Pg. 7 | Analysis Pg. 8 | Opinion

IntegrationVenezuela and Brazil advance tiesBrazil’s new Foreign Minister visited Venezuela this week to arrange an upcoming meeting between both countries’ presidents.

Social JusticeHuman Rightsinvestigations openedVenezuela’s Attorney General initiated investigations into mass human rights abuses committed during the twentieth century.

Venezuela: strengthening freedom of expression The Government of President

Hugo Chavez has strengthened freedom of expression through the democratization of the public broad-cast spectrum and the development of an inclusive communications system, said Minister of Communication and Information Andres Izarra. He ex-plained that the policies of inclusion in the media have allowed greater public participation in the broadcast spectrum, as shown by the growth of alternative and community-based me-dia. “This never happened in previous administrations”, recalled Izarra.

In addition to alternative and public media, the number of pri-vately held media has also in-creased significantly. Radio stations have increased from 331 in 1998 to 466 in 2010, and community-based radio stations, which did not exist in 1998, now number 243.

”The number of TV stations has also increased. In 1998 there were 32 frequencies allocated for private media, and there are currently 61 operators. Community-based TV stations, nonexistent before 1999, now total 37”, detailed Izarra.

“We have a full and vibrant democ-racy, which is a model to follow. Few countries show a level of democracy similar to Venezuela’s”, he exclaimed.

He added that the Law of Social Responsibility in Radio and TV al-lows the creation of Independent National Producers “to break the monopoly that ruled the produc-tion of content on television and ra-dio during the previous 40 years”.

Izarra also explained that Internet usage in Venezuela grew from 3% in 1999 to 33% in 2010, representing an increase of nearly 1,000%.

ggg yyyA Venezuelan’s concern for what can happenin the Arab world if the US runs the show

AnalysisUSAID shutsVenezuela officeAfter 8 years of illegal operations and millionaire funding to anti-Chavez groups, USAID closedits doors and movedto Miami.

On January 22nd, Ven-ezuelan pitcher Felix

Hernandez received the Cy Young Award in New York City, recognizing him as the best pitcher of the American League in 2010.

Hernandez, who was 13-12 and lead the majors with a 2.27 ERA and 249.2 in-nings pitched, was humbled as he addressed the public to thank them for the recog-nition that he has received during his sixth season with the Seattle Mariners.

“There were a lot of good quality and talented pitchers on the list to receive this rec-ognition, so I’m very honored to win this award”, said the 24-year-old pitcher.

“I also have to be thank-ful for the support I received from my fellow Seattle play-ers during the 2010 season; it was something incredible. They gave me not only the offensive support but also emotional support, they were with me all the time”, Her-nandez said.

Venezuela has numer-ous top players in US major league baseball.

Workers marchfor labor rightsUnion leaders and workers marched on Thursday in support of the Chavez administration’s policies favoring labor rights and called on the governmentto engage in further dialogue regarding labor reforms.A series of assemblieswere held over the weekend between high-level cabinet members and union leaders, ensuring workers’voices prominentlyinfluence governmentlabor policies.

Venezuelan Felix Hernandez receives

Cy Young Award

n January 22nd, Ven-

Members of President Chavez’s cabinet are testifying beforeparliament to ensure open government and debate

This week, Venezuela’s Vice President and several high-level cabinet members appeared before the National Assembly to dialogue with lawmakers regarding the government’s actions and policies during 2010.

The initiative was ordered by President Chavez as a follow-up to his national address last week on his administration’s achievements and failures during the previous year. The testimonies provide opportunity

to opposition and pro-government lawmakers to probe and question actions of the Executive Branch.

Government accountability and transparency

ggg pppJames Petras on Washington’s reactionto the Arab Revolts: Sacrificing dictators to save the State

The artillery of ideasENGLISH EDITIONFRIDAY | February 11, 2011 | No. 51| Bs 1 | CARACAS

The artillery of ideas| 2 | Impact No Friday, February 11, 2011

This week members of President Chavez’s cabinet testified before the National Assembly in an effort to ensure transparency, participation and open debate regarding government policies and accountability

In his speech to the National As-sembly on Tuesday, Venezuelan

Executive Vice President Elias Jaua highlighted how the Chavez ad-ministration successfully overcame five serious crises during 2010, and he affirmed this was only possible through government-community collaboration. Jaua also added that such victories were made, despite ongoing attempts from the right-wing opposition to “take advan-tage of the situation and generate a climate of chaos”.

The year 2010 was incredibly difficult for Venezuela. There were major crises in areas such as energy supply, banking, bilateral relations with Colombia, as well as emergen-cies caused by natural disasters and mortgage frauds. Thanks to reliable and efficient policies implemented by the Executive Branch, these situ-ations were overcome and turned into poles of development for the benefit of the population.

“Five crises and five victories, above all the difficulties and prob-lems, we prevailed. The Venezu-elan government knows we win the battle by fighting. The actions and efforts of the government were evident in 2010. People can see the difference between now and then”, Jaua exclaimed before the parliament session, at which both opposition and pro-govern-ment lawmakers were present.

ENERGY CRISISConcerning the energy crisis

suffered in Venezuela during 2010, which was a direct conse-quence of the drought caused by the climate phenomenon El Niño, Jaua highlighted the collabora-tion and conscienceness of the Venezuelan people, as well as the efforts of workers from the elec-

tricity sector. They showed their strength, struggle and committ-ment to resolving the national crisis by adhering to measures of electricity rationing.

During the first semester of 2010, Venezuela was literally in a state of energy emergency, and rationing nationwide severely affected peoples’ lifestyles and comfort. Because of the drought, hydroelectric energy plants - iron-ically the oil-producing nation’s principal supply of energy - dried up, and both water and electrical energy supply were dangerously affected. Rationing policies en-sured the government could keep a minimal level of energy func-tioning, while the Executive also focused on building thermoelec-tric plants in several areas of the country. Together, these measures enabled the nation to overcome the crisis.

VENEZUELA-COLOMBIACONFLICT

Another crisis highlighted by Vice President Jaua during his testimony before the National Assembly was the diplomatic conflict with Colombia, which resulted in a rupture in relations in July 2010. The break came after now ex-President Alvaro Uribe accused the Venezuelan govern-ment of facilitating terrorism and called on the Organization of American States (OAS) and

United Nations to intervene in Venezuela. Luckily, shortly there-after, Uribe left office and a new president took over.

The Venezuelan Vice President highlighted the process undertak-en by Presidents Hugo Chavez and incoming Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos to restore the bilateral relationship within a fra-ternal climate of peace and respect.

“We were victorious in the con-flict with Colombia, thanks to the sincere efforts of the two Govern-ments”, he said.

FINANCIAL MAFIASJaua stressed that thanks to

state intervention, it was possible to protect customers’ savings and ensure justice be brought to those responsible for the illicit acts which caused the banking crisis that affected the nation in early 2010. At least eleven private banks were intervened by the state from January to March 2010, while half of those were liquidated and oth-ers were nationalized or merged into new banking institutions. State intervention ensured cus-tomers’ savings were recovered, and minimal damage occured.

Different from how other coun-tries, such as the United States, handled the financial crisis by funding the banks, the Venezuelan government decided to focus on the people and protecting individ-ual customers’ savings and assets.

“Those responsible, friends or adversaries of the government, are in jail or running from justice”, Jaua said, adding that the actions undertaken by state agencies were crucial to prevent “that situation from becoming a systemic crisis”.

MORTGAGE FRAUDSThe Vice President also re-

called the measures implemented against real estate companies that defrauded homebuyers na-tionwide, and he highlighted the efforts undertaken by the gov-ernment, together with private banks, to guarantee the victims their rights to private property.

Thousands of Venezuelans were scammed by real estate companies that pre-sold proper-ties, which later were never built, or in some cases, buyers were charged excess fees and rates that kept increasing, without the properties being completed and handed over. The Chavez administration expropriated sev-eral construction companies and other real estate entities involved in the mass housing fraud and ensured that property owners re-ceived their homes at reasonable rates, in due time.

A national movement was formed by those affected by the housing fraud scandal to ensure, together with the state, that such illegal and exploitative actions will never happen again.

NATURAL DISASTERStrong rains struck Venezu-

ela in late 2010, displacing more than 130,000 people and leaving dozens dead. Infrastructure and agricultural production were also severely affected. Vice President Jaua stressed that the Chavez administration took measures to effectively respond to the popula-tion, especially those families left homeless from the rains.

“We issued decrees of emer-gency; we created a presidential commission, and an enabling law was enacted to provide laws which guarantee people’s right to a decent home”.

He added: “all these crisis, in general, allowed us to prove that in Venezuela, a Government ex-ists which attends to its people”.

OPPOSITION REACTIONAfter eight hours of open and di-

rect testimony before the National Assembly, which was broadcast live on national television, the Ven-ezuelan Vice President was met with negative reactions from oppo-sition parlimentarians.

“Eight hours of talking and he said nothing”, declared As-sembly member Maria Corina Machado, a staunch adversary of the Chavez government. “He didn’t address the severe prob-lems and social needs of our people”, she added, without acknowledging any of the prog-ress the country has made dur-ing the past decade.

Vice President Jaua was accom-panied on Tuesday by Minister for Interior and Justice, Tareck El Aissami, Minister of Defense General Mata Figueroa, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro and Minister for Communication and Information Andres Izarra. All five high-level government officials testified before the par-liament and responded to oppo-sition inquiries.

This was the first time in Ven-ezuelan history that cabinet members appeared before par-liament to engage in open de-bate with lawmakers.

T/ COIP/ Agencies

Revolutionary advances

Venezuela: people and governmentovercame five serious crises in 2010

The artillery of ideas No Friday, February 11, 2011 Integration | 3 |

Brazil’s new Foreign Minister made his first visit to Caracas this week, meeting with both Venezuelan diplomatic chief Nicolas Maduro and President Hugo Chavez. Later this month, Chavez is expected to hold his first formal meeting with Brazil’s new President Dilma Rousseff, who took office on January 1, 2011

Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Nicolas Maduro, received

his Brazilian counterpart, An-tonio de Aguiar Patriota in Ca-racas last Monday to discuss expanding commercial ties and strengthening the already ro-bust relations that exist between the neighboring South Ameri-can countries.

The meeting was the first high-level diplomatic discussions held between the two governments since Dilma Rousseff replaced Luiz “Lula” Da Silva as Brazil’s new President in January.

As a precursor to a presidential meeting in the coming weeks, the Ministers focused their talks on Monday on analyzing the suc-cesses of past bi-lateral agree-ments and discussing proposals for new areas of collaboration.

“We’re preparing the elements for new accords that will be re-viewed by presidents [Hugo] Chavez and [Dilma] Rousseff in the first trimester of this year in order to follow-up on our achievements in different areas of cooperation, just as the Venezu-elan head of state and Lula [Da Silva] used to do”, Maduro said.

In the past, both presidents Lula and Chavez made it a point to meet at least every four months to sign and review accords in strategic areas including energy, transportation, communications, and finance, among others.

Such meetings have led to the creation of dozens of joint eco-nomic and social agreements ranging from oil exploitation to infrastructure and agricultural development projects.

Venezuela and Brazil strengthen ties

During their final meeting in August 2010, Lula commented that the growing bilateral coopera-tion between the two nations has achieved “more in eight years than it has in the past five centuries”.

And the numbers bear out his assertion.

Currently, trade between the two nations totals more than $4.6 billion, up nearly ten per-cent from last year, and Brazil has recently surpassed Colombia as Venezuela’s third largest trad-ing partner next to China and the United States.

According to Minister Ma-duro, this trend will continue under the new government of Dilma Rousseff.

“We’re going to expand and amplify our work plan”, he said on Monday. “The presidents will maintain their trimestral meet-ings because this formula has permitted us to advance in our relations and carry out consistent follow-up on the achievements that we have today”.

INTEGRATIONThese achievements and the

increase in bilateral commercial activity are largely due to the pro-integrationist policies of both governments, which seek to move economic relations away from a US-centered trade policy.

Such a policy includes strength-ening regional political and trade alliances such as Mercosur, Una-sur, and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.

With respect to Mercosur, the trade block established between Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, Patriota assured on Monday that the his government supports Venezuela’s bid for full membership into the organization.

“We want and we’re doing ev-erything possible to strengthen Unasur and to make sure that Venezuela enters Mercosur. Our goal is the integration of Ven-ezuela, Brazil and all our sister states”, Patriota said.

For full membership, Venezu-ela’s entrance must be approved by each member state’s congress.

Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay have already voted in favor of the OPEC member’s entrance while only Paraguay’s legislature has blocked the measure.

Despite the obstacle, Patriota believes that Venezuela’s accep-tance in Mercosur is imminent.

“We expect the definitive ap-proval of Venezuela’s incorpora-tion soon”, he said.

President Chavez also re-ceived Foreign Minister Patriota in the Miraflores presidential palace on Monday evening, demonstrating the importance of the continuing relationship with Brazil. One of the main is-sues discussed was cooperation in agriculture and housing.

“We have decided to prioritize the construction and funding of housing projects in Venezuela”, announced President Chavez, also underlining the importance of different agricultural agree-

ments that are aiding in the resu-citation of Venezuela’s long-aban-doned agricultural industry.

US INTERFERENCEUS State Department docu-

ments recently disclosed by the whistleblower site, Wikileaks, show years of efforts on behalf of Washington to pit Brazil against Venezuela in order to challenge President Chavez and attempt to “reduce” his influence in the region. During the government of Lula da Silva, these efforts were shunned, though according to the documents, several mem-bers of the Brazilian’s cabinet ap-pear to have shared US concerns about Venezuela.

Washington has indicated it will continue to try and expand rela-tions with Brazil in the “hopes of promoting progressive govern-ments instead of radical ones” in Latin America. Nonetheless, Presi-dent Rousseff has showed no signs of caving in to US demands and has instead, reached out to Presi-dent Chavez and other regional counterparts to strengthen ties.

US President Barack Obama is expected to make his first visit to Brazil in March. Visits to Chile and El Salvador also appear on the US president’s agenda.

T/ Edward Ellis andEva GolingerP/ Presidential Press

An underwater fiber-optic cable linking Venezuela to Cuba has reached the island nation, an-nounced Venezuelan officials on Wednesday.

The nearly 1,000-mile project, which was laid by French com-pany Alcatel-Lucent SA (ALU, ALU.FR), reached the coast of Siboney, Cuba, about three weeks after work began, said Wilfredo Morales, president of Telecomunicaciones Gran Car-ibe, a joint venture between Venezuela and Cuba.

The cable will undergo test-ing over the next three months, Morales said on Venezuelan state

Underseas Cable Reaches Cubanews website AVN. Government officials said last month that in-stallation of the cable would be finished by July.

The project, Cuba’s first fiber-optic cable, is slated to improve the quality of the country’s In-ternet access. Until now, Cuba has relied on satellites for tele-communications.

President Hugo Chavez, who has strengthened economic ties between the two nations, has hailed the project as a way to break Washington’s nearly half-century trade embargo on Cuba.

T/ Agencies

The artillery of ideas| 4 | Politics No Friday, February 11, 2011

Responding to an ongoing strike of workers battling for their labor rights at the Coca-Cola factory in Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez questioned the necessity of maintaining the US beverage in the country if the billionaire corporation is unwilling to comply with Venezuelan laws

In a nationally televised ad-dress last Friday during the

commemoration of the 19th an-niversary of the famous failed military rebellion against the cor-rupt and murderous government of Carlos Andres Perez, which was led by Chavez himself and sparked the Revolution he heads today, the Venezuelan President expressed his support for the

Violent crime continues to be a major issue of concern for

most Venezuelans, as the govern-ment creates new security forces, rehabilitates prisons and addresses root causes of delinquent activity.

Venezuela’s government re-leased the first official murder statistics this week to counter opposition claims that its violent crime rate has become one of the worst in the world under Presi-dent Hugo Chavez.

Rampant homicides, kidnap-pings and robberies are the top con-cern of voters in South America’s biggest oil producer and could be a major threat to the socialist leader’s hopes to be re-elected in 2012.

Interior Minister Tareck El Ais-sami told parliament late Tues-day the official murder rate was 48 per 100,000 residents — worse than the Latin American average but better than data cited by op-position parties and some non-governmental groups.

“We are not satisfied. Quite the opposite. There is much more that

needs to done”, El Aissami said, adding that the highest murder rates were in states with opposi-tion party governors.

FEAR MONGERINGOpposition media and political

leaders in Venezuela have used the issue of crime, attempting to exploit voters’ fears through propaganda, in order to tarnish the achievements of of the Chavez government and the Bolivarian Revolution.

Opposition newspapers, which receive funding from the US State Department, report daily on the tally of murders, and a grim pho-tograph of corpses piled haphaz-ardly at the Caracas morgue was splashed on one front page before September’s legislative elections.

That outraged the government and a majority of citizens, as did a New York Times article saying Caracas was much more danger-ous than Baghdad.

But prior to the Chavez ad-ministration, national and inter-national media rarely reported

on crime in Venezuela, despite it always being an area of concern considering the previous vast disparities in wealth and easily-corrupted police forces.

IMPROVING SECURITY,SOCIAL NEEDS

El Aissami gave out the crime statistics while testifying before the National Assembly, where the opposition has a sizable

presence for the first time in years since a legislative election in September. In prior elections, opposition parties boycotted the process, forfeiting their seats in an attempt to undermine the na-tional government.

El Aissami said the creation of a new national police force and other anti-crime measures were bearing fruit. In areas where the National Bolivarian

Reducing crime and violence a priority for VenezuelansPolice Force has been deployed, crime has already been reduced by over 50%. The Force is ex-pected to expand exponentially during 2011.

Venezuela has also dramati-cally improved counter-narcotics efforts since ending cooperation with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 2005. During 2010, 17 major drug king-pins were captured in Venezuela, thousands of arrests were made and over 60 tons of illegal sub-stances were confiscated, mainly entering from neighboring Co-lombia, one of the world’s larg-est drug producers.

Social policies of the Chavez administration are also contrib-uting to crime reduction by ad-dressing the needs of communi-ties nationwide. During the first decade of the Bolivarian Revolu-tion, poverty has been reduced by more than 50%.

T/ AgenciesP/ Agencies

“We don’t need Coca-Cola”says Venezuela’s Chavez

current workers’ conflict in a Venezuelan Coca-Cola plant.

“If Coca-Cola doesn’t want to comply with the constitution and the law, well, we can live without Coca-Cola”, he said.

“Coca-Cola isn’t indispens-able”, he continued, as the crowd cheered. “Who said Coca-Cola is necessary in order to live?” he added, then suggested some Ven-ezuelan drinks, such as guava juice, are healthier and better-tasting than the sugary, caffein-ated soft-drink.

DENYING WORKER BENEFITSThe declarations were made

while Chavez was speaking in Valencia, the capital of Carabobo state, where 1,230 workers are strik-

ing in a bot-tling and distri-bution plant of Coca Cola Fem-sa. The employees began the strike on Friday, January 15th in order to demand a fair col-lective agreement, pay raises, food tickets, night shift bonuses, and an in-house cafeteria. Workers cur-rently earn 78 bolivares per day (US $18) and are asking for an ad-ditional 45 bolivares (US $10.46).

The strike has gained the sup-port of Venezuela’s National Union of Workers (Unete), the nation’s largest labor federation. The Ministry of Labor has also

been dialoguing with workers and management, trying to ne-gotiate an outcome.

Private Venezuelan media out-lets have reported that the strike is causing a “scarcity” of Coca-

Cola in the country. Meanwhile, workers have activated two of the water production lines in the fac-tory in order to avoid a reduction of bottled water, also produced by the company, because they consider it a necessity.

According to the plant’s union secretary, the company has met with both workers and represen-tatives from the Ministry of Labor and the Labor Inspector’s Office, but has refused to comply with any of the workers’ demands, apart from offering to increase fu-neral benefits.

The Coca-Cola Company has caused conflicts in other South American nations in recent years, such as Colombia, where the US Corporation was accused of contracting paramilitary forc-es to threaten, harass and assas-sinate hundreds of union lead-ers in order to avoid increasing benefits or complying with workers’ demands.

T/ Tamara Pearsonwww.venezuelanalysis.com

The artillery of ideas No Friday, February 11, 2011 Politics | 5 |

As part of their efforts to engage with community activists through the grassroots “Legislature of the People”, Venezuelan government officials met with labor union representatives from various industries in Caracas last Saturday to discuss reforms to the nation’s Labor Law

Union leaders representing workers from the country’s

oil, education, health care, and transportation sectors were on hand for the assembly which took place in the Plaza Bolivar and saw the attendance of high-ranking government function-aries including the president of the National Assembly, Soto Rojas, and Foreign Minister Ni-colas Maduro.

“In the name of President Chavez, we salute this initiative and the beginning of this work session”, Maduro said to the workers gathered for the open-air meeting which served as “a launching point” for the discus-sions and debates that will occur at the community level over the following weeks.

According to labor leaders, one of the main issues to be addressed in the coming discussions of the Labor Law reforms will be the elimination of tertiarization, or the exclusion of workers from es-tablished benefits through tactics such as subcontracting.

Although Venezuela has seen a 50 percent increase in the over-all percentage of workers in the formal economy over the past 12 years, tertiarization threatens to push workers back into the in-formal sector by stripping them of the rights and guarantees af-forded to recognized members of the workforce.

GUARANTEEING RIGHTSEglee Sanchez, president of

Venezuela’s Paper and Graphics Union called for an article in the new Labor Law to prohibit tertia-

Workers Rights

Union leaders and governmentdebate labor reforms

rization and to strengthen work-ers’ guarantees on the job.

“In some private businesses, there are still tertiarized workers who don’t enjoy any kind of ben-efit. We still have excluded work-ers. We can’t continue to permit this kind of situation”, she said during an interview on state tele-vision last Sunday.

BREAK WITH THE PAST For many in Venezuela’s labor

movement, the opportunity to work hand-in-hand with a revolu-tionary government is a welcome break from the past when corrupt and elitist unions colluded with business sectors to the detriment of the working class.

“We have a socialist vision, not like the unionists from the oligar-chy who participated in the oil sabotage. We rank and file work-ers maintain our struggle”, said pro-government activist Francis-co Garcia on Saturday.

For the decades preceding 2000, the union movement in Venezu-ela was suffocated by the Ven-

ezuelan Workers’ Confederation (CTV) which although technical-ly independent functioned more as an “official” union of past ne-oliberal governments. The CTV has also been one of the most heavily US-funded unions in the region, receiving direct financial support from the National En-dowment for Democracy (NED) and the US Agency for Interna-tional Development (USAID), as well as the AFL-CIO.

In efforts to do away with his attempted democratization of the oil sector and its unions, the CTV alongside Venezuela’s chamber of commerce, FEDECAMARAS, participated in a violent over-throw attempt of President Hugo Chavez in 2002.

The attempt failed prompt-ing the CTV to help organize a management lockout of the oil industry later that year with the political goal, once again, of oust-ing Chavez from power.

The oil lockout, like the at-tempted coup, also failed, dis-crediting the CTV and giving rise

to other pro-government and in-dependent labor federations that are pushing forth a stronger, pro-worker agenda.

Carmen Pantil, health worker present at the assembly on Sat-urday, noted the difference be-tween Venezuela’s contempo-rary workers’ movement from that of yester years.

“We’re working with the com-munity councils and the people from the grassroots as we should. We’re taking our position against the oligarchy that still doesn’t understand that there’s a radical change and revolutionary process [taking place]”, Pantil said.

Although largely without a base, the CTV continues to exist in Venezuela and helped organize an anti-government demonstra-tion last weekend in collaboration with the country’s right-wing stu-dent movement.

The protest of less than a thou-sand people transpired freely and without incident, calling for an end to government na-tionalizations and what Chavez

opponents claim to be the gov-ernment’s “criminalization of dissent”. CTV’s president, Car-los Ortega, is currently residing outside of Venezuela, having fled justice in 2007 after he was indicted for his involvement in the coup and subsequent desta-bilization attempts against the government. From his self-exile, which varies from Peru to Pana-ma to Miami, Ortega has contin-ued to call for the overthrow of President Chavez.

WORKER SUPPORTFOR THE REVOLUTION

In contrast to the opposition demonstration, thousands of workers from around the country convened for a national demon-stration in Caracas on Thursday to support the socialist policies of the Chavez Administration and exhibit their loyalty to the Boli-varian Revolution.

Some of the gains highlighted by workers since the Bolivarian Revolution came to power in 1999 include a five fold increase in pensions, a nearly 50 percent decrease in unemployment and one of the highest minimum wages in Latin America when measuring the Venezuelan Boli-var at the official exchange rate of 4.30VEB to 1USD.

Numerous businesses have also been nationalized at the be-hest of worker unions, various abandoned factories have been recovered and greater workplace democracy has been ensured through participatory manage-ment schemes.

Speaking about the advances in workers’ rights that have characterized the past twelve years, Minister Maduro attrib-uted the gains to Venezuela’s break with a strictly capitalist development model.

“There’s still a lot to do in the construction of socialism but it’s only with socialism, built by the people and the working classes that we will be able to guarantee economic and social rights for the majority”, Maduro said.

T/ Edward EllisP/ Agencies

The artillery of ideas| 6 | Social Justice No Friday, February 11, 2011

During the decades prior to the Bolivarian Revolution, human rights crimes were abundant and largely ignored. Thousands of activists, mainly from the left, were disappeared, persecuted, tortured and assassinated by the so-called “democratic” governments that ran the country with US approval before President Chavez came to power in 1998

Venezuelan authorities an-nounced their intention to

investigate some 1,600 cases of disappearances, executions and other human rights violations that took place at the hands of the nation’s security forces dur-ing the years 1958 – 1998, a pe-riod known in the country as the Fourth Republic.

The decision to re-open the cases was made public by the Attorney General, Luisa Ortega Diaz, during an interview on the private television station Televen last Sunday.

According to Diaz, during the forty years of Venezuela’s Fourth Republic, residents were forced to endure a state policy of torture and repression, which sought to eliminate the influence of com-munist and leftist organizations in the political arena.

POLITICAL PERSECUTIONAmong the cases to be investi-

gated is that of Fabricio Ojeda, rev-olutionary leader from the 1950s who, along with other prominent members of the Communist Party, played a crucial role in overthrow-ing the military dictatorship of Marcos Jimenez in 1958.

The communist-led uprising which ousted Jimenez ushered in a period nominally referred to in Venezuelan history as that of “rep-resentative democracy” also called the Fourth Republic or Punto Fijis-mo, based on a political pact signed between centrist parties Democrat-ic Action (AD) and the Christian Democratic party (COPEI).

Recovering Memory and Identity

Venezuela to investigate past human rights crimes

It was during this time that both COPEI and AD, with the support of Washington, and in stark betrayal of those who struggled to overthrow the Jime-nez dictatorship, worked to ex-clude the communists from the new political establishment.

A witchhunt against progres-sives and leftist sympathizers began, forcing many activists into hiding or to the mountains to take up arms in a guerrilla war that would last into the 1970s.

Ojeda became a key leader of this guerrilla movement until his capture by the Venezuelan gov-ernment and his eventual murder in the basement of state’s intelli-gence services in 1966.

A similar fate would meet thou-sands more who ventured to chal-lenge the legitimacy of the Ven-ezuelan political establishment and its anti-communist agenda.

NEVER TO LATE FOR JUSTICEBut for Clodosbaldo Russian, cur-

rent Comptroller General and for-mer cellmate to Ojeda, there is still time to bring justice to these cases.

“We’ve been wrong all this

time to not investigate and clarify these cases of murder and perse-cution”, Russian said during an interview with the Correo del Ori-noco published on Monday.

With respect to the specific case of Ojeda, the Comptroller be-lieves that those responsible for his murder are still walking the streets and can be called to ac-count for their crime.

“Some of those who participated in the capture and imprisonment of Fabricio have to be alive. These peo-ple are identifiable”, he affirmed.

On Sunday, family members of victims were received in the Na-tional Assembly where a bill was introduced to seek justice for those who suffered at the hands of the state’s war against communism.

The proposal, called the Law of Remembrance and Against Silence was received by the president of the National Assembly and ex-guerrilla, Fernando Soto Rojas as well as Comptroller Russian.

In receiving the proposals, the president of the National As-sembly drew a comparison be-tween the crimes of the past and the political violence that is still

being carried out by the extreme right in Venezuela.

“These murderers still exist. In the opposition, there are land-owners who have murdered more than 200 small farmers in the central-western area of the coun-try. These crimes against human-ity cannot go unpunished”, Ro-jas exclaimed in reference to the unsolved assassination of farmer leaders participating in the coun-try’s agrarian reform.

RECOVERING MEMORYOpening investigations into

past human rights violations committed by prior govern-ments, many of whose leaders and members form part of the political opposition to President Chavez today, will allow Vene-zuelans to recover a hidden part of their contemporary history, af-firmed Soto Rojas.

Chavez himself referred to the necessity to uncover and remem-ber the past in order to better un-derstand the revolutionary pro-cess taking place today. During last month’s march on January 23, the day dictator Marcos Perez

Jimenez was overthrown, Chavez revindicated Fabricio Ojeda’s memory, speaking together with Ojeda’s grandchildren who were present at the event.

“The youth of today, those who believe they oppose the Revolution, don’t know the past...We must remember how things were before, how the same politicians who today want to retake power are the ones who killed, oppressed, tor-tured and silenced our people”, affirmed Chavez.

Although other South Ameri-can countries, such as Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, have con-ducted extensive investigations into rights abuses committed by the Washington-backed dictator-ships during the late twentieth century, Venezuela’s history has remained widely unknown.

“They tried to hide the truth from us to keep us ignorant, afraid and silent”, declared Jose Luis Ojeda, grandson of Fab-ricio. “But we know what they did and will fight to expose the political crimes of the Fourth Re-public...they will never return”, he implored.

Ironically, leaders from the same political parties, AD and Copei, who were responsible for overseeing mass human rights abuses in Venezuela dur-ing their rule, today accuse the Chavez government of violat-ing rights. Even alleged inter-national defenders of human rights, such as Human Rights Watch and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, have made multiple accusations against the Chavez adminis-tration for alleged civil rights abuses, despite the fact that no such evidence exists to back their claims. These internation-al watchdog groups failed to denounce the mass rights vio-lations that occured during the Fourth Republic in Venezuela, placing under scrutiny their own political agendas.

“The truth will come out, our memory will be recovered and justice will finally be done”, pro-claimed National Assembly Pres-ident Fernando Soto Rojas.

T/ Edward Ellis andEva GolingerP/ Agencies

The artillery of ideas No Friday, February 11, 2011 Analysis | 7 |

When Russell Porter, the direc-tor of USAID’s OTI division,

which is dedicated to injecting li-quid funds into resolving “politi-cal crises” to Washington’s favor, first visited Venezuela in 2002, his task was “evaluating the political situation” to determine how US-AID could better help the nation towards a “democratic transition”.

But the real objective of USAID was not supporting democracy in Venezuela, since the South American nation already had a vibrant democracy with a presi-dent supported by a majority of the people. USAID’s mission, together with other US agencies, was to provoke “regime change”

favorable to US interests, which meant removing President Hugo Chavez from power.

From the beginning, USAID’s program in Venezuela, which was established weeks after Por-ter’s visit, was dedicated to fund-ing, creating and advising anti-Chavez political parties, NGOs and media. Three months after Porter’s trip to Venezuela, those same groups executed a coup d’etat against President Chavez, while although briefly success-ful, was defeated by the people - Chavez supporters - less than 48 hours later.

During its first two years of operations, USAID/OTI had

a $10 million budget, which it used to fund approximately 64 opposition groups and pro-grams in Venezuela. The ma-jority of that funding went to anti-Chavez propaganda in the media and an unsuccessful cam-paign to recall President Chavez from office in 2004.

Failing in its prior attempts to oust Chavez from power, in 2006 USAID/OTI reoriented its funding, increased its budget and began focusing on crafting an opposition “youth move-ment” that could utilize new technologies, such as Twitter and Facebook and other Inter-net media to build an interna-

tional campaign against the Venezuelan President. From 2006 to 2010, more than 34% of USAID’s budget - which neared $15 million per year - was used to fund university programs, workshops and other events to aid youth in building an anti-Chavez movement.

By 2010, external funding for opposition groups in Venezuela reached more than $57 million, the majority coming from US agencies such as USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy.

USAID’s presence in Venezu-ela was never legitimate or legal, and did not have authorization from the Venezuelan state, evi-

USAID closes Venezuela program, transfers to Miamidencing clear violations of sov-ereignty. USAID’s OTI program operated like a clandestine agen-cy in Caracas, illegally bring-ing dollars into the country and using them to fund subversion against the government.

As a result of this ongoing vio-lation of Venezuelan sovereignty, the country’s National Assembly passed a law in late December 2010, prohibiting foreign funding of political activities. USAID/OTI promptly shut its doors and moved its Venezuela operations to Miami, now a hub of anti-Chavez activities.

T/ Eva Golinger

When the dictatorship of Gen-eral Marcos Perez Jimenez

fell in 1958, almost all Venezu-elans were daringly innocent, ex-cept Romulo Betancourt. In fact, as soon as he returned from exile that year, he enacted an agreement with Washington, which makes it easy to infer he had already planned such a deal, judging from his subsequent behavior. The agreement was meant to avoid an-other Imperial coup d’état like the one backed by the United States in 1948 against the government of his Social Democrat party Acción Democrática (AD).

General Perez Jimenez had dis-dained the people. Instead, he sought mainly the support of the bourgeoisie and the military, who weren’t loyal to him when he was overthrown by a brave civil and military revolt.

While the crowds enthusiasti-cally celebrated their victory in the streets, the Empire’s acolytes operated swiftly and surrepti-tiously. Neither AD’s constitu-ency nor the Communist Party confronted the entanglements of Betancourt with the bourgeoisie and the Empire.

At the end of 1957, AD, the conservative Social Christian party Copei and the now extinct Unión Republicana Democrática signed the so-called Pact of New York, which was ratified the fol-lowing year in Venezuela as the Pact of Punto Fijo. Both agree-ments excluded the Commu-nist Party from participation in

Some worries about our arab brothers and sisters

political office. Was it then that Betancourt made a deal with Washington, where he lived un-til the end of his exile?

Betancourt won the polls in De-cember 1958 and double-crossed us all: he sold the revolution that had cost a lot of blood, including that of militants of his party AD. This soon triggered a schism in his party, splitting it into two factions, one on the right and one on the left, which was afterwards called Leftist Revo-

lutionary Movement (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria). In January 1959 the Cuban Revolu-tion triumphed. But it was too late for the Venezuelan revolutionaries. Betancourt had turned Venezuela into the chief Imperial satellite in the Continent. Something similar might happen now to the Arab countries whose people are heroically revolt-ing against the Empire.

I have some concerns about some disturbing similarities with

the present events in the Arab world. Near the end of the ’50s there were several military dicta-torships in Latin America, which had been imposed and supported by the Empire: Manuel Odria in Peru, Gustavo Rojas Pinilla in Colombia, Marcos Perez Jimenez in Venezuela, Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, Rafael Trujillo in Domini-can Republic, Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay, Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua. The last two fell or

died later on, but the rest lost of-fice immediately and in little time, like dominoes. There’s evidence of US intervention in the fall of some of these dictatorships: they killed Trujillo when he refused to abandon office. They didn’t protect Perez Jimenez. The sup-port they gave Batista against Fi-del’s guerrilla was not enough to thwart his fall. And Washington didn’t say a word about the rapid fall of the rest of those dictator-ships. When Washington really supports a government it does everything to protect it: financing and training puppet groups of in-fluence, instigating coups d’état, separatist initiatives and eventu-ally direct invasions, to mention only a few items of its political panoply. Or they tolerate or pro-mote an alternative government that’s acceptable for Washington, as it’s striving to do now in Egypt and did in Latin America in the late ’50s — with the exception of Cuba. It did nothing to pre-vent the fall of the late ’50s Latin American dictatorships that it had previously instigated and buttressed. Instead it promoted acceptable allied substitutions with a healthier political aura.

Is the same thing happening now in the Arab countries? Will they do to Mubarak what they did to Trujillo?

These days are decisive for the future of the world.

T/ Roberto Hernandez Montoya

The artillery of ideasENGLISH EDITIONFRIDAY | February 11, 2011 | No. 51| 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

To understand the Obama regime’s policy toward

Egypt, Mubarak and the popular uprising it is essential to locate it in a historical context. The es-sential point is that Washington, after several decades of being deeply embedded in the state structures of the Arab dictator-ships, from Tunisia through Mo-rocco, Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the Palesti-nian Authority, is attempting to re-orient its policies to incorpo-rate and/or graft liberal-electo-ral politicians onto the existing power configurations.

US foreign policy has a long history of installing, financing, arming and backing dictatorial re-gimes which back its imperial po-licies and interests as long as they retain control over their people.

In the past, Republican and De-mocratic presidents worked clo-sely for over 30 years with the Tru-jillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic; installed the autocratic Diem regime in pre-revolutionary Vietnam in the 1950’s; collabora-ted with two generations of So-moza family terror regimes in Ni-caragua; financed and promoted the military coup in Cuba 1952, Brazil 1964, Chile in 1973, and in Argentina in 1976 and subsequent repressive regimes. When popu-lar upheavals challenged these US backed dictatorships, Washington responded with a three track po-licy: publically criticizing the hu-man rights violations and advoca-ting democratic reforms; privately signaling continued support to the ruler; and seeking an elite alterna-tive which could substitute for the incumbent and preserve the state apparatus, the economic system and US strategic interests.

For the US there are no strate-gic relationships, only permanent imperial interests. The dictators-hips assume that their relations-hips with Washington is strategic: hence the shock and dismay when they are sacrificed to save the sta-te apparatus. Fearing revolution, Washington has had reluctant client despots, unwilling to move

on, assassinated (Trujillo and Diem). Some are provided sanc-tuaries abroad (Somoza, Batista), others are pressured into power-sharing (Pinochet) or appointed as visiting scholars to Harvard, Georgetown or some other “pres-tigious” posting.

The Washington calculus on when to reshuffle the regime is based on an estimate of the capacity of the dictator to wea-ther the political uprising, the strength and loyalty of the ar-med forces and the availability of a pliable replacement. The risk of waiting too long, of stic-king with the dictator, is that the uprising radicalizes: the en-suing change sweeps away both the regime and the state appara-tus, turning a political uprising into a social revolution. Just such a ‘miscalculation’ occurred in 1959 in the run-up to the Cu-ban revolution, when Washing stood by Batista and was not able to present a viable pro US alternative coalition linked to the old state apparatus.

Washington moved with grea-ter initiative in Latin America in the 1980’s. It promoted negotia-

ted electoral transitions which replaced dictators with pliable neo-liberal electoral politicians, who pledged to preserve the exis-ting state apparatus, defend the privileged foreign and domestic elites and back US regional and international policies.

Obama has been extremely hesitant to oust Mubarak for several reasons, even as the mo-vement grows in number and anti-US sentiment deepens. The White House has many clients around the world –including Honduras, Mexico, Indonesia, Jordan and Algeria – who belie-ve they have a strategic relations-hip with Washington and would lose confidence in their future if Mubarak was dumped.

As a result the Obama regime has moved slowly, under fear and pressure of the growing Egyptian popular movement. It searches for an alternative political for-mula that removes Mubarak, re-tains and strengthens the political power of the state apparatus and incorporates a civilian electoral alternative as a means of demo-bilizing and de-radicalizing the vast popular movement.

The major obstacle to ousting Mubarak is that a major sector of the state apparatus, especia-lly the 325,000 Central Security Forces and the 60,000 National Guard are directly under Muba-rak. Secondly, top Generals in the Army (468,500 members) have buttressed Mubarak for 30 years and have been enriched by their control over very lucrative com-panies in a wide range of fields. They will not support any civilian ‘coalition’ that calls into question their economic privileges and power to set the political para-meters of any electoral system. The supreme commander of the Egyptian military is a longtime client of the US and a willing co-llaborator with Israel.

Obama is resolutely in favor of collaborating with and ensuring the preservation of these coercive bodies. But he also needs to con-vince them to replace Mubarak and allow for a new regime that can defuse the mass movement which is increasingly opposed to US hegemony and subservience to Israel.

The US has opened talks with the most conservative liberal and

clerical sectors of the anti-Muba-rak movement. At first it tried to convince them to negotiate with Mubarak. Then Obama tried to sell a phony “promise” from Mubarak that he would not run in the elections, 9 months later.

The movement and its leaders rejected that proposal also. So Obama raised the rhetoric for ‘immediate changes’ but without any substantive measures bac-king it up.

As the pressure of the move-ment intensifies, Obama cross pressured by the pro Mubarak Is-rael Lobby and its Congressional entourage on the one hand, and on the other by advisors who call on him to follow past practices and move decisively to sacrifice the regime to save the state.

But Obama hesitates and like a wary crustacean, he moves sideways and backwards, belie-ving his own rhetoric is a substi-tute for action.

Nevertheless, there are many uncertainties in a political res-huffle: a democratic citizenry, 83% unfavorable to Washington, will possess the experience of struggle and freedom to call for a realignment of policy, especially to cease being a policeman enfor-cing the Israeli blockage of Gaza, and providing support for US pu-ppets in North Africa, Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Secondly free elections will open debate and increase pressure for greater social spending, the expropriation of the $70 billion empire of the Mubarak clan. The masses will demand a realloca-tion of public expenditure from the overblown coercive apparatus to job generating employment.

The anti-dictatorial moment is only the first phase of a prolon-ged struggle toward definitive emancipation not only in Egypt but throughout the Arab world. The outcome depends on the de-gree to which the masses develop their own independent organiza-tion and leaders.

- James Petras

Washington: sacrificing dictators to save the state