Why the CIA Won��‚��„�t Give Up on Venezuela | Interview with Eva Golinger Mood: a-ok Now Playing: Interview with Eva Golinger 2015 Topic: Venezuela News
Abby speaks with author of the Chavez Code, Eva Golinger about the Western backed resistance groups in Venezuela and how there is a coup happening in real time.
AUDIO PODCAST - Alfredo Lopez on Venezuelan 'Threat,' This week on CounterSpin: Is Venezuela really a threat to the security of the United States, as the White House has declared? And if not, what can be the point of such a statement? We'll get an accounting about what seems to be threatening Washington from activist and author Alfredo Lopez, of May First/People Link. -->http://t.co/SAqRCeCWnA
The UN and Venezuela and the Security Council seat Mood: cool Now Playing: 181 member states of the United Nations voted yea in Venezuela’s favor Topic: Venezuela News
US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power. (Wikimedia Commons)
Last week, 181 member states of the United Nations voted yea in Venezuela’s favor, allowing Caracas to take one of the two non-permanent seats on the Security Council reserved for Latin America.
Tongues clucked and fingers wagged. In the run-up to the vote, editorial boards, columnists and members of congress urged Washington to whip together the sixty-five nations needed to block Venezuela’s two-year term. But in the end, Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, could only secure only eleven opposing votes. Venezuela was Latin America’s unanimous choice to replace outgoing Argentina, joining Chile, which has one more year left. Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, tweeted his concern: “Shameful that Latin America 1) proposes abusive #Venezuela for UN Security Council, and 2) no one else, so no choice.”
Power reacted to the vote by collectively scolding the Latin American caucus:
The UN Charter makes clear that candidates for membership on the Security Council should be contributors to the maintenance of international peace and security and support the other purposes of the UN, including promoting universal respect for human rights. Regional groups have a responsibility to put forward candidates that satisfy these criteria.
Nearly exactly one hundred years ago, Woodrow Wilson said he was “going to teach the South American republics to elect good men.” We’re still trying.
Power then went on to say, “Venezuela’s conduct at the UN has run counter to the spirit of the UN Charter and its violations of human rights at home are at odds with the Charter’s letter.”
The “conduct” here referred to is Caracas’s recent turn on the UN’s Human Rights Council, where it consistently opposed US-supported resolutions and supported resolutions the US opposed.
For instance, Venezuela joined with twenty-seven other members to pass a resolution calling on countries to ensure that armed drones in counter-terrorism and military campaigns operate “in according with international law, including international human rights and humanitarian law.” Sounds unobjectionable, right? Not to Washington. Its representative voted with the minority. The United States “said that it did not believe that the examination of specific weapon systems fell under the mandate of the Council.” Kenneth Roth didn’t think this worth a tweet. Venezuela also tended to vote against any resolution that might be deemed a stalking horse for US-led interventions, siding, for instance, with China, Cuba and Russia against condemning human rights violations in Syria.
Whatever one thinks about that alliance, Caracas is not alone in Latin America in holding firm to the ideal of absolute sovereignty. This is understandable, considering the long history of Washington claiming for itself the right to judge which governments are worthy of existence and which are beyond the pale and merit destruction. Latin America unanimously opposed the invasion of Panama; nearly all of South America was opposed to bombing Libya to remove Muammar Qaddafi; there was even more unanimity against Washington’s efforts to move on Syria last year. Argentina, which then held the UN Security Council Seat, “will never propose or support a foreign military intervention,” foreign minister Héctor Timerman said. “The Argentine people will not be complicit in new deaths.”
If any country has violated the UN charter, it is the United States. The US did not get UN support to wage war in Nicaragua; and when in 1986 the UN’s International Court of Justice (established in the charter that Samantha Power evokes, mandating that all UN member nations are subject to its rulings) rejected American claims of collective self-defense, found the United States guilty of breaches of international law, and ordered that it pay reparations to Managua, Washington ignored the ruling and announced it would henceforth no longer be subject to the court’s jurisdiction (the legal scholar Eric Posner identifies the US withdrawal from the jurisdiction of the ICJ as a “watershed” moment, clearing the way of all old muliltaralist restraints and laying the legal foundation for the kind of renewed unilaterial interventionism, starting in Panama and continuing to Iraq and beyond). Nor did it have UN support to invade Panama in 1989 or bomb Iraq in 2003.On the issue of sovereignty, the charter is clear: “The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members”; “All Members shall settle their international disputes by peacefulmeans”; “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force”; “Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.” Emphasis mine.
It’s funny, actually, that Power uses the phrases “spirit” and “letter.” Usually the US justifies violating the “letter” of UN law (that is, it doesn’t work through procedures to obtain a warrant for its actions) by saying it is acting in the true “spirit” of the UN, unilaterally enforcing values that the institution embodies but can’t execute. Spirits have long been calling the United States to follow a higher law.
One can debate whether the ideals of sovereignty and non-aggression as they were understood in the late 1940s, when the UN was founded, make sense in today’s world; but certainly people of good will can also admit that the alternative—the US acting alone—hasn’t exactly been a success. No? I guess not. Among liberals like Power and Roth it has become unreflective common sense that old-style notions of sovereignty are relics of the past. They chant “R2P” like a incantation, warding off mounting evidence that the destruction of the ideal of sovereignty has made the world considerably more volatile. Roth, who heads one of the most respected human rights organizations in the world, is still hot for action, having sent out a barrage of tweets urging Obama to intervene in Syria.
The United States should listen to Latin America more often. In her sermon to the region, Ambassador Power mentioned a number of serious crises the world faced. The Security Council, she said, “must meet its responsibilities by uniting to meet common threats. All members of the Council have an obligation to meet the expectations of those who have entrusted them with these critical responsibilities.” Responsiblities. Obligations. Trust.
Among the threats she listed was ISIS, the Islamic insurgency now threatening Iraq and Syria, which is direct blowback from Washington’s disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003 (she also mentioned Mali, which itself is a consequence of yet another war Latin America opposed: in Libya). The vast majority of Latin American countries (twenty-six in thirty-three), and all of the major ones, were opposed to the invasion of Iraq, wanting to give inspections more time. Back then, it was Chile and Mexico who held the region’s non-permanent seat on the UN. The Bush administration placed extraordinary pressure on those two countries, including the threat of economic retaliation, to a resolution authorizing force to remove Saddam Hussein.
It is unclear how Mexico would have voted had a ballot taken place, but Chile went on record as saying “we will reject it.” In a memoir titled Una Guerra Solitaria: La verdadera historia de por qué la ONU dijo NO a la guerra de Irak (“A Solitary War: The True Story Why the United Nations said NO to the War in Iraq”), a Chilean diplomat at the time, Heraldo Muñoz, describes in detail Washington’s efforts to bend his country to its will.
Led by the moderate president Ricardo Lagos and Juan Gabriel Valdés, ambassador to the UN, Chile did try to work with Bush and Blair and come up with a sane solution to the problem Iraq posed. And Muñoz describes their trusting efforts to reason with Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice (a former Muñoz classmate at the University of Denver) and John Bolton, urging them to live up to their responsibilities and obligations to act as rational members of an equal community of nations. That didn’t happen. Seeing that it couldn’t pass without the support of Chile (and a few other countries, including Angola, who again will be joining the Security Council and is also, like Venezuela, criticized as being irresponsible) Washington shelved the resolution and assembled its “coalition of the willing.”
In other words, if Washington had listened to Latin America in 2003, one of the “threats” Power today lectures Latin America on wouldn’t exist.
Muñoz writes in his book: “Everybody has the right to due process; everybody, including the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. To deny this right in Guantanamo, or wherever, is to deny the moral superiority of democracy.” He’s currently Chile’s foreign minister, and has affirmed his support of Venezuela taking its seat on the Security Council.
If Kenneth Roth, Samantha Power, and the editorial board of the Washington Post want to know why, all they have to do is take a look at Iraq.
Looking ahead to the Security Council’s next term, this is what Ambassador Power will confront if she tries to put forward a war resolution: a “moderate,” “responsible” Chile, led by many of the same career diplomats who derailed Bush’s 2003 bid to obtain a warrant for regime change in Iraq, allied with a “radical,” “irresponsible” Venezuela. Caracas will bluster and showboat, and in so doing, make anything Chile proposes a reasonable, if not the only, alternative.
For Power, that just might be a problem from hell.
Read Next: One Thing Hillary Clinton Understands About Politics in 2014
Eva Golinger speaks in Portland Oregon USA Mood: lyrical Now Playing: From Caracas Venezuela to Portland Oregon USA - Eva Golinger Topic: Venezuela News
Venezuela Election, Victory or Setback for Chavez? Mood: sharp Now Playing: Voting crime and oil Topic: Venezuela News
Venezuela Election, Victory or Setback for Chavez?
English, 11 minutes
Uploaded by vertigo, broadcast date:2010-10-06
Gregory Wilpert is a sociologist, freelance journalist, editor of Venezuelanalysis.com, and author of the recently published book, Changing Venezuela by Taking Power.
Good Insight on Opposition Right-Wing News / Media Spin and Deception Mood: bright Now Playing: Venezuela�uro;�8222;�s Opposition: Manufacturing Fear in Exchange for Votes Topic: Venezuela News
“Venezuela, more deadly than Iraq” read a headline in the New York Times on Aug. 23 – a headline of such shock value that it can only mean one thing: it’s election time in Venezuela. Inside Venezuela, similar headlines are printed almost daily in corporate media with the upcoming September 26 national assembly elections. Coincidentally, the Venezuelan corporate media and their allies among the Western press continually draw on the same crime statistics “leaked” from unidentified government sources or compiled by rightwing NGO’s.
The point of the articles is not to illuminate the real crime problem in Venezuela, but rather to persuade potential voters during the election campaign. Corporate media in Venezuela, which is owned by wealthy elites largely opposed to President Hugo Chavez, has continually used fear as a way to create an atmosphere of insecurity in an attempt to generate votes during elections.
.
International coverage was sparked most recently by the publication in the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional of a graphic and highly disturbing photo of corpses piled haphazardly in a morgue in the epicenter of Venezuela’s violence – the capital city of Caracas. While the photo was printed in the lead-up to this year’s election campaign, it was quickly discovered that it was taken no later than December of last year. Yet El Nacional’s owner, Miguel Henrique Otero, waited for a more political opportune moment. As he pointed out himself on CNN, they decided to hold off printing the photo until this month because “Venezuela is in campaign-mode.”1
Using the media as a political tool is not a new strategy of the opposition. When the government decided not to renew the license of RCTV – a television station involved in inciting protest and misreporting events during the 2002 coup that briefly overthrew democratically-elected President Hugo Chavez 2 – media reports claimed freedom of speech was threatened in Venezuela. Similar cries of censorship were printed in US media after the Venezuelan government tried to pass legislation that barred newspapers from printing graphic photos like the one published by El Nacional.
What the reports do not mention is that the press, a majority of which still remains in the hands of Venezuela’s right-wing opposition, is used as a tool to advance the narrow political interests of the country’s oligarchy. The photo printed in El Nacional, which was too graphic to be shown in US media, is just one example of how the opposition has abused the freedom of press for their own political gain.
.
History of Media and Violence
.
A look back to before Chavez was elected in 1999 helps give context to the current challenges facing Caracas today. One of the wealthiest countries in Latin American largely due to its immense oil reserves, Venezuela also became known for its drastic inequalities of wealth. After the implementation of numerous neoliberal policies that cut social programs and raised the price of basic goods, many of the city’s poor were forced to turn to gangs and illegal activities. Police corruption and easy access to guns created a sense of chaos in the streets. In The Street is my Home, the Venezuelan author Patricia C. Marquez reports on research she conducted on violence in Caracas in the 1990’s:
“In effect, Caracas, is now in a state of siege. The walls that surround the properties of the well-to-do grow higher and higher, and even among the less well off and the poor, there is anxiety, uncertainty, and hopelessness. But while some seek to protect themselves in their fortresses, others cannot escape the bullets flying inside their thin rancho wall.”
However, as Marquez claims, the media largely underreported the violence. She notes that, “The violence in Caracas is much more serious than anything portrayed in the media.” Before 1999, the media, she continues, underplayed “the dimension of the problem to avoid disturbing the public.”
When I spoke with Julio Cesar Velasco, the former civil boss of a poor barrio in central Caracas, he reaffirmed Marquez’ remarks: “Before President Chavez the media reported one of every hundred killings.” However, now he argues, “the media reports every killing a hundred times.”
Yet one NGO, the “Venezuelan Observatory of Violence” (OVV) claims to use media as a method to generate statistics. Numbers published by the OVV, which is run by a right-wing opposition member, Roberto Briceño León, are widely quoted in numerous articles including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Strangely both articles were printed this month even though Reuters reported the same statistics in March of this year.3
Another report published in 2008 by Foreign Policy magazine claimed that according to “official” statistics, Caracas was one of the “Murder capitals of the World”. Mary O’Grady of the Wall Street Journal also quotes supposed “leaked” official reports in a piece published last week. Both articles fail to offer an explanation as how they obtained statistics that were not published and showed no investigation into their validity.
Furthermore, it is unclear what percentage of the actual murders is gang related, has been perpetrated by the police themselves or is a result of violence that has spilled over from the Colombian conflict. Reports also ignore vital information on how the data is collected and the background and funding of organizations such as the OVV. By denying the root causes and steps taken by the administration to solve the problem, the articles mislead the reader into believing the problem of violence was manufactured by Chavez.
However, this would not be the first time the New York Times and other corporate media outlets have used questionable statistics. Simon Romero, whose article in the New York Times argues Venezuela is more dangerous than Iraq, uses the group Iraq Body Count as the basis for his statistics. However, the World Health Organization says deaths are over three times higher than what the Iraq Body Count claims. Surely, Romero, who lives comfortably in Caracas, does not think he would be safer in Baghdad?
Government Policies to Improve Security
.
Since Chavez took office over 11 years ago, numerous policies have been experimented with to tackle the violence. More general policies meant to battle poverty, specifically the social missions, which provide healthcare, education, jobs and rehabilitation centers (to list a few) to Venezuelan citizens, have had positive results.
Since the initiation of the programs, poverty has dropped in half and youth have new alternatives to a life on the street. However, with easy access to weapons, gun crime remains common and impunity often leads to repeat offenders. Tackling that issue, however, has been difficult in part because the corruption of the Metropolitan Police of Caracas (PM).
The PM has a long history of involvement in the murder, torture and oppression of youth and much of this violence has continued under Chavez. According to statistics from the government, not only in Caracas but also around Venezuela, police are responsible for some 15-20% of criminal activity.
As a method to tackle the problem, Chavez’s administration created the National Bolivarian Police (PNB). The idea for the PNB was developed from a National Police Reform Commission in 2006 in which the government and police forces participated in numerous community-based assemblies to determine the structure of police reform. According to the government, the new police force will adapt preventative and humane practices while working directly with communities and being held accountable to community councils. In January of this year, the first officers were deployed in Catia, the largest barrio on Caracas’s west side, which since then has seen an over 50% reduction in murders.
.
Community Response
.
One of the most successful initiatives of the government in battling violence has been through the support of community organizations and councils that directly respond to the needs of their neighborhood. In areas such as La Vega, which used to hold the title as being one of the most dangerous barrios, culture programs have been the primary response in taking youth off the streets. On any given evening sport, music and art programs aimed at young males, those most likely to get involved in gangs, can be seen in almost every neighborhood.
The government does not only promote many of the culture-based groups in La Vega but also supports them with resources, while in some cases the Ministry of Culture will hire local teachers. As Tirso Maldonado, who coordinates a nightly political hip-hop school in La Vega told me, “In the 90’s, in one weekend we would wake up to 30 dead in our community. Now when one person dies people are in shock and community members march out of their houses enraged.” In La Vega, it is quite common to see people partying in the streets on the weekends and propping their doors open during the daytime. In the 1990’s, I’ve been told, that was unheard of.
Additionally, in 23 de Enero, an area with a population of over 500,000, residents were successful in actually removing the police from their barrio completely. Since then the community created their own police force and have taken over former areas home to drug-sellers, turning them into parks and meeting spaces. According to accounts from those living in the barrio, there has been an over 90% reduction in murders.
La Vega and 23 de Enero are not unique cases. From my own experience of not only conducting numerous interviews but also living in over a half-dozen of Caracas’s most “dangerous” barrios, there is a widely held belief that things are drastically improving despite the media reports.
Problem Areas
Violence still remains an issue, though one that is not unique to Caracas but which also affects numerous cities around Latin America. The Venezuelan government’s failure to produce reliable statistics that are available to the public has been an obstacle in understanding the size of the problem. Not only would statistics aid the government in better attacking problem areas, it would also restore the public’s confidence in the handling of the matter.
Other obstacles facing the government are the concentration of violence in areas that are difficult to patrol. Petare, the largest barrio, and quite isolated on Caracas’s east side, has had scattered outcomes. The region is home to a large Colombian immigrant population and also one of the poorest and most densely populated barrios in the city. Furthermore, since regional elections in 2008, Petare has been under the control of the opposition, making it difficult for the national government to implement new security policies.
.
In western Venezuela, new threats of violence continue along the 1,375-mile border of Venezuela and Colombia, which has been a challenge for Venezuelan authorities to control. Drug traffickers and paramilitaries have been found operating along border cities and even as far east as Caracas. To add to the chaos, it is estimated that hundreds of thousands displaced by civil-conflict in Colombia migrate into Venezuela annually, many landing in the already overcrowded Caracas streets.
Reducing the murder rate in Caracas and elsewhere will continue to be a challenge to the current government in the coming years. However, with the creation of the national police force and the increased involvement of grassroots and community organizations, there is strong optimism that the problem will only improve. Unfortunately, the wealthy elite has shown that it is in their interest for Venezuela to remain violent – making it increasingly apparent that it is not Chavez’s policies that stand in the way of a safer Venezuela but the manufacturing of fear promoted by the opposition’s own media.
.
Lainie Cassel currently divides her time between Caracas, Venezuela and New York City. She can be reached at Lainie.Cassel[at]gmail.com.
Edward Ellis writes about Agricultural Production in Venezuela in 2010 Mood: chatty Now Playing: Venezuela’s Agricultural Production Advances Topic: Venezuela News
Venezuela’s Agricultural Production Advances
By Edward Ellis - Correo del Orinoco International
Over the past eleven years, Venezuela has seen an increase of 48% in agricultural lands under cultivation, the Minister for Land and Agriculture, Juan Carlos Loyo, reported last week.
According to official statistics released by the Ministry, the number of hectares now being planted has reached nearly 2.4 million (5.9 million acres), up from 1.6 million (3.9 million acres) in 1998.
Crops such as corn, rice, soybean, and coffee have also seen important production increases during the presidency of Hugo Chavez.
Community-Based Farming
Loyo made the announcements during an inspection of the Socialist Production Unit Indio Rangel in the state of Aragua, where 235 hectares of under-utilized land have been turned over to small farmers working collectively.
The land that is now being worked by 80 small-scale farmers was previously under the domain of a private sugar cane hacienda, which according to the Venezuelan News Agency, had been abandoned for 6 years.
Last year the hacienda land was handed over to the farmers, organized in nine community councils, and has been converted into a productive farm where staple crops such as corn and other vegetables are being planted.
Loyo made a similar inspection last Friday in the state of Carabobo as part of a government follow-up plan being implemented in all the agricultural lands that have been redistributed in Venezuela’s Central Region since the passage of Presidential Decree 5,378.
The decree established the preservation of 53,000 hectares of high quality farmlands in the Lake Valencia basin, close to the capital Caracas. “These are lands recovered by the Bolivarian Revolution,” Loyo said during the inspection of the Monte Sacro farm in Carabobo. “In this latifundio, a project is being developed… We came to inspect close to 170 hectares of white corn in very good condition”, he stated.
According to the Land and AgricultureMinistry statistics, the production of white corn in Venezuelahas increased by 132% in the past eleven years.
Arepas, the single most importantstaple food in the Venezuelan diet, are made with the flour derivedfrom white corn.
Loyo said that winter cycle of 2010 would see an estimated production of 1.5 million tons of the crop, an increaseof 3.5% from last year.
Production Increase
Soybean production, accordingto the ministry, has grown by 858% to 54,420 tons over the past decade.
Rice production has risen by 84%, reaching nearly 1.3 million tons yearly while milk productionhas risen to 2.18 million tons, a 47% increase.
Coffee has also seen an increase of 12% since 1998.
Loyo attributes these advances to Venezuela’s Land Law, which serves to “strengthen national production in the countryside.”
The Land and Agricultural Development Law, originally passed by presidential decree in 2001, implemented Venezuela’s new agrarian reform, creating the legal basis for the government to redistribute fallow and under-utilized farmlands to landless campesinos.
Before the government of Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela, World Bank statistics had placed Venezuela as the country with the second worst land inequality in Latin America.
A government agricultural census revealed that in 1998, 5% of the Venezuelan population owned 70% of the land.
Over the past 6 years, more than 2.5 million hectares of land have been distributed to some 250,000 campesino families, according to government sources.
Food Sovereignty
An important part of the currentagrarian reform lies in the premise of lowering the nation’s dependence on food imports and creating food sovereignty.
Historically, Venezuela’s dependenceon oil exports has created an underdeveloped agricultural sector,resulting in the importation of the vast majority of food products.
According to Loyo, the strides being made in agricultural productionhave been significant, but more are needed.
“The advances have been quantitativein agricultural terms, but it’s unquestionable that there is still much ground to cover and it’s for that reason that our work will continue…in all of our nationalterritory, we will continue with special efforts to regularizeland, rehabilitate agricultural routes, and ensure grant credits to our producers.”
Despite President Obama’s promise to President Chavez that his administration wouldn’t interfere in Venezuela’s internal affairs, the US-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is channeling millions into anti-Chavez groups.
Foreign intervention is not only executed through military force. The funding of “civil society” groups and media outlets to promote political agendas and influence the “hearts and minds” of the people is one of the more widely used mechanisms by the US government to achieve its strategic objetives.
In Venezuela, the US has been supporting anti-Chavez groups for over 8 years, including those that executed the coup d’etat against President Chavez in April 2002. Since then, the funding has increased substantially. A May 2010 report evaluating foreign assistance to political groups in Venezuela, commissioned by the National Endowment for Democracy, revealed that more than $40 million USD annually is channeled to anti-Chavez groups, the majority from US agencies.
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was created by congressional legislation on November 6, 1982. It’s mandate was anti-communist and anti-socialist and its first mission, ordered by President Ronald Reagan, was to support anti-Sandinista groups in Nicaragua in order to remove that government from power. NED reached its goal after 7 years and more than $1 billion in funding to build an anti-Sandinista political coalition that achieved power.
Today, NED’s annual budget, allocated under the Department of State, exceeds $132 million. NED operates in over 70 countries worldwide. Allen Weinstein, one of NED’s original founders, revealed once to the Washington Post, “What we do today was done clandestinely 25 years ago by the CIA…”
VENEZUELA
Venezuela stands out as the Latin American nation where NED has most invested funding in opposition groups during 2009, with $1,818,473 USD, more than double from the year before.
In a sinister attempt to censure the destination of funds in Venezuela, NED excluded a majority of names of Venezuelan groups receiving funding from its annual report. Nonetheless, other official documents, such as NED’s tax declarations and internal memos obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, have disclosed the names of those receiving its million dollar funding in Venezuela.
Of the more than $2.6 million USD given by NED to Venezuelan groups during 2008-2009, a majority of funds have gone to organizations relatively unknown in Venezuela. With the exception of some more known groups, such as CEDICE, Sumate, Consorcio Justicia and CESAP, the organizations receiving more than $2 million in funding appear to be mere façades and channels to distribute these millions to anti-Chavez groups.
Unknown entities such as the Center for Leadership Formation for Peace and Social Development received $39.954 (2008) and $39.955 (2009) to “strengthen the capacity of community leaders to participate in local democratic processes”.
For several years, the Civil Association Kapé Kapé, which no one knows in Venezuela, has received grants ranging from $45,000 (2008) to $56,875 (2009) to “empower indigenous communities and strengthen their knowledge of human rights, democracy and the international organizations and mechanisms available to protect them”. In a clear example of foreign interference, NED funds were used to “create a document detailing the human rights violations perpetrated against them and denounce them before international organizations”. In other words, the US funded efforts inside Venezuela to aid Venezuelans in denouncing their government before international entities.
FUNDING STUDENT MOVEMENTS
A large part of NED funds in Venezuela have been invested in “forming student movements” and “building democratic leadership amongst youth”, from a US perspective and with US values. This includes programs that “strengthen the leadership capabilities of students and youth and enhance their ability to interact effectively in their communities and promote democratic values”. Two jesuit organizations have been the channels for this funding, Huellas ($49,950 2008 and $50,000 2009) and the Gumilla Center Foundation ($63,000).
Others, such as the ‘Miguel Otero Silva’ Cultural Foundation ($51,500 2008 and $60.900 2009) and the unknown Judicial Proposal Association ($30,300 2008), have used NED funds to “conduct communications campaigns via local newspapers, radio stations, text messaging, and Internet, and distribute posters and flyers”.
In the last three years, an opposition student/youth movement has been created with funding from various US and European agencies. More than 32% of USAID funding, for example, has gone to “training youth and students in the use of innovative media technologies to spread political messages and campaigns”, such as on Twitter and Facebook.
FUNDING MEDIA AND JOURNALISTS
NED has also funded several media organizations in Venezuela, to aid in training journalists and designing political messages against the Venezuelan government. Two of those are the Institute for Press and Society (IPyS) and Espacio Publico (Public Space), which have gotten multimillion dollar funding from NED, USAID, and the Department of State during the past three years to “foster media freedom” in Venezuela.
What these organizations really do is promote anti-Chavez messages on television and in international press, as well as distort and manipulate facts and events in the country in order to negatively portray the Chavez administration.
The Washington Post recently published an article on USAID funding of media and journalists in Afghanistan (Post, Tuesday, August 3, 2010), an echo of what US agencies are doing in Venezuela. Yet such funding is clearly illegal and a violation of journalist ethics. Foreign government funding of “independent” journalists or media outlets is an act of mass deception, propaganda and a violation of sovereignty.
US funding of opposition groups and media inside Venezuela not only violates Venezuelan law, but also is an effort to feed an internal conflict and prop up political parties that long ago lost credibility. This type of subversion has become a business and source of primary income for political actors promoting US agenda abroad.
BAD DIPLOMACY
On Tuesday, statements made by designated US Ambassador to Venezuela, Larry Palmer, on Venezuelan affairs were leaked to the press. Palmer, not yet confirmed by the Senate, showed low signs of diplomacy by claiming democracy in Venezuela was “under threat” and that Venezuela’s armed forces had “low morale”, implying a lack of loyalty to the Chavez administration.
Palmer additionally stated he had “deep concerns” about “freedom of the press” and “freedom of expression” in Venezuela and mentioned the legal cases of several corrupt businessmen and a judge, which Palmer claimed were signs of “political persecution”.
Palmer questioned the credibility of Venezuela’s electoral system, leading up to September’s legislative elections, and said he would “closely monitor threats to human rights and fundamental freedoms”. He also stated the unfounded and unsubstantiated claims made by Colombia of “terrorist training camps” in Venezuela was a “serious” and real fact obligating Venezuela to respond.
Palmer affirmed he would “work closely to support civil society” groups in Venezuela, indicating an intention to continue US funding of the opposition, which the US consistently has referred to as “civil society”.
These statements are a clear example of interference in internal affairs in Venezuela and an obvious showing that Obama has no intention of following through on his promises.
The Youth of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela ... Mood: energetic Now Playing: Uribe - Chavez - USA - (this email was sent to me) Topic: Venezuela News
The Youth of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) categorically supports the rupture of diplomatic relations with the genocidal government of Alvaro Uribe Velez
La Juventud del Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) respalda de forma categórica la ruptura de relaciones diplomáticas con el Gobierno Genocida de Álvaro Uribe Vélez
On Thursday July 22, 2010, was presented at the "Ministry of Colonies USA", an organization also known as the Organization of American States (OAS), a shameful, gruesome and infamous accusation against the Bolivarian Revolutionary Process by narco-paramilitary government of Alvaro Uribe Velez. In fallacious arguments and desperate words, the Colombian representative Alfonzo Luis Hoyos, political corruption and paramilitary disabled, tried to materialize the guidelines emanated by American imperialism and international Zionism, in the most grotesque expression of anti-Bolivarian lackeys and interest. With the delivery of some faded photos, videos bad prints and maps downloaded from Google Earth tried to accuse our government of allowing the presence of fighters from the FARC on Venezuelan territory. All this with the silent support of outdated bureaucratic structure of the Organization of American States and the complacent smile right-wing governments in the region. This crude measure, but loaded with deep content that violate the stability of Latin American revolutionary process, was answered with a complete breakdown in relations Commander of the Bolivarian Government of Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelan people, with the outgoing government of Number 82 list of most wanted drug dealer Yankee State Department
In the framework of the celebration of the two hundred twenty-seven (227) years of the birth of Father Simon Bolivar, and the commemoration of the Bicentennial of the Independence and Revolutions Nuestroamericanas, that the confrontation between the perjurer Francisco de Paula Santander and father Bolivar is reinforced within our people. It is the expression of the struggle of a people united against the attacks of the capitalist bourgeoisie, the same as four years ago in their expression of colonizers wiped out native populations, and two hundred years later, betrayed and betraying the dream of Latin American union.
It is no coincidence, that is just today, when we're two months after the elections are vital for radical consolidation of the Bolivarian Revolution, that these statements come into the ring cheats. The recent statements of the Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America, Arturo Valenzuela, against our country, the accusations of a minority of right-wing Chilean deputies, the capture of terrorists Peña Chávez Abarca and Lock in Venezuela, the onslaught of the Dome of the Catholic Church against the Bolivarian process, the presence of troops, ships and an aircraft carrier yankee on Costa Rican territory, the constant violation of our airspace by U.S. aircraft stationed at bases in Aruba and Curacao off the Venezuelan coast and the installation of seven U.S. bases in Colombia, constitute components of a coordinated assault against the Bolivarian Revolution.
While President Hugo Chávez Commander, to work and has demonstrated a willingness to work in the search for peace in Colombia, closer fraternal Nuestroamericana Union, Colombian and U.S. rights thunder their drums of war in a genocidal policy and fratricidal which are worth a few dollars more, than the life of our peoples.
In this sense, represents the current government of Colombia's thesis of a confrontation: its paramilitary weapons Zionist warmongering policy are now a stumbling block in the formation of the Patria Grande. This is why we, the revolutionary and revolutionaries of Youth United Socialist Party of Venezuela, we have the historic task to take the lead in the fight to defend the Bolivarian Revolution, the construction of socialism and the realization of the dream Bolivarian a United America, through raising awareness levels of people and our membership.
This is why we should remain alert and mobilized around the imperialist onslaught, channeled through the decadent government of Uribe. While they seek to end the war and the hope of freedom in the Bolivarian people, we respond as it did Neruda
"La unidad de nuestros pueblos no es simple quimera de los hombres, sino inexorable decreto del destino.” Simón Bolívar
"the unity of our peoples is no simple fantasy of men, but inexorable decree of fate." Simón Bolívar
Internet - Media - The Truth - Venezuela - Blogs, twitter, and more Mood: energetic Now Playing: Media and the Truth about it in Venezuela Topic: Venezuela News
Internet Revolution in Venezuela
By Eva Golinger - Correo del Orinoco International, March 26th 2010
Despite critics’ exaggerated outcries and accusations in the international media alleging Internet censorship, President Chavez announced a new government-sponsored program to promote Internet usage and cyber communication throughout Venezuela.
Venezuela has made headlines recently in international media for alleged threats to freedom of expression, this time directed at the Internet. But as in the past, many of these accusations against the Chavez administration that spread contagiously throughout mass media outlets and are tweeted and blogged in cyberspace at the speed of light, are just not true.
Press agencies and major world newspapers, such as the New York Times, El País and The Guardian, were quick to react to statements made by President Hugo Chavez two weeks ago regarding a website that had maliciously reported the murders of two prominent government figures. “Venezuela’s Chavez calls for internet controls”, headlined a Reuters release, which went on to claim that “Chavez is angry with Venezuelan political opinion and gossip website NoticieroDigital, which he said had falsely written that Diosdado Cabello, a senior minister and close aide, had been assassinated”.
By referring to Chavez’s reaction to the website’s dangerous and false reporting as a personal issue, i.e. “Chavez is angry”, Reuters downplayed and ridiculed very serious crimes: inciting violence and knowingly and maliciously reporting false information to further criminal acts. Additionally, contrary to Reuters’ brushing aside the content of the posts as something that President Chavez “said”, and therefore questioning the veracity of the charge, the Venezuelan website NoticieroDigital actually had posted false reports on Diosdado Cabello’s assassination by armed attackers, alongside another post claiming that pro-Chavez television host Mario Silva had been “gunned down” the following day. Both stories remained on the website for at least two days, and were only taken down after government supporters publicly denounced the website for the malicious posts.
The Internet Is Not A Free-for-All
President Chavez did state that “the Internet cannot be something open where anything is said and done”, a notion shared by governments and societies around the world. In the United States, controls on Internet content are frequent. Content such as pornography is strictly regulated, and criminal acts or incitement to commit such acts is outright prohibited, even on blogs, chats and informal, anonymous forums. In early 2009, Steven Joseph Cristopher, a 42 year-old resident of Wisconsin, was arrested by the US Secret Service for threatening to assassinate President Obama in a chat forum on a website about UFOs and aliens. Christopher was charged with violating a US law that prohibits threatening to kill a president or president-elect of the United States, carrying a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 USD fine.
In late December 2009, President Obama named Howard Schmidt, a former White House security advisor to George W. Bush, as Cybersecurity Chief, to oversee Washington’s Internet policies and regulations, as well as aid in the protection of US cyber assets. The US Congress has also debated a law that would give the US President emergency control over the Internet and permit a seizure of “private-sector networks” during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.
That type of regulation goes well beyond what is presently being discussed in Venezuela. At most, the Venezuelan government – legislative and executive branches alike – are debating extending current penal codes to cyberspace. Rumors spread internationally, probably via twitter, which is used by more than 160,000 Venezuelan residents, that Venezuela’s National Assembly was debating a law to regulate Internet content. But members of the Venezuelan legislature were quick to deny those rumors and clarify that current laws should merely be applied to crimes committed over the Internet, as is common in most countries.
Germany has also been considering creating a government agency to specifically regulate and create policy regarding cyberspace, one of the most rapidly growing industries and business fields around the world.
Free, Universal Access to Internet
Dispelling critics and so-called international defenders of freedom of expression who claimed President Chavez was shutting down Venezuelans’ access to Internet, the Venezuelan head of state declared on television on Sunday, “A false rumor is spreading, and it’s wrong, saying that we are going to limit Internet access, that we are going to control it. It’s false. We have a central strategy and it’s none other than transferring power to the people, and the first and most important power is knowledge”.
In that context, President Chavez inaugurated twenty-four new infocenters last Sunday during his program, Alo Presidente, bringing the total to 668 nationwide. He also approved more than $10 million USD for the creation of 200 more of these community-based free cybercenters to be built during 2010. Infocenters are a project of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and are government-sponsored and funded computer centers built in communities throughout the nation that provide free Internet and technological access and services to all Venezuelans. Twenty-seven mobile Infocenters were also launched this week, which will travel across the nation to remote areas in the Amazon, Andean and rural regions, guaranteeing free Internet services and computer training to citizens with little or no access to technology.
At present, the infocenters have the capacity to provide Internet and computer services to more than 2.5 million permanent users and up to 10 million visitors annually. The government’s goal is to transfer the operations and administration of the infocenters to organized community groups, such as Community Councils, that can collectively determine the use and technological needs of their residents, neighborhoods and regions. “The transfer of the management and administration of the infocenters and technological spaces built by the Revolution will permit organized communities to collectively make decisions regarding the use of these spaces. Our strategic objective is to advance the technological growth and communications access to aid in the creation of the communal state”, explained President Chavez.
“Technology will be assumed as a form of communication of the People’s Power, to capacitate and articulate communities”, added Chavez. “The people should have the responsibility to maintain and operate the infocenters and to conserve their equipment, as well as guarantee the functioning of each center” said the Venezuelan President, emphasizing that the Internet is a “tool of the Revolution” and should aid in the creation and expansion of Venezuela’s alternative press.
“Each community can create a network and we can communicate with one another to inform each other of developments”, exclaimed Chavez, also announcing the creation of his own blog. “I am starting my own battleground in the Internet with a blog. It’s going to be full of different information, and we will be ready for the bombardment of responses we will surely receive. Even from the enemy, they will attack me with fire and I will respond. Battle is battle, assault is assault”, he warned.
Technology for the People
President Chavez also announced that in Venezuela, only 273,537 Internet subscribers existed in the year 2000. But by the first trimester of 2009, more than 1,585,497 Internet subscribers were registered, an increase of 600%. “And the number of Internet users in 2000 was only 820,000 in Venezuela. Nine years later, that number has risen to 7,552,570 users, an increase of more than 900%”, indicated President Chavez.
In the year 2000, only 3.4% of the Venezuelan population had access to Internet, while statistics show that by the end of 2009, 30% of Venezuelans had Internet access, a huge increase in large part made possible by government programs. The Infocenter project not only provides computers and Internet access to communities nationwide, but also trains users in computer literacy. Brigades of computer and Internet educators, sponsored by the Science and Technology Ministry, have trained thousands of Venezuelans in the basics of computer usage, ranging from simply how to use a computer to advanced Internet searches and blogging.
Media Battleground – Internet as A Weapon
While the Venezuelan state has been empowering its own citizens to enter the world of cyberspace in a conscientious and responsible way, another government has been training and funding a select group of Venezuelans to destabilize their nation and promote regime change using the Internet as a weapon.
During the last few years, more than $7 million USD have been channeled from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to anti-Chavez youth and student groups in Venezuela to “strengthen new media tools that can improve access to information and allow open and productive debate on the Internet”. Since 2002, USAID has funded hundreds of opposition organizations and political parties in Venezuela with over $50 million USD in an ongoing effort to promote the overthrow of the Chavez administration.
Twitter Revolution
The millions invested in Internet “strengthening” for opposition youth groups have accounted for the proliferation of anti-Chavez websites, blogs and propaganda online, aiding in the mass media offensive against the Venezuelan government. New media tools such as Twitter and Facebook are also overridden with anti-Chavez users. And it’s no surprise. In October 2009, the US State Department sponsored the 2nd Annual Summit of the Alliance of Youth Movements (AYM) in Mexico City, bringing together the founders and representatives of new media companies, such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Myspace, Google, Meetup and others, along with a selection of handpicked student and youth leaders from around the world. Representatives from US government agencies, including the State Department, USAID, Freedom House, International Republican Institute (IRI), National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Cato Institute, Cuba Development Initiative, and others, were also present at the event, which included a welcome speech from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Forty-three young political activists funded by the State Department were brought to the AYM Summit from nations such as Sri Lanka, Colombia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Turkey, Moldovia, Malaysia, Mexico, Ecuador and Venezuela. The Venezuelan attendees were Yon Goicochea, current leader of the ultra-conservative Primero Justicia party, and winner of Cato Institute’s Milton Friedman Award for promoting neoliberal politics; Geraldine Alvarez, member of Goicochea’s foundation Futuro Presente, created with funding from US agencies; and Rafael Delgado, another former student leader associated with the opposition.
The goal of the State Department event was to capacitate selected youth with the knowledge, technology and funding to promote “Twitter Revolutions” in their countries, citing the examples of Iran, Moldovia and the anti-FARC and anti-Chavez marches promoted in Colombia via Facebook and Twitter.
Balancing the Battleground
Nevertheless, pro-Chavez groups and activists in Venezuela are now flooding those same new media technologies used by Washington to promote the imperial agenda. Facebook and Twitter accounts have recently been opened by prominent figures connected to the Bolivarian Revolution, and new blogs, websites and email lists are growing fast, in an attempt to gain ground in the information battlefield in cyberspace.
While the Internet is still dominated by those forces working to destabilize and discredit the Chavez administration and the Bolivarian Revolution, chavistas are catching up fast. The hundreds of new infocenters throughout the nation, guaranteeing free access to all Venezuelans, will enable millions to share their stories and voices – previously ignored and invisible – with the international community. A blog written by President Hugo Chavez himself will surely serve as major ammunition for the Bolivarian Revolution and counteract many of the lies and myths spread about him and his government around the world.
A medical student, 28, died Tuesday in Mérida state (Western Venezuela) in a a demonstration held after RCTV was removed from the air, AFP reports. Hours earlier, a 15-year-old boy was killed in Mérida during a clash between student groups that support and oppose the government, AFP says.The demonstrations in Mérida left 33 people wounded, and local media said marchers had burned buildings and cars. See more stories in English and Spanish.
Haiti Quake - Chavez - says it was man made ...hmmmm? Mood: quizzical Now Playing: What really happened - was it a weapon or was it a quake? Topic: Venezuela News
Fox News Should Learn From This Mood: happy Now Playing: Fox News report on RCTV going off air Topic: Venezuela News
Anti-Chavez TV Channel
Removed From Cable
Sunday, January 24, 2010
AP/Miraflores Press Office
Nov. 8: Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez waves to supporters in Acarigua, Venezuela.
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan cable television providers stopped transmitting a channel critical of President Hugo Chavez on Sunday, after the government cited incompliance with new regulations requiring the socialist leader's speeches be televised on cable.
Radio Caracas Television, an anti-Chavez channel known as RCTV that switched to cable in 2007 after the government refused to renew its over-the-air license, disappeared from the airwaves shortly after midnight.
RCTV was dropped just hours after Diosdado Cabello, director of Venezuela's state-run telecommunications agency, said several local channels carried by cable television have breached broadcasting laws and should be removed from the airwaves.
Cabello warned cable operations on Saturday evening that they could find themselves in jeopardy if they keep showing those channels.
"They must comply with the law, and they cannot have a single channel that violates Venezuelan laws as part of their programming," he said.
Several channels have not shown Chavez's televised speeches — a requirement under new regulations approved last month by the telecommunications agency, Cabello said.
RCTV did not broadcast a speech by the president to his political supporters during a rally early on Saturday.
The station's removal from cable and satellite television prompted a cacophony of protests in Caracas neighborhoods as Chavez opponents leaned out apartment windows to bang on pots and pans.
Cabello's agency notified RCTV and 23 other local cable television channels on Thursday that they must carry mandatory government programming, including Chavez's frequent and long speeches.
Cabello said Saturday that other violations include failing to warn viewers of sexual and violent content as well as broadcasting more than two hours of soap operas during the afternoon, which should be mostly dedicated to children programming.
He did not specify which TV channels have purportedly violated the law, but RCTV said it was the target. It accused the agency of pressuring cable providers to drop channels that are critical of the government.
The agency "doesn't have any authority to give the cable service providers this order," RCTV said in a statement. "The government is inappropriately pressuring them to make decisions beyond their responsibilities."
In denying RCTV a renewal of its over-the-air broadcast license, Chavez accused the station of plotting against his government and supporting a failed 2002 coup.
In August, Chavez's government forced 32 radio stations and two small TV stations off the air, saying some owners had failed to renew their broadcast licenses while other licenses were no longer valid because they had been granted long ago to owners who are now dead. Officials said they planned to take more stations off the air.
Government figures say that as of 2008 about 37 percent of Venezuelan homes received cable television. But some private companies say that according to their research, about six out of every 10 households have subscription television service.
a-ok
cool
lyrical
sharp
bright
chatty
energetic
celebratory
down
quizzical
happy