Maduro calls for more production, efficiency

Analysis
Opinion
Capitalism, genocide
& Colombia page 7
What Europe could learn from
Latin America’s Independence page 8
Friday, August 23, 2013 | Nº 172 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve
Economic
violators “busted”
Head of Venezuela’s
Institute for the Defense
of People's Access to
Goods and Services
(Indepabis) Eduardo
Saman has reiterated calls
for businesses to abide
by price regulations and
refrain from misleading
customers, after penalties
were imposed on a number
of businesses this month.
According to Saman,
the consumer protection
agency found businesses
increasing prices of
imported merchandise by
more than 200%. page 4
ENGLISH EDITION/The artillery of ideas
Maduro calls for more production,
efficiency & corruption crackdown
New ferry service
to Margarita
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro met with members of his executive cabinet last
Saturday to discuss economy, improvements in government services, and the continuation of the anti-corruption campaign that has marked the early months of his first term.
The Venezuelan President outlined a series of new initiatives being implemented by his
administration to jump start the nation's economy and put the breaks on inflation. Page 2
Economy
Fair prices for school
supplies
Subsidized socialist school
fairs are helping families
prepare for the new
academic year. page 5
Social justice
Communes to expand
The communal model is
growing as Venezuela’s
revolution advances. page 6
UN FAO highlights
Venezuela’s Agricultural
Production Fund
T/ AVN
Politics
Venezuela has launched
a new modern ferry to
transport tourists &
residents to Margarita
Island. page 3
INTERNATIONAL
Celebrating free
children’s health care
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro celebrated the seven-year anniversary of the founding of the Dr. Gilberto Rodriguez Ochoa Latin
American Children’s Cardiology Hospital, a facility built in the capital city of Caracas thanks to
an initiative by the leader of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, Hugo Chavez.
The head of state said that the facility, which
has helped save the lives of thousands of children, demonstrates the profound sense of love
that inspired the revolution. He called for the
nation to continue working to achieve a health
system with great human and technical ability
in order to ensure the best possible service following the model of the Cardiology Hospital.
In its 7 years of operation, the Cardiology Hospital has performed more than 8,000 free procedures for Venezuelan children and children from
other countries including Honduras, Colombia,
and Nicaragua, to help strengthen ties among
Latin American and Caribbean nations.
The United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has noted the
importance of a new initiative in Venezuela to create
a Producer Stimulus Fund,
according to an announcement by Agriculture and
Lands Minister Yvan Gil.
A FAO press release
reads: “This action is essential to stimulating and
consolidating the development of production chains
in a country, and also to
reduce the impact of inflation on the consumer”.
The fund will be developed to pay a subsidy on
the price of rice, corn, sorghum, soy and sugar in order to assist primary producers without having an
impact on the price of food.
The government also
announced measures to
promote national coffee
production.
Actions include creating
a National Coffee Council
to debate ways to strengthen production, increasing
payouts to Venezuela’s
57,000 producers by 66%,
and creating a research
center.
The Agriculture Minister
announced these decisions
after a recent meeting with
coffee growers throughout
the country. He said that
they stemmed from assemblies of coffee producers in
15 states to discuss the old
framework that dates from
before the Bolivarian Revolution in 1999, and which
last year produced only 1.6
million quintals.
The National Coffee
Council will address issues such as production
and productivity, access to
inputs, rural agriculture,
pesticides, financing, the
creation and renovation of
coffee facilities, the diversification of production,
and land regulations.
2 Impact | .ŽsFriday, August 23, 2013
The artillery of ideas
President Maduro meets with cabinet to boost
production, efficiency in government
T/ COI
P/ Presidential Press
V
enezuelan President Nicolas Maduro met with
members of his executive
cabinet last Saturday to discuss
economy, improvements in government services, and the continuation of the anti-corruption
campaign that has marked the
early months of his first term.
“It’s about making a great
effort towards reform in order to achieve efficiency”,
Maduro said during the encounter broadcast on state
television.
Present for the dialogue
was Minister of Industry Ricardo Menendez, the new head
of the Central Bank Eudomar
Tovar, Food Minister Felix
Osorio, Agriculture Minister
Yvan Gil, President of the nation’s Foreign Exchange Commission (CADIVI) Jose Kahn,
Commerce Minister Alejandro
Fleming, and Finance Minister
Nelson Merentes.
For much of the discussion,
the Venezuelan President outlined a series of new initiatives
being implemented by his administration to jump start the
nation’s economy and put the
breaks on inflation.
This includes placing greater
emphasis on domestic production and manufacturing, which
Central Bank President Tovar said will see “significant
growth” in the next trimester.
Food security and agricultural expansion were other important points of conversation with
cabinet members explaining
plans for greater development
of the government’s national
network of subsidized staple
products and a strengthening
of agrarian credits.
According to Maduro, his
administration has already
approved a credit line of $150
million for the state-run agricultural supply chain Agropatria to boost access to inputs
for small and medium sized
producers.
“150 million dollars so that
we produce more”, the head of
state affirmed.
The former union organizerturned president also described
plans to facilitate greater acquisition of foreign exchange for
businesses and to cut down on
price gauging and speculation
in the private sector that forms
part of what he called “an economic war” against the socialist government and the people
of Venezuela.
“We are neutralizing the negative effects of an economic war
that has been unleashed on the
Venezuelan people... We’re developing an economy with its
sights on the future and we’re
increasing investments”, he
stated.
EFFICIENCY OR NOTHING
During the discussions, President Maduro informed of a
measure that will entail a meeting between himself and 200
leading public administrators
to devise new ways to enhance
the day-to-day functions of the
national government.
The idea, the Venezuelan
President said, is to promote the
participation of public employees in the reformation of state
services in order to promote the
human qualities of government
and provide greater efficacy for
residents.
“I’m calling for a training
process, for a new state that
is more efficient, that assists
people, and that loves human
beings. Love is what is going to
allow us to change the anti-values of the civilization inherited
[from past governments] into
real human values of the new
civilization”, the former union
leader said.
To further what he is calling
a “transformation” of the Venezuelan government, Maduro
proposed creating grassroots
commissions made up of activists and ordinary citizens
to provide feedback to administrators in each of the executive’s ministries.
“We are going to work under
the true concept of Popular
Power. In every ministry there
must be a Popular Power Council. For example, there should be
one made up of transport workers in the Ministry of Ground
Transport. There should be
a Council of Popular Power
comprised of producers, small
farmers, and agrarian workers in the Ministry of Land and
Agriculture”, the head of state
asserted.
FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION
Importantly, Maduro reiterated his intention on Saturday
to seek Enabling Law powers
that would permit him to pass
legislation by decree for a limited period of time.
The request has been made
to the nation’s unicameral
congress, the National Assembly, and must be approved by a
three-fifths majority of the 165
members of the legislative body
to go into effect.
The Venezuelan President
has urged the approval of the
request in order to streamline
measures designed to crackdown on corruption in the
country.
“I am going to ask the president of the National Assembly
for an Enabling Law in order
to establish and deepen strict
and severe regulations against
corruption and to establish the
most severe sentences for the
crimes of money laundering”,
Maduro explained.
“We’re going to inoculate
our democracy and public
life. Surely what we are going
to do in Venezuela is going to
serve as an example for brother
countries on our continent”, he
added.
The use of the constitutionally-sanctioned Enabling Law
was frequent during the later
years of the presidency of former head of state Hugo Chavez,
who utilized the legal mandate
to accelerate government programs and social services.
While the idea has been rejected by members of the rightwing opposition, Maduro challenged the conservative factions
to a public debate regarding the
Enabling Law as well as the numerous charges of corruption
that have been lodged against
members of Venezuela’s political elite.
“I have challenged the opposition to a public debate on this
topic and above all on the topic
of the charges that have been
made, one by one if they want.
It they want, we’ll transmit the
debate [live on all public radio
and television stations] so that
the people know the truth”, he
invited.
For the Venezuelan President, the refusal by the opposition to concede decree powers
is an indication of the dubious
practices of members of the
nation’s old political guard
who, Maduro said, were accustomed to using the presidential palace as “a house of
business”.
“[The opposition] is very desperate because they know that
we’re going to catch them with
their hands in the till. There
will be no escaping it. The people will see”, he declared.
.ŽsFriday, August 23, 2013
The artillery of ideas
New ferry to improve access to major
tourist destination in Venezuela
one of Venezuela’s biggest tourist destinations, by 30 percent
during high season.
“This ship represents a significant step towards the improvement of tourist resources for
the island, towards sea travel,
and towards making our economy dynamic. This is a machine
of the latest technology and
of high power”, said Tourism
Minister Andres Izarra.
programs, the high functionary stated, will be designing
initiatives that create productive enterprises that can
encourage “a platform for
work”.
At the same time, Rodriguez
rejected the idea that government’s missions are instilling
in the population a type of “dependency” on national welfare
programs.
“There is always the critic
who says that social policies
generate dependencies on the
state. I don’t believe this is
true”, he said.
“There are those who believe
that the state should not invest
in social issues, that such investment is too much of a cost.
For us it is not a cost but an investment. For us, investing in
education, culture or sports is
development for society. What
does the state exist for if not for
giving us a more dignified life
and for providing justice? What
sense would it have otherwise?”
the minister asked.
V
the government of Venezuelan
President Nicolas Maduro.
“The people of Margarita
were clamoring for a new ferry
and that’s why the commitment
was made during [the meetings
of] the Street Government. The
people are content with having
an extremely modern and dignified ship”, he said.
The Virgen del Valle II is the
first of three new ferries that
are being added to the current
fleet of three ships that service
Margarita Island.
It cost $17 million euros ($22.6
million), was built by the Australian company Austal, and
will perform two trips linking
the island with the mainland
every day.
The seafaring upgrades are
expected to increase the number of visitors to Margarita,
3
The Minister for Sea and
Air Transport, Hebert Garcia
Plaza, commented that a fourth
ship will be acquired which
will connect the coast of La
Guaira, close to the capital Caracas, with Margarita Island
as well as other islands in the
Caribbean.
The goal, Plaza said, is to
“continue strengthening our
nation’s tourism and, at the
same time, follow through on
the commitments made during the activities of the Street
government”.
An additional $17 million
have been allocated for the purchase of the new vessels.
For the governor of the state
of Anzoategui, Aristobulo Isturiz, the national government’s
investment in the central state
makes clear it’s intention to convert the area into a port of call
for the Common Market of the
South (Mercosur) trade alliance.
Isturiz cites the more than
600 million bolivars that have
been spent by the Maduro administration in regional infrastructure development including airport modernization
and the renovation of the port
in Puerto La Cruz to back his
claim.
The overarching goal, the
governor asserted, is to convert
Venezuela “into a powerful nation, just as was the objective
and the legacy of our eternal
Comandante [former President]
Hugo Chavez”.
T/ COI
P/ Agencies
enezuela’s tourism industry saw yet another positive
development last weekend
when the fleet of ferries that
service the island destination
of Margarita was augmented
with the arrival of a new, fully
modern and equipped ship.
The Virgen del Valle II arrived
at the port El Guamache on Saturday in the state of Anzoategui
amidst enthusiastic crowds applauding the ferry’s docking in
the central Venezuelan state.
The new ship, which has a capacity to transport 950 people
and 350 vehicles, will link the
city of Puerto La Cruz with
Margarita Island in voyages
that will last approximately
two and a half hours.
“I had no idea it was going to
be so big. This is a tremendous
ship”, said Gabriela Nunez, one
of the spectators on hand last
Saturday.
Carlos Figueroa, Governor
of the state of Nueva Esparta,
informed that the purchase of
the ferry was an outcome of the
grassroots assemblies held by
| Politics
UN recognizes Venezuela's move towards
racial equality, eradication of poverty
T/ COI
P/ Agencies
V
enezuela was recognized last
week during a meeting of the
UN’s Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
(CERD) for its progress in fighting ethnic prejudice, providing
universal and free health care
for its residents, and laying the
groundwork for a more just and
inclusive society.
Venezuelan Vice President
for Social Affairs, Hector Rodriguez represented the South
American nation at the encounter in Geneva and reported
to fellow cabinet members on
Monday the reception awarded
to his country.
“In general terms it was very
positive, a tremendous recognition of the efforts that are being
made in Venezuela”, Rodriguez,
who is also Youth Minister for
the government of President Nicolas Maduro, said on Monday.
While no official ranking of
countries was released during
the 83rd Session of the CERD,
this is not the first time that
Venezuela has been applauded
for its advances in social development by the UN.
In June, the Food and Agricultural Organization granted
a special acknowledgement to
the OPEC member state for its
reduction of poverty and its
marked diminution of malnutrition within its borders.
The progress has been due in
large part to the more than 30
social programs, or missions,
founded by former President
Hugo Chavez who succumbed
to cancer in March.
Earlier this month, President Maduro announced a restructuring of the missions to
achieve greater efficiency and
enhance services for the Venezuelan population.
The topic of reorganizing represented an important agenda
item for the meeting held on
Monday between Rodriguez
and the eleven other ministers
working in the executive’s Social Affairs Commission.
As head of the executive commission, Rodriguez is charged
with overseeing the streamlining of the programs that provide free education, health care
and numerous other services to
the population.
According to Rodriguez, the
genesis of the missions in the
early 2000s was to provide a
direct line of benefits to the
population from the executive
branch by “bypassing a corrupt
and bureaucratic state”, he asserted during an interview with
the news agency Noticias24 last
week.
“We still have this in many
institutions and we must build
an institutionalism that is more
efficient”, he said.
Another important element
in the restructuring of the
4 Economy | .ŽsFriday, August 23, 2013
The artillery of ideas
Venezuela’s Indepabis busts businesses
for “unjustifiable” price hikes
al Airport at Maiquetia and La
Chinita International Airport
in Maracaibo would both receive new permanent inspectors
as part of a push to strengthen
consumer protection during the
holiday season.
“We have a permanent presence in Maiquetia and La Chinita; we are overseeing airlines,
delayed flights, overbooking of
tickets”, Saman said.
During the Tves interview,
Saman also issued a warning
to restaurants nationwide, urging owners to ensure they are
listed in the national registry
system, and display accurate
prices at the door.
“The restaurant must be registered... to avoid being penalized”,
Saman stated. He also warned
hotels to ensure they honor
bookings and are receptive to
customer complaints. Saman
said that members of the public
have already contacted Indepabis complaining of hotels canceling bookings after payment has
already been made by the client.
INDEPABIS RESTRUCTURE
T/ Ryan Mallett-Outtrim
P/ Agencies
H
ead of the Institute for the
Defense of People’s Access
to Goods and Services (Indepabis) Eduardo Saman has
reiterated calls for businesses
to abide by price regulations
and refrain from misleading
customers, after penalties were
imposed on a number of businesses this month.
According to Saman, the consumer protection agency found
one business increasing prices
of imported merchandise by
more than 200%, while failing
to inform customers that the
products had been purchased
with dollars issued by the Commission for the Administration
of Currency Exchange (Cadivi).
Speaking to Tves’ TV Foro
program on Sunday, Saman
stated that the business, Pablo
Electronica C.A had been found
by inspectors to be imposing “a
monthly increase of 5% to 10%”
on prices of Panasonic goods.
These rises often exceeded
monthly inflation rates. The
highest level of monthly inflation since 2008 was recorded in
May, at 6.1%. Since then, inflation has declined each month.
Saman stated that one Panasonic television on sale at Pablo
Electronica had a marked price
almost four times its original
value. According to Saman, inspectors found that the TV had
been purchased with dollars
from the now defunct Transaction System for Foreign Currency Denominated Securities
(Sitme) last December, at an
exchange rate of 5.30 bolivars
to $1. The retailer would have
paid around 1500 bolivars for
the TV, which was found by
inspectors on sale for close to
13,000 bolivars.
Even taking into account “operating costs” for the retailer,
Saman argued that “the maximum cost of the TV should be
3400 bolivars”.
Saman further stated that Pablo Electronica had allegedly failed
to notify customers that some
products had been purchased
with government issued dollars.
“It didn’t say anywhere that
any of the property was acquired with Cadivi dollars. It
was the first finding, for which
[Pablo Electronica] was fined”,
Saman stated.
Then on Monday, another business was fined by Indepabis.
Indepabis coordinator for Inspection and Supervision in the
Capital District, Cariana Garcia told AVN that an outlet of
retailer Compumall had been
found applying allegedly “misleading” labeling on some products. Garcia stated that investigators found that Compumall
had imposed “unjustifiable”
increases in the marked price
of some school supplies.
“We have been evaluating the
prices of products such as notebooks, pencils and other school
supplies...but there is a variation between [prices in] June,
July and [last] September; why
does this happen? These are old
products that were purchased
in January or February”, Garcia stated.
“This is unjustifiable stuff
we’re punishing”, he said.
According to Garcia, Compumall also used prohibited modes
of labeling such as stickers attached to products, instead of
stamping or marking a price
directly on the merchandise.
“There are books which had
their price tags removed and
replaced with higher ones, due
to the season”, he stated.
Garcia warned that the retailer had been given “24 hours” to
rectify the price discrepancies.
He also stated that the bust
came during a one-day crackdown on school supply retailers
across the capital.
However, these aren’t the only
businesses under renewed scrutiny from the agency. New Indepabis staff will be permanently
stationed at two of Venezuela’s
largest international airports.
On Sunday, Saman announced
that Simon Bolivar Internation-
While Saman indicated that
his agency would be increasingly active over the holiday
season, the institution has itself
been undergoing restructuring
since June.
On June 9th, authorities reported they had allegedly uncovered an extortion ring operating
within Indepabis in Caracas.
On June 14th, President Nicolas Maduro announced that Indepabis would be overhauled.
After being appointed to head
Indepabis with a mandate to
eradicate corruption in the
body, Saman has since stated
that the first phase of internal
assessment has been carried
out, and an action plan is currently being developed. This
follows the high profile “relaunch” of Indepabis on June
20th, when Saman stated that
the agency would focus on collaborating with Cadivi to tackle
illegal price hikes by retailers.
In July, however, Saman had
his authority to appoint Indepabis directors revoked by the
commerce minister Alejandro
Fleming, after he fired numerous regional heads.
At the time, Maduro urged
Saman to negotiate with Fleming, and to “stay firm in the
fight against the mafias who
cause shortages”.
“We came to an institution
that was hit by corruption...an
institution that was very run
down, especially morally. When
I arrived, we made across the
board changes, nationally and
regionally. It’s like rebuilding a
body to be able to walk”, Saman
said on Sunday.
.ŽsFriday, August 23, 2013
The artillery of ideas
Socialist school fairs guarantee
equal access to school materials
are not marking up prices or introducing “misleading” offers
to consumers.
Some stationary storeowners claim that a lack of government-issued foreign currency
and consequent shortage of
supply of goods is what is causing the increase in stationary
prices.
terms of price speculation. It’s
not justified that a product with
a regulated price often triples
its sale price”.
Another problem government
is addressing, explained Coronado, is the contraband goods
to Colombia. The Maduro administration recently declared
the border zones of strategic national importance and is cracking down on contraband.
Finally, explained Coronado,
certain producers have complained that related products
necessary in their production
are hard to find, such as plastic covering, tin casings, or
polypropylene holders.
“We are going to review
all of these issues between
the Ministries of Food Sovereignty and Industry and Commerce. We are going to call
on the private producers who
produce plastic, cardboard,
etc., to see what their difficulties are and take corresponding actions, be they permits
or foreign currencies, so that
these themes don’t affect the
final stocking of products”.
A
shops, while cultural and recreational activities have been
organized for children.
FIGHTING SPECULATION
Alongside the school fairs,
the government also employs
a strategy of monitoring prices
in commercial stores in order
to break the “speculative price
schemes” imposed by the private sector on consumers of
school materials at this time of
year.
The government’s Institute
for the Defense of People in Access to Goods and Services (Indepabis) is currently conducting inspections of stationary
stores to ensure that retailers
5
“The most repeated phrase
[heard in stationary stores]
is “sold out”, and it’s because
of the shortage of foreign currency which is causing a lack
of control on sales, as well as a
great economic loss”, said Juan
Carlos Torres, manager of a
stationary store in San Mateo,
Aragua state.
However the president of
Muns Investments in the city
of Maracay, Franklin Tivamoso, said that commercial
school fairs in his area are not
affected by lack of supply. The
businessman added that while
his stores “sell products at low
prices compared with the street
price”, the price of school materials is higher than last year.
Meanwhile, on Monday Indepabis issued a fine of 160,500 bolivars ($25,887) to a store in the
Compumall chain for engaging
in “speculative” commercial
practices.
These included marking
up set prices on stationary
goods with stickers and using
“misleading” offers, such as
products which contained less
items than advertised on the
packaging.
Speaking to news agency
AVN, Indepabis’ Coordinator
of Inspections for the Capital
District, Cariana Garcia, used
the opportunity to warn other
establishments not to engage in
the same practices.
“This call is to all stores, to
stationary stores: don’t speculate on the prices of school materials”, she said.
T/ Ewan Robertson
P/ Agencies
s the new school term approaches, the Venezuelan
government is launching
Socialist School Fairs across
the country to guarantee families’ access to schooling goods
at “fair prices”.
At this time of year parents
and guardians flock to clothing and stationary stores in
search of notebooks, stationary, schoolbags and uniforms,
which result in a significant
cost to family budgets.
Furthermore, many of these
stores mark up their prices to
take advantage of the increase
in demand in what authorities
call “speculative” commercial
practices.
In response to this situation
the government’s Socialist
School Fairs aim to cut out the
intermediary and guarantee
Venezuelan families, especially
those on lower incomes, equal
access to school materials.
First launched in 2009, this
year the school fair program
will distribute 2,104,168 items
over 48 product groups, enough
to equip around 175,000 children and teenagers. According
to the Ministry of Commerce,
these products offer savings of
26 to 60% compared with the
commercial price.
Speaking to media last Saturday, commerce minister Alejandro Fleming said that so far
the school fairs “have been a
great success”.
“As in every year, everything
the [Bolivarian] revolution
does is successful, even if the
right-wing media make this invisible. This is the only country
where a government has honored the right to education, not
with rhetoric, but with visible
acts”, the minister declared.
A total of 592 national producers of school materials are
participating in the program
this year, comprising small,
medium and social property
companies.
The fairs will take places in
all of Venezuela’s 24 territorial
entities in different phases
between August 15th and September 14th. In the Socialist
School Fair in central Caracas, which opened last week,
members of the public can
choose goods in 48 separate
| Economy
Government continues to tackle
enduring mild food shortages
T/ Paul Dobson
P/ Agencies
D
espite the situation of
shortages having improved
greatly since the presidential
elections in April, the Venezuelan government announced
various measures this week
which will further address
some of the enduring shortages in basic food items the country has suffered this year.
Vice-Minister for Political
Food Sovereignty, Rafael Coronado, revealed that the series
of meetings with representatives from the private food sector, initiated in May by President Maduro, are continuing
with positive results. They are
addressing the issues of stockpiling, shortages, distribution,
and production levels.
“We are working hand in
hand with them to correct all
of the details which are arising”, stated Coronado. “It is
a daily battle, where the elements who are disaffected with
the government look to generate angst in the population, removing the products from their
normal distribution channels,
speculating in an immeasurable way”.
Coronado highlighted that
distribution problems have
caused certain shortages in
some sectors, and that a plan of
action is being developed.
He also mentioned that the
informal re-selling of regulated
goods is causing rapid shortages in supermarkets.
“Under this scheme of the extraction of food items in a permanent and continuous manner, it
is very complicated to keep the
isles stocked”, explained Coronado. “The informal selling is
affecting us all, especially in
6 Social Justice | .ŽsFriday, August 23, 2013
The artillery of ideas
Maduro: Greater Government support
for Venezuela’s communes needed
V
VICE MINISTRY
& TELEVISION CHANNEL
Nicolas Maduro proposed
several initiatives for the government to better support the
ECONOMIC ROLE
Speaking Friday in a town
in the Andean state of Merida,
Maduro argued that the communes should be central to a
new productive economic model in Venezuela.
“Every communal council
and every commune should
aim to be an organized [group
of] people, that develops an economically productive socialism”, he stated. He further argued that these bodies should
help meet the needs of the local
community, playing an important role in local economic and
social life.
As part of the televised broadcast, the President approved
100,000 bolivars (US $16,129) for
the Ezequiel Zamora commune
in Merida state, in part for the
commune to organize repairs
to a nearby aqueduct.
T/ Ewan Robertson – venezuelanalysis.
com
P/ Presidential Press
enezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called on his
government to give greater
support to the construction of
communes in the country, proposing several initiatives by
which this could be done. The
head of state also announced a
“complete restructuring” of his
government.
Speaking on his weekly
television show, “Bolivarian
Dialogue”, Maduro urged his
cabinet to work to consolidate
and expand the construction of
communes in Venezuela.
“Let’s make the issue of the
communes into a central issue
for the construction of territorial socialism, concrete socialism, where we all contribute
to the construction of the communes, [and] support and consolidate those communes already established”, he said.
Maduro entrusted this task
of government to Vice President Jorge Arreaza, Communes
Minister Reinaldo Iturriza, and
Communication and Information Minister Delcy Rodriguez.
“Established and consolidated communes must be transformed into a vanguard which
goes out to construct, and with
their example, educate, motivate, form and support the construction of new communes”,
added the President.
Communes in Venezuela
have their origin in communal
councils, which are grassroots
bodies composed of members
of the local community. These
bodies are self-managing and
receive public funds to undertake community projects and
small-scale public works.
Communes, meanwhile, are
made up of groups of community councils, and are able to take
on larger scale projects and
further develop mechanisms
of local self-governance. While
there are currently over 44,000
registered communal councils,
there are only around 200 established or developing communes
in the country.
regional and local media” and
that “nothing like any ministry or institution created
up until now” reflected the
aims or needs of the commune
movement.
construction of communes and
country’s grassroots democracy more widely.
One of these was the establishment of a vice ministry dedicated to the spreading of information about the experiences
of Venezuela’s communes and
other social movements. This
task was given to minister for
communications, Delcy Rodriguez, with the new body to be
named The Communications
Vice Ministry of Communes
and People’s Power.
A second proposal was for
the creation of a national television channel for communes,
which will be dedicated to sharing information about the work
and daily life of communes and
community councils.
“We’re going to design a national television channel, Com-
mune TV, so that the life of the
communal councils and communes can be seen. It would
be a subject that could produce
endless documentaries, news
and music programs”, stated
Maduro.
The Venezuelan President entrusted the coordination of this
project to the ministers of communes, communication and
science and technology, and
explained that such a channel
could operate nationally on the
new Open Digital Television
(TDA) service.
In 2009 the government established the Ministry of Communes and in 2010 passed the
Communes Law. However, in
a cabinet meeting in October
2012 late Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez critized his government for not doing enough
New communes to launch
in Venezuelan capital
T/ Ewan Robertson
A
mass grassroots electoral
operation is being organized
to elect spokespeople for communal councils and twenty
new communes in Venezuela’s
capital, Caracas.
The operation has drawn national media attention as these
will be the first communal elections to use the National Electoral Council’s (CNE) electronic
voting system.
The director of the CNE’s Office for Citizen Participation,
Joen Keiler Jimenez, explained
to the media last Monday that
while the CNE is providing
equipment and technical support, “it is the communal councils, through their own electoral commissions, that carry out
the elections”.
The capital-wide “communal
electoral operation” is a result
of cooperation between communal councils, the CNE, and
the government’s Foundation
for Communal Power and Development
(Fundacomunal),
with the aim being to elect new
to support the construction of
communes.
“Where are the communes?”
Chavez asked his then vice
president Nicolas Maduro, adding that he was considering
eliminating the Ministry of
Communes altogether.
The National Network of
Communes
responded
to
these comments in a written
statement, in which they affirmed that communes were
being constructed across the
country, and that “we are
constructing the communes
through our own knowledge
and actions, because we aspire
towards a communal way of
life, as a community, in socialism or communism”.
The network also argued
that “almost nothing about
this appears in the national,
Maduro also proposed “a
complete restructuring” of his
government in order to optimize its functioning and better
achieve stated objectives. Prior
to this restructuring, an evaluation of the pertinence, functions and organization of existing government ministries will
be undertaken.
“We’ve inherited the structure of the bourgeois government, the bourgeois state. We
need to erect a new structure”,
the President declared.
Part of this restructuring
will be a greater focus by ministries on mechanisms of grassroots power. “We call ourselves
ministries of people’s power. We
have to be ministries of peoples
power”, Maduro exhorted.
spokespeople to the city’s communal councils.
This will be followed by elections to choose the spokespeople and founding charters of
twenty new communes in Caracas. The communes will then
be able to formally register with
the Ministry of Communes.
Communes in Venezuela
are participatory democratic
bodies that promote local selfgovernance and undertake
public projects to develop the
community. The Communes
Law, which was passed in
2010, sets the legal framework
for their formation and their
functioning.
The first elections of the
“communal electoral opera-
tion” in Caracas will take place
on September 22 in the 23 de Enero district, when twenty-seven
communal councils will choose
the spokespeople of the new
“Socialist Faith” and “Simon
Bolivar” communes.
Each commune will contain
twelve commissions of two
members each, with around 50
spokespeople to be elected overall. It is estimated that over
5,500 local citizens will participate in the vote.
Legra Serrano of the Simon
Bolivar Commune highlighted
that, “It’s necessary for the
population to actively participate, not only in the vote, but
also [to create] the communal
structure”.
GOVERNMENT RESTRUCTURING
.ŽsFriday, August 23, 2013
The artillery of ideas
Dispatch from catatumbo
Capitalism, genocide & Colombia
T/ Dan Kovalik
P/ Agencies
I
just returned from Catatumbo, Colombia where thousands
of peasants are waging a lifeand-death struggle against the
US-backed Colombian military
and its paramilitary allies. For
over 60 days, the peasants have
been demonstrating against
the deplorable living conditions
and economic circumstances in
which they live, and in support
of their proposal for a Peasant
Farmer Reserve Zone of 10 million hectares.
Such a zone, which is provided for under the law, would
allow the peasants to engage
in subsistence farming free of
the threat of encroachment by
extractive companies desiring
to mine or drill on their land.
This demand, along with the
concomitant demand of the
peasants for all mining and oil
exploration and extraction in
their region to be suspended,
is critical to the peasants who
are being driven to the verge of
extinction.
According to the Luis Carlos
Perez Lawyers’ Collective (CALCP), 11,000 peasants have been
killed in this region by state
and para-state forces, most of
them during the 2002-2010 term
of President of Alvaro Uribe,
and over 100,000 peasants, out
of a total of around 300,000,
have been forcibly displaced. At
least 32 mass graves containing
the bodies of murdered peasant activists have been found in
this region in recent years.
And, this mass murder and
displacement is being carried
out to make way for more oil
drilling, African palm cultivation (for biodiesel) and for coal
mining by North American
companies.
I say that this mayhem is being carried out, in part, in order
to make way for more oil drilling because, in fact, much oil
drilling has been taking place
there for the past 70 years. The
peasants of this region have
nothing to show for this many
years of drilling. After 70 years
of oil exploration, the rural
parts of this region do not even
have a paved road.
In addition, there is no sewage system, no running water and no health services.
Indeed, peasants injured in
their confrontations with the
military and police during the
two months of demonstrations
– with the peasants defending
themselves with sticks against
the guns, tanks and other USsupplied hardware of the military and police – have been
forced to flee into Venezuela for
refuge and medical services.
In short, the oil and other extractive companies, beginning
with Texaco in the 1930’s, have
taken and taken, and left the
people with nothing. Now, the
companies want even more,
and it is the very existence and
presence of the peasants which
stands in their way. And so,
quite logically, the companies,
with the help of the US-backed
military and paramilitaries,
are aiming to literally wipe
the peasants off the map. In
other words, these forces are
engaged in a calculated act of
genocide.
YOUNG PEASANTS OF
CATATUMBO IN REBELLION
The calculated mass killing
and displacement that is taking
place in Catatumbo is a good
example of the phenomenon
discussed in the new book, Capitalism: A Structural Genocide
by Garry Leech. In that book,
Leech argues, and quite forcefully, that capitalism, left to its
own devices, will inevitably destroy (1) those who stand in the
way of the exploitation of natural resources; and (2) those individuals, such as peasants and
subsistent farmers, who are engaged in pursuits which neither
contribute towards economic
“growth” nor produce surplus
value or profit. Of course, the
peasants of Catatumbo fall into
both of these categories simultaneously, and are therefore a
double threat.
Citing Indian physicist and
philosopher Vandana Shiva,
Leech explains that, under
capitalism, “nothing has value
until it enters the market. Shiva points out that under capitalism ‘if you consume what
you produce, you do not really
produce, at least not economically speaking. If I grow my
own food, and do not sell it,
then this does not contribute to
GDP, and so does not contribute
towards growth’.” Rather, for
such subsistence farmers, “’nature exists as a commons’”. The
commons, moreover, and those
who work on it, are simply not
permitted under capitalism.
As Leech and Shiva explain,
those working the commons
must either “be incorporated
– often through coercion – into
the ever-widening spheres of
production and circulation”,
or they must be simply be destroyed. This process, as Leech
explains, is what Karl Marx
termed, “primitive accumulation”, and it is quite a nasty process, wherever it is carried out.
Leech explains that, as capitalism was beginning to get
into full swing in Britain in the
late 1700’s and early 1800’s, the
British Parliament passed a
series of Enclosure Acts which
privatized commonly held
lands and “prevented much of
the generations-old practice
of grazing their animals and
cultivating their crops on commonly held lands, thereby forcing them to move to the cities in
search of jobs”.
More recently, as Leech astutely points out, Mexico outlawed communal land titles
for indigenous peoples in order
to make way for NAFTA. As
Leech explains, and as many
of us have argued for years, a
major raison d’être of NAFTA
was in fact the primitive accumulation of the commons
of millions of small farmers
in Mexico. This primitive accumulation was carried out by
NAFTA’s provisions which allowed heavily-subsidized, and
therefore cheap, agricultural
products from North America
to flood the Mexican markets
tariff-free. Meanwhile, the IMF
rules governing Mexico forbid
that country from subsidizing
its own agricultural producers.
As Leech explains, the results
for 2 million small farmers in
Mexico, who could not compete
with the subsidized food from
| Analysis
7
the North, was devastating,
with these small farmers losing their livelihood and their
land and fleeing into the cities,
or illegally into the US. Finding
themselves displaced from their
land, many were left with no
jobs at all, found themselves exploited in low paying jobs with
poor safety and health practices, or turned to the drug trade
for employment. The result for
Mexico as a whole has been the
destruction of the social fabric of the nation and increased
violence, with cities like Juarez
suffering violence levels comparable to nations at war.
Leech mentions that Colombia “has become Latin
America’s poster child over
the past decade and its economic growth has been driven by the exploitation of the
country’s natural resources,
particularly oil, coal and gold,
by foreign companies”. Colombia now has the largest internally displaced population in
the world at over 5 million. As
Leech explains, “[m]any have
been forced from their lands
by direct physical violence related to the country’s armed
conflict – often by the Colombian military and right-wing
paramilitary groups serving
the interests of multinational
corporations. However, many
others have become economic
refugees due to the structural
violence inherent in neoliberal
policies that has dispossessed
them of their lands in order to
facilitate capital accumulation
for foreign companies”.
The peasants of Catatumbo
have long been the victims of
such direct as well as structural violence, but now they are
fighting back to defend their
land. For 53 days, these peasants, armed only with sticks,
blocked the main highway
linking the cities of Cucuta and
Tibu. Shortly after our visit,
the government agreed to negotiate with them directly, and
the peasants ended this blockade for now. However, they will
begin it anew if talks fail.
While the Colombian Minister of Defense warned us not
to travel this highway because
of these protests, the peasants
freely allowed us to pass. Of
course, as all of us understood,
what the Colombian government was truly afraid of was
that we would witness that it is
in fact the peasants who are on
the side of right; that it is they
who are defending the land, the
water and the rainforests for
all of us. And, this is why their
struggle, and the struggles of
others like them, must succeed.
In truth, our very lives and future depend on them.
Friday, August 23, 2013 | Nº 172 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve
INTERNATIONAL
!PUBLICATIONOFTHE&UNDACION#ORREODEL/RINOCOsEditor-in-Chief%VA'OLINGERsGraphic Design Pablo Valduciel L. - Aimara Aguilera - Audra Ramones
Opinion
T/ Mark Weisbrot
Miranda Rights
W
What Europe could learn from
Latin America’s independence
ith a few exceptions,
most of Europe hasn’t
had an independent
foreign policy for the past 70
years, and the UK stands out
as a prime example of this. I
remember discussing British
foreign policy with a UK Member of Parliament a few years
ago, and he said to me, “Do you
want to know what the Foreign
Office is going to do? Just ask
the (US) State Department”.
The British government
proved its first loyalty once
again by detaining Glenn
Greenwald’s
Brazilian
partner, David Miranda,
under the UK’s Terrorism
Act 2000 as he passed through
London’s Heathrow airport on
Sunday. He was interrogated
for the maximum of 9 hours
and his laptop, cell phone, and
other stores of digital information were seized. It is clear that
Miranda was not suspected of
any connection to terrorism.
To detain and rob Miranda on
this pretext is no more legal
than to have done so on
trumped up allegations
that he was transporting cocaine. The
White House has
admitted that Washington had advance
knowledge of the crime,
and so we can infer approval –
if not active collaboration.
It is interesting, too, because the UK government
had previously kept a relatively low public profile on
the Snowden case, despite
the fact that Snowden had
leaked files from its own intelligence gathering and not
just the NSA’s. Until Sunday
it looked as though the British authorities had learned at
least a little bit about public
relations after their international embarrassment last
year, when they threatened
to invade Ecuador’s embassy
in order to capture Julian Assange. Although they are still
keeping Assange trapped in
the Ecuadorean embassy, illegally, and presumably at the
behest of you know who. And
the editor of the Guardian,
Alan Rusbridger, now reveals
that the UK government, at the
highest levels, has been very
seriously threatening and harassing his newspaper in an
attempt to silence it.
At the other end of the spectrum of national sovereignty
are the independent nations
of Latin America, three of
whom have officially offered
Snowden asylum, and others
who would never turn him
over to the United States if
he were to land on their territory (or in their embassies).
These governments
have
played a significant role in the
Snowden affair and NSA spying scandal because they have
achieved a “second independence” over the past 15 years
that enables them to pursue
an autonomous foreign policy.
The exercise of this new independence is largely ignored
or, more often, denigrated in
the major media as populist
demagoguery. But it is easy to
see that the “problem” is much
deeper than that.
Brazilian foreign minister
Antonio Patriota demanded
answers from UK foreign sec-
retary William Hague over the
detention of David Miranda.
Last week, at a news conference with US Secretary of State
John Kerry in Brazil, Patriota
spoke of a “shadow of distrust”
caused by Snowden and Greenwald’s revelations that Brazilian citizens were a major target
of NSA surveillance. He called
for the Obama administration
to “stop practices that violate
sovereignty”. Patriota was previously Brazil’s ambassador to
Washington and nobody can
accuse him of holding a grudge
against the United States.
Brazil’s President Dilma
Rousseff had also expressed
her “indignation” over what
Bolivia described as the “kidnapping” of President Evo
Morales by the European governments who forced down his
plane last month on the basis
of false allegations that he was
transporting Edward Snowden.
“We believe this constitutes
not only the humiliation of a
sister nation but of all South
America”, said Argentine president Cristina Kirchner, and
the Union of South American
Nations (Unasur) also issued a
strong denunciation.
Brazil is the main target
of Washington’s most recent
charm offensive, with President Dilma Rouseff scheduled
for an official state visit in
October — the first by a Brazilian president in nearly two
decades. The US does not even
have ambassadorial relations
with Bolivia or Venezuela. But
the US attempt to improve relations with Brazil is not going
any better than its “diplomatic
efforts” with the other left governments of the region. This is
not because these governments
wouldn’t want better relations
– they all, including Venezuela, have significant trade
and commercial relations
with the US and would
like to expand these.
The problem is that
Washington has still not
accepted Latin America’s
second
independence,
and expects its southern
neighbors to behave in
the same embarrassingly
obedient way as Europe.
And US officials still don’t
understand that they are
dealing with a team – they
can’t be hostile or aggressive towards one country
and expect the others to
give them a big hug. So
we cannot expect better
relations between Washington and its southern
neighbors any time soon.
On the positive side,
Latin America has done
quite well over the past
decade, since its people
became free enough to
elect left governments,
which have subsequently
led the fight for independence and transformed regional relations. Regional
povertydropped
from
41.5 to 29.6 percent from
2003-2009, after showing
no significant improvement for more than 20
years. Income per person
has grown by more than 2
percent annually over the past
decade, as opposed to just 0.3
percent over the prior 20 years,
when Washington’s influence
over economic policy in Latin
America was enormous. The
left governments’ detractors attribute these improvements to a
“commodities boom,” but this is
just a fraction of the story. The
region would never have seen
such improvements in employment and poverty reduction
if the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) were still calling
the shots.
As for Europe’s leaders, well,
they have nothing to lose but
their national dignity, which
they don’t seem to value very
highly. But the world will be
a better and safer place when
Europe, like most of Latin
America, declares its independence from Washington.