waged against Venezuela. The current infowar is the overstated 'exodus' of Venezuelans. One detailed study clearly shows that there is no 'migration crisis.' <br />
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Although no conclusion can be drawn at this point about a U.S. military intervention, the history of Latin America shows that it cannot be excluded. It is dependent on three main conditions: the creation of a U.S.-style 'plausible reason' to intervene (mostly done), a local real or made-up rebel group (still underway), and enough support from a majority of regional and international governments (not quite likely yet). The Venezuelan representative at the U.N., Samuel Moncada, tweeted a few days ago that the "United States is pushing Brazil, Chile, Peru and Colombia to war, demanding to make the tough decision to start the aggression."<br />
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This leads to the question of what the reaction in the Latin American and Caribbean region and beyond would be.<br />
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So far, the little over a dozen countries of the so-called Lima Group have hijacked the voice of the OAS, inciting regime change at all cost. But that is still a minority of the 35 OAS member states.<br />
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<i>The Trump administration must weigh its decision very carefully. Tilting the balance towards a military intervention could create a serious backlash in the region, not only political, but also social, with prolonged conflicts.</i><br />
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Beyond the region, Washington must consider the possible reactions from Moscow and Beijing. Russia and China have developed close economic and business ties in Latin America and Venezuela in particular. China is now the fourth-largest destination for Venezuelan oil.<br />
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Realistically, the most important point for the United States to consider is the reaction of the Venezuelan people. The U.S. government is misinforming the international community about the lack of support for the Maduro government in Venezuela, however, it must have firsthand information about the following facts: 1) a large majority of the Venezuelan population is indeed a very cohesive democratic and constitutional society; 2) Venezuela has a loyal National Bolivarian Militia with about half a million personnel whose main function is to 'establish permanent links between the National Bolivarian Armed Forces and the Venezuelan people, in order to contribute to ensuring the overall defense of Venezuela.'<br />
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<b>Concluding Thoughts<br />
</b><br />
In a fair international community of nations truly based on U.N. principles for the sake of peace, the United States would abide by the first principle listed above: “that states shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State”. But the United States has not and will not. Its only principle seems to be that of exceptionalism. It is determined to suffer the isolation of a bully state.<br />
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Unfortunately, the United States' reckless actions have consequences not only for the 30 million people of Venezuela but also for the rest of the region. <br />
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Venezuela has initiated a process that promises to effectively reduce the impact of unilateral and punitive economic sanctions slapped on the country, and begin an economic recovery process. A possible sign that Venezuela's monetary reform may have outmaneuvered the United States is that there have been no new sanctions against Venezuela since May from the United States or other countries.<br />
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However, this is not a complete victory for Venezuela. A more serious threat may lie ahead. Based on a recent report by the New York Times, this danger has been brewing for some time, and judging by at least one analysis, it is fast approaching in the form of a possible military intervention whose final outcome is not clear yet.<br />
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There have been several threats from the Trump administration in the past so it is clear that today military action against Venezuela cannot be ruled out. Venezuela has always taken any threat to its national security seriously and has responded diplomatically and publicly with protests. It has just done so once again, with the stated intention of informing public opinion that the United States is breaking international law on top of U.N. and OAS principles.<br />
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A military intervention, direct or through proxies, will not be a guaranteed success for the United States. The claim in the New York Times that a "few hundred" Venezuelan troops may be disaffected is neither credible nor sufficient to confront a loyal population as the attempted coup against Hugo Chavez in 2002 proved. Further, it would trigger a chain reaction of events never seen before. In this emerging multipolar world, the involvement of Russia and China cannot be excluded; if not militarily, at least politically.<br />
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But this is a situation where Venezuela cannot wait or hope for any immediate help except from its own people, and it has to lean on the side of caution. The price of misjudging the danger may be too high.<br />
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<b>There can be no doubt that the Bolivarian Armed Forces and the National Bolivarian Militia are on full alert and ready. <br />
</b><br />
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<i>Nino Pagliccia is a Venezuelan-Canadian activist and writer based in Vancouver, Canada. He writes about international relations with a focus on the Americas and is editor of 'Cuba Solidarity in Canada – Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations.'</i><br />
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<a href="https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/US-Disregard-for-International-Law-is-a-Menace-to-Latin-America-20180912-0024.html?utm_source=planisys&utm_medium=NewsletterIngles&utm_campaign=NewsletterIngles&utm_content=35"></a>Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-8230469651114108692018-09-10T10:58:00.002-04:002018-09-10T16:03:29.686-04:00DANGER: President Trump still considering military option in Venezuela<b>Venezuela decries reported meetings between U.S. officials and coup plotters</b><br />
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Venezuela is responding angrily to a report in The New York Times that details alleged secret meetings between Trump administration officials and Venezuelan military officers seeking to oust the country's authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro.<br />
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"We denounce before the international community the intervention plans and the support of military plots by the United States government," Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Jorge Arreaza said in a tweet.<br />
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The secret meetings, which NPR has not independently confirmed, were reported by <i>Times</i> journalists Ernesto Londoño and Nicholas Casey on Saturday based on interviews with 11 current and former U.S. officials and a former Venezuelan military commander.<br />
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Speaking to Weekend Edition Sunday, Londoño said the meetings started after President Trump made a remark last August that he was not ruling out the possibility of a military option against Maduro's government.<br />
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"Down in Caracas there were some senior members of the military who had soured on Nicolas Maduro and they perked up when they heard this. They wondered if the Trump administration might be willing to help them overthrow their commander in chief," Londoño said. "They reach out discreetly overseas, they approach a U.S. Embassy and they ask for a meeting."<br />
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<b>Here's more from Londoño:</b><br />
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"At the White House, officials take a look at this and they weigh the pros and cons, and ultimately they decided they wanted to hear from these guys, they wanted to meet with them. So over the course of at least three secret meetings that happen abroad, an American diplomat established a back channel with these dissident officers.<br />
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"At one point, the Venezuelans ask if the United States would give them encrypted radios, they said they needed to have a means to communicate more securely. Washington takes this into account and ultimately decides not too. And as we understand it, there are in recent months a series of plans that are set in motion to detain Nicholas Maduro and oust his government, however, there are leaks and none of these plans succeed and now several of the plotters are behind bars."<br />
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Maduro routinely accuses the U.S. government of plotting against him, and this is likely to embolden those claims.<br />
U.S. officials are not publicly confirming or denying the Times account.<br />
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"U.S. policy preference for a peaceful, orderly return to democracy in Venezuela remains unchanged," National Security Council spokesperson Garrett Marquis said in a statement. "A lasting solution to Venezuela's worsening crisis can only arise following restoration of governance by democratic practices, the rule of law, and respect for fundamental human rights and freedoms."<br />
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<b>Venezuela detains six people following attempt on Maduro's life</b><br />
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According to the Times, one of the Venezuelan officials who took part in the talks is on the U.S. government sanctions list.<br />
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"He and other members of the Venezuelan security apparatus have been accused by Washington of a wide range of serious crimes, including torturing critics, jailing hundreds of political prisoners, wounding thousands of civilians, trafficking drugs and collaborating with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States," the Times reported.<br />
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Last month, Maduro was giving a speech when a drone carrying explosives detonated near the podium. As NPR's Scott Neuman reported, he blamed opposition politicians for the apparent failed assassination attempt.<br />
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The country is sinking deeper into crisis. Hyperinflation is rocking the economy and there's a shortage of basic necessities. Tens of thousands of people are fleeing to neighboring countries in light of the increasing desperation.<br />
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The Times story will not be greeted warmly among other Latin American countries because of the long history of U.S. intervention in the area, reports NPR's Philip Reeves: "Most oppose Maduro, but recoil at any suggestion of a U.S.-backed coup or military options."<br />
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<a href="http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/09/10/vene-s10.html"></a><br />
Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-18580787536501959772018-08-05T22:37:00.000-04:002018-08-05T22:37:43.578-04:00President Maduro blames the Miami-Bogotá axis for the attack against him<br />
Caracas, 05 Aug. AVN - The President of the Venezuelan Republic, Nicolás Maduro, denounced the Venezuelan opposition and the ultra right of Miami, U.S. and Colombia along with their outgoing President Juan Manuel Santos, of planning the assassination attempt against himself this Saturday.<br />
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"It was an attempt to kill me. They have tried to assassinate me today and I have no doubt that everything points to the Venezuelan ultra right in alliance with the Colombian ultra right, and that Juan Manuel Santos is also behind this attack, I have no doubt," the president said. <br />
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Maduro announced advances in the investigations and said that the first indications point to Bogota, and financiers who reside in Florida, United States.<br />
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"I hope that the Trump government is willing to fight these terrorist groups," Maduro said while indicating that the attack came days after statements by Santos, who said he "sees strong evidence" of the president's departure from office. Maduro said that the attack -orchestrated with flying devices with explosives, took place as he gave a final message at the celebration of the 81th anniversary of founding of the Bolivarian National Guard. He spoke on Avenida Bolivar in Caracas denouncing the sabotage to the electrical system, and defended the economic recovery program and the National Transportation Census.<br />
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The Venezuelan president mentioned that the first explosion was attributed to a failure in the launching of fireworks prepared for the end of the event, however seconds later another explosion was heard behind the platform, towards the right side. It was an attack meant to kill Maduro and that wounded seven soldiers.<br />
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"My first reaction was one of observation, of serenity, because I have full confidence in the people and in the loyalty of the Armed Forces. God protects me but on earth the people and the Armed Forces are the ones who protect me," Maduro said.<br />
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<b>Justice</b><br />
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Pres. Maduro said that the security investigations were in place to retrieve pertinent information, and the perpetrators of the attack were rapidlyapprehended.<br />
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"Some of the material witnesses have been already processed. Evidence has been collected; the investigations are going well." Maduro assured.<br />
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He pointed out that "what they (U.S. and Columbia) did in attempt to destroy the revolution will remain in the memory of history." In addition, he said that the people gained a new understanding in the process of this experience. <br />
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<b>Revolutionary revitalization</b><br />
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After the attempted assassination, the head of state said he is more determined to fight, reinspire the Bolivarian Revolution and "win by the only way we can, the path of peace, and the Constitution."<br />
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Pres. Maduro insisted that peace, tranquility, development and prosperity will triumph in Venezuela with the economic recovery program that includes monetary reconversion and other measures recently taken.<br />
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"I tell opponents that they should want to live in Venezuela because that I am the guarantor of peace for them. If someday the right wing did harm me, they would face millions of humble workers and peasants, and soldiers in the streets doing justice by their own hands," Maduro said.Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-9203976263396500672018-05-23T15:44:00.000-04:002018-05-23T15:44:07.683-04:00A conspiracy to overthrow the democratic and popular government of Nicolás Maduro<br />
Published in the <i>American Herald Tribune</i><br />
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Dr. María Páez Víctor: “The USA Has Opposed, Destabilized, Overthrown or Assassinated Every Progressive Reformer That Has Appeared On the Political Scene in the Region For More Than a Century”<br />
<b><br />
Mohsen Abdelmoumen:</b> Can you tell us what the current situation is in Venezuela?<br />
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<b>Dr. María Páez Víctor:</b> There are 6 key issues to understanding the situation in Venezuela.<br />
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<b>1. Petroleum:</b>The first thing to understand is that it is all about the oil. Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves in the world in a highly strategic geographical location. It takes 43 days for an oil tanker to travel from the Middle East to the Texas refineries, while it only takes 4 days for one to go from Venezuela there. The oil companies, and governments they support, covet Venezuelan oil. If the country only produced mangos no one would care what happened there. The Venezuelan government took control of its oil company (PDVSA), opened up private/partnership contracts for oil exploitation but with the state owning the majority shares, made them pay taxes that had been at 1% for 60 years. The oil income –instead being distributed to elite businesses- has been used to fund the necessary public services that for decades had failed to meet the needs of the population.<br />
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<b>2. Sovereignty:</b> A government that does not tow the USA line, does not kowtow to the neo-liberal dictates of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, insisting that its people are sovereign and will decide their own future and aspires to build a socialist, humanist society, will not be tolerated by the remaining super-power. Especially one from the region the USA still considers its “back yard”. How dare the Venezuelan government nationalize its natural resources, pull its army out of the infamous Military School of the Americas, and sell its oil to other countries not exclusively to the USA!<br />
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<b>3. Economic warfare:</b> There is a systematic, strategic plan devised by Washington to deny Venezuelans food and medicines. Its executors are the large corporations, commercial elite and the banks. It could not be clearer. In 1972-73 the USA, outraged that Dr. Salvador Allende, a Communist had fairly won the elections in Chile, vowed to get rid of him. President Nixon famously said: we will make the economy of Chile scream. And so it happened. Before the awful coup that took Allende’s life, the economy of Chile was subject to hoarding, induced scarcity, inflation, monetary manipulations, sabotage and contraband. It is the same scenario in Venezuela but even worse. It is now 5 years of economic warfare, whereby Venezuelan economic elites, lackeys of foreign powers, are so thoroughly financially backed they can implement the hoarding, sabotage, warehousing, monetary manipulation, financial exclusion, and contraband.<br />
<b><br />
4. Corrupt, racist elite:Venezuela’s elite</b> controlled the government for years – they were the beneficiaries of all the petroleum income. During 40 years they appropriated and ill spent the equivalent of 12 Marshall Plans. In 1999 when President Hugo Chávez was elected, poverty was between 60-80% and extreme poverty and malnutrition affected one third of the nation. The Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela has dramatically reduced poverty, malnutrition, homelessness, and has provided universal health care and free education from daycare to university. It has built these last few years, 2 million public housing units.<br />
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The Venezuelan elite has shown by its appalling violence in opposition that it is selfish, vile, and racist, to the point of paying criminals to set fire to public buildings, killing passersby, attacking a maternity hospital, throwing grenades from a helicopter at the Supreme Court, destroying public busses and most horrific, setting fire to young men “who looked Chavista”, in other words, they were dark skinned. These elite do not care how much their own people suffer so long as the foreign powers hand them over the government they are incapable of winning at the polls. Main opposition leaders have travelled the world asking powerful countries to sanction and isolate diplomatically and financially their own country, not caring that food and medicines would become scarce.<br />
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5. Excellent election process:</b> It is outrageous, even in this political climate of lies and misinformation, that anyone could consider that Venezuelan government is not democratic and President Maduro is a dictator. In 19 years there have been 23 different elections, all monitored by domestic and international witnesses and the government has won most but also lost a few. And, most relevantly, the ex-president of the USA, Jimmy Carter declared in 2012 that: “As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.” The anti-fraud protection of the system is very effective as each vote has three guarantees: fingerprint, an electronic vote and a paper receipt. Furthermore, there is a robust presence of domestic and international observers. Ironically, the USA, Canada, nor most European countries accept international observers to their elections.<br />
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6. Presidential elections on 20 May 2018:</b> The USA and its allies are involved in subversion and disqualification of Venezuela’s democracy by discrediting the coming 20 May presidential elections. After aggressively demanding these elections, now they decry them and demand they stop– because they know the majority of Venezuelans support their own government.<br />
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In an astonishing example of colonial mentality hypocrisy, the European Parliament on May 3 passed a resolution (492 in favor, 87 against, 77 abstentions) demanding that Venezuela suspend the presidential elections. European arrogance obviously stretches to demanding that another country (even one outside Europe!) disregard its own rule of law, its electoral regulations and its negotiated arrangements with the leaders of their opposition.<br />
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The USA, Canada, the European Union, the OEA and the so-called Lima group of lackey right wing governments of the region, are attacking the very elections that last year they had clamored to take place. The Venezuelan laws prescribe that the elections were to take place in December 2018 but they wanted the elections last year. The government negotiated with the opposition in the Dominican Republic and an April 2018 date was agreed upon. The opposition asked for more time; the government again agreed and they settled on the 20 May 2018 date. <br />
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Now the European Union, says it “does not accept” the elections because there are no “guarantees” without specifying what they mean, they ask for a “return to the constitutional order” without allusion or attempt to know and understand Venezuelan laws and Constitution.<br />
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Actually, it is the USA strategy of abstention that the main opposition leaders are following so that the elections can be disqualified. They refused to stand for election and are urging the people NOT to vote. The government has repeatedly asked these opposition parties to stand for election. They are trying to demonize an otherwise sterling electoral system. In sum, it is a montage, a theater scenario to continue to demonize, antagonize, and sanction a government they wish to overthrow. Fortunately, the opposition is all divided among themselves, and a few leaders are running in the elections, despite the fierce criticism of their own fellow oppositionists.<br />
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Meanwhile, a most respected polling company in Venezuela has had some recent interesting results related to the presidential elections of May 20:<br />
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- 86% of Venezuelans reject any international intervention in the country<br />
- 70% of Venezuelans say they are going to participate in the elections – this is another defeat for the section of the opposition, Washington backed, that is calling for abstention<br />
- 55% state they will vote for Maduro<br />
- 11% state they will vote for Henri Falcon<br />
- 2% state they will vote for Javier Bertucci<br />
- 50% state that they consider the workings of the National Constitutional Assembly as: “Very Good, Good, or Regular to Good”<br />
- 71% consider that Maduro will win the elections. (2May 2018, TELESUR)<br />
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There is strong confidence that democracy in Venezuela is alive and well, and that is why the USA, Canada, European Union and its allies are afraid of it.<br />
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In summary USA and its allies in Canada and Europe are involved in a conspiracy to overthrow the democratic and popular government of Nicolás Maduro because they want to control the richest deposit of petroleum in the world that lies in Venezuela and they want a sheepish, obedient government that will accept the bribes and allow the USA and its multinational corporations to rule and oppress the Venezuelan people as they did in the past 40 years before President Hugo Chávez.<br />
<i><br />
How do you explain the relentlessness of US imperialism to destabilize all the progressive governments of Latin America?</i><br />
<i><br />
Is there an adequate explanation for greed, prejudice and the hubris of wanting to dominate the world? <br />
</i><br />
There is the question of natural resources, which the USA needs for its voracious type of capitalism. They have used up or are losing resources due to reckless lack of environmental protections and unbridled consumerism. The Latin American region sparkles with untold riches – another El Dorado for this “savage capitalism” as Chavez called it.<br />
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The USA’s quest for power is masked under the idea of its “exceptionalism”, similar to that of the British Empire’s taking on “the white man’s burden” as excuses for oppressing other nations. There is a historical record, clear evidence, that the USA has opposed, destabilized, overthrown or assassinated every progressive reformer that has appeared on the political scene in the region for more than a century. Its aggressive policies started back in the 19th century when it openly stole from Mexico by wars and duplicity 50% of its present southwestern lands that include California, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas and Oklahoma. <br />
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The Monroe Doctrine is a document of blatant colonialism in which the USA attributes to itself the “protection” of the region. The creation of the Organization of American States is the implement by which the USA has maneuvered to impose its policies on the region and the sinister School of the Americas the means by which it controlled the armed forces of the different countries. The IMF and the WB became the poisonous lure by which their economies were ensnared by usury. The USA’s relentlessness is a mix of greed -in wanting their natural resources and expansion for its capitalist corporations - and also prejudice. Its racist proclivity goes very deep into USA culture and history. <br />
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The remnants of its bloody Civil War remain visible today in the treatment of Black citizens, who are disproportionally imprisoned and killed by police. Latin American and Caribbean black and brown people seem to be viewed as lesser beings. Just recently President Trump referred to Mexicans as criminals and rapists and to African nations as “shithole” countries.<br />
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<i>What is your analysis of the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff and the imprisonment of President Lula? In your opinion, is it a coincidence that President Lula is imprisoned when all the polls gave him victory in the future Brazilian elections? Do you not think that this is a vulgar manipulation and a plot?</i><br />
<br />
We are witnessing the corruption of the very framework of democracy, as we have understood it so far. It is called LAWFARE, by which parliament and judicial powers are manipulated in such a way to eliminate political opponents and make a mockery of a people’s electoral preferences. This is how Dilma Rousseff, Lula, and Cristina Fernandez have been sidelined. They are trying to do the same to Rafael Correa who even out of power is considered a threat. They try to do the same to President Maduro by holding ridiculous extra-territorial trials trying to manipulate international laws. Nothing of this has to do with justice or democracy, but for eliminating powerful political opponents by other means than elections because the right wing cannot get the popular vote. Their bigotry, narrowness, “austerity measures” to reduce the welfare state, all are issues that do not make people want to vote for them, unless, of course, they lie about what they intend to do (like Macri and Lenin Moreno did).<br />
<br />
Lawfare is twisting and deforming the rule of law, which is a very dangerous thing to do. These right-wingers do not respect the rules of representative democracy. In order to control the government administration they are prepared to bash the pillars of the State itself. In their corruption, to suit their ambitions, they bring into disrepute the Judicial Power and the Legislative Power. This will inevitably lead the left wing, progressive government (and they will come to power again) to re-write the rules of democracy by strengthening Participatory Democracy, by democratizing the banks and the media both which have prostituted themselves in the altar of unbridled fawning before the powerful and, by implementing new creative laws to protect the human rights and will of the people.<br />
<br />
<i>How do you explain the fact that the far right is coming back in force in Latin America, especially in Brazil and Argentina, after having progressive governments?</i><br />
<br />
Some progressive governments, notably Brazil, Argentina and even Ecuador, believed that winning the political elections was power enough. They were playing with a deck of cards that they did not realize were marked against them. The power of the right wing (and their foreign backers) was underestimated, and the foreign influence was not checked. For example, despite knowledge that the USA embassy staff meet with the opposition, awarded them and financing them, little effectively was done for many years. Foreign consultants and foreign money flowed to opposition NGOs. None of this would have TOLERATED in the USA, Canada or Europe. In Brazil, the political change under Lula was not reflected in structural legal changes, like they were in Venezuela and a strong alliance with social movements was faulty.<br />
<br />
One of the first things President Chávez did was call for a new Constitution that was crucial to carry out the kind of change that the country needed. As well, in Venezuela the social movements of every sort (indigenous, agrarian, cultural, student, gender focused, workers, etc.) were incorporated as actors in the political scene, this led to a deep “conscientisation” (as the famed Brazilian educator Paulo Freire would have said) in which a people become conscious of their oppression, of their situation in the political sphere and begin to act as a united class unto itself (as Marx would have said). This happened less in the other countries where the right wing came back into power. But experience and necessity are great teachers, and the people in the countries where today the right wing have control will soon take a different course.<br />
<br />
<b>The truth is that it is the left wing governments that repeatedly restore human rights and protect democracy in the region.</b> <br />
The right-wing governments in Latin America today are unable to command the popular vote and have come to power through corruption (Peru, Colombia, Panamá), fraud (México), coup d’état (Honduras) and with parliamentary and legal coups (Brazil, Paraguay). Macri and Ecuador under Moreno being the only exceptions, as they clearly won the elections, but some would say by masking their real intentions. We will see a new “red tide” and sooner rather than later in the region as once people have tasted sovereignty, they are not likely to crawl back to their chains.<br />
<i><br />
We have information about the presence of Daesh terror elements that will be used against what remains of progressive governments in Latin America, for example Venezuela. Do you have any information about this?</i><br />
<br />
I have no personal information, only what people along the border with Colombia have told me: the danger of continuous raids by paramilitary, the murder of community leaders by said paid killers, and the blatant organized contraband that occurs there. Colombia has a terrifying history of violence, murder and massacre. Just last week collective graves were found in that country with 9000 bodies. The cooperation of the Colombian army with paramilitary and narco-traffic mafias is legendary. And with seven USA military bases in Colombia, it is not at all unlikely that there are plans to unleash terror in Venezuela to overthrow the government. Currently, there are 3000 Colombian troops at the border, sent there, according to Colombian President Santos, in readiness for a “humanitarian” intervention in Venezuela. If any kind of invasion happens there will be full-scale war and it will engulf the region.<br />
<b><br />
There is no "humanitarian crisis" in Venezuela</b><br />
<br />
One important news that the world press has refused to publish is that just a few weeks ago the United Nations independent official rapporteur, Professor Alfred M. Zayas has most emphatically declared that there is no “humanitarian crisis” in Venezuela despite media reports and generalizations. “…the population does not suffer from hunger as for example in many countries of Africa and Asia – or even in the favelas of São Paolo and other urban areas in Brazil and other Latin American countries...“humanitarian crisis” can be easily exploited to justify “regime change”, under the pretext that the government lets the population starve. Some states pretend that the Venezuelan government can no longer guarantee the rights of the people. Hence, a humanitarian crisis emerged and now they want to intervene militarily to “save” the Venezuelan people from a failed socialist experiment.”(venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13614)<br />
<i><br />
I interviewed her Excellency the Ambassador of Venezuela to Belgium and the European Union, Mrs. Claudia Salerno Caldera, and I asked her about the possibility of a US military intervention in Venezuela. She answered me in the affirmative. Do you think that the US can intervene militarily against the legitimate government of President Maduro?</i><br />
<br />
With such an unbalanced fellow in the White House any recklessness is possible. However, I think that they would use Colombian troops and possibly from Brazil and Guyana. Why risk your own soldiers when you have easy cannon fodder available to you from such willing, debased governments?<br />
<br />
However, Colombia is having presidential elections on May 27th that is 7 days after the Venezuelan elections (May 20). This means the Colombian government cannot invade Venezuela before this date lest it risk its electoral campaign, which is not looking good for the government. As well, there are millions of Colombians who feel favorably towards a Venezuela that has treated so well their 2 million compatriots that now reside there. So a Colombian incursion inside Venezuela may also risk serious domestic unrest for the government, this is certainly what has stopped Colombia from entering Venezuela all these years.<br />
<br />
The Colombian army is three times the size of the Venezuelan army. It is experienced in war as it has been battling guerrilas for 50 years, and it has resources and arms available to them through the seven USA army bases stationed there. However, it is largely a demoralized army that does not have a quarter of the morale and determination of Venezuela’s army, the army of Bolívar. And anyone who knows about military matters will tell you that an army’s morale is crucial for success. Furthermore, Venezuela has a united, inspired and very proud people that will fiercely defend its land.<br />
<br />
The Venezuelan government also is not alone; it has the backing of many non-aligned countries, of China and Russia, and not the least, most of the Caribbean, including of course, Cuba. Russia and China have both cautioned the USA not to interfere in the government of Venezuela. Their investments in Venezuela are substantial and they would not stand by to see Venezuela invaded. These investments are very welcomed by Latin American countries as they do not come with policy “strings attached” as the IMF and WB investments do. They are another sore issue for the USA.<br />
<br />
<i>How do you explain the sanctions that the United States and the European Union want to impose to the legitimate government of President Maduro?</i><br />
<br />
The USA sanctions are part of their economic war against Venezuela. They are a violation of international law: they are against the charters of the UN and the OAS, against the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant of Economic, Civil and Cultural Rights and constitute a crime against humanity because they are intentionally creating suffering of people. In short, they are immoral as they prevent the country from buying food and medicines.<br />
<br />
The Canadian and European governments are shamefully bowing to a most ignorant and venal president of the USA. Venezuela means nothing to these countries, so they think: “Let’s give Trump his pet peeve and let him have Venezuela. These sanctions do not affect us at all, and maybe we can get on the “good” side of Trump.” Pathetically, they think he has a good side. Canada is bending backwards to please Trump so he won’t trash the NAFTA agreement and the European Union still thinks Trump is a worthy ally. One would expect that allies, USA-friendly governments such as these, would try to influence a neophyte and erratic USA president towards peaceful co-existence with other countries. They should learn dignity and uprightness from the Caribbean nations instead of patting the bully on the back.<br />
<br />
<i>In your opinion, will US imperialism and its flunkies ever stop wanting to destabilize countries and impose their dictates on the peoples?</i><br />
<br />
In the short term, under this Trump administration, no. However, in the long term when their many trillion dollars deficit finally hits the wall, and they see that the dollar is no longer the universal currency of commerce, they might relent as domestic issues will take priority for them instead of trying to dominate other lands. What I wish for the people of the United States, is a leader, a party, a government that will take care of their educational, health and housing needs, that will realize that being the policeman of the world is not worth their suffering and that cooperation and solidarity with the peoples of the world will reap many riches that they now do not even guess exist. For this they must come to the conclusion that their military/industrial complex has only brought them disease, depression, poverty, deaths and, the scorn of most of the world.<br />
<br />
I was very impressed that Bernie Sanders was able to attract youth in a meaningful political way, as well the fact that he made the word Socialism acceptable in the US political scene – quite a feat! So maybe there is hope yet for the USA – and the world.<br />
<br />
<i>What remains of credibility to these media in the service of imperialism that are financed by the multinationals and who spend their time not to tell the truth but to diffuse brainwashing and to relay the propaganda of imperialism to remove legitimate political powers like the one of President Maduro?</i><br />
<br />
It is not such a complicated problem, all it would take is for courageous governments to dismantle media conglomerates, disallow those monopolies. If this happens, we can have many media outlets, independent thinkers, creative journalism, and at last, a media that has true standards and regulations. In other words, we need the democratization of the media, de-coupling it from large corporations, from the Murdochs and such of this world. When very few people own newspapers, TV and radio, when it is large corporations that decide what we hear and learn, then we become enslaved to their misinformation and untruths for the sake of their economic and political interests. We are conned with vague notions of “the right to know” and “freedom of the press” which only work one way. <br />
<br />
<b><br />
Venezuela has been a clear victim of a media campaign of lies and exaggerations</b><br />
<br />
Venezuela has been a clear victim of a media campaign of lies and exaggerations to vilify a government that the US State Department wants to destroy. Thus stories of “Venezuelans eating zoo animals” “people killing horses”, “mothers abandoning children by the road side” “people dying of malnutrition”, “indigenous people being taught Arabic (as if this were a crime)” “Maduro want to be president for live” all elaborate lies that are presented as facts.<br />
<br />
When President Chávez was confronted with the open, militant opposition of the main TV and radio of his country that are privately owned, he did not shut them down (as a dictator would have done). He provided the means by which hundreds of poor neighborhoods and communal councils were able to establish their own local radio stations and even TV stations, where people could express their own concerns, make up their own programs that truly interested them. It was one way of democratizing the media. These are not government-controlled media, they are genuine independent community media, indeed, they are not shy to criticize and point out deficiencies in the administration.<br />
<i><br />
US imperialism and its allies continue to bore us with "human rights," "democracy," and "freedom of speech," while they do the opposite by destabilizing countries and intervening everywhere in the world. How do you describe these hostile acts that target sovereign states? In your opinion, is the United States a true democracy where the people hold power, or is it rather a minority that is leading?</i><br />
<br />
In Canada, we get, unsolicited, the New York Times with the Sunday edition of one of our main newspapers. Since I am dismayed by the lies of the NYT about Venezuela, the only part that I read is its Sunday Book Review insert. A week ago, they reviewed 4 books, all of which had a variation of the title: what is wrong with democracy in USA. So, it is not only those of us outside the USA that have observed the steady deterioration of their social and political life, but thoughtful, intelligent people of the USA who are noting and experiencing this deterioration.<br />
<br />
The War Idol permeates that society with its wars of conquest, its bombs and drones, its secret prisons, its acceptance of torture, its revolting treatment of Black and Hispanic people, its predatory stance toward Nature, its gun culture, its shameful imprisonment record, its poor voter participation, its gun massacres, its arms industry, and its violence and sex-obsessed entertainment industry, all wear down the sane, positive, life-affirming ideals that may float in the collective imagination and longing of US citizens. Its democracy, and the very fabric of their social life as a nation, is an object of worry even to their citizens. The USA is coming to a crossroad where it will have to choose between a way of life that adores Death and Conquest or one that adores Life and Peace.<br />
<br />
<i>The situation is serious. I am Algerian and my country which is an ally of Venezuela is targeted by different occult circles related to imperialism. Do you not think that countries like Algeria, Venezuela, Cuba, etc. must form a common front more than ever necessary for the safeguarding of their sovereignty? Is there not a need for a global front against imperialism?<br />
</i><br />
Absolutely, and do not think that this is not happening. Venezuela has cultivated strong bonds with Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, the Caribbean, many African and former Soviet nations, Algeria and may other Arab countries, India, China and Russia. Witness the votes in the UN and the OAS where the USA has not managed to condemn Venezuela because it cannot get the votes.<br />
<br />
Just a few days ago, the new USA ambassador to the OAS, Carlos Trujillo, most arrogantly, threatened the Caribbean countries for their support for Venezuela saying: “we will not permit the Caribbean to block the efforts of the majority of the nations of the region to pressure the government of Venezuela.” (2018/05/18 apporea.com)<br />
<br />
There is strength in unity and these countries share similar challenges and are facing practically, the same foes. The ALBA organization is an excellent example of creative international solidarity, in which countries band together to manufacture the medicines they need, promote the agriculture for their domestic consumption, and meet their educational needs. PETROCARIBE is another example of creative international solidarity in which Venezuelan oil is available to small Caribbean countries under special terms. I wish for more organizations such as ALBA and PETROCARIBE.<br />
<i><br />
Israel continues to kill Palestinians especially in recent demonstrations claiming for the right to return. How is it that Israel remains unpunished for the many crimes it continues to commit?</i><br />
<br />
I have no special insight about the Middle East, not knowing Arabic, not personally knowing the region, or having more information than what I read in the media. And I distrust so much of what there is to read: if the press lies about Latin America that I know so much about, will it not be lying about a region that I know so little about?<br />
<br />
However, my personal and in no way an expert opinion, is that you either kill your enemy or you sit down with them and negotiate. There is no middle ground. Violence begets violence and that is a wise truism. The long-suffering Palestinians have borne the brunt of a very powerfully armed neighbor. I am sorry, but I do not know enough about the situation to give any deeper insight except that a two state solution seems to be what may bring peace with justice. And that within Israel, the peace movement there will have to be a key element of that political solution to pressure their own government.<br />
<br />
<i>How do you explain that whenever Resisters and Righteous people support the cause of the Palestinian people, they are called anti-Semites?</i><br />
<br />
This is a slur that is very dangerous to throw around as we all know the appalling death and destruction that real anti-Semites have committed historically in Europe. As well, on the other side, there are people that accuse others of being Zionists when they disagree on any point they do not like.<br />
<br />
These are ad hominem insults that mediocre people use when they have run out of arguments. In a polarized situation these insults help no one nor do it help find solutions and, are quite despicable.<br />
<br />
We live in a time when - unthinkably - fascists rise in all sorts of countries, political charlatans make fun of values we thought were universally held, a time of irresponsible tweets, of cowardly emails, of slinging of mud not caring where it lands, and poor, undiscerning journalism. But we must rise above it all, maintain our principles and values, refuse to play their dirty games, set an example, and preserve our own dignity.<br />
<br />
Interview realized by Mohsen Abdelmoumen<br />
<br />
<b><br />
Who is María Páez Víctor?</b><br />
<br />
Dr. Maria Páez Victor is a sociologist, born in Venezuela and educated in Caracas, New York, Mexico City, England and Canada. For several years she taught the sociology of health and medicine as well as health and environmental policies at the University of Toronto. Dr. Páez Victor has national and international experience in policy analysis and impact assessment, with expertise in the areas of health, environment, and energy. She is an active member of the Latin American community in Canada.<br />
<br />
She administered the Sustainable Energy Development Scholarships, an international graduate grant program of the G8 energy companies, 2002-2011. Lecturer at University of Toronto, she taught Sociology of Health and Medicine course; Health and Environment Policies course, part-time, 1992-96 and 2003-2005. She obtains her Ph.D. (Sociology) at York University, Toronto, Canada 1987. She was voluntary work, in Mater Misericordia Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya, 1985-1987.<br />
<b><br />
Mohsen Abdelmoumen</b> is an independent Algerian journalist. He wrote in several Algerian newspapers such as Alger Républicain and in different sites of the alternative press.<br />
<a href="https://ahtribune.com/world/americas/2264-maria-paez-victor.html"><br />
https://ahtribune.com/world/americas/2264-maria-paez-victor.html</a><br />
<br />
Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-31424073874850833122018-05-08T12:18:00.000-04:002018-05-08T12:18:19.748-04:00Who is Afraid of Venezuelan Democracy?<br />
<i>by Maria Paez Victor</i> <br />
<br />
On May 7, 2018 - It is astounding, and sinister, that the European Parliament on May 3 passed a resolution (492 in favour, 87 against, 77 abstentions) demanding that Venezuela suspend the presidential elections slated for May 20. Do these European countries think that they are still colonial powers that can demand anything from other countries? Does European arrogance stretch to demanding that another country disregard its own rule of law, its electoral regulations and its negotiated arrangements with the leaders of their opposition?<br />
<br />
There was a time when the non-aligned countries believed that a strong, independent Europe would be a healthy counterbalance to the remaining super power. This was wishful thinking, as Europe today seems a flock of lambs following the dictates of a most unbalanced USA president who is determined to overthrow the legitimate, democratic, peaceful, and popular government of Venezuela.<br />
<br />
<b>The largest deposit of oil </b><br />
<br />
It, of course, is all about the largest deposit of oil reserves in the world that lie in Venezuela and which is coveted by all and sundry. And how dare its government not follow the neo-liberal dictates of Washington, the IMF and the World Bank?<br />
<br />
When examining democracy in any place, the first characteristic that comes under scrutiny is the process of elections: if they take place, how they take place and who participates. It is a given that anyone claiming to support democracy must be in favour of elections.<br />
<br />
It is necessary when dealing with democracy in Venezuela to quote over and over what the Ex-president of the USA, Jimmy Carter declared: “As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”<br />
<br />
<b>Process of elections in Venezuela</b><br />
<br />
One reason is the effectiveness of the Electoral Power (CNE) and another is the anti-fraud protection of the system, which is digital, written and electronic. There are three guarantees to each vote: a fingerprint, an electronic vote and a paper receipt.<br />
<br />
Another characteristic of the 23 elections that have occurred in Venezuela these past 19 years is the robust presence of domestic and international observers. It is important to note that neither the USA,Canada or most European countries accept international observers to their elections. It is all right for these powerful countries to examine lesser poor devil countries, or (“shithole countries” as Trump inelegantly called them) but do not dare to look closely at what we, the powerful, do. Thus in our lifetime we have seen two USA presidents arrive at the White House under dubious circumstances at best: George W. Bush’s second term and Trump, neither who won the popular vote and were elected by virtue of a complicated, most un-transparent, patronage system of their “electoral colleges”. Where were the “demands” of the European Parliament in these cases?<br />
<br />
We are witnessing before our eyes a scenario of subversion and disqualification of Venezuela’s democracy. The USA, Canada, the European Union, the OEA and the so-called Lima group of lackey right wing governments of the region, are attacking the very elections that for two years they had clamored to take place. The Venezuelan government responded by quoting its laws, that prescribed that the elections were by law to take place in 2018; it was not good enough. They wanted the elections last year. The government negotiated with the opposition in the Dominican Republic and an April date was agreed upon. Not good enough- the opposition asked for more time and the government again agreed and they settled on the 20 May date.<br />
<br />
Now the European Union, says it “does not accept” the elections because there are no “guarantees” without specifying what they mean, they ask for a “return to the constitutional order” without allusion or attempt to know and understand Venezuelan laws and Constitution.<br />
<br />
In Venezuela, the vote is secret; the process is orderly, observed by international witnesses and with the participation of opposition candidates. Some opposition leaders have refused to stand for elections, but this is by their own free will, not because of any prohibition or official hostility. Unless they refer to Leopold López, scion of two of the country’s most wealthy families who is in prison, after a lengthy, fair trial, with the best defense lawyers money can buy, who was nevertheless sentenced to 13 years in prison for inciting – in full view of cameras- appalling street violence that killed 46 people. That is the rule of law: people who are proven to have committed violent crimes must pay with prison, regardless of who their families are.<br />
<br />
Actually, it is the USA strategy of abstention that the main opposition leaders are following so that the elections can be disqualified. The government is aware of this tactic but has repeatedly asked these opposition parties to stand for election. These no-show candidates are campaigning for abstention, asking the people NOT to vote! What kind of democrats are these that – after aggressively demanding elections now do not want elections and urge people NOT to vote? They are trying to demonize an otherwise sterling electoral system.<br />
<b><br />
They demonize, antagonize, and sanction a government they wish to overthrow</b><br />
<br />
In sum, it is a montage, a theater scenario to continue to demonize, antagonize, and sanction a government they wish to overthrow.<br />
<br />
Another montage that those very same no-show opposition leaders are simultaneously presenting along with their international allies,as they shed crocodile tears, is that they are very worried by the suffering of Venezuelans and are demanding a “humanitarian” action to save them from the ogre of Maduro. (He whose government has built 2 million units of public housing these last 2 years.) They want a humanitarian action like the ones in Syria, Libya, Iraq where their populations were “saved” from their own governments by killing them with soldiers and bombs. “Humanitarian action” is a by-word for invasion. Already Colombia – with its 7 USA military bases- has amassed 3,000 troops on its border with Venezuela “in readiness” for such “humanitarian action.”<br />
<br />
The truth is that it is the left wing governments that repeatedly restore and protect democracy in the region. The right-wing governments in Latin America today are unable to command the popular vote and have come to power through corruption (Peru, Colombia, Panamá), fraud (México), coup d’état (Honduras) and with parliamentary and legal coups (Brazil, Paraguay). Macri being the only exception, as he clearly won the elections.<br />
<b><br />
Axis of the USA implementing a new type of despicable Plan Condor</b><br />
<br />
The right wing governments have come together under the axis of the USA implementing a new type of despicable Plan Condor – that plan that in ‘70 assassinated 60,000 union, rural, political and community leaders. Now embolden with the unbalanced man in the White House, they have without shame reached a point that they openly finance the opposition: for example, last month, in Lima, vice-president Pence of the USA publicly gave $16m.to Julio Borges.<br />
<br />
What would happen in Canada if China gave $16m to the NDP party, or in the USA if it gave it to the Democrats? How can the USA tear its robes in anguish alleging that Russia “intervened” in its sacred elections by releasing some e-mails, however authentic they could be? How can they not see what the USA does with impunity, with no questioning by the media, in the elections of a long list of countries? And not just Latin American ones – does no reporter remember Ukraine?<br />
<br />
The right-wing governments of Latin America have three powerful weapons:<br />
<br />
* The economic war, which in Venezuela has allies in the wealthy elite of impresarios and banks.<br />
<br />
* The help of the international media that has shown so little critical analysis and investigative ability that it once may have had.<br />
<br />
* The new legal coups called LAWFARE, by which courts and parliaments are manipulated to criminalize opponents: thus they ensnared Dilma Rousseff and Lula in Brazil, Cristina Fernández in Argentina, and they are trying to do the same to Rafael Correa (who even out of power is seen as a threat), and of course, to Nicolás Maduro.<br />
<br />
A year ago, the opposition in Venezuela managed to get a majority in the National Assembly and immediately afterwards, the Venezuelan government accepted the results and did not allege fraud. They won, not because their votes had increased as they were still at 4%, but because many government supporters abstained, as they were disappointed with the economy.<br />
<br />
But it has been 5 years of economic war and the population now understands to whom they owe the economic crisis: the leaders of the opposition were the ones who went all over the world to ask powerful nations to boycott and sanction their own country, to deny it financial and diplomatic support and to help them overthrow a government which they are unable to defeat in the polls. Such treason would have been unthinkable in the past.<br />
<br />
<b>Washington's plan is in place to deny Venezuelans food and medicines</b><br />
<br />
There is a systematic, strategic plan devised by Washington to deny Venezuelans food and medicines. Its executors are the large corporations, commercial elite and the banks. It could not be clearer. For example, when there is no bread in the bakeries or the price is too high, people start baking their own bread. Then, flour and yeast disappears from the stores. When there are no detergents, people clean with bicarbonate of soda (up to then an extremely cheap product), and then this disappears from the stores. When corn and corn flour is unavailable people buy yucca (another very cheap product), immediately it disappears from the market or its price skyrockets, so much so that there is talk of “a war on the yucca”. These are not cases of an objective “supply and demand” as some may think. It is a conspiracy of an impresario, commercial, financial class that is so rich and is so backed by foreign finance that they do not care if they do not sell or make a profit, what they want is to strangulate the economy and they do not care how much their own people suffer for it. It is a lust for power, to be given to them by foreign powers.<br />
<br />
It is clear that the progressive, left-wing government when they again come to power (and it will happen) will have to take serious measures to protect democracy, in a much more efficient and creative way because the right does not respect the rules of representative democracy. It will mean the democratization of the banks, of the media, greater centralization of imports and the implementation of novel judicial regulations to prevent LAWFARE.<br />
<br />
The left has no other option than to deepen participatory democracy, to enlarge it, to give the population greater social accountability to prevent corruption and to strengthen the communes. The duly elected National Constitutional Assembly, which is drafting a new constitution, has shown great wisdom and they must surely be thinking seriously about these measures.<br />
<br />
Hinterlaces, the most respected polling company in Venezuela has had some recent interesting results related to the presidential elections of May 20:<br />
<br />
* 86% of Venezuelans reject any international intervention in the country<br />
<br />
* 70% of Venezuelans say they are going to participate in the elections – this is another defeat for the section of opposition, Washington backed, that is calling for abstention<br />
<br />
* 55% state they will vote for Maduro<br />
<br />
* 11% state they will vote for Henri Falcon<br />
<br />
* 2% state they will vote for Javier Bertucci<br />
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* 50% state that they consider the workings of the National Constitutional Assembly as: “Very Good, Good, or Regular to Good”<br />
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* 71% consider that Maduro will win the elections.<br />
<br />
<b>Democracy in Venezuela is alive and well</b><br />
<br />
There is strong confidence that democracy in Venezuela is alive and well, and that is why the USA, Canada, European Union and its allies are afraid of it.<br />
<br />
Article reprinted from www.counterpunch.org: <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org">https://www.counterpunch.org</a>Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-33977048082005966952018-04-04T13:10:00.000-04:002018-04-04T13:10:28.345-04:00Canada Openly Seeking “Regime Change” in Venezuela<i><br />
by Yves Engler </i> <br />
<br />
April 2nd, 2018 - Is there no voice in Parliament willing to denounce Canadian interference in another country’s electoral process?<br />
<br />
The Trudeau government is engaged in a wide-ranging campaign to weaken Venezuela’s elected government. In a bid to elicit “regime change,” Ottawa has worked to isolate Caracas, imposed sanctions, and supported the country’s opposition.<br />
<br />
Recently, foreign minister Chrystia Freeland endorsed Peru’s decision to block Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from attending the mid-April Summit of the Americas in Lima. “ As Venezuela slides deeper into dictatorship, and as Venezuelans continue to suffer, Maduro’s participation at a hemispheric leaders’ summit would have been farcical,” Freeland noted. But, Freeland has no problem with the presence of Brazilian President Michel Temer, who doesn’t have any pretence of electoral legitimacy. Nor has she opposed the participation of Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez who defied that country’s constitution in running for a second term and then ‘won’ a highly questionable election.<br />
<b><br />
Chrystia Freeland twists and turns on calling elections</b><br />
<br />
Since the summer Freeland has participated in five meetings of the Lima Group, a collection of foreign ministers opposed to Venezuela’s elected government. As part of this initiative she declared that Canada wouldn’t recognize the upcoming presidential election. Two months ago she tweeted out that “ we reject this decision by the Gov of Venezuela to call these elections, as they do not give a reasonable amount of time to ensure free and fair elections” and then three weeks later Canada’s foreign minister “ demand [ed] that presidential elections be called with sufficient advance notice.” When the opposition and government agreed to push back the presidential election from April 22 to May 20, Freeland responded by tweeting “ Maduro regime’s decision to postpone Venezuela’s elections until May changes nothing.”<br />
<br />
Another demand Freeland has made of the Venezuelan authorities is that international observers be allowed to monitor the election. Yet, the Venezuelan government’s vocal request for UN observers has been opposed by the country’s opposition alliance. Behind the scenes the US is undoubtedly lobbying the international body to reject Caracas’ request.<br />
<br />
(Notwithstanding the partisan attacks, Venezuela has among the world’s most efficient, secure and transparent electoral systems. In 2012 former US President and head of the Carter Center Jimmy Carter stated, “ as a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”)<br />
<br />
The third condition Freeland has imposed for respecting the election is “ that all Venezuelan political players be included in the election.” But, the Maduro government doesn’t have the power to release those found guilty of crimes and repatriate political figures who have fled the country to avoid criminal charges.<br />
<br />
Alongside its impossible-to-meet conditions, Canadian officials have prodded Caribbean countries to join its anti-Venezuela campaign. At a Jamaica-Canada bilateral consultation three weeks ago Canadian officials brought up Venezuela and earlier in the year Freeland tweeted that “ Canada welcomes signatures by Saint Lucia & Guyana to Lima Group declaration.” Last month Freeland met Costa Rica’s vice minister of foreign affairs to discuss Venezuela and Canadian representatives were part of a recent session dealing with that country on the sidelines of a Group of 20 finance ministers meeting. Canadian officials are set to join an upcoming discussion of Venezuela called by US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.<br />
<br />
<b>United Nations Human Rights Council condemns economic sanctions of US and Canada, and EU</b><br />
<br />
Following Washington’s lead, Ottawa imposed two rounds of sanctions on Venezuelan officials in the Fall. Last week the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution condemning the economic sanctions the US, Canada and EU have adopted against Venezuela. It urged “states to refrain from imposing unilateral coercive measures (and) condemn(s) the continued unilateral application and enforcement by certain powers of such measures as tools of political or economic pressure.”<br />
<br />
As I, Anthony Fenton, Neil A. Burron and others have detailed, Ottawa has supported opposition groups inside Venezuela. In August outgoing Canadian ambassador Ben Rowswell told the Ottawa Citizen: “ We established quite a significant internet presence inside Venezuela, so that we could then engage tens of thousands of Venezuelan citizens in a conversation on human rights. We became one of the most vocal embassies in speaking out on human rights issues and encouraging Venezuelans to speak out.”<br />
<br />
In line with its policy of amplifying oppositional voices, on March 7 the Canadian Embassy in Caracas gave a human rights prize to Francisco Valencia, director of the Coalición de Organizaciones por el Derecho a la Salud y la Vida (CODEVIDA). Numerous media outlets reported on the award given to an aggressive opponent of the Venezuelan government. “ I believe that we are facing a criminal State”, Valencia told Crisis en Venezuela.<br />
<br />
<b>Ottawa guilty of interfering in electoral process of Venezuela</b><br />
<br />
The Embassy’s human rights prize is co-sponsored with the Centro para la Paz y los Derechos Humanos. The director of that organization, Raúl Herrera, has repeatedly denounced the Venezuelan government. Six months ago Herrera said, “ the Venezuelan State systematically and repeatedly violates the Human Rights of Venezuelans and political prisoners.”<br />
<br />
Clearly Ottawa is guilty of interfering in the electoral process of Venezuela. When Russia has been accused of (a much more mild) form of intervention every party in Parliament is quick to condemn them.<br />
<br />
Has the NDP become so tied into the American Empire that it cannot point out this obvious hypocrisy?<br />
<br />
<a href="https://dissidentvoice.org/2018/04/canada-openly-seeking-regime-change-in-venezuela/"><br />
https://dissidentvoice.org/2018/04/canada-openly-seeking-regime-change-in-venezuela/</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-28367081126402722012018-03-28T02:16:00.004-04:002018-03-28T02:16:41.704-04:00Canada on Venezuelan conflict<b>Canada on wrong side of Venezuelan conflict</b><br />
<br />
<i>by Linda McQuaig</i><br />
<br />
March 15, 2018 - In terms of foreign policy damage, whatever harm Justin Trudeau did by parading around India in colourful outfits is a nothing-burger compared to the severe hardship he is inflicting on Venezuela.<br />
<br />
And yet media commentators have been full-throttle in denouncing the prime minister’s alleged wardrobe malfunction on his recent India trip while being silent – or downright supportive – of Trudeau’s decision last fall to join the Trump administration in imposing sanctions on the struggling South American nation.<br />
<br />
Anyone following the international media coverage would conclude that the Venezuelan government is terribly autocratic and that Western nations, led by the U.S., have stepped in with sanctions out of concern over human rights abuses there.<br />
<br />
A closer look suggests a different scenario that puts Western actions in a less laudable light: Washington is waging economic war against a nation that dared to rise up and reject U.S. control over its ample oil reserves.<br />
<br />
The Obama administration targeted individual Venezuelans with sanctions, but the Trump administration’s sanctions are much broader, taking punishing aim at the country’s entire economy.<br />
<br />
Sadly, Trudeau is backing up the U.S. bully, apparently hoping to win a reprieve from Trump’s arbitrary trade measures – a strategy that seems unfair to Venezuela and also likely futile. We’ll return to Canada’s sorry role in this saga in a moment.<br />
<br />
Venezuela has been in Washington’s cross hairs ever since the dramatic 1998 election of Hugo Chavez, a charismatic, populist leader – and this is one case where the word “populist” legitimately applies.<br />
<br />
Unlike the “populist” Donald Trump, Chavez actually came from humble roots as the child of black and Indian parents, and actually championed his country’s large peasant population.<br />
<br />
Indeed, unlike many Third World leaders who siphon off their nation’s wealth in cahoots with foreign multinationals and local elites, Chavez enraged Washington by nationalizing Venezuela’s oil and redirecting the wealth to health care, education, housing and food for the poor.<br />
<br />
Venezuela’s wealthy elite, angry about losing their privileged position, vowed to overthrow Chavez – and briefly did in a violent 2002 coup, with the help of Washington, before being repelled two days later when hundreds of thousands of pro-Chavez demonstrators from poor neighbourhoods took to the streets of Caracas.<br />
<br />
Many in the elite had worked for the U.S.-owned oil industry when it effectively ran the oil-rich nation. And, like the Cuban elite after Fidel Castro nationalized U.S.-owned industry there, the Venezuelan elite has remained close to Washington.<br />
<br />
After the failed 2002 coup, Venezuela’s elite concentrated on demonizing Chavez – and Nicolas Maduro, his hand-picked successor, who narrowly won election following Chavez’s death from cancer in 2013.<br />
<br />
Although lacking Chavez’s charisma, Maduro has continued to win elections even as the country’s economy has plunged, along with world oil prices. Frustrated, the opposition has adopted increasingly violent tactics – including a bizarre attack last year when rebels dropped grenades from a helicopter on the country’s Supreme Court.<br />
<br />
Alfred de Zayas, a UN-appointed expert sent to investigate the chaos last fall, met with dozens of opposition activists as well as church and human rights groups, and concluded that the Maduro regime has made “major mistakes including excessive force by the police.”<br />
<br />
But de Zayas also found that popular support for the Chavez revolution remains strong. And he accused anti-government demonstrators of having “attacked hospitals, nursery schools, burned ambulances and buses in order to intimidate the people. Is this not classic terrorism?”<br />
<br />
The UN expert also explained that the sanctions – which he considers reminiscent of U.S. measures against Chile’s Salvador Allende in the 1970s – are aggravating the suffering of Venezuelans, and he called for them to end. “That would be the greatest help,” he said.<br />
But Canada refuses to listen. Our sanctions aren’t as broad as Trump’s, but they lend Canadian credibility to penalizing Venezuela, thereby providing political cover for the harsh U.S. measures.<br />
<br />
And so we continue to inflict sanctions on Venezuela, citing the lofty goal of defending human rights – even while we actively trade and sell arms to full-fledged dictatorships, such as Saudi Arabia.<br />
<br />
What’s going on in Venezuela is a bitter class war, with millions of poor people committed to defending a revolution carried out in their name, and Canada taking the side of the wealthy, well-armed opposition.<br />
<br />
Linda McQuaig interviewed Hugo Chavez in Caracas in 2004 for a book she wrote on the geopolitics of oil.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/03/15/canada-on-wrong-side-of-venezuelan-conflict.html">https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/03/15/canada-on-wrong-side-of-venezuelan-conflict.html<br />
</a>Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-35336778412333572322018-03-28T01:40:00.000-04:002018-03-28T01:40:01.739-04:00Venezuela, a country besieged by the USA and CanadaCanada vs. Venezuela <br />
Sat. March 24, 2018, University of Toronto<br />
<i>introduction by Maria Páez Victor</i> to an event in defense of the Bolivarian revolution <br />
<br />
Friends, Compañeros, good afternoon to you all. <br />
<br />
Thank you so very much for being here today, expressing your solidarity with Venezuela, a country that is being besieged by the power of the USA and its allies, including Canada. <br />
<br />
The economic war being waged against Venezuela is brutal: sabotage, hoarding, smuggling, fires, street gang violence, paramilitary raids on farmers and food delivery trucks, destroying electricity lines and black market and monetary manipulations. The object is of to destroy the Venezuelan economy and bring down its legitimate, democratic government. This USA economic war is not new, they did the same in Guatemala in the ‘50s, El Salvador in the 80s, Chile in the 70’s and is still trying in Cuba.<br />
<br />
The sanctions imposed on Venezuela impede it from buying, selling, paying its international debts and even obtaining its own revenues from its US based CITGO oil company. Right now, as we speak, there are large ships loaded with food and medicine languishing off the port of La Guaira that are unable to unload because of the sanctions.<br />
<br />
<b>The reasons for this war are twofold:</b> <br />
One, is that Venezuela has the largest deposit of petroleum in the world, surpassing even those of Saudi Arabia. Powerful countries and oil companies wish to totally control it. They resent that the Venezuelan Bolivarian government considers oil the patrimony of its people, not corporations, and is using the revenues for social needs. Former Secretary of State Tillerson, who recently headed Exxon Mobil, had a particular interest in bringing down Venezuela: as Exxon is the only oil company not present in Venezuela because it refused to accept the country's constitutional control over its natural resources.<br />
<b><br />
Secondly, Venezuela is a bad example for capitalism. Its Bolivarian Revolution has clear achievements: </b><br />
• securing Venezuelan sovereignty over its oil and other natural resources, <br />
• providing valuable public services for its people with the oil revenues, <br />
• its participatory democracy and protection of human rights, <br />
• reducing poverty and exclusion, <br />
• its stated desire for a socialist system not a capitalist one, <br />
• and its remarkable inroads towards regional solidarity and integration.<br />
<br />
I am sure you have all read the atrocious coverage of Venezuela in the Canadian media, full of lies and exaggerations. One would think people are dying in the streets. Instead just this week we learned that extreme poverty has been reduced once again, now stands at 4.4%, even in these hard times’ because the social net has government priority.<br />
<br />
The media coverage is not generally based on Canadian viewpoints since its source comes overwhelmingly from the regurgitation of biased reports of the NYT, Reuters, United Press and USA pundits. It is a shame that our media outlets rely on foreign USA views on Latin America and the Caribbean.<br />
<br />
However, just last week Metro and the Toronto Star surprised us by publishing an excellent article on Venezuela written by that brilliant journalist, Linda McQuaig – who by the way, is the only major Canadian journalist ever to be given an interview by President Hugo Chávez. A barrage of vituperative Twitter insults fell upon her for having the audacity to write positively on Venezuela. <br />
<br />
For those of us who have chosen to live in this beautiful land of Canada, with its peace-loving and generous people, that has welcomed so many of us with open arms, it is a source of great distress to see the present Federal Government engaged in illegal sanctions clearly to effect “regime change” in Venezuela. <br />
<br />
Venezuela, is a country that has never demonstrated anything but friendship towards Canada, that is no threat whatsoever to the Canadian people or their interests. <br />
<br />
These sanctions are in direct violation of the fundamental principles of the United Nations and Organization of American States, in other words, of international law, as they impinge on a country’s sovereignty and internal affairs. <br />
<br />
Minister Christia Freeland has stomped all over the ideals held in the Canadian imagination of fair dealing, respect of international law and peacekeeping. Freeland’s hostile policy towards Venezuela frontally contradicts Canada’s traditional constructive engagement approach.<br />
<br />
She is prepared to stoop very low and drag down the reputation of this fine country just to get on the “good” side of Trump (if he has one) to preserve NAFTA, whatever its shortcomings may be. <br />
<br />
I am of the mind that Freeland would never have found any role in the cabinets of Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien.<br />
<br />
Let us, remember as we discuss the illegal - and I would forthrightly state, immoral- USA, EU and Canadian sanctions against Venezuela, that the government of the day is not Canada. <br />
<br />
By political convention it may represent the country, but Canada’s people are greater than any particular administration. <br />
<br />
Today we will be discussing Canada’s foreign policy. And it behooves us to understand that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is among the ministries, the most unresponsive to ordinary citizens. For us, it is shrouded in secrecy with very little attempt to really consult the citizens on whose behalf they make portentous decisions. <br />
<br />
We have organized this event to alert Canadians of the damage that Minister Freeland is doing to a democratic, peaceful, and friendly country in their name. <br />
<br />
<i>Printed by permission of Dr. Maria Paez Victor</i><br />
Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-88297276218245349162018-03-06T01:13:00.001-05:002018-03-06T01:15:06.308-05:00ALBA Leaders Praise Chavez Legacy, Slam US Attacks on Venezuela<b>The member states are meeting in Caracas to discuss regional trade and the U.S.-led attacks on Venezuela.</b><br />
<br />
The summit of presidents of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, or ALBA, kicked off in Caracas Monday moments after The Venezuelan President Maduro addressed Venezuelans alongside leaders of Latin American and Caribbean member states who are attending the meeting.<br />
<i><br />
Venezuela Describes US as 'World's Greatest Victimizer'</i><br />
Leaders arrived in the capital Caracas Monday morning as they slammed the United States-led attacks against Venezuela's sovereignty and honored late President Hugo Chavez on the 5th anniversary of his death. Puerto Rico’s revolutionary Oscar López Rivera also attended the ALBA summit as he completes his tour in Venezuela.<br />
<br />
"Five years ago I had to give the hardest news of my life. Five years later we remember Chavez, no longer with tears, but with a smile and commitment to the future of the Fatherland," Maduro said marking the 5th anniversary of the death of late President Chavez before kicking off the ALBA summit. "Today with more security and strength than ever we say that the Venezuelan people are more Chavista than ever. Chávez lives!"<br />
<br />
"On Sunday, May 20th we will have elections. We are deciding between peace and violence; Democracy or coups; Between the independence or the submission of the Fatherland," the president added referring to the upcoming presidential election in hwich he is a candidate.<br />
<br />
<i>Venezuela: Oscar Lopez Rivera Pays Homage to Late Hugo Chavez</i><br />
During his opening address to ALBA, Maduro gave a warm welcome to Puerto Rican independence hero Oscar Lopez Rivera at the ALBA summit. He went on to call for more ALBA meetings in order to address "vital issues for the Latin American and Caribbean region."<br />
<br />
"ALBA has the need to meet in a periodic way, work meetings that allow us to advance in the political, economic challenges of our people," he added at the group-s 15th meeting taking place at Miraflores Presidential Palace.<br />
<br />
The Venezuelan leader further denounced attacks against his country by regional right/wing governments. "We have been discussing the theme of the Summit of the Americas. We discussed the illegal attempt of the Government of Peru to discriminate against Venezuela and prohibit the participation of our country." Maduro stressed that "Venezuela will not be shut up by anyone."<br />
<br />
He then went on to discuss his country’s innovative cyber currency Petro and called for including it in ALBA’s economic agenda.<br />
<br />
Raúl Castro then addressed the leaders at the opening session of ALBA saying that threats against Venezuela also threaten peace throughout the region.<br />
<br />
"We proclaim the unwavering support for the Bolivarian Revolution and the civic-military union of its people commanded by comrade Nicolas Maduro," Raúl told his counterparts at the summit. "The United States since 1999 when Comandante Chavez has become president, they have resorted to methods of unconventional warfare in order to subdue this country, which owns enormous natural wealth."<br />
<br />
He added that only the people of Venezuela can solve any problems faced by their nation and further slammed Peru for attempting to prevent Maduro from attending the Summit of the Americas. <br />
<br />
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega echoed a similar sentiment as he hailed the legacy of Chavez recognizing that ALBA and other regional independent organizations would have never been possible without the late leader’s efforts. "The U.S. tries again to provoke the disintegration of what we have managed to build...This is a disrespectful attitude to the people of Venezuela and Latin America."<br />
<br />
“We see clearly the attempt to delegitimize the revolutionary process of Venezuela that has been advancing in spite of challenges and difficulties. In the face of violence, the people have always called for peace,” Ortega stressed. <br />
<br />
Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit also recognized the legacy of Chavez before slamming intervention attempts into the internal affairs of Venezuela. “Peru's attitude is a flagrant violation of international law. They are denying the people of Venezuela their right to participate. We condemn this decision.”<br />
<br />
Bolivian President Evo Morales then took the stage calling on leaders to “strengthen our unity as countries that seek equality for humanity.” He then slammed the complicity of some regional governments in the attacks on Venezuela. “I cannot believe that some Latin American presidents are instruments of the American Empire.”<br />
<br />
President Maduro later honored Puerto Rico’s revolutionary Oscar López Rivera by giving him a replica Simon Bolivar’s Sword.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile Ecuadorean Minister of Defense Patricio Zambrano said the the Summit of the Americas should be a space for meeting and dialogue between countries, "and not an organism of exclusion." Zambrano's comments were echoed by the head of the delegation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines who slammed what Peru is doing as “an attack on the Latin American unity that we can not allow.”<br />
<br />
The Saint Vincent delegate further called on President maduro to “continue with the legacy of Chavez, you have suffered unthinkable pressures, you have joined the people of Venezuela.”<br />
<br />
The meeting will also feature events in memory of Bolivarian Revolution leader and former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who passed away on March 5, 2013.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, an event tilted World Day in Solidarity with Venezuela will also take place Monday in the Teresa Carreño Theater in Caracas, where more than 800 people from social movements and organizations will debate communication, social rights issues and national sovereignty<br />
.<br />
<br />
https://<a href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/ALBA-Countries-Meet-In-Support-Of-Venezuela-Sovereignty-20180305-0013.html?utm_source=planisys&utm_medium=NewsletterIngles&utm_campaign=NewsletterIngles&utm_content=9">www.telesurtv.net/english/news/ALBA-Countries-Meet-In-Support-Of-Venezuela-Sovereignty-20180305-0013.html?utm_source=planisys&utm_medium=NewsletterIngles&utm_campaign=NewsletterIngles&utm_content=9<br />
</a>Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-84184137946086181132018-02-26T17:55:00.000-05:002018-02-26T17:55:01.660-05:00 Sanctions must terminate and economic war must end against Venezuela <b>United Nations Independent Expert: Sanctions Must be Terminated and Economic War Must End</b><br />
<br />
<i>Prof. M. de Alfred de Zayas - interview with Zeitgeschehen im Fokus</i><br />
<br />
<i>Interview with Professor Dr. Alfred M. de Zayas, UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order.</i><br />
<br />
The purpose of the mission was to explore how the Bolivarian Revolution had implemented human rights – especially in the economic, social and cultural domain. It was his special concern to compare the coverage in the mainstream media of the United States and Europe with the Venezuelan reality on the ground. In order to get a sufficiently objective picture, the UN expert met with representatives and activists of 35 non-governmental organizations specializing on human rights issues, with representatives of industry and commerce, members of the opposition National Assembly, with Church officials, with victims of violent demonstrations and with relatives of detainees. <br />
<br />
Apart from meetings with a large number of government ministers, he met twice with Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza and his staff. During his stay he could move freely, as has already been reported in “Zeitgeschehen im Fokus” (n. 18, 23/12/2017). He also gave a lecture at the University of Caracas. In the following interview, the UN expert reports about his impressions and experience in Venezuela.<br />
<br />
<b>Zeitgeschehen im Fokus:</b> How would you assess the economic situation in Venezuela after you have stayed there?<br />
<br />
<b>Professor Alfred de Zayas:</b> The Bolivarian Revolution, which has taken place in Venezuela, developed a model that worked rather well in the first 10 years. That was partly due to the high oil price. Venezuela depends on oil revenues by 95 %. With these revenues, the state could finance many social projects. But now that the oil price has dropped by more than the half, the country faces massive disruptions in the acquisition and distribution of food, medicines and other products.<br />
<br />
<i>What distinguishes the model in Venezuela?</i><br />
<br />
It is a social model that wants to achieve a fairer distribution of the country’s wealth. Meanwhile, 2 million homes have been handed over to the poorer part of the population. Thus at least 8 million persons have benefitted from affordable apartments. There is also the so-called system of CLAP (Comité Local de Abastecimiento y Producción – Local Committee for supply and production), in which the government distributes food parcels to the poor. Those who cannot pay for the packages, receive them for free, of course.<br />
<br />
<i>What does such a parcel contain?</i><br />
<br />
I did open one when I was visiting one of the modern and very clean “Urbanizaciones” (government housing for the poor). There are 16 kg of food in it: sugar, rice, cooking oil, flour, cornmeal, milk powder, etc. A family gets such a parcel twice a month. Therefore, there is no “famine” in Venezuela, despite media reports and generalizations. There is, however, a shortage in several sectors, and some products are hard to get, but the population does not suffer from hunger as for example in many countries of Africa and Asia – or even in the favelas of São Paolo and other urban areas in Brazil and other Latin American countries. There are mainly problems in the timely distribution of imported products – but this is predominantly the responsibility of the private sector, which often enough deliberately boycotts the distribution, sometimes stocks products in large warehouses and then takes them to the black market instead of delivering them to supermarkets — just to make a higher profit.<br />
<br />
<i>What is special about the “Bolivarian Revolution”?</i><br />
<br />
It is an alternative model to capitalism, to unregulated free market economics. It is not “Marxism”, and certainly not “Marxism-Leninism”. It is an attempt to give the capitalist system a humane face. Since 1999, when Hugo Chávez came to power, a certain reorientation of the country took place, which could set a precedent for Latin America and many developing economies. There are major achievements, which the mainstream media systematically ignores – e.g. illiteracy was eliminated within shortest time (as was the case in Castro’s Cuba). School education is free, from kindergarten to university. There is a system of free medical care, a system of support for young mothers, a major effort at building affordable housing and expanding the public transport system.<br />
<br />
Today, if you read the <i>New York Times</i> or “inform” yourself about Venezuela on CNN or UN Watch etc., you repeatedly come across the concept of a “humanitarian crisis” … <br />
<br />
I warn against this technical term, because a “humanitarian crisis” can be easily exploited to justify a so-called “humanitarian intervention” or to aim at a “regime change”, under the pretext that the government lets the population starve. Some states pretend that the Venezuelan government can no longer guarantee the rights of the people. Hence, a humanitarian crisis emerged and now they want to intervene militarily to “save” the Venezuelan people from a failed socialist experiment.<br />
<br />
<i>What is the situation on the ground?</i><br />
<br />
I stayed in Venezuela for 8 days of intensive meetings back-to-back; I could move around freely wherever I wanted. I did not see any street children and I also did not see any person begging. I have not seen a single beggar in Caracas although I walked and drove across the entire city. I also walked by the poorer quarters, where I did see queues of people waiting for some subsidized or rationed products. The situation has many facets, and I do not claim that there is no hunger and no scarcity of medicine. I simply say that the existing cases of children dying of malnutrition or lack or medicine do not add up to a “humanitarian crisis”. I did not see any violence, although the press keeps telling us about it. As a UN official I have been in many places where you “smell” violence, where you sense tension in the air and feel that you yourself may be in danger. That is not the case in Venezuela. There are homicides – many of them associated with drugs and international crime. Honduras is much worse.<br />
<br />
People who beg are the order of the day in our western industrial nations. No one would think of talking about a humanitarian crisis, for example in Germany, because there are beggars in the streets.<br />
In Venezuela, I did not see beggars. No doubt, there is poverty, but the population is not depressed – certainly not in the same degree as the people of East Germany in the 70s, where people were dispirited and demotivated and went about with pale faces, sad and depressed. The population in the streets of Caracas is Latino in the best sense of the term, they make the best of things and do not let scarcity and boycotts turn them into zombies. Just like in any other city; everywhere there are cars, motorcycles and bicycles on the road.<br />
<br />
<i>Can the people supply themselves with food?</i><br />
<br />
There are enough fruits and locally grown vegetables. People eat bananas or mangoes in the streets. There is a certain lack of the products that the domestic and foreign monopolies determine.<br />
<br />
<i>What is the situation like in the supermarkets?</i><br />
<br />
I have seen several food stores and markets – and I took photos of them. It is not true that the food stores are empty. Of course, some have empty shelves – I got such pictures from non-governmental organizations (NGOS) – but there was always enough of everything. Of course, there are some products that are imported because Venezuela cannot manufacture them itself. They are scarce commodity. But you can live very well without these products. The fact that the supply of hygienic items for women or diapers for the babies are scarce is a direct result of the failure of the private sector to import these goods and to distribute them to the supermarkets. However, you can get everything on the black market – but at exorbitant prices.<br />
<i><br />
Is a specific shortage created there to stir up the people’s dissatisfaction with the government?</i><br />
<br />
There are studies and statistical data from several university professors who investigated this phenomenon – especially why and how supply shortfalls are getting worse, especially when elections or referendums are imminent. They are supposed to affect people negatively, so that they vote against the government. This is called “voto castigo” (penalty vote) in Spanish. If you read an article from the New York Times, it will say that there are bottlenecks in supply in Venezuela, for example also for medicines. However, you will not read anywhere why this is so. You will not read anywhere that the private sector does have the foreign exchange to import the necessary medicines. This is not said. It is not also said that a huge smuggling has emerged for subsidized products – subsidized Venezuelan rice or flour can be bought in Bogotá.<br />
<i><br />
What are the reasons for these phenomena?</i><br />
<br />
There are a number of reasons, which I was able to observe during my stay. I have to study them in more detail. I was given an extended documentation from various sources that I still have to digest. There are also very good books about this topic. An economist in Caracas, Professor Dr Pasqualina Curcio, carefully explained in her book how the economic war against Venezuela caused this situation of shortage, and that was no accident – it was deliberate, absolutely targeted. In the period around the elections – approximately two or three months earlier – the goods suddenly disappear. Especially hygiene items cannot be purchased any longer. However, warehouses were discovered, and that is also documented, that were full of these products. I was also given a pictured documentation on the matter.<br />
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<i>Do you mean that shortages are artificially generated?</i><br />
<br />
Yes, the goods are often not delivered to the supermarkets but traded on the black market at exorbitant prices. There are, of course, institutional problems and multiple inefficiencies in the socialistic model, about which I made concrete recommendations to the government. Yet another problem, which I discussed with several ministers, is the unnecessary price controls and artificial exchange rates – this all results in corruption and abuse. The government should instead give the most vulnerable persons direct financial support, rather than making use of a price control.<br />
<br />
<i>Why that?</i><br />
<br />
The danger of price controls, as we know from the Soviet Union, is that parallel markets emerge and with them large-scale corruption. People are people, and if they can buy subsidized goods, the temptation to resell these subsidized goods at a higher price is too big. You can make a killing with subsidized corn flour, with subsidized rice, which you can then smuggle into Colombia, Brazil, Aruba and sell it there at great profit. Venezuela has a very long border with Colombia and Brazil. The Caribbean Islands are easily accessible, too.<br />
<br />
<i>Who is responsible for this process?</i><br />
<br />
There is an internationally organized mafia that operates the process, but apparently the governments of the neighbouring countries do nothing to stop this smuggling. If a store in Bogotá offers cheap rice from Venezuela, we should assume that the traders know where the rice comes from: It is either stolen or smuggled. In any case it was brought into the country illegally. The government does nothing – or too little – against these supermarkets. Moreover, Colombia allows the Venezuelan currency to be changed at wildly fluctuating rates of exchange. This has devastating effects on the economy and financial situation in Venezuela.<br />
<br />
<i>What about agricultural production in the country?<br />
</i><br />
Diversified agricultural production is now being systematically promoted, but this is a process that takes time and requires importing seeds and other goods. Venezuela no longer wants to be exclusively dependent on oil exports and wants to produce its own food. However, the procurement of seeds is in the hands of foreign monopolists, and the government has difficulties in obtaining seeds at decent prices.<br />
<br />
<i>To what extent do sanctions have an impact on the supply situation?</i><br />
<br />
Direct and indirect sanctions have hit the economic situation in Venezuela seriously. The economic, financial and trade war against Venezuela reminds of the US measures against the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1970-73 and against the Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua in the 1980s.<br />
<br />
Deliveries from abroad are traded in dollars. However authorized persons must sign for the payment in dollars. Many of the persons who have this right to sign are on the sanctions list. This means that no trading partner dares to accept their signature. Thus, the company cannot earn any money because no payment can be made, and the goods do not come to Venezuela. The suppliers are afraid that they will be penalized by US authorities – with fines of tens of thousands of dollars if they fail to comply with the unilateral sanctions regime of the United States.<br />
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<i>For which goods or sectors do the sanctions apply?</i><br />
<br />
That is the next problem. Nobody really knows how far they reach. They are based on so-called catch-all clauses, which can be interpreted one way or the other. But who wants to have to pay a fine? So many international companies are prudent and do not take unnecessary risks. For Venezuela this is devastating.<br />
<br />
<i>What would help the country?</i><br />
<br />
The sanctions must be terminated. The economic war has to end. That would be the greatest help for the country. However, what we can observe in Venezuela is the result of a targeted economic war. There are many countries participating, even from Europe. The misinformation about Venezuela has been successful – even with people who should be better informed. You have to be on the spot to see that the situation is not like you read in The New York Times. If you look at the mainstream media, you get the impression that the country is close to collapse. In fact, the country is rich and with a bit of cooperation and solidarity it could sell its oil, its gold, its bauxite as well. Venezuela must now trade a lot with China and India because of the very limited trade with the US and Europe.<br />
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<i>Is the oil trade also subject to the sanctions?</i><br />
<br />
Yes, partly. The sanctions are very complex. It is not the case that a sale cannot be done at all, but it is connected with so many obstacles, and there are so many restrictions and delays that many people say, “We would rather not do business with Venezuela, there is too much imponderability.”<br />
<br />
<i>During your stay you could certainly talk to the population. What impression have you gained here?</i><br />
<br />
Many are somewhat resigned because they suffer from an economic war. But when it comes to elections, Maduro wins. The majority of the population does not make the government responsible for all that, but they accuse the United States, Europe, Colombia, etc. When the Constituent Assembly was elected, there had been very violent demonstrations prior to the election for four months. In the foreign media we read about those “peaceful demonstrations.” In fact, these were orgies of violence with Molotov cocktails and explosives. It was almost terrorism that hit many normal, non-political people when, for example, a supplier wanted to get from A to B, but the “guarimbas” (violent demonstrations with barricades) blocked his path. Several ordinary people were killed, who only wanted to go about their business. In addition, demonstrators attacked hospitals, nursery schools, burned ambulances and buses in order to intimidate the people. Is this not just classic terrorism?<br />
Did the demonstrations succeed with these methods?<br />
<br />
No, 8.5 millions of people went to the polls for the Constituent Assembly, in spite of the guarimbas and in spite of the violence. In the local elections of 15 December more than 9 million went to the polls. The opposition does not succeed in changing the people’s mind, but the polarization of the country continues to be a problem, because Chavistas are very strongly pro-government, and the MUD is very strongly against the government. There is very little sense that “la patria es de todos” (the fatherland belongs to all). <br />
<br />
According to media reports in the US and Europe, the only solution is regime change, to chase the government from office. We must however not forget that this government was democratically elected in 1999, in 2002 it survived a coup because the people and the army opposed the coup and prevented the planned physical elimination of Chávez. In 2004 a recall referendum was held, which Chávez won easily — 70% of the population did not want to remove him from office. After his death in 2013, Maduro was elected President, in spite of a violent campaign, accompanied by terror and sabotage on the part of the opposition.<br />
<i><br />
How did the government deal with all these organized attacks?</i><br />
<br />
The government relied on the 1999 Constitution. However, a number of major mistakes including excessive force by the police, did occur. If a government is under such pressure, then it must act quickly. If one acts fast, one makes mistakes, often goes too far. This includes, for example, introducing economic measures that can be counter-productive, including subsidies and price controls.<br />
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<i>What kind of agenda does the opposition follow?</i><br />
<br />
They wish to cancel the Chávez and Maduro years and return to a purely capitalistic model. But there are at least 8 million Chávistas, and they will not disappear. These voters are convinced of the government’s program. These people will not allow the social achievements to be swept away. If the economy does not collapse as a result of sabotage, smuggling and sanctions, the government is likely to be reelected in 2018. The administration and the army are on the side of the government. Certainly, the plan in Washington is to launch a military attack on Venezuela by making use of disinformation about the allegedly miserable situation in the country with hunger, infant mortality and an economically desolate conditions, and then to chase the government out of office. We know this proceeding from other countries, so for example from September 1973 when the government of Salvador Allende was overthrown by a coup and Allende died.<br />
<br />
<i>How do you assess your stay?</i><br />
<br />
I got a very different impression from the one I pictured to myself before I visited the country. In our media there is scarce interest in truly investigative journalism, in discovering what the root causes of Venezuela’s problems are. We get a caricature of the situation, and this caricature becomes dogma. Weeks before my journey, my independence, my professionalism, my honour were questioned. UN Watch published an article and called my visit a “fake investigation”, even before I had set foot on Venezuelan soil. Some NGOs have claimed that I was not the right Special Rapporteur for these questions. That was before I had announced anything at all about my journey. On my personal blog I showed pictures of Caracas, its churches, monuments, and a picture of a supermarket that was full of goods. After that there were particularly offensive attacks against me. <br />
<br />
UN-Watch found the picture and reacted to it. I had published the picture without any comment. I was attacked as a chavist, a castrist, a communist, etc. All I wanted to show is that the situation is not as they want us to believe. I had seen so many pictures of empty shelves that I thought it was legitimate to show a different photo in my private blog (which also reflected my observation in other supermarkets).<br />
<br />
<i>What did you suggest to the Venezuelan government?</i><br />
<br />
I submitted to the foreign minister six pages of preliminary recommendations, among others institutional improvements, the elimination of price controls, the fight against smuggling and corruption, but always within the rule of law. They ought to respect the UN covenants on civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. They are already seeking dialogue with the opposition and showing commendable flexibility and patience. They should either release individuals who have been imprisoned for political reasons, or take them to court with a fair trial. And for the better management of the country they need technocrats, not only ideologists! Above all, the government must prove that it takes human rights seriously. <br />
<br />
Corruption must be fought at all levels, even with the help of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna. In doing so, UN organizations, such as the World Health Organization, the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), the International Labor Organization (ILO), etc. could help to ensure that the necessary improvements are translated into action.<br />
<i><br />
What do you think of the conversations you had in the Dominican Republic?</i><br />
<br />
Every opportunity of dialogue with the opposition must be taken. The previous meetings in Santo Domingo in November, December 2017 and January 2018 have already been fruitful. Further meetings are planned. It is in the interest of all who care for human rights and who care for the Venezuelan people to support these negotiations. Unfortunately, a “human rights industry” has emerged that instrumentalizes human rights as weapons of mass destruction against governments. This “industry” is not interested in solving the “humanitarian crisis”, they want to use the hyperbolic “crisis” as a pretext for military intervention and regime change. This “industry” does not want independent experts who travel to Venezuela to find out what the real situation is. They only want “experts” who go to Venezuela (or elsewhere) simply to grandstand and condemn governments. If anyone means it with humanitarian aid, they should offer their cooperation to the government and send food and medicines without strings attached. If they are interested in the Venezuelan people, they will make sure that sanctions and boycotts are lifted, so that the Venezuelan government can function normally, without discrimination, in the international community, so that Venezuela can import and export free of sabotage and political ostracism.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/ analysis/13614">https://venezuelanalysis.com/ analysis/13614</a><br />
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Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-51820425322780156152018-02-02T21:31:00.002-05:002018-02-02T21:31:30.987-05:00The Opposition in Venezuela: Terrorists or “Rebels”?<i>by Maria Paez Victor</i><br />
<br />
On October 22, 2014, a 32 year old Canadian man entered the Canadian Houses of Parliament armed with a rifle. Minutes before he had killed in cold blood Corporal Nathan Cirillo who was carrying out a ceremonial guard outside at the Canadian National War Memorial nearby. This armed intruder entered the Parliament building where Prime Minister Harper, his Cabinet, opposition party leaders and other Members were present. The Sergeant–at- Arms, Kevin Vickers, heroically shot the intruder, who was then shot again by soldiers. All in all they shot him 31 times, dying on the spot. This frightful and unheard of attack on Parliament Hill was classified as terrorism under the Canadian Criminal Code. <br />
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Parliament gave Vickers a standing ovation and a medal for his heroism. Canada was showered with congratulations from other countries for having overcome this act of terrorism. Although there was discussion about whether or not the shooter was acting as a terrorist or was just mentally ill, there was not one voice of dissent from organizations, political parties or citizens about those 31 shots, even though Canada has no death sentence. Nobody talked about abuse of the shooter’s human rights, nobody mentioned a massacre, nobody called the shooter a “rebel” although he apparently opposed Steven Harper’s Middle East policies.<br />
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Imagine if a former Canadian pilot gathering around himself a motley group, had stolen an Armed Forces helicopter, violently raided an army base to get hold of guns and explosives. Then, thus armed, from the air, dropped grenades at the Ministry of Justice where there was an event for dozens of journalists celebrating Journalism Day. Then, imagine if they flew over the Supreme Court of Canada and dropped grenades at the building where all the judges were present, and where there was nursery day care full of little children. Imagine that this terrorist then made extensive use of media and social media to brag about his attacks and these rants were extensively publicized. Imagine that the authorities managed to surround them outside the capital. And, following a negotiation, the shooter declared they were ready to give themselves up. When the senior detective comes forward to receive his rendition, he is gunned down in cold blood and another detective also killed. In the gunfight that ensued, the pilot and several of his men end up dead.<br />
<br />
Do you think that if these events actually happened in Canada that there would be one single person who would laud these criminals as heroes, as freedom fighters, as rebels against an unfair government? Do you think there would be anyone in Canada who would accuse the authorities, let alone the Prime Minster himself, of abusing human rights, of assassination, of massacre?<br />
<br />
<br />
Yet these veryevents DID happen exactly like that in Venezuela in June 2017, and the international press painted that ex-pilot as a brave “rebel” not a criminal terrorist. (For example, see NYT.) The media gleefully published his disparate rants against the legitimate and democratic government of Venezuela. It seems that Venezuela is not to be allowed even to defend itself from terrorists. It is clear that to the USA, Canada and their allies, Venezuelan judges are fair game and can have grenades lobbed at them, that journalists and even children’s daycares can be placed in peril, and policemen can be gunned down in cold blood, all of it justified if done by a “rebel” that wants regime change in Venezuela.<br />
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The Venezuelan opposition insists in painting that ex-pilot as some sort of hero or freedom fighter. The media they control does not mention the plans these criminals had to assassinate President Maduro, to bomb the Cuban embassy and to bomb the statue of Maria Lionza. This is a statue of a sort of goddess of the jungle that is venerated by some Venezuelan ethnic and popular groups; it is a large statue located in the middle of the most important highway in Caracas whose destruction would cause a great deal of damage. It is usually surrounded by flower offerings and is indeed the symbol of the indigenous population and of the diversity of popular religious practices. Its destruction would give a powerful symbolic message: those who should govern are the elite and not the “ignorant populace rabble”.<br />
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This very wealthy elitist, racist, opposition lobbied not only the USA and Canada but also EU, asking – and obtaining- sanctions on the country, sanctions that prevent Venezuela from buying, selling or getting loans.<br />
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These arrogant foreign countries believe that they can dictate to Latin America. They accuse Venezuela of not keeping the rule of law and violating human rights, and demand elections – as if they were not already planned. However, they TOTALLY ignore that the sanctions they are imposing are a violation of the fundamental principals of the Charter of Rights of the United Nations. These sanctions are a vulgar interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation.<br />
<br />
An extraordinary visit to Venezuela was carried out by the UN recently. The first official UN rapporteur to visit the country since 1996, Professor Dr. Alfred M. de Zayas carried out an official mission in Venezuela from 26 November to 4 December 2017. The purpose of his visit was to explore how the Bolivarian Revolution had implemented human rights – especially in the economic, social and cultural domain. His comments are worthy of note: … there is no “famine” in Venezuela, despite media reports and generalizations. There is, however, a shortage in several sectors, and some products are hard to get, but the population does not suffer from hunger as for example in many countries of Africa and Asia – or even in the favelas of São Paolo and other urban areas in Brazil and other Latin American countries. There are mainly problems in the timely distribution of imported products – but this is predominantly the responsibility of the private sector, which often enough deliberately boycotts the distribution, sometimes stocks products in large warehouses and then takes them to the black market instead of delivering them to supermarkets — just to make a higher profit … (the opposition) wish to cancel the Chávez and Maduro years and return to a purely capitalistic model. But there are at least 8 million Chávistas, and they will not disappear. These voters are convinced of the government’s program. These people will not allow the social achievements to be swept away. If the economy does not collapse as a result of sabotage, smuggling and sanctions, the government is likely to be reelected in 2018. The administration and the army are on the side of the government. Certainly, the plan in Washington is to launch a military attack on Venezuela by making use of disinformation about the allegedly miserable situation in the country with hunger, infant mortality and an economically desolate conditions, and then to chase the government out of office. We know this proceeding from other countries, so for example from September 1973 when the government of Salvador Allende was overthrown by a coup and Allende died.” <br />
<br />
The real issue is that the control over Venezuela’s immense oil reserve has become of major importance to Big Oil who has marshaled its great power to press for these sanctions. The campaign against Venezuela has nothing to do with “restoring” democracy, in fact that is the very last thing the USA, Canada or the EU want. They deliberately ignore the three 2017 elections for governors, municipal government and representatives to the National Constitutional Assembly that saw a significant win for the government. These elections were carried out in excellent order, as witnessed by a multitude of independent international observers. Despite the outrageous accusations of the USA and allies of dictatorship, there can be no clearer manifestation of democracy than these three electoral processes and no clearer sign of the support for President Maduro and his government than this.<br />
<br />
The USA, the puppet director of the OAS (Almagro), Canada and the EU have demanded that Venezuela hold presidential elections. This has been stated as if there had not been already elections scheduled for December 2018 or as if the government was somehow refusing to hold them. In a master move, last week the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) decided to push forward presidential elections for April 2018. This would surely satisfy these international critics, no? No. Their outcry is now that these elections will be illegal and unfair because they were decreed by the NCA. The NCA is a legitimately elected body (elected following strictly the indications of the Constitution) and is even recognized by major opposition parties. Who is it now that is not recognizing Venezuela’s rule of law?<br />
<br />
The call for presidential elections has caught the acrimoniously divided opposition off guard, as their several disparate parties can only agree on one thing: get rid of Maduro. There is no way that the opposition can match the popularity of the government, a government that has not ceased to try to protect the poorest from the economic crisis. By normal political standards, any government that has been in power during a critical economic crisis – out side of actual war- most assuredly looses its popularity. Not so the Venezuelan government, in fact, it may have even increased its support despite the terrible economic situation. How can the opposition have hoped to gain from the economic crisis when they have openly – shamelessly- lobbied for the boycott of Venezuela? They want foreign forces to give them the power they are unable to persuade the people to grant them through clean elections. And they are very willing to hand over all of the country’s petroleum to Big Oil so long as they are given political power.<br />
<br />
The Venezuelan elites, having opposed even their great Liberator Simón Bolívar, have learned nothing of honor during two centuries. In the most critical historical moments of the country, they have shown themselves on the side of the oppressors, of foreign powers. The Venezuelan people, who have an acute sense of history, are not likely to forget.<br />
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Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-8222336574201356352018-01-21T12:35:00.003-05:002018-01-21T12:35:54.220-05:00For Western Imperial Liberals, US Sanctions Kill Venezuelans, but the Price Is Worth It <i>by Joe Emersberger</i><br />
<br />
<br />
David Smilde, in a <i>New York Times</i> op-ed, stated that a US military invasion of Venezuela would be "folly." Actually it would be a major crime, but liberals very rarely describe the barbarism of their own government properly.<br />
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Hence Madeleine Albright's infamous slip-up when she said publicly that 5,000 dead Iraqi children per month from US-imposed sanctions was "worth it." The fact that a huge crime is causally discussed in the NYT op-ed section by Smilde also speaks volumes about the perversion of political culture. <br />
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Smilde supports US economic sanctions against Venezuela, which is going through a major economic crisis. In other words, he supports making the crisis worse to give "leverage" to the opposition. Incidentally, almost nobody cares to notice, but such US sanctions are illegal. <br />
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On Twitter, Smilde (who blocked me in 2015 immediately after I wrote a piece criticizing him) angrily responded to a critic by conceding that "sanctions kill."<br />
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According to the opposition–aligned pollster Datanalisis, which Smilde relies on to claim that he is speaking for 80 percent of Venezuelans, the majority of Venezuelans oppose the sanctions he advocates. Smilde is, however, too dishonest to have mentioned this in his <i>New York Times</i> piece.<br />
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Moreover, how many politicians in the United States would dare advocate – or even refrain from vehemently rejecting – foreign sanctions on their own country at any time, never mind during a depression? That goes a long way towards explaining the opposition's humiliating defeat in October's regional elections – as one would learn from reading Francisco Rodriguez, a vastly more honest and rational opponent of the Venezuelan government than Smilde.<br />
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In December, Datanalisis reported that 55.6 percent "strongly disagree" with US sanctions. Earlier in 2017, Datanalisis found similarly high levels of disagreement with other tactics, including opposition leaders lobbying foreign banks not to loan to the government.<br />
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<b>Failed Economic Policies</b><br />
<br />
Smilde is certainly correct that failed economic policies are lethal: they are, throughout the region. If Smilde accepted that inexcusable poverty, failed economic policies and human rights abuses justify sanctions, then he'd be forcefully advocating them against Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Peru and many other countries – including, of course, his own. <br />
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And who does Smilde think he is fooling with his emphasis on US allies? Not arguing for the United States to "be at the center of responses to Venezuela's problems"? Yeah, right.<br />
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Smilde cannot be ignorant enough to believe that sanctions against Venezuela by Canada and others, but rejected by the United States, would have any significant impact. That would be like believing the United States was a bit player in the "coalition" that invaded Iraq.<br />
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Torino Capital pointed out in early January: "There are currently 26 outstanding foreign currency bonds issued by the Venezuelan government or state-owned companies, with a total face value of US$64.9bn. All foreign-currency bonds are denominated in dollars, and all are governed by New York law." <br />
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One should recall that, a few years ago, a rogue judge in New York was able to effectively impose serious economic sanctions on Argentina on behalf of "vulture funds" while Cristina Fernandez was in power. The Supreme Court, the Obama administration and the International Monetary Fund simply looked the other way.<br />
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The US government does not have the muscle it had in the 1950s, but its courts and financial sector can still wield illegitimate authority and do tremendous damage throughout the world.<br />
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<i>The important role that allies such as Canada play is to provide political cover for US belligerence and lawlessness. That was dramatically illustrated when the Bush administration overthrew Haiti's democratically elected government in 2004.</i><br />
<br />
Smilde tossing around allegations of "racism" and "dehumanizing people" is simply projection. It's hardly an original point to make, but it's worth repeating: a person as racist and stupid as Trump did not end up in the White House because only one part of the US establishment is rotten.<br />
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Source: <a href="https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/David-Smilde-US-Sanctions-Kill-Venezuelans-But-Its-Worth-It-20180119-0023.html">https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/David-Smilde-US-Sanctions-Kill-Venezuelans-But-Its-Worth-It-20180119-0023.html</a>Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-452410496596247282018-01-08T21:28:00.003-05:002018-01-08T21:28:32.149-05:00Maduro has twelve victories of 2017To begin with, we must remember that President Nicolás Maduro is the most unjustly harassed, slandered and assaulted president in the history of Venezuela. Even more than Hugo Chávez himself, founder of the Bolivarian Revolution ... Ousting Nicolás Maduro from the Miraflores palace by whatever means has been and is the unhealthy goal of the internal reactionary opposition and its powerful international allies, especially the government of the States United of America.<br />
Maduro comes out stronger in 2017<br />
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As soon as 2017 began, the attacks against the President started immediately. The first aggression came from the National Assembly, controlled by counterrevolutionary forces, who decided on Jan. 9 to "disavow" the President and accused Nicolas Maduro of having "abandoned his position" - something false and absurd.<br />
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Faced with this attempt at a constitutional coup d'état -inspired by the parliamentary coup model that overthrew Dilma Rousseff in Brazil in 2016 - the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) intervened to point out that, under the Constitution, the National Assembly cannot dismiss the head of state, directly elected by the people.<br />
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For his part, the President responded to that coup attempt by organizing a massive civic-military exercise called "Zamora 200 integral anti-imperialist action" on Jan. 14. Some 600,000 were mobilized including military, militiamen and militants of social movements, and in doing so gave an impressive demonstration of the unity between the armed forces, the government, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and the popular masses. That was the first victory of 2017.<br />
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Encouraged by the election in the United States of Donald Trump - candidate of the right-wing who took office in Washington on Jan. 20, the Venezuelan opposition tried to intimidate the Maduro government with a large march in Caracas on Jan. 23, the date of the fall of the dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez in 1958. But here they failed pathetically. This was because, among other reasons, President Maduro had responded by organizing on the same day the transfer of the remains of Fabricio Ojeda, revolutionary leader during the overthrow of Pérez Jiménez, to the National Pantheon. At the call of the president, hundreds of thousands of Caracas residents flocked to fill the avenues of the capital. And it was possible to clearly see how popular Chavismo dominates the streets, while the opposition exhibited its divisions and squalor. That was President Maduro's second victory.<br />
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Shortly after the Supreme Court intervened to emphasize that the National Assembly was in a situation of "contempt" since 2016. As should be recalled, in the legislative elections of Dec. 6, 2015, there were allegations of fraud in Amazonas state. The claims were backed up by recordings in which the secretary of the state government offered sums of money to groups of voters to vote for opposition candidates. Consequently, the TSJ suspended the election of those legislators. But the National Assembly persisted in swearing them in, because the addition of these three additional members of the assembly would have given the opposition an absolute majority (two thirds of the lawmakers) and the power to repeal organic laws and to limit the action of the President himself ...<br />
<br />
Tensions between a Parliament and a Supreme Court are relatively frequent in all large democracies. In Europe, for example, when a constitutional conflict arises between branches of government, it is common for the Supreme Court to assume powers of Parliament. And in the United States, even such an esoteric president as Donald Trump has had to abide by recent decisions of the Supreme Court …<br />
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But in Caracas, the counterrevolutionary forces used that debate to relaunch an international campaign on the alleged "absence of democracy in Venezuela." With the complicity of the new U.S. Administration, they mounted a colossal, global media lynching operation against Nicolas Maduro. Mobilizing dominant media outlets from CNN and Fox News to the BBC in London, along with the major media houses in Latin America and the Caribbean, the most influential global newspapers, pillars of conservative communication hegemony, as well as social media networks.<br />
At the same time, the Venezuelan right wing maneuvered with the intention of internationalizing the internal conflict by transferring it to the Organization of American States (OAS) - "the ministry of the colonies of the United States," according to Che Guevara. Obeying the slogans of the new government of Donald Trump and with the support of several conservative regimes in Latin America, Luis Almagro, secretary general of the OAS, assumed the deplorable role of leading the demand that the application of the Democratic Charter against Venezuela.<br />
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But Caracas counterattacked at once and secured the diplomatic solidarity of most of the Latin American and Caribbean States. Despite the dishonest schemes and false arguments of the Secretary General of the OAS, Venezuela was never put in a minority position and won irrefutably. And the enemies of the Bolivarian Revolution, including Washington, were defeated by the solid strategy enacted by President Maduro, based on facts and reality, political honesty and ethics. Finally, in April, Caracas decided to withdraw from the OAS, accusing the organization of "intrusive actions against the sovereignty of Venezuela." With imagination and audacity, in this complex international scenario, Nicolas Maduro achieved his third great victory in 2017.<br />
Meanwhile, tensions increased in Caracas when, on March 29, the Constitutional Chamber of the TSJ declared that "as long as the situation of contempt and invalidity of the proceedings of the National Assembly persists, this Constitutional Chamber will ensure that parliamentary powers are exercised directly for this Chamber or for the body that it designates, to ensure the rule of law." Previously, the TSJ had already pointed out that the parliamentary immunity of the deputies "only covers themselves during the exercise of their functions," which was not the case when the National Assembly is "in contempt"...<br />
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The anti-Chavez opposition cried to the heavens. And with the help, once again, of conservative forces internationally went on to propel a seditious counter-revolutionary plan. The long and tragic "crisis of the guarimbas" began. For four interminable months - from April to July - the counterrevolutionaries launched the most desperate and brutal war offensive against the Bolivarian Government. Funded in dollars by the international right, the anti-Chavez forces - led by Primero Justicia and Voluntad Popular, two far right-wing organizations - did not hesitate to use paramilitaries, terrorists and mercenaries of organized crime in a deployment of simultaneous irregular tactics, along with elite experts in psychological warfare and "democratic" propaganda. All with the pathological purpose of overthrowing Nicolas Maduro.<br />
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Drunk with violence, the rioters rushed to assault Venezuelan democracy. They attacked, burned and destroyed hospitals, health centers, nurseries, schools, high schools, maternity hospitals, food and medicine stores, government offices, hundreds of private businesses, subway stations, buses, public infrastructure, while the barricades multiplied in the bourgeois urbanities they controlled.<br />
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The violent groups, throwing Molotov cocktails, were particular in their targeting of security forces. Five officials were shot to death. On the other hand, many 'guarimberos' showed terrible savagery by mounting tensed, fine steel cables on public roads to behead motorcyclists ... Or when, overflowing with hatred and racism, they burned young Chavistas alive - 29 in total, of which nine died. The result: one hundred and twenty-one people killed, thousands injured and millions of dollars lost.<br />
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During those four months of counterrevolutionary rapture, the opposition also made calls to attack military bases, and tried to push the armed forces to turn against the legitimate government and to assault the presidential palace. The extreme right, intent on a coup, tried everything to start a civil war, fracture the civic-military union, and destroy Venezuelan democracy.<br />
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At the same time, on an international scale, the frantic media campaign continued, presenting those who burned hospitals, murdered innocents, destroyed schools and burned people alive as "heroes of freedom." It was the world in reverse - the world of 'post-truths' and 'alternative facts' ...<br />
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It was not easy to resist so much terror, so much aggression, and restore public order with a vision of democratic authority, proportionality and respect for human rights. The constitutional and legitimate President Nicolas Maduro got it, and he acheived what seemed impossible: an exit from the labyrinth of violence. He did so aith a great idea that nobody expected but upset and disconcerted the opposition: a return to the original constituent power.<br />
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Read more: <a href="https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/The-12-Victories-of-Venezuelan-President-Maduro-in-2017-20180102-0009.html">https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/The-12-Victories-of-Venezuelan-President-Maduro-in-2017-20180102-0009.html</a><br />
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Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-3264690334730082682017-12-17T14:53:00.004-05:002017-12-17T14:53:51.935-05:00Venezuela, Towards New Victories<i><br />
Statement by Adán Chávez Frías <b></b></i><br />
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We are in the presence of the greatest imperial offensive against democracy and self-determination of the peoples. The unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as capital of the Israeli State by the Trump Administration is a risk for peace in the region and in the world.<br />
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This White House decision, together with others that contradict the entire legal framework on which the system of international relations is constructed, clearly shows us that the United States imperialism is in one of the most irrational, dangerous and warlike phases of history, ready to violate any norm, principle or law to achieve its purposes.<br />
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The reactions have taken place rapidly, and the majority of the international community has condemned this violation of International Law and of all the efforts of the United Nations Organization (UN) in search of a peaceful solution by consensus to the Palestinian conflict.<br />
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But the aggression reaches beyond. In Honduras, the United States embassy in Tegucigalpa, clearly meddling in the internal affairs of that nation, has requested Salvador Nasralla, candidate of the progressive alliance, to distance himself from the political figure of Manuel Zelaya and from any reference to chavismo or socialist democracy.<br />
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Again the United States places Central America on the border of a conflict and instability by endorsing an electoral fraud and undermining the Honduran democratic system. In the south, the Macri government has started in Argentina the judicial inquiry and criminalization of those who oppose him, unleashing the political persecution of former president and current senator Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and other leaders connected with the period in office of that outstanding political and social leader of our Big Fatherland.<br />
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As continuation of its interventionist policy in Venezuela’s internal affairs, the Conflict and Stabilization Operations Office of the U.S. State Department paid almost one million dollars to groups of “experts” to study and design strategies aimed at trying to destroy de Bolivarian socialist project and establish a rightist government that will pave the way to the neoliberal restoration, as revealed by the U.S. media themselves a few days ago.<br />
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But we, the people, are here, resisting the blow with greater conscience, more organization, more unity and greater conviction. This is a crucial battle between the imperial fascism and the peaceful, humanistic and democratic vocation of the majority of this planet’s inhabitants. We cannot let the future generations down, because if the criterion of those that do not believe in peace and democracy were imposed, humankind would be thrown into barbarity and we would return with gigantic steps to a period of obscurantism and misery. Today more than ever we, the peoples, must be united worldwide in our struggle against imperialism and neoliberalism.<br />
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This 10th of December, 158 years after the historical battle of Saint Inés, the patriotic Venezuelan people, the people of Bolívar, Zamora and Chávez, with their participation in the municipal elections, once more confirmed their trust in the Voting Power and their conviction to continue along the road of peace and understanding, along the road of the defense of sovereignty and the right to the free determination of our destiny. We are prepared for new challenges, new scenarios, and new victories.<br />
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The year 2018 will be determinant for the Bolivarian Revolution. We assume the challenge to face and destroy treason and counterrevolution in all fields as historical process of national liberation. At this stage we must overcome the obstacles in order to ensure the continuity and advance of our socialist project on the economic sphere, developing a new production and distribution model, but likewise on the social-organizational sphere and essentially by speeding up the Cultural Revolution.<br />
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These days when Christmas is near are days of joy and family gathering, but also of reflection. In recent months we witnessed the essence of the plan that imperialism wants for our country: to drive us to chaos, death and despair. In a struggle that was not easy and which left almost 200 mortal victims, we crushed the fascist violence with the election of the new National Constituent Assembly. That was possible only thanks to the people’s social conscience, a people that, like Christ, wants peace, love, justice, welfare, respect and tolerance for all. Let us then prepare ourselves to continue cultivating the Christian values, which are also the values of this Bolivarian and chavista Revolution. Let us prepare ourselves to continue defending our Fatherland, our independence and our sovereignty.<br />
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United we will win!</i><br />
With Chávez always!<br />
Caracas, December 10th, 2017<br />
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<a href="http://www.thedawn-news.org/2017/12/14/venezuela-towards-new-victories/"><br />
http://www.thedawn-news.org/2017/12/14/venezuela-towards-new-victories/</a><br />
Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-10344160968084364182017-11-28T12:45:00.002-05:002017-11-28T12:45:53.770-05:00Financial Agency Euroclear starving the Venezuelan people<b><br />
Aims to recreate What happened in Chile in 1973</b><br />
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by <a href="http://panorama.com.ve">panorama.com.ve</a> <br />
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Euroclear is a financial services giant, handling the custody of securities, headquartered in Brussels and with customers in over 90 countries.<br />
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President Nicolas Maduro exposed on Nov. 23, 2017 that the provider of financial services Euroclear had frozen US$1.650 billion belonging to Venezuela, as a result of United States sanctions. According to the president, who described the case as a "kidnapping," it is US$450 million in cash and US$1.20 billion in securities notes to import food and medicine that are in acute shortage in the country.<br />
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The US$450 million "they have had frozen for six weeks in Euroclear ... End the sequester of Venezuelan money abroad! " said the President during a ceremony celebrating his 55th birthday. "We have in addition US$1.20 billion in bonds issued by the Republic, accepted by economic agents to sell us medicines (...) "and food, and they are holding our US$1.20 billion hostage,” he added.<br />
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Mature linked this issue to the sanctions imposed last August by the United States, prohibiting citizens of that country from negotiating new debt issued by the Venezuelan state-owned oil and natural gas company PDVSA. It is "the economic war that the imperialist government of the United States has imposed and is chasing money we have in the world", he said.<br />
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A source with information on this issue and who requested anonymity, recently told AFP that the Central Bank of Venezuela had had "its operations stopped by Euroclear", including food imports. According to this version, due to sanctions from Washington, Venezuela must now comply with new requirements of the Office for the Control of Foreign Assets (OFAC) of the United States, which has hindered all transfers of funds. Euroclear "cannot put at risk its market in the United States," said the source.<br />
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Venezuela and PDVSA — that provides 96 percent of the country’s hard currency — were rated in partial default by a group of creditors and the rating agencies Standard & Poor's and Fitch, due to delayed interest and capital payments made on its securities debt.<br />
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Suffering from cash flow problems, Venezuela is also suffering from rising inflation which the IMF projects at more than 2,300 percent for 2018.<br />
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These problems are always laid at the government door as if no external factors were in play in creating either shortages of food and medicines and stoking soaring inflation. The fact is that Euroclear is just one example of how US sanctions are paralyzing imports of vital basic goods and contributing to a possible humanitarian crisis.<br />
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Venezuelan opposition leaders such as Julio Borges and Luis Florido have asked the US to impose economic sanctions on Venezuela in an effort to oust Maduro and the ruling socialist party from power. They have even suggested that the US “should send in the marines to restore democracy and tackle the crisis”.<br />
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The situation is very similar to what happened in Chile in 1973 when Allende was overthrown. The day after Allende’s death all the products being hidden from the population reappeared in the stores with new prices; inflation subsided and a new democracy was eventually spawned years later on the back of thousands of civilian deaths and torture.<br />
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The US and its agents such as Euroclear, Citibank, JP Morgan and others are all participating in this economic attack on Venezuela simply because they want to get their hands on the oil and gold reserves and do not like the democratic decision of the Venezuelan people that refuses to elect traitors such as Borges and Florido to position of real power. None of these actors care about the suffering of the Venezuelan people since it is they, and they alone, that continue to stoke the flames of inflation and fuel the economic war.<br />
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First published in panorama.com.ve on Nov. 23, 2017.<br />
Translated from Spanish by Arturo Rosales from<a href="http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/"> Axis of Logic</a>.<br />
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Suzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372808152629570861.post-52542928598343604562017-10-17T16:56:00.001-04:002017-10-17T16:56:59.468-04:00 Venezuela Regional Elections: Another Victory for participatory democracy<i>By Les Blough </i><br />
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16 October 2017 - Venezuela gave yet another lesson on participatory democracy to the world and demonstrated their resilience and the courage to stand up.<br />
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Chavismo won another historic victory today in spite of the brutal U.S. war on the economy, the Washington-backed violence geared to the comprehensive and exhaustive media assault over the last few years, all aimed at overthrowing the government of President Nicolas Maduro. It hasn't worked - not with these people.<br />
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<b>Maduro's Socialist Party Wins Venezuela's Regional Polls</b><br />
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After all that the Venezuelan people have suffered, deprived of food and other essential products, violent attacks on their schools, hospitals and medical clinics, destruction of other public buildings, sabotage of their electrical grid, regular violent attacks by Colombian paramilitaries, having their elected leaders maligned, lied about and demonized, seeing their government resources diverted from production, services and development to defense, living with distress and fear in their daily lives and seeing their friends and love ones maimed and die simply because of their political views - despite all the suffering they have endured they supported their elected government today and sent the U.S.-backed right wing packing.<br />
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Venezuelans are among the most politically educated and geopolitically aware people in the world and they know from whence their suffering comes and that it's not by the hands of the leaders they've elected.<br />
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Malcolm X once stated, "No man gives up power willingly. It must be taken from him." Well Malcolm, your words are almost universally true but not so in the Bolivarian Revolution. With the new Constituent Assembly that over 8 million Venezuelans voted for in July, President Maduro brilliantly handed down to the people true "power from below" and today they rewarded him and his administration with this nationwide victory.<br />
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When Barbara Walters interviewed our late President Chavez in New York a few years ago, she asked him, "Why do the people love you so?" Chávez answered, "It's really simple, it's because I love them. Love is reciprocal." <br />
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We saw that reciprocity today between the people and President Maduro who received his training and mission from "El Comandante."<br />
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But Venezuela not only rewarded their government of choice today. They also gave yet another lesson on participatory democracy to the world and demonstrated their resilience and the courage to stand up: to the Lords of War, the hostile U.S. Congress, the Pentagon and CIA, the U.S. Southern command, U.S. installed enemies in neighboring Colombia hosting 7 U.S. military bases and 13 other Latin American countries.<br />
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For years on end the Venezuelan people and their leadership continue to stand up to the capitalist matrix including Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, the 3 Rating Agencies which arbitrarily downgrade Venezuela's credit rating in the face of its solvency, the Central Banks across the United States and Europe, the European Union, NATO, Big Pharma, International Airlines and exporters in lockstep with U.S. foreign policy, layers of U.S. sanctions, OPEC traitors like Saudi Arabia and of course the masters of organized deceit, the Corporate disinformation and entertainment industry, not to mention their having to tolerate the tirades and threats from Washington's idiot president, Donald Trump.<br />
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Vive Chávez! Vive Maduro! Vive Venezuela!<br />
Les Blough, is Axis of Logic's Editor in Venezuela<br />
from TELESUR: http://bit.ly/2gO6n8MSuzanne Weisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17498704253143427168noreply@blogger.com0