Pg. 7 | Analysis Pg. 8 | Opinion

IntegrationCuba-Venezuela Under-seas Cable LaunchedA submarine communications cable from Venezuela to Havana will increase Internet access for Cubans.

EconomyChina aids Venezuela on food, housingAgreements with the Asian nation will help Venezuela build housing units and end food shortages.

Venezuelan classical musicians in LondonClassical music fans are in

for a treat this January and February as the celebrated Ven-ezuelan conductor, Gustavo Du-damel, makes his London debut with the LA Philharmonic Or-chestra at the Barbican on the 27th and 28th of January.

Dudamel rose to fame during his time with El Sistema, Venezu-ela’s state funded classical music program for children. Speaking in a recent Sunday Times interview the young conductor said: “Grow-ing up in Venezuela, I was part of

El Sistema, which is an incredible project involving thousands of children - many from very poor families who might have gone into drugs and crime - who learn an instrument for free and play in the youth orchestras. More than 300,000 children have transformed their lives through music”.

Another young Venezuelan musician following in Dudamel’s footsteps, double-bassist Edicscon Ruiz, will be performing with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in London at the end of February.

The Venezuelan Brass Ensem-ble, formed from the ranks of the legendary Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, returns to the UK fol-lowing a rousing debut perfor-mance at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the 2007 BBC Proms. The group will perform at two venues in Manchester, The Royal North-ern College of Music on Friday the 28th of January and at Bridge-water Hall on the 30th of January. The 60-strong ensemble will then return to London’s Royal Festival Hall to perform on February 1st.

gg yyHuman Rights Watch’santi-Venezuela agenda

Social JusticeWorkers take over newspapersOrganized workers of two papers have taken over operations after owners abused their rights.

The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our

America (ALBA) has en-abled the region to become the first territory free of il-literacy, reported Cuban Education Minister Ana Elsa Velazquez.

During the opening speech at the 2011 Interna-tional Pedagogy Congress, which took place in Cuba’s capital city from Jan. 24-28, Velazquez said the success in education matters in the region is due to ALBA’s lit-eracy projects.

Velazquez praised the re-gional initiative created by Cuba and Venezuela in 2004, which has subsequently in-corporated Bolivia, Nicara-gua, Ecuador, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

“This is a modernizing of the concept of integration de-fined by our heroes, a dream we believe possible”, she said.

More than five million people from 28 nations have learned to read and write with the Cuban method “Yes, I can”.

Countries such as Venezu-ela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador have joined Cuba as illiteracy-free territories.

“Half a million people who were illiterate a few years ago have now reached the level equivalent to ele-mentary education with the program Yes, I can”.

Venezuela Celebrates DemocracyThousands of Venezuelans poured into the streetsof Caracas last Sundayto commemorate the fallof the nation’s last dictator, Marcos Perez Jimenez, overthrown by democratic forces on January 23, 1958. The day is an important political holiday in Venezuela, which opposition groups have tried to appropriate and use against the current administration of Hugo Chavez. But this year,the voices heard were celebrating not only the fall of the Perez Jimenez dictatorship, but also the end of subsequent governments that ran exclusionaryelitist regimes.

ALBA: regionof literacy

he Bolivarian Alliance

of literacy

Food security and sovereignty is the goal of a new program aimed at aiding farmersMission Agro Venezuela was launched by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez this week to support farmers, agricultural production and national development. The program seeks to coordinate both private and public

producers in order to advance the nation’s agricultural capabilities and help those farmers affected by the heavy rains in 2010 that devasted crops in several regions. The Chavez administration is focused on diversifying the

country’s industries and reducing imports by investing in domestic food production.

Venezuela: increasing agricultural production

g pgggg ppppNikolas Kozloff on WikiLeaks’ disclosures of Costa Rica as Washington’s Central American lackey

The artillery of ideasENGLISH EDITIONFRIDAY | January 28, 2011 | No. 49| Bs 1 | CARACAS

The artillery of ideas| 2 | Impact No Friday, January 28, 2011

A new agricultural program promises to increase production and provide aid to farmers to support national development. Simultaneously, the Chavez administration holds people’s assemblies to collaborate jointly on solutions to the nation’s housing crisis

On Tuesday, Venezuelan Presi-dent Hugo Chavez announced

the creation of a new social pro-gram, Mission Agro Venezuela, in which all domestic producers - both public and private - will have to opportunity to participate in the advancement of national agricul-tural production to guarantee food sovereignty and protect the coun-try from food shortages plaguing nations around the world.

The announcement was made during an event with the Ven-ezuelan President at the Social-ist Property Unit (UPS) “La Productora”, located in Tierra Buena in the State of Portugue-sa in central Venezuela. Chavez called on small and medium agricultural producers from across the country to join in this new initiative.

The Venezuelan head of state explained that this new program forms part of the Annual Food Production Plan approved for 2011-2012. Factors involved in the mission include investment in strategic industries, an increase in crop planting and the execution of diverse public policies oriented towards achieving food security and sovereignty in the country.

President Chavez also indicat-ed that a chronogram of activities for this new agricultural program has already been designed, and the first event will begin on Janu-ary 29th with the launching of a census and registration process for producers who wish to par-ticipate in the initiative.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Lands will set up more than 600 centers nationwide, primar-ily in agricultural regions, from January 29th through February 15th, where interested parties can register to participate in Mission Agro Venezuela.

Venezuela: looking out for the People

“We will inform everyone via radio, newspapers and through other media as to where these lo-cations will be so those with just one acre or those with five thou-sand acres who want to produce more can come and join with us. Come and sign up. We need to in-corporate all productive units that we can into this plan”, pledged President Chavez.

According to the Venezuelan leader, once the registration pro-cess is complete, a major event will take place to enlist the co-operation of private and public banks and other financial institu-tions, to provide funding for agri-cultural producers.

“I invite everyone to collabo-rate with this initiative. This is for the benefit of the country. I call on all public and private banks to collaborate. This mission is going to require extraordinary financial assistance”, exclaimed Chavez.

The chronogram also contem-plates mass funding activities for all registered producers, as well as the delivery of farming products, such as fertilizers and seeds, “to start off the harvest season with full force”, added the Venezuelan head of state.

Chavez asked government au-thorities and those in charge of

this program to conduct a wide-spread communications cam-paign to let people know about the benefits of this mission, which will allow Venezuela to become an agricultural power.

He emphasized that Mission Agro Venezuela is one of the new programs to be created this year under the banner of “Bicentenni-al Missions”. Chavez also reiter-ated that existing social programs would be strengthened and re-newed continuously.

Venezuela celebrates its 200th year anniversary of Indepen-dence this July 5th and will be hosting several major events and activities to commemorate the “Bicentennial Year”.

INCREASING CROP PRODUCTIONAlso referring to Mission Agro

Venezuela, Minister of Agri-culture and Lands, Juan Carlos Loyo said on Wednesday that the project includes urban farming, to prepare productive areas suit-able for cultivation in the nation’s most important cities.

The project expects to increase production of strategic food items such as white and yellow corn, rice, leguminous plants and veg-etables, and other products by 34% this year.

Heavy rains during the end of 2010 affected more than 65,000 productive hectares in several regions of the country, which has already impacted national food production.

In that regard, the national cen-sus and registry of agricultural producers wishing to participate in this new program will provide relief for those farmers affected by the torrential rainfalls last year. The government estimates about 100,000 farmers will regis-ter for the mission.

FIGHTING HOUSING FRAUDHousing shortages severely

affecting Venezuelans has been one of the major concerns of the Chavez administration in recent months, particularly after the rains left over 130,000 homeless last year. All those displaced have received support from the government and were placed in temporary shelters while new homes are being built for their permanent relocation. Approxi-mately 60 families were given refuge in the presidential pal-ace, an offer made by President Chavez himself.

But beyond the shortages caused by a long-term hous-ing crisis plaguing Venezuela,

and the added problem of those who lost their homes during last year’s heavy rains, are the thousands of primarily middle-class Venezuelans who have been the unfortunate victims of housing fraud.

The government has been waging a battle against private construction companies and big real estate ventures that pre-sold properties to thousands of innocent Venezuelans, taking huge downpayments initially and charging monthly fees, without ever completing the promised homes. In some cases, real estate companies forced homebuyers to “re-purchase” the un-built properties at high-er rates due to inflation, despite having already executed a con-tract for a set price.

During 2010, the real estate scam scandal was made public after President Chavez himself met with victims and decided to expropriate several of the companies involved in com-mitting the fraud. Since then, teams have been placed in charge of intervening construc-tion companies and contractors to force them to complete work for which they had already been contracted and paid.

Movements have sprung up around the country of the vic-tims of the real estate fraud who are working together in assem-blies to ensure those responsible are brought to justice, and their homes are completed so they can finally move in.

On Wednesday, President Chavez hosted an assembly of the housing fraud victims in the presidential palace. At the event, he was finally able to give prop-erty deeds to 71 victims of the real estate scams.

“A new group of families, vic-tims of fraud committed by con-struction companies, receives their corresponding apartments today. We are passing title to 71 homes, apartments for the middle class - those who were defrauded by real-estate mafias”, exclaimed the Venezuelan President.

“The middle class should not be enemy of this democratic Revolu-tion...This Revolution, this Gov-ernment is also for the middle class”, he added.

T/ COP/ Presidential Press

The artillery of ideas No Friday, January 28, 2011 Integration | 3 |

The island nation, subject to a brutal US-imposed blockade, which has impeded mass access to communications services, will now be able to increase Internet and telecommunications usage with a new underseas cable from Venezuela

In a show of international soli-darity and bilateral coopera-

tion, Venezuela and Cuba inau-gurated a project last weekend to lay over 800 miles of fiber-optic cables across the Carib-bean sea, connecting Caracas to La Habana in a bid to increase internet connectivity on the em-bargo-seized island.

The cable, according to the Vene-zuelan government, will break the US-enforced economic blockade that has suffocated the nation’s technological advancement and stalled its telecommunications de-velopment for the past 50 years.

“Venezuela, with autonomy and sovereignty, has decided to do something that until now no one has done: break the blockade against Cuba and give our sister republic the possibility of hav-ing high quality communications”, said Manuel Fernandez, head of

Uruguayan President Jose “Pepe” Mujica visited Venezuela this week for the second time since assuming the presidency of his nation one year ago

As part of ongoing, trimes-tral meetings between the

governments of Uruguay and Venezuela, Uruguayan Presi-dent Jose “Pepe” Mujica arrived to Caracas on Wednesday, for his second official visit to the country since taking office in March 2010.

Venezuela and Uruguay: advancing agricultural productionSince 2005, both South Ameri-

can nations have worked to re-new and strengthen their rela-tions, including the advancement of commercial trade through a maritime route that allows for lower transportation costs. Uru-guay and Venezuela have also ex-changed knowledge and exper-tise to create socialist companies rescued by workers from exploit-ative practices, such as Envidrio, an Uruguayan glass company founded in 2005 with the help of the Venezuelan government, which is currently collaborating in the installation of similar glass companies in Venezuela.

AGRICULTURAL AIDUruguay’s farmer based

economy has provided exten-sive expertise to Venezuela in agricultural production, aid-ing in the recuperation of an abandoned and weak industry which was caused by the shift to an oil-based economy in the 20th century.

During Mujica’s visit to Ven-ezuela this week, both govern-ments relaunched a program that was first initiated in 2007 to train Venezuelan farmers and agricultural workers in family farming and small-scale production. Another program

advanced by Presidents Mujica and Chavez focused on the ge-netic development of cows.

Venezuela and Uruguay also cooperate in areas such as medicine, science and technol-ogy through the Simon Bolivar Satellite, launched by Venezu-ela in 2008.

Pepe Mujica is a former guer-rilla fighter who was impris-oned for 14 years during the dictatorship in Uruguay in the 1970s, the majority of which he spent in solitary confinement.

Mujica, a member of the leftist Tupamaros movement, was freed in 1985 under an

amnesty law and elected to parliament in 1994. Mujica became Minister of Livestock, Agriculture and fisheries un-der the Tabare Vazquez ad-ministration in 2005, until re-signing in 2008 and launching his presidential campaign. He won with a landslide victory in 2009 and was inaugurated on March 1, 2010.

Under Pepe’s mandate, Uru-guay has increased ties with Ven-ezuela and promised to strength-en Latin American integration.

T/ COP/ Agencies

Cuba to have high-speed internet access, thanks to venezuela

Venezuela’s state-owned telecom-munication company, CANTV.

INTERNET ACCESS FOR CUBAOwning to the US embargo,

strict restrictions on imports have prevented Cuba from obtaining the technological equipment nec-essary to increase Internet access on the island.

Currently, the nation ranks last in Latin America with respect to Inter-net connectivity and must use the slow and costly method of satellite connections to access the web.

Reuters has reported that, given its scarcity, the price of Internet us-age on the island can reach as high as $10 an hour in some hotels.

Officials in charge of the Ven-ezuelan-Cuban project estimate

that the fiber-optic cables will increase the speed of Cuba’s cur-rent connection by three thou-sand percent and multiple its us-age exponentially.

“This cable is going to permit Cuba to have improved commu-nications at the international level because, through this system, there will be greater capacity”, said Wil-fredo Morales, president of the joint Cuban-Venezuelan company, Great Caribbean Telecommunica-tions, which will take charge of the cables once in place.

The cable will be laid at a depth of between 650 feet near Venezu-ela and some 18,000 feet near the coast of Cuba.

Officials have reported that all environmental studies carried out

over the past two years ensure a minimization of any potential ecological damage resulting from the initiative.

“In order to obtain permission from the environmental authori-ties of each country, we had to carry out an environmental im-pact study to make sure that the cable does as little damage as pos-sible to the eco-system. This will allow us to install the cable with the least amount of environmen-tal impact”, Morales informed.

HELP FROM JAMAICA,CHINA & FRANCE

The $70 million project will take at least four months to com-plete and is also being supported by the nation of Jamaica, which

will play host to one of the cable’s connection terminals.

Other international support has come from China, where the fiber optic technology has origi-nated, and France, whose nauti-cal equipment is laying the cable.

A planned bifurcation will also make the technology available to neighboring Caribbean countries including Haiti.

On Saturday, the Chinese, French, and Jamaican ambassa-dors in Venezuelan were on hand for the inauguration ceremony, hailing the event as an important advancement for Latin America.

“We know that this installation is very important to link the coun-tries of the region as well as all the countries in the world”, said Chi-nese Ambassador Zhao Rongxian.

ALBA 1 is the official name given to the project, referring to the Boli-varian Alliance of the Americas – a regional block of nations estab-lished in 2001 that seeks to counter-balance US hegemony in the hemi-sphere and promote integration.

According to the Cuban Ambas-sador in Venezuela, Rogelio Polan-co, ALBA1 represents “a gigantic step towards the independence and sovereignty” for both countries.

“Thank you for all of your soli-darity for which we will always be grateful”, Polanco said during the project’s inauguration.

T/ Edward EllisP/ Presidential Press

The artillery of ideas| 4 | Economy No Friday, January 28, 2011

During a visit to Venezuela this week of a high-level Chinese delegation, several accords were advanced in the areas of agricultural production, imports and housing construction

In order to strengthen national food sovereignty, the govern-

ments of China and Venezuela signed a cooperation agreement for the import of oilseeds, le-gumes and cereals.

A press release from the Vene-zuelan Foreign Ministry said that the signing of the agreement was carried out by Quian Baim, pres-ident of the Chinese company Heilongjiang Beidahuang State Farm Business Trade Group, and the Venezuelan Minister of Food, Carlos Osorio.

Under the agreement, Venezu-ela will have food stocks for three months, which will allow citizens to access products continuously and without obstacles.

Private companies in Venezuela have engaged in dangerous spec-ulation, unjust price hikes and hording of food products over the past several years in efforts to

On Sunday President Hugo Chavez announced that the

state-owned company Vtelca, which manufactures the subsi-dized and very affordable ‘Verga-tario’ cellular telephone, would now also manufacture a phone designed for blind people.

The phone’s keys have the Braille system on them and are also much larger for those with poor eye sight.

Chavez explained that the phone is the result of an agree-ment between Venezuela and China, using the “latest technol-ogy”, and would be available on the national market “soon”.

“This is the first phone of its kind in the country”, he announced.

According to the Ministry of

Venezuela: phones for the blindScience, Technology and Inter-mediate Industries, Vtelca has beaten its production records, producing over 6,000 phones daily by the end of 2010.

The Vergatario phones –which include a camera– are distributed by the state run company, Movil-net, for 25 bolivars (US $5.80), in-cluding the line hookup and plan, with priority given to community leaders. On Sunday, Chavez also announced that this phone will be released with a new “more el-egant and modern” design.

The Vergatario was first re-leased in May 2009.

ACCESSIBLE PRODUCTSOne of the main aims of the

Venezuelan government and the

Bolivarian Revolution is to in-crease inclusion of previously ex-cluded sectors of the population, such as women, the poor, and people with disabilities.

The People with Disabilities Law, passed in 2006, states that at least 5% of workers employed by any given entity must be people with disabilities. In 2009, the gov-ernment began to set up coordi-nation centers for people with disabilities as a space for project generation and to help public and private institutions accommodate disabled persons. Such centers, as well as other movements and or-ganizations of disabled persons, have encouraged the inclusion of spokespeople for the disabled in organized community groups.

For the blind and visually impaired, Mission Milagro (Miracle) provides free eye op-erations, including correcting and restoring eyesight as well as providing free consultations and eyeglasses. The learn-ing material used by the various education missions promoted by the government has also been printed in Braille, and music lessons given as part of the innova-tive, state-sponsored El Sistema music teaching program are also avail-able in Braille.

T/ Tamara Pearsonwww.venezuelanalysis.com

Venezuela and China advance housing,food agreements

destabilize the government and promote civil unrest, with the end goal of forcing President Hugo Chavez from power.

Agreements with nations such as China are helping Venezuela decrease dependency on those companies unwilling to contrib-ute to national production and development, while at the same time aiding in the advancement of food sovereignty.

The first phase of the accord with China will allow for the stor-age of soybeans, black and white beans and soybean crude oil from the Asian nation.

The second phase includes other crops, to be evaluated by a Venezuelan technical committee through a visit to China, says the text of the Foreign Ministry.

Venezuela currently has food reserves equivalent to 692

thousand tons of products in food facilities located through-out the national territory, that provide security for one and a half months.

The Venezuelan minister said that to achieve the goal of hav-ing reserves for three months they would also have support from other nations with which the Chavez administration has excellent relations.

HOUSING DEVELOPMENTVenezuelan President Hugo

Chavez announced late Tuesday that Chinese state-owned Citic Group would build an additional 20,000 housing units in the South American nation over the next two years.

Speaking during a televised cabinet meeting, Chavez said that the new agreement would double the construction of housing by Citic Group in Venezuela.

“Their proposal is to reach 40,000 homes in the next two years. We already have signed agreements for 20,000 and we will build 20,000 more”, Chavez said.

Venezuela and China agreed in April to a US$20 billion credit-for-oil deal. State-owned China De-velopment Bank will provide the equivalent of $20 billion, half in dollars and half in Chinese yuan. In return, oil-rich Venezuela will ship crude oil to resource-needy China for the next decade.

Chavez has said the funds would be used for housing in the wake of floods and mudslides last year that displaced more than 130,000 Venezuelans, as well as for the improvement of the coun-try’s electricity sector and other public works projects.

T/ AgenciesP/ Presidential Press

The artillery of ideas No Friday, January 28, 2011 Politics | 5 |

With revolutionary fervor and patriotic enthusiasm, Venezuelans from all over the country took to the streets last Sunday to celebrate the 53rd anniversary of the toppling of the dictator Marcos Jimenez who ruled the country from 1952-1958

Known as “National Democ-racy Day”, January 23rd is

one of Venezuela’s most impor-tant political holidays marking the nation’s definitive break with military rule and celebrat-ing the social movements that struggled to bring down Jime-nez’s repressive regime.

In Caracas, five separate march-es wound their way through the nation’s capital until reaching the Presidential Place where a festive rally was held to commemorate the day and support the demo-cratic initiatives of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

“We’re celebrating the fall of a dictatorial and non participatory system”, said community activist Francisco Avila in attendance at one of the marches. “At the same time, we’re celebrating the open-ing of a participative democratic system – a system that we’re cre-ating from popular power”, he affirmed.

Venezuela: celebrating democracy

VENEZUELA AND REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY

Although January 23, 1958 is celebrated as a day in which au-thoritarian rule was overcome by an organized citizenry, it also remembered as the beginning of a period in Venezuela’s political history which thrived on exclu-sion and subservience to foreign economic and political interests.

When Jimenez fled the country, Venezuela underwent a transition to representative democracy re-ferred to as the “Punto Fijo” era, based on a pact carried out by 3 mainstream political parties – The Christian Democratic Party (CO-PEI), Democratic Action (AD), and the Democratic Republi-can Union (URD).

The Communist Party of Ven-ezuela (PCV), which played the most important role in the resistance to the Jimenez Dic-tatorship, was systematically excluded by the main parties that colluded with Washington to implement a political system protective of US oil interests and responsive to its anti-Castro agenda in Latin America.

President Hugo Chavez made this point while addressing his sup-porters at the rally held on Sunday.

“We have to remember this”, he told the Venezuelan people during his speech. “The so-called Punto Fijo Pact betrayed [the events of] January 23, 1958 and the martyrs of the Jimenez dictatorship…It was a betrayal of the will and the sacrifice of the people and we all need to know it”, he declared.

RAMPANT REPRESSIONDuring the Punto Fijo era, thou-

sands of communists and progres-sives, deemed too radical for Wash-ington’s agenda, were assassinated, disappeared, persecuted and ar-

bitrarily jailed by the new power players

while others took to the mountains in armed resis-tance against the regime.

One of those who fought against the re-

pression was Fabricio Ojeda, a former member of the Jimenez resistance and subsequent leader of the Venezuelan guerilla move-ment, the Armed Forces of Na-tional Liberation (FALN).

Ojeda was murdered at the hands of the Venezuelan state in 1966.

During the rally held at the presidential palace, a memo-rial was held for Ojeda as well as Hugo Trejo, a military officer who participated in the first uprising against the Jimenez dictatorship on January 1, 1958.

“The people are on the streets, telling the bourgeoisie that ruled this country and that mas-sacred the country for decades that Fabricio Ojeda and Hugo Trejo are alive in the hearts and the faces of each one of us”, For-eign Minister Nicolas Maduro said during one of the marches on Sunday.

Like Ojeda, many progressive activists were hunted down by the Venezuelan police and se-curity forces during the Punto Fijo era.

This includes student activist Domingo Salazar from the state of Merida who summarized the government’s repression by fa-mously stating, “they call us the future while they murder us in the present”.

Salazar was killed by police forces outside the Medicine De-

partment of the University of the Andes in 1978.

In similar acts of repression, in 1989, then President Carlos An-dres Perez sent the armed forces to the streets to quell spontane-ous rioting that resulted from the implementation of a neo-lib-eral economic austerity package forced upon the poor.

By the time the smoke had cleared from has become known as the Caracazo, more than three thousand people had been mur-dered by the army.

CHAVEZ AND PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY

For many in Venezuela, real democracy did not arrive in the country until the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998 and the creation of the nation’s new con-stitution, passed by popular ref-erendum in 1999.

The constitution, which offi-cially marks the end of the Punto Fijo era, is considered to be one of the most progressive in the world, granting a vast array of new rights to ordinary citizens and laying the foundation for what Chavez supporters have called a “participatory” democracy.

Rights of political and eco-nomic inclusion at both the grassroots and national level have been enshrined by the document, which provides for greater citizen participation in decision making processes.

Thousands of grassroots po-litical organizations have been formed since Chavez came to office while dozens of factories have come under worker control and millions of acres of land have been distributed to small agricul-tural producers.

“Every day in Venezuela there will be more democracy – true democracy that translates into more power for the people”, Chavez exclaimed of the initia-tives on Sunday.

“Today, there are some people saying that Venezuela is on its way back to the democracy of Punto Fijo”, he commented with reference to opposition members from the old political parties of AD and COPEI. “We’re going to tell them, once again, that they will never come back”.

T/ Edward EllisP/ Presidential Press

The artillery of ideas| 6 | Social Justice No Friday, January 29, 2011

The fate of the only media company in Venezuela to be taken over by its workers now rests in the hands of President Hugo Chavez and his administration

Pushed to the wall by their em-ployers’ decision to go out of

business—after they’d gone for four months without pay—the workers at two small daily news-papers published in Merida did the only thing they could think of. Seventeen staff members at Cambio de Siglo and Diario El Vigía took over their workplace. They hung a homemade banner proclaiming “Control Obrero” (worker-run) from the second-floor of the papers’ offices in the center of the city, and began an occupation that has persisted day and night since. In late No-vember, they began putting out weekly combined editions of the two newspapers.

Venezuela has worker-run busi-nesses in many sectors, but this ac-tion is “unprecedented”, according to Hugo Peña of the National Work-ers’ Union (Unete), one of Venezue-la’s trade union federations. “There are no other cases of a group of workers deciding to take control of a media outlet”, said Peña, Unete coordinator for Merida.

Almost all the workers at Cambio de Siglo /Diario El Vigía insist they do not want to see their action “politicized” and used by the opposition and the international press to fuel anti-Chavez sentiment. They simply want to see their rights respect-ed, and get the back pay and benefits due them.

“We took the initiative to make our situation known”, said copy editor Kira Fuentes. “We want people to support us as workers and as human beings who have gone through a lot by not being paid, and we deserve to have our rights respected”.

Nevertheless, under their control the workers have trans-formed Cambio de Siglo/DiarioEl Vigia from organs of the oppo-sition into a single responsible community paper that presents a full range of local, state and

Workers take over Venezuelan newspapers

national news and sports, along with commentary sympathetic to the Bolivarian process.

“As a daily, Cambio de Siglo was a source of information against the Revolution”, said Javier Mont-salve, a journalist and commu-nications director for the Merida State Legislature. “Now it is sup-porting the Revolution, and plays a critical role in keeping people informed”, he said.

The owners of Cambio de Siglo and Diario El Vigía, Julio Marcolli and Alcides Montsalve, are big business people and vocal oppo-nents of President Chavez and his policies. Julio Marcolli is a con-struction and real estate tycoon with holdings in Venezuela and Puerto Rico, and Alcides Mont-salve is director of the right-wing daily La Frontera.

“[The owners] used the paper [Cambio de Siglo] as a means of smearing Chavez and the govern-ment”, Javier Montsalve said.

OWNER ABUSEOver the past two years, the two

owners have also violated nearly every clause of Venezuelan labor law, La Ley Organica del Trabajo. Since 2007, they have failed to pay into the Social Security system, though they took deductions from

the workers’ paychecks. They also stopped paying into the workers’ retirement fund, and making depos-its required under the Ley de Política Habitacional, which helps workers buy housing. In 2009, they stopped paying the workers’ “cestatickets”, or meal benefits, and they paid no salaries after June 2010.

The workers went on strike for 12 days in May 2010 and another eight in June, but continued to put out the papers until Septem-ber without pay. After the Sept. 6 edition, the owners shut down the papers without notice, expla-nation, or any word on how they planned to pay the workers what was due them. The owners’ rep-resentatives kept promising pay-ments that never materialized. Alcides Monsalve, the minority owner, said he was willing to pay the workers 25% of what they had earned if they quit their jobs, but that was all. As a last resort, the workers decided to take over the plant on October 4th.

WORKERS UNITE“It was just unacceptable that

we had put the paper out on the street every day with so much ef-fort, work and sacrifice, and the owners simply disregarded our rights as workers and human be-

ings”, said Lisbeth Barrotea, one of the layout artists.

On the first day of the takeover, the workers were meeting every three or four hours, Barrotea said. They organized themselves into three shifts to maintain a pres-ence at the plant.

“It was a bit uncomfortable that first night”, she said. “We had no pillows and were sleeping on the couches and in the chairs”. Over the next few months of the occu-pation, they brought in mattresses and pillows, cooked meals on the hotplate and microwave.

“We prepare and share food, sing and listen to music”, said Ju-dith Vega, the one reporter on the staff. “We’re family here”.

The 16 workers who remain with the occupation—nine women and seven men—are also sharing all the functions of the paper, from administration to printing, and making all the decisions about the direction and content of the paper collectively. They make the budget, and although they have covered expenses, they have only been able to give themselves small salaries.

Building support for their fight has been more difficult than they imagined.

“Many we never thought were friends have never knocked

on the door”, said Vega, “but many we didn’t know are help-ing out”. Students from the Bo-livarian University of Merida, including many who study jour-nalism with Vega, have helped with everything from writing to selling the paper. The Merida City Council has backed their struggle. Alexis Ramirez, then president of the Merida State Legislature, and now a deputy to the National Assembly, has helped organize legal support, donations of food and other material aid, and brought pres-ents for the workers’ children at Christmas.

APPEAL TO CHAVEZYet no other official in the

ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), including the state governor, has officially recognized the struggle. The Na-tional Association of Journalists, which includes many who claim to be committed to the Bolivar-ian Revolution, has remained silent on the takeover. Now the most important support they could receive would be from the national government.

“We are asking the govern-ment to step in and solve this problem”, said Edgar Saenz, head of production for the pa-per. “We are hoping they will help us economically so we can go on with the production of the paper, secure our work and get the wages owed us”.

The workers wrote to the Min-istry of Communications in Ca-racas early this year, explaining their situation and asking for a meeting. They are optimistically waiting for a response. Whether or not they get the needed help will be a test of the govern-ment’s willingness to follow through on its rhetoric advocat-ing worker control.

“We are sure we will get the support we need at a national level”, Vega said. “People have said, ‘If you want to see a real revolution, come here, where the workers have taken over and will not leave until their rights are respected, where workers have taken over a me-dia outlet for the first time here in Venezuela’”.

T/ Marcy Rein-Clifton RossP/ Clifton Ross

The artillery of ideas No Friday, January 28, 2011 Analysis | 7 |

The US-based NGO, Human Rights Watch, released its annual “World Report” last week, using the opportunity to once again take aim at the Venezuelan government for what it considers to be the country’s “precarious human rights situation”

In what has turned into a yearly recital of negativity and factual-

ly impoverished accusations, the NGO has strongly criticized the government for alleged abuses while ignoring any positive ad-vances that the country has made in the area of human rights over the past twelve years.

This year’s criticisms include two old standards – President Chavez’s “domination of the judiciary” and his alleged “systematic” clamp down on freedom of expression.

In order to make its “judiciary” argument this year, the NGO cites the case of Judge Maria Afiuni, a circuit magistrate who illegally freed a wealthy banker, Eligio Cedeño, imprisoned for steal-ing some US$27 million from the Venezuelan government through a computer import scam.

Afiuni, arguing that Cedeño had been held longer than man-dated for pre-trial detentions, was arrested after she unilater-ally freed the corporate executive, personally escorting the banker out of the courtroom onto the parking lot where he promptly sped off on a motorcycle.

Cedeño, like many in his profes-sion, turned up in Miami where he was detained by US authorities for entering the country illegally; however, he was later released af-ter requested political asylum.

NOT POLITICAL Venezuela’s conservative oppo-

sition, Human Rights Watch, and a myriad of anti-Chavez media outlets have been quick to pounce on Afiuni’s arrest as “evidence” of a politically tilted judiciary clamping down on dissidents.

Human Rights Watch perpetuatesbias and myth against Venezuela

But the fact remains that neither Cedeño nor Afiuni were outspo-ken political foes of the Chavez administration.

While it is true that Cedeño had indeed been held beyond the stipulated time for pre-trial detentions, it is also true that Afi-uni’s rogue actions were made in violation of all judicial protocols and legal procedures.

In fact, hundreds of trials in Venezuela fall victim to bureau-cratic slow downs and judicial delays that prevent the timely de-livery of justice in the country.

This deeper, structural problem is one of the greatest challenges confronting the nation’s legal sys-tem today.

SELECTIVE BLINDNESSBut, in their zeal to paint Ven-

ezuela as a country rife with per-secution, Human Rights Watch’s political spin on the Afiuni case ignores this fundamental prob-lem, opting instead to paint the judiciary as a tool of the Chavez administration.

This is the same judicial system, it is worth reminding readers, which has failed to prosecute wealthy vig-ilante landowners who, upset with

Chavez’s land re-distribution laws, have been actively contracting as-sassins and paramilitaries to sys-tematically murder small farmers.

As the murder of poor farm-ers by wealthy landowners does not serve Human Rights Watch’s anti-Chavez campaign, the NGO chooses to ignore them in its report, focusing, rather, on the plight of Venezu-ela’s upper classes.

DISTORTING PRESS FREEDOMIn a similar vein, Human Rights

Watch also accuses the Venezu-elan government of “systematically undermin[ing] journalistic freedom of expression” and uses a single case, that of journalist Francisco Perez, to make its broad condemnation.

Perez, journalist from the newspaper El Carabobeno, was sued under Venezuela’s Media Responsibility Laws by the gov-ernor of Valencia, Edgardo Oqu-endo after Perez had published a series of attacks against the public official, accusing him of corrup-tion and nepotism.

After being unable to substanti-ate any of his slanderous allega-tions with evidence in a court of law, Perez was sentenced to 3 years

of house arrest and ordered to pay a fine of 20 thousand dollars.

His sentence is currently un-der appeal.

Beyond the case of Perez, which upholds a Venezuelan law designed to ensure honesty and accuracy in reporting, Hu-man Rights Watch is unable to provide any example of censor-ship, intimidation or persecu-tion of journalists.

In fact, it even affirms that “Venezuela enjoys vibrant public debate in which anti-government and pro-government media are equally vocal in criticizing and defending the president”.

Yet, the organization still feels justified in accusing the Chavez administration of “systematically” undercutting freedom of speech.

These type of broad condem-nations based on erroneous as-sumptions and faulty research have become standard fare for Human Rights Watch.

HRW’S AGENDAAGAINST VENEZUELA

In 2008, the organization re-leased an intensely critical, 236-page report on Venezuela that was subsequently refuted by over

a hundred academics and Latin American experts.

Of course, in none of its pub-lications has the organization made mention of the impressive gains that the country has made in terms of human development.

Free and universal health care and education, the elimination of illit-eracy, drastic reductions in poverty and malnutrition, and increased po-litical participation are just some of the advances that have been praised by the United Nations.

If Human Rights Watch was truly concerned with human rights, then it would focus as much on these issues as it does on spreading negativity and anti-Chavez propaganda.

But unfortunately, what the organization has become over the years is simply a mouthpiece for Venezuela’s conservative opposition, using progressive rhetoric to defend the interests of wealthy minorities.

Its reports have become so bi-ased and inaccurate that they hardly merit reading, not to men-tion serious analysis.

T/ Edward EllisP/ Agencies

The artillery of ideasENGLISH EDITIONFRIDAY | January 28, 2011 | No. 49| 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

As more WikiLeaks cables are released, a true cloak and da-

gger picture of US foreign policy is emerging. Take, for example, recent documents pertaining to Central America, where the Bush administration sought to bolster its regional allies in an effort to counteract the political influence of Venezuela. Alarmed by rising star Hugo Chavez, who was fast making ideological inroads within Washington’s traditional sphere of influence, diplomats promised to collaborate on sensitive intelligen-ce gathering in an effort to halt the region’s dangerous shift to the left.

One cable dates to November 2004 when the region’s so-called “Pink Tide” was just getting un-derway. For five years, Chavez had been in power but in Central Ame-rica the Bush administration could count on the support of a host of friendly client governments. In-deed, it would not be until several years later that leftists Daniel Orte-ga and Manuel Zelaya would win the presidencies of Nicaragua and Honduras, respectively. Neverthe-less, judging from the cables re-gional governments were already extremely wary of Chavez.

The tiny Central American nation of Costa Rica has long prided itself on its political independence and long-term stability. The country has no standing army, and during the height of US counter-insurgency involvement in the region some 25 years ago the San Jose government played a key role in drawing up a Central American peace plan. More often than not, however, Costa Rica has proven to be a willing partner in Washington’s wider geopolitical designs. Indeed, the 2004 cable re-veals intelligence collaboration at

the highest levels.

WikiLeaks: Costa Rica is a willingUS partner in Central America

The cable, which is marked “se-cret” relates to a meeting between former Costa Rican president Abel Pacheco and US ambassador to Bra-zil John Danilovich. During a Pa-checo visit to Brasilia, the Costa Ri-can made a point of dining with the American diplomat. Confiding in Danilovich, the Costa Rican remar-ked that he was concerned about Hugo Chavez’s intelligence gathe-ring activities in Central America. According to Danilovich, the Costa Rican government was “surveilling the activities of the Venezuelan cul-tural attaché in San Jose”.

The attaché was believed to be an intelligence officer who was “meeting secretly with labor union officials, and has brought $200,000 into Costa Rica to pay labor acti-vists to stage ‘provocations’, per-haps during the upcoming Ibero-American summit in Costa Rica”. Alarmed by alleged Venezuelan spying, Pacheco asked Danilovich if the US could provide needed in-telligence on the matter.

WHAT’S BEHIND THE CABLE? The Danilovich cable, though

brief, raises a number of questions about Costa Rica and the country’s place within the wider geopolitical milieu. Far from acting as a casual observer, Costa Rica took a keen interest in political developments in Venezuela and may have sided with anti-Chavez forces.

In 2002-3, Chavez was put on the defensive, first by a military coup d’etat which nearly toppled

the government and later by a 64-day lock out which nearly crippled the nation’s oil industry and cau-sed severe economic damage. A key figure during the lockout was Carlos Ortega, president of the Ve-nezuelan Workers’ Confederation (CTV). When authorities called for Ortega’s arrest, charging him with rebellion, conspiracy and treason, he sought refuge in the Costa Ri-can embassy in Caracas.

Though officials allowed for Ortega’s safe passage out of Ve-nezuela, several months later Chavez accused Ortega and Costa Rica of conspiring against his go-vernment. As proof of his allega-tions, Chavez offered up tapes of a telephone conversation between Ortega and Venezuelan opposition figures in which plans for a “civil rebellion” were discussed. Chavez claimed that Costa Rica was “su-pporting the presence in San Jose of these coup plotters, giving them support, security and resources”.

Responding to the incendiary charges, Pacheco denied that any members of his government had conspired against Venezuela. “I can assure Chavez that the policy of the Costa Rican government is non-intervention in the internal affairs

of any country”, Pacheco remar-ked. Throughout its history, the Costa Rican added, Costa Rica had welcomed foreign exiles but only under the strict condition that they would abstain from sub-versive political activities relating to their countries of origin.

COSTA RICA: NOT SO NEUTRAL?In light of Chavez’s volatile ac-

cusations, it is not surprising that Costa Rica felt paranoid about Ve-nezuelan intelligence operations and sought out Washington’s counsel. By 2005, now two years after the Ortega affair, Chavez was in a much better political position. Having beaten back his opposition, the Venezuelan pre-sident was now something of a leftist cause célèbre and had ex-tended his geopolitical influence throughout the region.

As a more conservative-leaning country, Costa Rica was now em-broiled in wider political tensions sweeping through Latin America. Seeking to portray himself as so-mething of a neutral peacemaker, Pacheco tried to mediate between Mexico and Venezuela during a diplomatic spat. Blasting Mexico, Chavez had earlier called Presi-

dent Vicente Fox “a pu-ppy dog” of the Uni-

ted States. The Mexican leader, Chavez added,

was given to “kneeling down” be-fore Was-hington.

As both countries wi-thdrew their

respective am-bassadors, Pache-

co called for both

Fox and Chavez to be civil. Taking the moral high ground, Pacheco declared that it was hardly a propi-tious moment for the two leaders to divide Latin America, adding that Chavez and Fox should give each other a “fraternal hug”. A couple of months later, Pacheco was at it again, calling for Chavez and Bush to sit down and to try to “unders-tand each other”.

In more recent years Costa Rica has become even more allied to Washington. In May 2006 Oscar Arias succeeded Pacheco as pre-sident. A veritable grandfather of Costa Rican politics, Arias proved to be no great admirer of Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez. In the summer of 2009, when Hon-duran President and Chavez ally Manuel Zelaya was removed in a military coup d’etat and a new de facto regime installed, tensions ran high between Venezuela and Costa Rica. When Arias attemp-ted to mediate the Honduranim-broglio, Chavez charged that the Costa Rican president was at-tempting to set a crafty trap.

As more leftist governments have taken power in Central America, Costa Rica has made some controversial political choices. Laura Chinchilla, an Arias protégé who took over the reins of power in 2010, has in-vited the US Navy to deploy in Costa Rican, an unprecedented buildup which goes against the small Central American nation’s anti-militarist history. With Costa Rica pursuing closer ties to Wash-ington, the country’s reputation as a neutral mediator has come into doubt. Just how much intel-ligence collaboration existed be-tween San Jose and successive US administrations? Did Costa Rica undertake specific moves to halt Chavez’s geopolitical advance in Central America? Hopefully, fur-ther WikiLeaks disclosures will give us insight into these matters.

- Nikolas Kozloff