The artillery of ideasENGLISH EDITIONTHURSDAY | December 30, 2010 | No. 45| Bs 1 | CARACAS

Pg. 7 | Social Justice Pg. 8 | Opinion

PoliticsInternational solidarityMore than 500 tons of international aid have been sent to Venezuela from ally nations.

Foreign funding bannedA new law prohibiting foreign funding for internal political activities in Venezuela will put an end to external meddling.

New laws in Venezuela to give more power to peopleVenezuela is passing new laws

based on constitutional prin-ciples to give more power to the people and strengthen national sovereignty, according to declara-tions made by Marelis Perez Mar-cano, deputy vice president of the National Assembly, on Tuesday.

According to Perez Marcano, it is no coincidence that the oppo-sition is attacking the process of change underway throughout the country, because they do not be-lieve in the organizational capac-ity of the Venezuelan people.

“We are aware of the

opposition´s attempts to confront our project for giving the popula-tion more participation in public power”, added Perez Marcano.

According to the parliamentar-ian, the National Assembly is tak-ing measures to develop participa-tion policies, and offer the people more self-management capacity.

Perez Marcano said that it is very important for the population to be informed of and understand laws that are being passed with the goal of transferring services to communities for distributing resources with more equity.

“We are building a new State of law and justice, seeking democracy and a higher organizational capac-ity for Venezuelans”, reiterated the legislative representative.

She noted that about 56 laws have been passed to improve the domestic situation and internation-al agreements had been reached to stop the decentralization of wealth and old mechanisms established during prior governments in the twentieth century that served the interests of the elite.

T/ PL

PPggggggggg.. 8 | OOppppppinniioonnVeteran journalist John Pilger on media manipulation and deceptive reporting of war

PPggggg. 7 | SSoociaall JJJJJJJuusttiiccee A new university law to democratize higher education has provoked criticism from the exclusionist academic elite

Dilma: a woman in power in Brazil

Social JusticeQ&A on new lawsFind quick answers to common questions about Venezuela’s new media law.

In 2011, the economy in Venezuela will recover and

grow 2% despite the drop registered in 2010, assured the President of the National Statistics Institute (INE), Elias Eljuri.

“Venezuela is coming out from the economic crisis. Next year the economy will grow and indicators will re-cover. During the coup and the oil sabotage [in 2002 and 2003], the economy fell more than 8 points and we recov-ered from it really fast. In the fi rst trimester of this year, the economy dropped 5.2%; however, when we compare the third trimester of 2009 with the same period in 2010, it is already at 0.4%. That is to say, in the fourth trimester the economy will be positive and next year we will have an economy that will grow at least 2%”, he explained.

The President of the INE pointed out that the Internal Added Demand fell last year by 10.9%; nevertheless, sta-tistics show a growth of 4.1% in 2010.

Eljuri underscored that despite the economic crisis that effected Venezuela, the current government kept its social investment policy.

“In these 10 years, the Boli-varian Government has des-tined 60.6% of the national budget to social investment”.

Enabling Law allows for housing fundA much criticized Enabling Law approved by Venezuela’s National Assembly last week was used by President Hugo Chavez to create a special emergency fund to provide relief for thousands left homeless by heavy rains that devastated the nation last month. The multi-billion dollar fund will enable homes to be built for the displaced in areas most affected by the rains.

Venezuela’s economy

to grow in 2011On Saturday, Brazil will inaugurate its fi rst woman

president in history, Dilma RousseffIn attendance at the presidential ceremony will be heads of state from across the region and around the world, including Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Dilma, a leftist leader and

close confi dant of outgoing Brazilian President Lula da Silva, has a strong history of activism and struggle against powerful interests. Her rise to power shows that women in Latin America are taking on leading roles. Rousseff

will head the region’s largest economy and one of the world’s most powerful nations.

The artillery of ideas| 2 | Impact No 45 • Thursday, December 30, 2010

Chavez: emergency fund to provide for new homesWhile the fi nancial crisis has forced millions from their homes in the United States with no help from government agencies, Venezuelan President Chavez decreed a new fund this week to provide several billion dollars in relief aid for housing construction to help thousands displaced from the severe rains that hit the nation in late November

In his fi rst use of the decree pow-ers granted to him through the

Venezuelan congress earlier this month, President Hugo Chavez announced the creation of a 10 billion bolivar (US$2.3 billion) emergency fund to provide relief for those affected by the torrential rains that have ravaged parts of the country.

506 million bolivars ($117.7 mil-lion) of the newly created Simon Bolivar Fund will be put to use to construct four thousand new homes in areas of the western state of Zulia, one of the regions most affected by the downpours.

“[W]e’re beginning the recon-struction phase”, Chavez said of the initiative on Sunday.

“We’re going to build thou-sands and thousands of homes for people, much more than we’ve done up till now”, he declared.

ENABLING HELPThe Simon Bolivar fund was

created by presidential decree via the nation’s newly passed Enabling Law which, according to the Venezuelan Constitution, gives the head of the Executive branch the ability to bypass con-gress in order to enact specifi c legislation with greater celerity.

Venezuela’s congress, the Na-tional Assembly, approved the Enabling Law by a two-thirds majority on December 15th giv-ing Chavez the power to rule by decree for the next 18 months.

OPPOSITION AGAINST AIDMembers of the conservative

Venezuelan opposition have de-cried the passage of the law, us-

ing private media outlets both nationally and internationally to denounce what they consider “the road towards dictatorship”.

The opposition, which carried out a violent coup d’etat in 2002 to oust the democratically-elected Chavez from power, has referred to the Enabling Law as an intent to usurp democratic institutions.

“In Venezuela, there is a coup d’etat process being carried out by the state”, said Congresswom-an-elect Maria Machado of the right-wing opposition coalition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD). Machado, founder of the US-funded group Sumate, was a principal signator of the “Car-mona Decree” during the April 2002 coup d’etat, which dissolved

all of Venezuela’s democratic in-stitutions and briefl y forced the country into a dictatorship.

Currently, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) dom-inates the National Assembly due to an opposition boycott of congressional elections in 2005 that ceded power to Chavez supporters.

The supermajority that the PSUV has enjoyed since 2005 will be diminished in 2011 as opposi-tion representatives who won 40 percent of congressional seats during elections last September 26th take their posts on January 5th. Still, the minority opposi-tion will not have enough voting power to be able to enact or re-tract any legislation.

DESTABILIZATION ATTEMPTSIn response to the criticisms

emanating from the private me-dia and other opposition sectors, the Venezuelan President and his supporters in the PSUV have de-fended the Enabling Law as a nec-essary response to the emergency provoked by the rains which has led to the death of nearly 40 peo-ple and the displacement of more than 100 thousand.

“They say that this is a dicta-torship, but the law exists to deal with the emergency and the crisis that we’re living. And throughout 2011 and 2012 it will be for recon-struction of devastated areas”, the Venezuelan President declared.

Chavez, who has won three presidential elections and a recall

referendum over his eleven years as head of state, referred to the opposition’s criticism of the ini-tiative as a guise for their inten-tions to “destabilize the country” as was the case in 2002.

“[The Law] is an excuse for the opposition to try to take up vio-lence once again, to justify a coup and an assassination”, he imputed.

Indeed, recent opposition pro-tests against a package of laws passed by the National Assembly have turned violent as business leaders and the conservative stu-dent movement have encouraged people to engage in acts of civil dis-obedience against the government.

Last week, the head of the Ven-ezuelan chamber of commerce, FEDECAMARAS – the primary organization behind the 2002 coup against Chavez which left at least 17 people dead – made a call to mem-bers of the armed forces to disobey orders which they consider to be in violation of the constitution.

Chavez has rejected out of hand the assertions of FEDECA-MARAS president Noel Alvarez, referring to the declarations as a call to subversion that must be investigated by the Public Attor-ney’s Offi ce.

“I can only, as head of state, em-phatically denounce this call to violate the Constitution and the laws of the Republic made, yet again, by this corrupt organiza-tion tied to the worst part of our nation’s past”, he said.

COLLECTIVE EFFORTAccording to the Venezuelan

President, instead of manipulating the passage of national legislation for political purposes, all Venezu-elans should be focused on expe-diting reconstruction efforts for the victims of the natural disaster that has befallen the nation.

After touring various areas af-fected by the rains on Sunday with Bolivian President Evo Mo-rales, Chavez called for a collec-tive effort to construct housing units and overcome the tragedy.

“For this reason, I’m asking for, in the fi rst place, a lot of partici-pation on the part of communal businesses, the Armed Forces, mayors and governors, congress members and the most respon-sible and serious construction fi rms”, Chavez said.

T/ Edward EllisP/ Presidential Press

The artillery of ideas No 45 • Thursday, December 30, 2010 International | 3 |

Dilma: Brazil’s fi rst woman President takes offi ce Brazil’s fi rst female president Dilma Rousseff, who takes up the helm on January 1, will lead a small but powerful group of women taking on the political challenges facing Latin America

When she is inaugurated as the head of the region’s

biggest economy, Dilma Rousseff will be the most visible face of the inroads women are making into a paternalist tradition that has so long sidelined them into second-ary roles.

It will be a tricky test for Rouss-eff, who takes over from her char-ismatic mentor Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, whose gruff, bearded manner proved persuasive in a variety of situations—not least in getting her elected.

She joins a select club of Latina female leaders that already in-cludes Argentine President Cris-tina Kirchner and Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla.

“In Brazil, there is an attempt to undermine Dilma’s legitimacy because she was chosen by Lula, as if she was incapable of making her own decisions just because she’s a woman”, said Professor Rosemary Segurado, a social sci-

ences professor at Sao Paulo Uni-versity.

Rousseff, Lula’s former cabi-net chief; Kirchner, fi rst lady be-fore taking over the presidency; and Chinchilla, a former vice-president of Costa Rica, are fi nd-ing themselves forced to prove “they are not in anyone’s shad-ow”, she said. “Latin American politics is seen as an area for men, and society has trouble accepting they have their own opinions, ideas and initiatives”, she added.

In Rousseff’s case, the fact she had never run in an election be-fore winning the presidency was taken as evidence that she was simply a prolongation of Lula’s government—something which diminished her own accomplish-ments, Segurado said.

Chinchilla, likewise, faced criti-cism that she was propelled to the top by her predecessor, Oscar Aria. And Kirchner was previ-ously credited with being more infl uential when she was the senator wife of president Nestor

Kirchner. When she became president with her husband’s backing, “it was as if she had no political past” for much of the electorate, Segurado said. In con-trast, Chile’s former female presi-dent Michelle Bachelet served as defense minister before becoming head of state, Segurado noted. She had successfully negotiated military matters that still felt the tug of ex-dictator Augusto Pi-nochet.

“Bachelet is a case of a woman who had her own path, who man-

aged to show she was not only a creation of ex-president Ricardo Lagos but a public fi gure in her own right”, she said.

Latin America also had sev-eral other female fi gures who, though not in the spotlight of international politics, were re-garded as infl uential within their own countries. They included Maraa Estela Martinez de Peron in Argentina, Nicaragua’s Violeta Chamorro and Panama’s Mireya Moscoso. In Haiti, former fi rst lady Mirlande Manigat took 31 percent of the vote in Novem-ber’s fi rst round of presidential elections and will stand in next month’s run-off vote.

Even after running their coun-try’s affairs, some female leaders have remained at the forefront of global politics.

Bachelet, for instance, was cho-sen by UN chief Ban Ki-moon this year to run UN Women, a gender-equality entity. Women “manage to always take decisions, and all decisions, not only the easy ones”, Bachelet recently told the Brazil-ian newspaper O Estado de Sao Paulo. She also said Rousseff’s election gave greater visibility to female leaders worldwide.

“This contributes to changing the belief that women are second-class citizens”, she said.

T/ AFPP/ Agencies

Venezuela: putting tenant rights fi rstProtecting the rights of rent-

ers will be a top priority of the Venezuelan government into the New Year, President Hugo Chavez announced last week during a ceremony held at the Presidential Palace, Mirafl ores

The declaration was made as the government delivered new apartment titles to homebuyers scammed by development agen-cies in the Caracas neighborhood of La Avileña.

Speaking out against the ram-pant abuse that many tenants face from unscrupulous landlords and private real estate fi rms, Chavez affi rmed his commitment to put an end to the fraud that has be-come commonplace throughout the country.

“I’m going to do what I have to do inside the guidelines of the Constitution to make this stop.

This is an abomination against ex-ploited families”, he exclaimed.

In efforts to increase the profi t-ability of rental properties, many private agents and landlords raise rents illegally, evade taxes and charge extra fees for fi ctitious services.

Speculation in the real estate

market is widespread and tenant rights are rarely respected, leaving ordinary residents at the mercy of private fi rms and individuals who employ an arsenal of bureaucratic maneuvers to manipulate renters and fi rst time homebuyers.

“As President it gives me great shame to see that this is still occur-

ring in my country and, before the entire nation, I commit myself to put an end to this”, Chavez declared.

In order to combat these illicit practices, the President has pro-posed the creation of a task force headed by Labor Minister Maria Iglesias and comprised of govern-ment offi cials alongside residents belonging to popular housing as-sociations.

According to the head of state, it will be a working group “where the people, the Vice President of the Council of Ministers for Poli-tics (Nicolas Maduro) and con-gress members create proposals that arrive in my hands as quickly and effi ciently as possible”.

Chavez said that he would use the powers granted to him through the recently passed En-abling Law to enact the changes.

The Enabling Law, passed by

the Venezuelan Congress earlier this month, gives the President the authority to enact specifi c leg-islation without the need of de-bate in the legislative chambers of the National Assembly.

“This can be one of the laws that falls under the Enabling Law”, Chavez said. “I want [gov-ernment offi cials] to work with me on the law…I’m asking for the support of those who have the most experience writing laws. We have to create a fair law to deal with this issue”, he implored.

With respect to tenant’s rights, the government-citizen task force would work to develop proposals that would then be submitted to the Enabling Cabinet in the pro-cess of writing the new law.

T/ Edward EllisP/ Presidential Press

The artillery of ideas| 4 | Politics No 45 • Thursday, December 30, 2010

International aid shows solidarity with VenezuelaCountries from around the world have provided hundreds of tons of aid to Venezuela after the devastating rains that hit the nation in late November. Bolivian President Evo Morales visited Venezuela this week to bring more assistance

As testament to the bridges of solidarity that have been

built through Venezuela’s mul-tilateral foreign policy over the past ten years, more than 500 tons of international humanitar-ian assistance have arrived in the country in response to the torren-tial rains that have drenched the nation, displacing more than 100 thousand people.

On Friday, thirty tons of assis-tance including electric generators and two thousand blankets were received from Russia while on Sun-day, fifty tons of aid were provided by the government of Bolivia.

“This is another sign that the Venezuelan government has excellent relations with all the countries of the world”, said Luis Curbelo, National Director of the office of Civil Protection and Di-saster Administration.

“We haven’t declared a na-tional emergency but we’ve seen solidarity from all the countries

that are friends of Venezuela”, the director declared.

REGIONAL STATES OF EMERGENCYAlthough the government has

not declared a national disaster, a state of emergency has been con-firmed in eight states throughout the South American country due to the downpours.

Last Thursday, a shipment of personal hygiene products, baby food, and furniture from Indo-nesia arrived to be distributed among the 900 shelters that have been installed across the country.

Alfred Palembagan, Indonesian Ambassador to Venezuela spoke

about the importance of the aid, re-lating Venezuela’s crisis to the vari-ous tsunamis that the South Asian country has suffered over the years.

“We’ve come to donate various supplies but the most important is that this is a symbol of solidarity with the Venezuelan people and its government. We, as a people, have suffered many natural di-sasters. We know and understand the problem that our sister coun-try Venezuela is confronting right now”, Palembagan said.

Other nations that have re-sponded to the call for assistance include Ecuador, Nicaragua, Cuba, Aruba, Belarus, Spain, Por-

tugal, Switzerland, China and the United Arab Emirates.

The aid has arrived in the form of mattresses, potable water, non-perishable food items, diapers, tents and other supplies.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez referred to the aid that has poured in from across the globe as “historic”.

“The humanitarian operation that is developing in Venezuela is some-thing extraordinary”, he declared.

EVO’S VISITOn Sunday, Chavez toured af-

fected zones in the western state of Zulia with his Bolivian coun-

terpart, Evo Morales, who de-livered fifty tons of rice destined for indigenous populations in the area.

“We are grateful, from our hearts, for the support that Bolivia has provided from the start of this tragedy. I express our gratitude in the name of the Venezuelan people and all the families that have suf-fered from the rains”, Chavez said.

For his part Morales affirmed the Bolivian people’s support for the Venezuelans who have been victimized by the crisis.

“In the name of the Bolivian people, we’ve come to express our solidarity with the affected families in the face of these inun-dations and natural disasters. I’m content to be in Venezuela again and as sister nations, we’ll con-tinue working together”, Morales affirmed.

The Bolivian president also used his visit to speak out against global warming and advocate for serious dialogue regarding climate change with the industrialized countries responsible for the vast majority of greenhouse emissions.

“Unfortunately, climate change and global warming are part of a structural problem on a global scale that brings deep social and economic problems. The poor and indigenous are the ones who must suffer the evils of capital-ism”, Morales said.

T/ Edward EllisP/ Presidential Press

ONA: over 63 tons of drugs seized in 2010Through December 2010, Ven-

ezuela’s Security Agencies have seized 63.294 tons of drugs in different procedures performed throughout the country.

The information comes from the figures published on the Venezuelan National Anti-Drug Office (ONA) website. The data details seizure and arrests for drug related crimes from January to December, 17. Additionally, it breaks down the operations car-ried out in the country accord-ing to the type of drugs seized: Marijuana (38.380 tons), cocaine (24.626 tons) heroin (52.520 kg), crack (169.715 kg) and crack co-caine (cocaine paste, 64.889 kg).

Likewise, from January to De-cember, 2010 12,376 people were

arrested for drug offenses dur-ing 9492 procedures carried out by members of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB), the Sci-entific, Penal and Criminal Inves-

tigation Police (CICPC), the Boli-varian National Police (PNB) the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin), as well as region-al and municipal police forces.

Venezuela’s anti-drug efforts have improved substantially since the nation broke ties and suspend-ed cooperation with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which it accused of sabo-tage and espionage. Recent docu-ments made public by the whistle-blower site Wikileaks evidence the DEA “has been transformed into a global intelligence organization with a reach that extends far be-yond narcotics, and an eavesdrop-ping operation so expansive it has to fend off foreign politicians who want to use it against their politi-cal enemies, according to secret diplomatic cables”, reported the New York Times.

In 2005, the Venezuelan govern-ment suspended cooperation with

the DEA after evidence came to light of several DEA agents based in the South American nation co-ordinating illegal drug shipments with traffickers for personal bene-fit. Additionally, evidence showed DEA espionage against Venezuelan government officials and sabotage of Venezuelan anti-drug efforts. Subsequently, the US government punished Venezuela and labeled it as a nation “not cooperating” with regional anti-drug efforts.

In 2008, Bolivian President Evo Morales followed suit and expelled the DEA from his nation, citing sab-otage, espionage and overall inter-ference in Bolivian internal affairs.

T/ AVNP/ Agencies

The artillery of ideas No 45 • Thursday, December 30, 2010 Politics | 5 |

Last week, Venezuela’s National Assembly approved the Law

in Defense of Political Sovereignty and National Self-Determination, making foreign funding of political organizations illegal. The legislature also passed a reform to the Political Parties Law, creating a penalty for legislators who change political par-ties after constituents have elected them based on a party platform.

The law banning foreign fund-ing for political activities is short, with only 10 articles, and aims to protect Venezuelan political life from foreign interference through financial support or donations to political organizations.

It applies specifically to political organizations, which are defined as “organizations that promote citizen participation in public spaces or control of public power or that promote candidates seek-ing election”. It also applies to organizations that promote and defend citizens’ political rights.

Penalties include fines of double the amount received from a for-eign entity and the expulsion from Venezuela of foreigners who par-ticipate in such financing. Directors of the organizations breaking the law would be barred from politi-cal positions for five to eight years and organizations would likewise be banned from electoral processes for five to eight years. In addition, political organizations that invite a foreigner to interfere in a way that “offends state institutions, civil ser-vants or the exercise of sovereign-ty” will be penalized with fines of 5-10,000 tax unites. The current tax unit is worth 65 bolivars (US$15).

MIXED REACTIONSLegislative representative Rafic

New Venezuelan law makes foreign financing of political organizations illegal

Venezuela has finally approved a law to regulate foreign funding for political activities in the country, which will impede the flow of unregulated multimillion-dollar funding from foreign agencies seeking to influence the country’s internal politics

Souki from the pro-Chavez United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) said the law prevents political par-ties and non-government orga-nizations (NGOs) from receiving external financing with the aim of destabilizing the country.

Meanwhile, Edgar Lucena, representative from the Venezu-elan Communist Party (PCV), ex-plained that his party reserved their vote of support for this piece of legislation, saying that while the law was important in preventing “imperialist intervention through financing and any type of resourc-es coming from drug trafficking”, the law does not “guarantee...the consolidation of proletarian inter-nationalism... expressed by inter-national cooperation of workers, of the people, and of revolution-ary movements of the world”.

Opposition parties Podemos and Frente Humanista voted against the law because they be-lieved it is “another act of perse-cution of dissidence”.

DEMOCRATIC STANDARDHowever, this type of law is not

unique to Venezuela, in fact, most nations have some sort of legisla-tion that prevents foreign actors, governments or entities from intervening in domestic affairs. Overall, the issue is a question of national sovereignty. The United

States, for example, also forbids foreign funding for political cam-paigns, candidates or parties, and highly regulates all foreign financing for other activities, in-cluding lobbying, public relations and NGOs through the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA).

The passing of the Law in De-fense of Political Sovereignty and National Self-Determination comes after years of funding for opposition political groups and media agencies through US entities such as USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has aided in the execution of a coup d’etat and other anti-democratic activities slated to overthrow the Chavez government.

While some local organizations protested the law and criticized it as proclaiming the “death of NGOs”, most Venezuelans applauded the legislation as necessary to protect the nation from foreign interfer-ence. A large majority of opposi-tion-oriented NGOs have popped up over the past eight years in re-sponse to US government efforts to help build and consolidate an anti-Chavez movement in Venezu-ela capable of provoking regime change and installing a more pro-US government.

Venezuela, a nation with the world’s largest oil reserves, was also a close ally and client-state of

the US, until Hugo Chavez was elected in 1998 and the country be-gan to transform through the Bo-livarian Revolution. Chavez pro-moted independence, sovereignty and pronounced the nation’s vast oil reserves would be used to first benefit national development and progress. This redistribution of an industry previously operating at the behest of Washington touched very powerful interests and pro-voked a severe response from those seeking to retain control over Venezuela’s strategic resources.

The funding from US and some European nations to create and maintain anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela reached over $57 mil-lion in 2010, the majority chan-neled to propaganda and electoral campaigns charged with reducing President Chavez’s popularity, exploiting and exaggerating do-mestic problems and supporting opposition candidates campaigns to the National Assembly, which held elections in September. A report issued in May 2010 by the Spain-based think tank FRIDE re-vealed that a large portion of the $57 million funneled to opposi-tion groups in Venezuela was also passed through irregular chan-nels to avoid the South American nation’s “currency controls”.

“…An additional problem for civil society organizations has

been the ‘double currency’: even after the devaluation of the Boli-var, the unofficial exchange rate is higher than the official one…Some donors have solved this problem by paying in hard currency, by us-ing foreign bank accounts, or by applying a semi-official exchange rate”, hence violating the law.

Under the new legislation, such funding will be prohibited and Venezuela will join the ranks of most other democratic nations that protect national sovereignty by reg-ulating or banning foreign funding for internal political activities.

POLITICAL PARTY LOYALTYThe National Assembly also re-

formed the Political Parties, Pub-lic Meetings, and Protests Law so that legislators who change politi-cal parties during their legislative period will be penalized.

The aim of the reform is to “re-spect the will of the people who chose the legislators during the parliamentary elections”, Telesur reported.

In the last two weeks, the Na-tional Assembly has approved or reformed over 20 laws, according to legislator Dario Vivas, and still has several on their plate before the year is over.

T/ Tamara Pearson and Eva Golinger

The artillery of ideas| 6 | Social Justice No 45 • Thursday, December 30, 2010

Venezuela: Q&A

Enabling Law5 Questions5 Answers

1. What is an Enabling Law for?To concede powers to the Ex-

ecutive for a determined period of time to approve decrees that permit the implementation of im-portant transformative policies which would otherwise take too long to enact due to bureaucratic obstacles.

The current law has been ap-proved by the National Assembly for 18 months to enable decrees relating to infrastructure, trans-portation, housing and public services, amongst other matters, responding directly to the emer-gency caused by torrential rains that left more than 130,000 people

Venezuela: Q&A

Reform of the Social Responsibility in Media Law5 Questions 5 Answers

1. How does the Reform of the Social Responsibility in Media Law modify the original?

In addition to radio and televi-sion, Internet media are added as subject to regulation, not in or-der to limit web sites or services available on the net, but rather to ensure the responsible use of this important tool. Concretely, the law provides for sanctions against those who use the Internet to incite hate, criminal activity, war propa-ganda, alterations in public order, homicide; or advocate to disobey constitutional authority.

The reformed Law also stimu-lates Venezuelan producers and me-dia professionals by requiring the broadcast of at least 50% of nation-ally-produced television program-ming during prime time hours.

2. Why weren’t the same objec-tives achieved with the original Law?

The Law of Social Responsibil-ity in Television and Radio did not include any reference to regulating the responsible usage of Internet media. Sheltered by this omission, some web sites, such as Noticiero Digital, have published numer-

ous articles and messages inciting violence, rape, criminal activi-ties and even the assassinations of public fi gures. It’s not diffi cult in Venezuela to fi nd calls for the Armed Forces to revolt against the government or even to assassinate President Chavez on different web sites, blogs, Twitter or Facebook. These are dangerous actions that no civilized society can permit.

3. Will social networks such as Twitter and Facebook be prohib-ited in Venezuela?

Some private media have por-trayed the idea that Internet and social networks will be censored in Venezuela. This is a massive distortion of the reality of the Bo-livarian Revolution, which has made major, irreversible advanc-es in providing all Venezuelans

with access to new technologies. It’s hard to imagine, even by mis-take, that Twitter would be pro-hibited in the country with the most BlackBerry users in Latin America. Or that Facebook would be censored in a nation where ac-cess to Internet has grown by 900% in the past two years with over 8 million Venezuelans con-necting daily to the world wide

web. Additionally, the Chavez administration has provided tens of thousands of free laptop com-puters to school children and has opened thousands of “InfoCen-ters” (free computer and Internet access stations) nationwide.

4. Do Internet regulations exist in other countries?

You only need to search the web to fi nd the answer to this question.

In Spain, for example, the Anti-Downloading Law authorizes the government to eliminate any sites that publish content violating copyright regulations. As could be imagined, the sponsors of this law are major multinational com-panies that greatly benefi t from this measure.

In the United States, the Presi-dent can disconnect all Internet services for up to four months based on the threat of cyber-attacks that could place national security in danger. New laws are underway also in the US to pro-hibit any content on any website that “threatens national security”. And all content inciting violence against individuals or criminal activity is strictly prohibited on commercial websites.

T/ MINCI

displaced throughout the nation and affected agricultural produc-tion.

2. What practical use has an En-abling Law had before?

It has permitted the President to advance social and economic benefi ts within the model of de-velopment fomented by the Bo-livarian Revolution. Legislation such as the Hydrocarbons Law, which returned the administra-tion and oversight of national oil resources to Venezuela in order to directly benefi t and address the needs of the people; the Law of Food Sovereignty, which contrib-uted to improving the nutritional index in the country; the Fishing Law, which eliminated trawling as a form of fi shing; and the Land

Reform Law, which has progres-sively reduced the presence of unjust and unproductive land estates in order to advance and improve national agricultural production and promote small-scale farmers - were all approved under Enabling Laws.

3. Why is there so much fuss over the Enabling Law?

President Chavez has answered this question himself: “The op-position are more and more dis-tanced and disconnected from the people and demonstrate their profound disregard for the na-tion’s needs”.

Recently-elected opposition congress members laud their al-leged capacity to paralyze the country, once the new legislature

is installed on January 5th. They dream of tying the hands and feet of the President and of dissolving current institutions and policies. Nonetheless, the opposition do not have a signifi cant majority ca-pable of achieving such undemo-cratic objectives.

The Enabling Law will allow the Executive to legislate in an expe-dited and accelerated way in favor of the people, and will guarantee structural responses in connection with the People’s Power to the problems generated by the emer-gency caused by the rains.

4. Does the current Parliament have the authority to approve a law that extends beyond January 5th?

Yes. All laws approved by any

legislative body in the world are valid beyond the legislative ses-sions. Only popular will can re-voke them.

5. Will the new Parliament be unable to legislate?

Elected members from the Unit-ed Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), as well as those from opposition parties, will be in full capacity to pursue legisla-tive initiatives and policies within the new National Assembly. The powers given to the President do not impede those laws, whose approval - or not - will depend strictly on the amount of votes is-sued by members of parliament.

T/ MINCI

The artillery of ideas No 45 • Thursday, December 30, 2010 Social Justice | 7 |

Venezuelan University Law creates student bill of rights, “democratizes” higher education

As students in the United States and Europe protest against soaring tuition and lack of funding for public higher education, the Venezuelan National Assembly has passed an unprecedented law to include professors, students, workers, and local community members in university decision-making and to eliminate barriers to higher education

The law is based on the prin-ciple that the government has

the responsibility to provide free, high-quality, public education from childhood through the un-dergraduate university level. This principle is established in Article 103 of the nation’s constitution.

The law says students will have the right to an equal vote in the election of university authori-ties, evaluate professors and par-ticipate in self-evaluation, freely express opinions, access univer-sity administrative records, and receive a range of services in-cluding housing, transportation, meals, health care, and monthly stipends, among other rights.

BALANCED DECISION-MAKINGThe law also establishes a se-

ries of university councils that are to be elected on each campus through a one-person, one-vote democratic system that includes students, professors, admin-istrators, wage workers, and other members of the university community.

This includes a University Pub-lic Defenders Council and an Om-budsman Council to audit and oversee university budgeting and administration. Likewise, each campus will elect a legislative body of representatives called the University Transformation As-sembly that will work with the National Council for University Transformation to manage the changes to the public university system’s administrative structure

and programs in line with the new law and the constitution.

Currently, universities are run by a smaller group of authorities called the University Council, which is elected in a system that weighs higher authorities’ votes more heavily and gives virtually no power to students or workers.

UNIVERSITY AUTONOMYThe new law explicitly upholds

the principle of autonomy of public university administration, which is mandated by Article 109 of the national constitution. This principle was inspired by Ven-ezuela’s deep history of deadly political repression and resistance

on university campuses, especial-ly during the US-backed, right wing dictatorship that ended in 1958 and the subsequent period of representative democracy.

But the legal interpretation of autonomy has changed under the new law, according to legislator Alberto Castelar from the gov-erning United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). He said pub-lic universities would now have “co-responsible autonomy, which means that university authorities cannot go and do as they please”.

University autonomy will be “deeper” because the new law increases the participation of pre-viously excluded parts of the uni-

versity community, according to legislator Maria de Queipo, who heads the Commission for Edu-cation, Culture, Recreation, and Sports in the National Assembly.

STUDENT DEMONSTRATIONSLast Thursday, several student

organizations including the M-28 movement and student chapters of the PSUV held demonstrations in different parts of the country in favor of the law. M-28 leader Vi-cente Moronta told the state news agency AVN that those who op-pose the new law “consider edu-cation to be a commodity, not a human right”.

In the central state of Lara, PSUV student leader Erick Prado said, “The student movement has fought for decades in favor of a more democratic and inclusive education, long before the revolu-tion came into power”. He added that the new law would help to “democratize the university”.

Meanwhile, opposition politi-cal leaders and student organiza-tions staged a march in Caracas last week to protest the new law.

Diego Scharifker, the head of the University Student Federa-tion, told the Associated Press that the law “imposes socialism as the sole ideology and does away with university autonomy because it concentrates all pow-ers in the minister for higher edu-cation”. Students carried signs calling President Hugo Chavez

a “dictator” and referring to his administration as a “totalitarian government”.

Opposition marchers pointed to the part of the law that says, “university education is part of the non-alienated labor that con-solidates the socialist model of production”, and the part that says autonomy includes academ-ic freedom but also must be exer-cised “in accordance with the Na-tional Development Plan for the strengthening, consolidation, and defense of the sovereignty and in-dependence of the homeland”.

Police and National Guards-men broke up the demonstra-tion with a water cannon and plastic shotgun pellets after au-thorities said the students did not have a permit to extend the march beyond university cam-pus boundaries.

OPPOSITION CALLS FOR VIOLENCE

Central University of Venezu-ela (UCV) Rector Cecilia García Arocha called for widespread disobedience of the law and said the UCV will initiate classes next semester according to the old university law. “This is the begin-ning of the resistance”, she said while defending the opposition students’ decision to march be-yond university grounds.

Despite the fact that all of Venezuela’s public universities already operate tuition-free and provide services such as free student housing, transportation, and meals, the tendency remains for rich students to be admitted to the traditional autonomous public universities while poorer students attend the burgeoning Bolivarian University of Vene-zuela, which was created by the Chavez government and has an openly pro-Revolution adminis-tration.

The passage of the new Uni-versity Education Law comes just days before a new National Assembly with a 41% opposition contingent will replace the cur-rent National Assembly, which is almost entirely controlled by the PSUV.

T/ James Suggettwww.venezuelanalysis.com

The artillery of ideasENGLISH EDITIONTHURSDAY | December 30, 2010 | No. 45| Bs 1 | CARACAS

A publication of the Fundacion Correo del Orinoco • Editor-in-Chief | Eva Golinger • Graphic Design | Alexander Uzcátegui, Jameson Jiménez • Press | Fundación Imprenta de la Cultura

OPINION

Why are wars not being reported honestly?In the US Army manual on counte-

rinsurgency, the US Commander General David Petraeus describes Afghanistan as a “war of perception conducted continuously using the news media”. What really matters is not so much the day-to-day battles against the Taliban as the way the adventure is sold in the US where “the media directly infl uence the attitude of key audiences”. Reading this, I was reminded of the Venezue-lan general who led a coup against the democratic government in 2002. “We had a secret weapon,” he boas-ted. “We had the media, especially TV. You’ve got to have the media”.

Never has so much offi cial ener-gy been expended in ensuring jo-urnalists collude with the makers of rapacious wars that, say the media-friendly generals, are now “perpetual”. In echoing the West’s more verbose warlords, such as the waterboarding former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who predi-cated “50 years of war”, they plan a state of permanent confl ict wholly dependent on keeping at bay an enemy whose name they dare not speak: the public.

At Chicksands in Bedfordshi-re, the Ministry of Defense’s psy-chological warfare (Psyops) esta-blishment, media trainers devote themselves to the task, immersed in a jargon world of “information dominance”, “asymmetric threats” and “cyberthreats”.

Of course, only the jargon is new. In my fi lm, The War You Don’t See, there is reference to a pre-WikiLeaks private conversation in December 1917 between David Lloyd Geor-ge, Britain’s prime minister during much of the First World War, and CP Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian. “If people really knew the truth”, the Prime Minister said, “the war would be stopped to-morrow. But of course they don’t know, and can’t know”.

In the wake of this “war to end all wars”, Edward Bernays, a con-fi dante of President Woodrow Wilson, coined the term “public relations” as a euphemism for pro-paganda “which was given a bad name in the war”. In his book, Pro-

paganda (1928), Bernays described PR as “an invisible government that is the true ruling power in our country” thanks to “the intelligent manipulation of the masses”. This was achieved by “false realities” and their adoption by the media.

I began to understand this as a young reporter during the US war in Vietnam. During my fi rst assign-ment, I saw the results of the bom-bing of two villages and the use of Napalm B, which continues to burn beneath the skin; many of the vic-tims were children; trees were fes-tooned with body parts. The lament that “these unavoidable tragedies happen in wars” did not explain why virtually the entire population of South Vietnam was at grave risk from the forces of their declared “ally”, the US. PR terms like “paci-fi cation” and “collateral damage” became our currency. Almost no re-porter used the word “invasion”.

On the walls of the Saigon bu-reaus of major US news organiza-tions were often displayed horri-fi c photographs that were never published and rarely sent because it was said they were would “sen-sationalize” the war by upsetting readers and viewers and therefore were not “objective”. The My Lai massacre in 1968 was not reported

from Vietnam, even though a num-ber of reporters knew about it, but by a freelance in the US, Seymour Hersh. The cover of Newsweek ma-gazine called it an “American tra-gedy”, implying that the invaders were the victims: a purging theme enthusiastically taken up by Ho-llywood in movies such as The Deer Hunter and Platoon. The war was fl awed and tragic, but the cause was essentially noble. Moreover, it was “lost” thanks to the irresponsibility of a hostile, uncensored media.

Although the opposite of the tru-th, such false realties became the “lessons” learned by the makers of present-day wars and by much of the media. Following Vietnam, “embedding” journalists became central to war policy on both sides of the Atlantic. With honorable ex-ceptions, this succeeded, especially in the US. In March 2003, some 700 embedded reporters and camera crews accompanied the invading US forces in Iraq. Watch their exci-ted reports, and it is the liberation of Europe all over again.

The apogee was the victorious entry into Baghdad, and the TV pic-tures of crowds cheering the felling of a statue of Saddam Hussein. Be-hind this façade, a US Psyops team successfully manipulated what an

ignored US army report describes as a “media circus [with] almost as many reporters as Iraqis”. Rageh Omaar, who was there for the BBC, reported on the main evening news: “People have come out welcoming [the US], holding up V-signs. This is an image taking place across the whole of the Iraqi capital”.

In The War You Don’t See, Omaar speaks with admirable frankness. “I didn’t really do my job pro-perly”, he says. “I’d hold my hand up and say that one didn’t press the most uncomfortable buttons hard enough”. He describes how British military propaganda successfully manipulated coverage of the fall of Basra, which BBC News 24 repor-ted as having fallen “17 times”.

The sheer magnitude of Iraqi su-ffering in the onslaught had little place in the news. “I am perfectly open to the accusation that we were hoodwinked”, said Jeremy Paxman, talking about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction to a group of students last year. “Clearly we were”. Dan Rather, who was the CBS news anchor for 24 years, was less reticent. “There was a fear in every newsroom in the US”, he told me, “a fear of losing your job, the fear of being stuck with some label, unpatriotic or otherwise”.

In Britain, David Rose, whose Observer articles played a major part in falsely linking Saddam Hus-sein to al-Qaida and 9/11, gave me a courageous interview in which he said, “I can make no excuses. What happened [in Iraq] was a crime, a crime on a very large scale”.

“Does that make journalists ac-complices?” I asked him.

“Yes. Unwitting perhaps, but yes”.

What is the value of journalists speaking like this? The answer is provided by the great reporter James Cameron, “If we who are meant to fi nd out what the bastards are up to, if we don’t report what we fi nd, if we don’t speak up”, he told me, “who’s going to stop the whole bloody business happening again?”

Cameron could not have imagi-ned a modern phenomenon such as WikiLeaks but he would have surely approved. In the current ava-lanche of offi cial documents, espe-cially those that describe the secret machinations that lead to war, the failure of journalism is rarely noted. And perhaps the reason Julian As-sange seems to excite such hostility among journalists serving a variety of “lobbies”, is that WikiLeaks and its truth-telling shames them.

Why has the public had to wait for WikiLeaks to fi nd out how great power really operates? As a leaked 2,000-page Ministry of Defense do-cument reveals, the most effective jo-urnalists are those who are regarded in places of power not as embedded or clubbable, but as a “threat”. This is the threat of real democracy, whose “currency”, said Thomas Jefferson, is “free fl owing information”.

In my fi lm, I asked Assange how WikiLeaks dealt with the draconian secrecy laws for which Britain is famous. “Well,” he said, “when we look at the Offi cial Secrets Act labe-lled documents, we see a statement that it is an offence to retain the information and it is an offence to destroy the information, so the only possible outcome is that we have to publish the information”. These are extraordinary times.

John Pilger