Venezuelans revere indigenous goddess Maria Lionza

Analysis
Opinion
Spain’s press promotes
anti-Chavez propaganda page 7
Western media distorts
coverage on Venezuela page 8
Friday, October 19, 2012 | Nº 131 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve
Chavez shuffles
cabinet
After winning a landslide
victory in last week’s
presidential elections,
President Hugo Chavez called
for greater efficiency in his
own government and swore
in six new high level cabinet
members, including a new
Vice President. Some of the
outgoing officials are heading
off to run for governor of
several Venezuelan states
in the upcoming regional
elections in December. Overall,
Chavez pledged a revamping of
his administration in order to
improve government. page 3
ENGLISH EDITION/The artillery of ideas
Venezuelans revere indigenous
goddess Maria Lionza
Politics
Former Union
Leader New VP
A man who once drove
a bus and organized unions
is now Venezuela’s
Vice President. page 4
International
Venezuela calls
for peace
in Middle East
The Chavez government
condemned Israel’s
aggression against
Palestine. page 5
Fidel & Chavez play
role in Colombian pact
Cuba’s Fidel Castro
and Venezuela’s Chavez
help negotiate
an end to Colombia’s
civil war. page 6
Thousands of Venezuelans make an annual pilgrimage to the high mountains in Yaracuy, in central Venezuela, to participate in rituals and spiritual ceremonies honoring Maria Lionza, an indigenous goddess of nature revered by millions. Lionza was
born from a myth of an Indian princess with light eyes who became enchanted in
the jungles of Yaracuy and takes refuge there. Believers say she offers miracles and
“beautiful things for humanity”. page 2
Miranda satellite images
On Tuesday, the Venezuelan government revealed
the first images transmitted by its new satellite “Miranda”. The satellite was launched from China nearly
three weeks ago.
This terrestrial observation and remote imaging
satellite will offer high-resolution pictures that provide scientific data used for planning in the areas of
the environment, agriculture, industry, health, security, risk management and disaster prevention.
Its images will also be used to help locate natural
resources, monitor crops and border areas, and improve oil industry activities.
Early next year a group of 54 Venezuelan scientists
trained in China will take control of the satellite from the
Captain Manuel Ríos Space Center in Guarico and the
Simon Rodriguez Technological Complex in Caracas.
The Venezuelan personnel received training from
their Chinese counterparts regarding the processing, interpretation and use of satellite images of
the national territory.
INTERNATIONAL
Venezuela
expels Paraguay’s
diplomats after coup
T/ Agencies
Venezuela’s government
has decided to expel Paraguay’s remaining diplomats
from the country, the top envoy at the Paraguayan Embassy said Wednesday.
Charge d’affaires Victor
Casartelli said that he and
three other Paraguayan diplomats in Caracas were told
by Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry to leave within three
days. Casartelli said that he
received a call Tuesday from
the Foreign Ministry informing him of the decision
and that he met Wednesday
with Venezuelan officials
who confirmed that the four
should go.
The expulsion of Paraguay’s diplomats follows a
bitter dispute between the
countries that began in June
with the congressional impeachment and ouster of
Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo – called by many
a legislative coup d’etat -, an
ally of Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez.
In July, the two governments withdrew their ambassadors amid rising tensions
over Lugo’s removal. Chavez
later said he had ordered his
country’s military attaches to
leave Paraguay, citing threats
against diplomats.
Casartelli said he was told
by Venezuelan officials that
when their government withdrew its diplomats, “they were
waiting for Paraguay to do the
same thing with us”.
Since months passed and
Paraguay didn’t follow suit,
Venezuelan officials decided
to expel the remaining diplomats, Casartelli said. He
said in a phone interview
that he and the other three
diplomats had made plans to
leave this week.
One Paraguayan Embassy
employee who is not a diplomat will be allowed to remain to perform consular
duties, Casartelli said.
2 Impact | .ŽsFriday, October 19, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Maria Lionza:
The goddess of Venezuela
T/ COI
P/ COI
E
very October 12, the otherwise sleepy town of Chivacoa in the mid-western
state of Yaracuy becomes the
host to thousands of pilgrims
making their way to nearby
Sorte Mountain where devotees of the cult of Maria Lionza
seek spiritual cleansing and favors from the indigenous goddess of nature revered by millions of Venezuelans.
The majority of the practitioners are from humble
backgrounds, as evidenced
by the dilapidated buses that
usher in the believers from
around the country. While
each traveller comes for their
own reasons, the bulk of devotees arrive at the holy site
looking for a solution to their
problems, whether they be
economic, romantic, or health
related.
According to Aura Piscano,
a 64 year-old practitioner of
the cult, Maria Lionza is “a
Holy Goddess who carries out
miracles and does beautiful for
things for humanity”.
Piscano, who identifies herself as a “daughter of Maria
Lionza”, recounts the myth of
an Indian princess with light
eyes who became enchanted in
the jungles of Yaracuy and who
takes refuge in the dense vegetation of Sorte Mountain.
Having been involved in the
religion for 55 years, the native
of the state of Barinas has seen
the belief in the cult expand internationally, attracting more
and more people every year.
“Many people come for the
necessity of help because the
truth is that this mountain has
a geomagnetic, spiritual, and
scientific power. Regardless
of their career or their level
of study, people’s faith makes
them come here”, Piscano said.
Pablo Vazquez, President of
the Venezuelan Spiritual Association, claims that the total
number of believers in the cult
of Maria Lionza has grown
to approximately 15 million
people in recent years, roughly
half of the entire Venezuelan
population.
“Everything takes place
here in Sorte Mountain... this
whole area possesses a power
where Maria Lionza, through
her rivers, streams and nature
provides positive energy for
those who seek it, those seeking health and healing where
perhaps scientific medicine has
not been successful... Maria Lionza receives us if we don’t have
money and independent of our
race or ethnicity”, he said.
Such is the character of
this intrinsically grassroots
religious expression, which
involves members of the cult
hiring spiritual advisers who
through trance and possession
offer their clients an answer to
their troubles. These “works”
form the basis for the rituals
that occur at Sorte mountain,
which blend a variety of spiritual practices culled from traditions associated with Christianity and the African diaspora
such as Santeria and Palo.
Various sects, known as
courts, form part of the pantheon of which the indigenous
princess Maria Lionza reins
supreme. These divisions are
comprised of a diversity of historical and spiritual personnel
including Simon Bolivar, the
Venezuelan independence hero;
Guaicapuro, the indigenous
warrior who led revolts against
the Spaniards; and even Erik
the Red, the Viking.
Other branches of this spiritual universe include the Corte
Cale, which venerates Robin
Hood style urban criminals.
“Everybody has a space here
because this is sacred territory
where Maria Lionza as a great
matriarch provides shelter and
maternal support”, said Aura
Piscano.
Without a written canon,
the rites carried out at Sorte
Mountain display extreme
variations. Some rituals are
excessively bloody and involve
practitioners possessed by Viking spirits slicing their tongue
with razor blades and breaking
bottles over their head to demonstrate their manliness.
Pablo Vazquez attributes
these practices to followers of
the cult who are operating out-
side the traditional boundaries
of the established courts and
whose spiritual works are executed more as spectacle than
as true curative ceremonies.
Indeed, with the proliferation
of such acts, many members of
the international press have
seized upon the cult’s sensationalist elements, exploiting the
more outlandish occurrences
at Sorte for the amusement of
international readers.
To combat the stereotypes
being circulated as a result of
fringe rites, Vazquez’s Spiritual Association is embarking
on educational campaigns to
raise awareness about the cult
through community workshops
and lectures.
The organization of practitioners is also attempting to organize the seasoned members
of the cult in order to set out
guidelines involved in the worship of Maria Lionza.
“We’re working towards rescuing the traditions and sowing
greater respect for Maria Lionza and her environment... It’s
time to unify criteria to stave
off the distortions that are taking place”, he said.
Such codification of the cult
has been attempted before
without luck and one could
argue that the very idea of formulating rules goes against the
syncretic fundamentals of the
religion that are defined by the
innovation and interpretation
of followers.
Yet regardless of its amorphous nature, the growth of
the cult of Maria Lionza has
not been met with open arms
by the Catholic Church, which
has outright rejected the belief
as incompatible with its own
teachings.
Followers of Maria Lionza
however, compare to their worship of the “The Queen” to the
worship of Christian saints and
fail to see how their faith in God
is conflictive with their faith in
the cult.
“We all come from one God
and God is here. God created
Maria Lionza and her nature”,
Aura Piscano relates.
Vazquez, along with the great
majority of practitioners at
Sorte, also defines himself as
Catholic despite his involvement in the cult for more than
40 years.
“Above all we believe in God
and Jesus Christ. Maria Lionza
would have said that she is not
a goddess but rather a queen
that belongs to part of our culture... We go to church, read
the bible, preach the gospel and
pray to Our Father. But that
doesn’t prevent us from taking
part in the cult because it’s our
culture”, Vazquez affirmed.
.ŽsFriday, October 19, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Venezuela’s Chavez reconfigures cabinet;
calls for greater efficiency in government
T/ COI
P/ Presidential Press
I
n a shuffling of his cabinet
personnel following a robust
election victory on October 7,
Venezuelan head of state Hugo
Chavez swore in six new ministers last Saturday during a ceremony held in the presidential
palace of Miraflores.
Nicolas Maduro, the country’s new Vice President, also
took an oath of office as the 49
year-old current Foreign Minister prepares to perform the
duties of two offices simultaneously.
Maduro, a former bus driver
and union leader from the capital Caracas, will be replacing
Vice President Elias Jaua who
is running for Governor of the
state of Miranda in the country’s upcoming local elections
slated for December 16.
The other high officials confirmed on Saturday are Ernesto
Villegas as Communication
Minister; Nestor Reverol as
Interior and Justice Minister;
Juan Carlos Loyo as Minister
of Agriculture and Land, Aloha
Nuñez as Indigenous Affairs
Minister; Cristobal Francisco
Ortiz as Minister of Environment; and Admiral Carmen Teresa Melendez, the nation’s first
female admiral, as Presidential
Venezuelan congress receives 2013 budget
with ‘strong emphasis’ on social spending
T/ COI
I
n preparations for the coming
fiscal year, the Venezuelan
Executive branch submitted
its proposed budget for 2013 to
the country’s legislative body,
the National Assembly (AN),
last Monday.
The budget, which includes
requests for the funding for a
diversity social development
projects, will be first discussed
in the Assembly on October 23
after Finance and Planning
Minister Jorge Giordani presents a series of related reports
to congress.
Once these annexing documents are received, the proposal will be examined in
committee before being submitted to a larger debate on
the legislator floor.
Details on 2013’s request have
yet to be released to the public
but initial reports indicate that
the budget will be based on a
$50 per barrel price of crude,
Venezuela’s main export.
2012’s budget consisted of a
total of $69 billion for the Executive, also based on an average price of $50 per barrel to
prevent fiscal shortfalls in the
event of a drop in the commodity’s value on the international
market.
Forty percent of last year’s
spending was requested, according to officials at the time,
for an increase in social spending in areas such as education,
social security, housing, and
urban development.
Congressman Ricardo Sanguino, socialist representative from the state of Tachira
and member of the legislator’s
Economic Development and Finance Committe, said that this
spending trend will continue
as the new budget is designed
to complement the Chavez government’s development plan for
the years 2013-2019.
Essential to this plan is increased investment in the social programs, or missions,
which have characterized
Venezuela over the past 14
years since Chavez first came
to power.
Greater resources will be
dedicated, Congressman Sanguino explained, on housing
construction, agricultural projects, and high profile public
works.
Opposition congressman and
Finance Committee member,
Alfonso Marquina, commented
| Politics
3
Chief of Staff also charged with
follow-up and monitoring of
government offices.
Loyo will be taking the reins
of the Agriculture and Land
Ministry for the second time
following an illness-related absence in January.
He will be charged with continuing the country’s agrarian
reform that seeks to break up
large landholdings in favor of
small farmers and democratize
production through low credit
loans and technical support.
“Landlords beware!
Loyo
has come back! They were very
pleased because you were not
around”, President Chavez said
of the return of his minister on
Saturday.
During the ceremony, the socialist head of state called on
his new cabinet members to
challenge themselves and work
towards a more effective and
responsive government over
the next six years.
The ministers must “increase
the capacity and efficiency of
our management to the highest
degree”, Chavez insisted.
“We’re giving a spiritual
component to this swearing-in
which is not in front of the head
of state but rather in front of the
people. You must have a strong
commitment and I’m sure that
you are all up to this challenge”,
Chavez said.
As part of his first address as
Vice President of the Republic,
Nicolas Maduro spoke of the
new era of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution following
the electoral victory of Hugo
Chavez and the strengthening
of the nation’s “Socialism of the
21st Century”.
“From this very moment, we
are beginning a deep process
of revision, renovation and the
creation of something new. After 14 years of experience there
are now sufficient theoretical,
political and moral bases to begin deepening the Revolution
with new methods”, he said.
Saturday’s ceremony also
saw Chavez thank ex-Vice President Elias Jaua for his years
of service, expressing his confidence that the former second
in command will defeat recent
opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles for the
governorship of Miranda state
in December’s elections.
“I’m sure that you in this new
battle you will demonstrate
just as equally your capacity to
struggle and to win”, he said.
Other outgoing officials who
will be participating in gubernatorial races include Erika
Farias, former Presidential
Dispatch head and Tareck El
Aissami, ex-Interior and Justice minster.
Farias and El Aissami will
be vying for the governorship
of Cojedes and Aragua states
respectively.
that much of the debate over
the submitted budget would revolve around development projects that require various years
to complete.
“There are works that, for
technical and financial reasons,
cannot be executed in one year.
For that reason previsions are
made to establish commitments
made in subsequent budgets”,
Marquina said.
Independent of the debate,
the 2013 proposal “is going
to have a strong emphasis”
on social programs said Congressman Julio Chavez of the
Assembly-controlling United
Socialist Party of Venezuela
(PSUV).
Chavez explained that the
goal of the spending is to “make
our country the least unequal
as possible”, citing the fact that
Venezuela has achieved the
highest equality rating in Latin
America, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean (Eclac).
During an interview on
the private television station
Venevision, the representative from the state of Lara
also addressed the question
of decentralization in Venezuela and the complaint by
opposition governors and
mayors that the National
Assembly has systematically denied loans to local
governments.
“It’s not true that the Mayor’s and Governor’s Offices
have been denied resources
through the approval of
credits... [One] cannot discriminate against any local
government whether or not
it be in the hands of the opposition... Credits are designated on an equal basis to all
Governor’s Offices”, Chavez
asserted.
“I think that this argument
[of not funding local governments] is being used a way to
pressure and manipulate people, but the community is not
buying it”, he added.
4 Politics | .ŽsFriday, October 19, 2012
The artillery of ideas
President Chavez names
labor leader new Executive VP
T/ COI
P/ AFP
J
ust days after his landmark
2012 election victory, Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez named Foreign Affairs Minister Nicolas Maduro
to be the country’s new Executive Vice President. Maduro,
a labor leader turned trusted
confidant, replaced former
Executive VP Elias Jaua who
stepped aside to run for Governor of Miranda in elections set
for mid-December. Re-elected
last October 7 for the 2013-2019
term, President Chavez told
reporters that Jaua and Maduro “are currently reviewing
all of their tasks so as to allow
for the successful handover of
responsibilities”.
FROM LABOR LEADER TO TOP VP
Born in Caracas on November 23, 1962, Nicolas Maduro
Moros began his political involvement as a high school
student activist. In the 1980’s
and 90’s, at which time the
country was living through
several harmful experiments
with neo-liberal economic
policies promoted by the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), Maduro worked and
organized as a driver of the
Caracas MetroBus, an aboveground bus system linking
the city’s metro stations to
bus routes. His leadership capacity within the transportation workers’ union got him
elected president of the union,
a commitment he maintained
until joining Chavez’s first
successful election campaign
in 1998.
Through his contacts in
the labor movement, Maduro
played an important role in
launching the Movement for
the Fifth Republic (MVR), a
mass social movement that
helped Chavez win the 1998
election. A year later, Maduro
took part in the National Constitutional Assembly and advocated for workers’ rights.
In 2000, he was elected to the
country’s National Assembly
and was re-elected in 2005.
Maduro was also briefly President of the National Assembly until 2006 when President
Chavez named him Minister
of Foreign Affairs.
Successful with numerous efforts to advance Latin
American unity and integration while Foreign Minister,
Maduro has become one of the
most widely-recognized voices
of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution.
As Foreign Minister, he
oversaw the expansion of
the Bolivarian Alliance for
the People’s of the Americas
(ALBA), the consolidation of
the Union of South American
Nations (Unasur), and the
birth, in December 2011, of the
Community of Latin American
and Caribbean States (Celac).
Minister Maduro also firmly
pushed for Venezuela’s acceptance into the Common Market
of the South (Mercosur), a historical achievement approved
by Mercsour earlier this year.
A strong advocate of a “multipolar” world, in direct opposition to US imperialism and
the Washington Consensus in
Latin America, Maduro also
worked tirelessly to strengthen ties between Venezuela and
China, Russia, Belarus, Iran,
Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, and
Bolivia. A trusted member of
President Chavez’s cabinet,
Maduro has been Vice President of the Council of Ministers since November 2010.
Naming Maduro his Executive Vice President last week,
President Chavez thanked
Jaua “for giving his all” while
in office and explained that
Maduro “has been an excellent public servant all these
years”. Chavez asked the rest
of his cabinet to “give Maduro
all the support he needs” and
congratulated the Foreign
Minister for “taking on the
new responsibilities”.
Maduro responded to the
designation by affirming, “today, you (Chavez) place me in
a role with great responsibilities, a task that implies a lot
of work, a job that is very demanding, and I thank you for
that trust”.
SUCCESSION?
Eager to spread divisive
rumors in both Venezuela
and abroad, corporate media
responded to Chavez’s announcement by suggesting
that Maduro is the President’s
“most-likely successor”. Ignoring the fact that Venezuelan
democracy continues to prove
itself in election after election,
media focused their reporting on Maduro’s “close ties to
Cuba” and “unwavering loyalty to Chavez”.
Through his contacts
in the labor movement,
Maduro played an important
role in launching the
Movement for the Fifth
Republic (MVR), a mass
social movement
that helped Chavez win
the 1998 election.
The Associated Press (AP),
for example, wrote, “Maduro,
a burly former bus driver,
is considered the member of
Chavez’s government with
the closest ties to Cuba’s Fidel
and Raul Castro”. AP added
that “the vice presidential job
has assumed new importance
because of Chavez’s recent
struggle with cancer” and,
providing no evidence to back
its claims, affirmed that “ru-
mors have circulated that Maduro is being groomed as his
(Chavez’s) successor”.
As stipulated by the Constitution of the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela (1999),
the country’s Executive Vice
President is responsible for
the presidency if, for any reason, the President is unable
to finish out his term. If this
occurs during the first four
years of the six-year term, the
Executive VP holds office until
a national presidential election
can occur. If the President is
unable to govern during the
last two years of a period, the
Executive VP holds office until
the term comes to an end.
Using this constitutionality as basis to produce speculations, EFE warned that Maduro
“is now in a position with a
great deal of power, in case of an
emergency”. The media firm described Maduro as “a convinced
leftist who began his political
activism as a Maoist student
leader in high school who, without attending the university,
worked as a bus driver”.
EFE went on to quote Vladimir Villegas, a former Chavez
advocate turned opposition
spokesman, who described
Maduro as “the government’s
political cadre with the greatest potential”. Using Chavez’s
successful bout with cancer
as cause for uncertainty, Villegas called Maduro “the government’s heavyweight, which
is why the President (Chavez)
chose him to be his number
two while he attends to his
‘health issues’”.
Meanwhile, Venezuelan political analyst Nicmer Evans
explained, “Chavez must of
course have a great deal of
trust in someone to name them
Executive Vice President…
but that doesn’t mean people
should begin to see phantoms
nor successors”.
JAUA TO MIRANDA
With some 2.6 million inhabitants, most of who work in and
around the nation’s capital,
Miranda is considered one of the
most important states in Venezuelan politics. Before this year’s
presidential election, it was governed by defeated opposition
presidential candidate Henrique
Capriles Radonski, who now
hopes to retake the governorship. His competitor, Elias Jaua,
is a widely-respected socialist
leader known for his dedication
to the Bolivarian Revolution.
Also recognized for his role in
helping to build the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela
(PSUV), Jaua will face Capriles
in gubernatorial elections scheduled for December 16.
.ŽsFriday, October 19, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Venezuelan ambassador to the UN
Slams Israeli expansionism
an nuclear program, Valero drew
a comparison with Israel, by
highlighting that they continue
to refuse to allow international
nuclear inspectors into their nuclear sites, yet reserve the right
to criticize other countries.
Referring to the Middle East
in a wider context, Valero con-
Chevron to preemptively block
enforcement efforts in the United States. Earlier this year the
plaintiffs filed lawsuits in Brazil and Canada in a bid to enforce the ruling.
The plaintiffs accuse Texaco
of causing illnesses among
locals by dumping drilling
waste in unlined pits. Chevron denies the accusations and
says Texaco properly cleaned
up all the pits for which it was
responsible.
The company claims that the
judgment, imposed by an Ecuadorean court in 2011, was fraudulent and unenforceable.
James Craig, a spokesman
for Chevron, said the company
intends to challenge the latest
ruling, which was issued by a
court in the Amazon town of
Lago Agrio.
“Today’s order is not surprising, since the plaintiffs have
shown they are able to get any
order they wish granted by
the Lago Agrio court. In the
past the plaintiffs’ lawyers
have been involved in ghostwriting orders for the court”,
Craig said.
Chevron is pursuing a
racketeering suit against a
New York attorney, Steven
Donziger, a group of Ecuadoreans and environmental
groups that helped win the
judgment, accusing them of
intimidation and extortion.
It has also challenged the
judgment before an international arbitration panel under
a trade agreement between
the United States and Ecuador. The panel is scheduled to
begin hearing the dispute in
November.
Oil companies are watching the case closely because it
may affect other cases accusing companies of polluting the
areas where they operate.
O
Further attacking both the
United States and their allies,
especially Israel, Valero presented an analysis about the political and economic interests of
the imperialist powers. In comments which were backed up
by a press release here in Venezuela, he explained how the
political-military industry in
Western nations dominates policy decisions of the UN: “Those
who today speak of peace, with
cynicism, are those who have
the most interest in wars of colonial expansion”.
In light of such international
outcry about the supposed Irani-
Ecuador Court deals Chevron
fresh blow In pollution case
T/ Reuters
E
cuadorean plaintiffs on
Tuesday said an order issued by a court in the Andean
country lets them seize some
$200 million worth of assets
belonging to Chevron in a
new legal blow to the No. 2 US
oil company.
The plaintiffs from villages
in the oil-rich Amazon won an
$18.2 billion case against the
oil giant over claims that Texaco, bought by Chevron in 2001,
contaminated the area from
1964 to 1992. Damages were increased to $19 billion in July.
Among the assets ordered
turned over are $96.3 million
that Ecuador’s government
owes Chevron, money held in
Ecuadorean bank accounts by
Chevron, and licensing fees
generated by the use of the company’s trademarks in the country, the plaintiffs said.
“This is a huge first step for
the rainforest villagers on the
road to collecting the entire $19
billion judgment”, Pablo Fajardo, the lead lawyer for the communities, said on Tuesday, a
day after the order was issued.
The battle between Chevron
and the Ecuadorean plaintiffs
has lasted for nearly two decades and is being fought in
courts both inside and outside
the Andean country.
Last week the US Supreme
Court rejected an attempt by
5
nected the expansionism of
Israel in Palestine with the
current struggle in Syria. He
warned the delegates of the Security Council that “in the region of the Middle East, violence
and volatility have increased in
an alarming fashion, which is
putting the peace of the whole
world at risk”.
He went on to denounce the
financing and arming of mercenary and terrorist groups in
Syria without any thoughts or
care to the loss of thousands
of civilian lives in the conflict
which has been instigated and
supported by the United States,
Great Britain, Canada, and
France.
Reiterating the political
line of the Venezuelan government,
which
expelled
the Israeli ambassador and
diplomatic team for exactly
such aggressive expansionist attacks against Palestine
and Lebanon, the Venezuelan
ambassador claimed those
forces are creating a type of
“good terrorism”, which, he
defines, aims to take over and
control territories and natural resources and to throw
out democratically elected
leaders, and which will put in
governments who are friendly
to their interests and who will
not resist the military-political elite of Israel.
The Venezuelan government
led by President Chavez continues to do all it can to help find a
solution to the complex issue of
peace in the Middle East while
supporting
the
victimized
peoples of Palestine and Syria
through diplomatic measures
and solidarity.
T/ Paul Dobson
P/ Agencies
n Monday, the Venezuelan ambassador to the
United Nations warned
the Security Council of the
consequences of Israeli expansionism into the Palestinian
Occupied Territories, which,
according to him, is “putting
the peace of the whole world
at risk”.
His comments come amidst
various violent attacks by the
Israeli military into the Palestinian territories this week,
killing over 10 people, including
unarmed citizens, as violence,
fuelled by foreign intervention
in Syria, yet again re-sparks in
the region.
The Venezuelan ambassador
to the UN, Jorge Valero, speaking at an open session of the
Security Council in New York,
which was scheduled to address Middle Eastern affairs,
yet again carried the torch of
anti-imperialist struggle from
Venezuela into the heart of the
United Nations, where Venezuela has repeatedly backed Palestinian calls for nationhood,
calls for Palestine to be made a
full member of the United Nations, and calls for peace in the
region.
Referring to recent air attacks, he stressed Venezuela’s
“profound frustration about
the inaction of the Council
against the expansionism of Israel and the Occupying Forces
in the Palestinian territories”.
Valero went on to state, “This
inaction is, as we all know, the
product of the threat of veto
(to any motion calling for intervention against the Israeli
aggressions) from the government of the United States and
its closest allies”.
He went on to stress the
threat that these aggressions
pose to international law, by
highlighting that “these warlike acts put in some doubt the
institutionalism of the UN, the
validity of the UN constitution,
and of international rights”.
Furthermore he drew wider
conclusions about the continued attacks against the resistant peoples of Palestine, and
declared that the attacks from
the government of Israel are
“evident threats to peace and
international security”.
| International
6 International | .ŽsFriday, October 19, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez played
role in Colombia’s peace talks with Farc
T/ Peter Beaumont
P/ Agencies
T
he elderly former
Cuban leader Fidel
Castro,
together
with Venezuela’s recently re-elected leader Hugo
Chavez, played a critical
role in bringing the Colombian government and
the Farc guerrilla group
together for peace talks
that could end one of
Latin America’s longestrunning civil wars.
According to sources
closely involved in the
peace process, which saw
historic talks opening
in Oslo on Wednesday,
the key breakthrough
after almost four years
of back-channel talks
between the two sides
came during a visit earlier this year by Colombia’s President, Juan
Manuel Santos, to Cuba,
where he met both Castro and Chavez, who was
in Cuba being treated for
cancer.
That meeting was the
first of many in Havana
between the two sides,
facilitated primarily by
Cuba and Norway with the
backing of Venezuela, which
saw agreement on the detailed
agenda for the first round of
talks this week. “Officially
President Santos went to Cuba
to discuss the Americas summit”, said a source intimately
involved in the peace negotiations. “But the purpose of that
trip was to discuss the peace
initiative”.
The meetings earlier this
year followed the decision
last year by Santos to take
the step of recognizing that
an “armed conflict” existed
in his country, an initiative
encouraged by Chavez since
2008. Those contacts also
came in the same period that
Farc announced it was ending
kidnapping, one of five preconditions for talks that had
been set down by Santos as a
gesture of goodwill.
Farc and the government
have been at war since 1964,
with the group more recently
accused of having taken a directing role in coca production
in areas it controls, an issue
that will be on the agenda for
the talks.
But in what is being billed as
the best chance to bring about
a negotiated end to the longrunning conflict, the Colombian government delegation
will sit down with Farc leaders whose Interpol arrest warrants have been suspended to
allow them to travel to Oslo
without fear of arrest.
The government delegation, for the first time ever,
will include retired generals
with the trust of the country’s
military and representatives
of Colombia’s business elite,
whose presence, it is hoped,
will help sell any peace deal
that emerges to those hostile
to the process.
After the failure of the last
round of peace negotiations,
which foundered 12 years ago,
top of the agenda will be the
issues of land reform – Farc’s
key demand – political participation, the disarmament
of the guerrilla group and the
issue of paramilitaries who
have in the past sought to torpedo any deal.
The disclosure of the key role
of Cuba in organizing support
for the peace process marked
the culmination of a long period of back-channel talks first
initiated by Santos’s predecessor as President, Alvaro Uribe,
under whom Santos served as
Minister of Defense.
During those four years
contacts continued despite the
death during an army operation of Farc’s leader, Alfonso
Cano, last year.
Others credited with having created the conditions for
the talks in Norway are unnamed former participants in
the Northern Ireland peace
process.
The talks are due to begin
amid warnings from both
sides, as well as observers,
that a serious threat exists
from those on both sides of Colombia’s political divide who
might attempt to use violence
to derail the process.
The attempt to reach a negotiated peace settlement foundered over a decade ago as
both sides accused the other of
stalling and rebuilding their
forces, a period, observers say,
that saw a doubling of antiFarc paramilitaries.
A senior Colombian government source described the
chances for talks as the best
ever, adding that the Santos
government had already enacted a new law for land reform
and victim restitution. “President Santos is a pragmatist. He
has already presented to congress a framework for an agreement. Colombia was already
moving into a post-conflict
phase, in some respects, even
as the conflict continues. It is
the right moment. Farc have
a historic opportunity – probably the last – to find a solution
to this conflict with dignity. To
go into history and say they
fought for social justice. To say
they fought for land reform.
We want to see ‘Timochenko’
[Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri,
who took over command
of Farc after Cano’s
death in 2011] in Colombia’s congress just as we
have seen Gerry Adams
in the Northern Ireland
assembly”.
The sense of a guarded
new optimism is shared
by outside observers, including Marc Chernick,
a US academic who has
followed the history of
Colombian peace negotiations and written The
Farc at the Negotiating
Table. Speaking from
Colombia on Friday,
Chernick said: “I’ve observed all the previous
negotiations and I have
been optimistic before,
but this time I believe
there is a real seriousness on both sides that
has not been shown before. In the past Farc has
always asked for a demilitarized zone as a precondition and this time it
has not pressed for that.
Four years ago it started
to release prisoners, first
civilians then military,
and then renounced kidnapping. Clearly they
want to talk. And they
stayed at the table for the prenegotiations even though three
senior leaders were killed, including Alfonso Cano”.
“Santos is clear, too. He was
former Minister of Defense
under President Uribe. They
pushed the war as hard as
they could and killed leaders.
Now he has recognized that it
will go on indefinitely. So Santos has come to the conclusion
that only a negotiated solution
is possible”.
Chernick – like the senior
government source – warned
of the risk of violence during
the peace talks from those,
particularly on the right, opposed to peace with Farc, not
least, he says, from paramilitaries who, although officially
“disbanded”, are still active
and supported by elite sectors
of society.
“What is different this time”,
added Chernick, “is that both
sides have signed up to the
idea that the intended end of
the peace talks is the end of
the conflict”.
.ŽsFriday, October 19, 2012
The artillery of ideas
T/ Javier Adler, Rebelion.org
T
he corporate media in
Spain can’t understand,
don’t want to understand, nor do they want their
readers to understand, what
just happened in Venezuela.
It can be no other way, since
Chavez is a leader who openly defies global capitalism,
the ecological niche within
which the private media
feeds. Let us begin by analyzing the example of Spain’s
El Pais, looking at its editorial line, and then look on to
other Spanish dailies.
EL PAIS
Titling its editorial “More
of Chavez”, Spanish daily El
Pais recently affirmed that
if Chavez governs through
2019 this will be “too many”
years in office. Too many for
who? It’s clearly not “too”
many for Venezuelans, who
just ratified him in office.
For other interests, including those behind El Pais, it
surely is. But in democracy,
which opinion should prevail? The thoughts of media
owners and foreign governments, or the will of a people
expressed through free and
fair elections?
According to El Pais,
Chavez has “used the powerful public media to stir up
resentments”. Well yes, in
the same way that the opposition has stirred up its resentments through the even
more powerful private media. Or is it not the case that
the means of communication
in Venezuela continue to be
mostly owned by private interests hostile to President
Chavez? Or are we expected
to keep believing the fable regarding the “independence”
of the private media? El Pais
is a case in point.
In one example of an El
Pais editorial filled with
blatant disregard for the
Venezuelan people, the paper writes, “it is not true
that Capriles represents the
comfortable classes. Instead,
he is the candidate of a wide
sector of society that rejects
the way Chavez mistreats democracy, manages the economy terribly, worsens public
safety, and aims to consolidate his so-called Bolivarian
Revolution”.
In other words, the majority of Venezuelans, those
who support Chavez, are
either idiots or masochists.
If not, how do they explain
that this majority continues
In Spain, anti-Chavez
propaganda continues
to vote on behalf of someone
who mistreats democracy,
mismanages the economy,
etc.? While it’s true that public
safety worries most Venezuelans, and that Chavez has not
been able to resolve this grave
problem, it is also true that
the rise in violent crime began
in the 1980’s, tripling before
Chavez was first elected President (1998). As a result, it is
also highly unlikely that Venezuelans trust a return of neoliberalism would somehow fix
the problem.
El Pais says more, making a
comparison that can only seem
viable to its most avid readers.
On the one hand, it describes
Chavez as “the ex coup monger” – citing the failed coup of
some 20 years ago (1992) – while
it predicts the opposition’s
Capriles would demonstrate
“a greater respect for the rules
of the democratic game”. Certainly El Pais was referring
to Capriles’ time as Mayor of
Baruta, during the 2002 coup
against Chavez, when the opposition candidate allowed a
group of people to lay siege on
the Cuban Embassy (located in
Baruta), destroying embassy
vehicles and cutting its access
to both water and electricity.
When the Cuban Ambassador
asked then Mayor Capriles for
assistance, not only did he do
nothing to stop the assault, but
he forced his way into the embassy using a ladder over the
wall and insisted on “inspecting” the premises for any Venezuelans possibly hiding in fear
of opposition violence. This is
Capriles’ “respect” for “democratic rules”, which through
ideological affinity, El Pais
must share.
And finally, let’s see what El
Pais has to say about the Chavez
government’s social programs.
“The single greatest factor in
his (Chavez’s) favor has been
social programs, carried out
with the invaluable support of
oil income. This is not a policy
that establishes solid bases for
future wealth creation and distribution, but it has reached
many people – a captive electoral audience”.
Or, in other words, Chavez
has bribed the majority of Venezuelans with “his” social programs. Oh, what fools! Fourteen
years and they haven’t realized
the trick!
If we really want to discuss
“solid bases”, then the entire
aforementioned paragraph is
clearly in short supply. This
is something most critical
readers already know – when
it comes to Venezuela, Cuba,
Bolivia, etc., the private media can say anything they
want, without limitations on
inventiveness, without any
restraints on the production
of fantasies and lies. If they
want to say that Chavez has
plunged Venezuela into total
misery, they do so, and that’s
it. No problem. If they want to
call Chavez a dictator, they go
right ahead. No one stops them
with a fact-based audit.
REALITY CHECK
Facts, however, are a problem for the corporate press. If
we look at redistribution, Venezuela is the country in Latin
America that has reduced inequality the most during the
last decade. In the words of
Alicia Barcena, President of
the Economic Commission for
Latin America and the Carib-
| Analysis
7
bean (CEPAL), “what is interesting is that Venezuela’s
policy of redistribution has
been sustained over time.
I believe the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela has
made a clear commitment,
definition, and orientation of
policy aimed at reducing the
income gap and achieving social equality”.
Poverty reduction, for example, is a major success of
the Chavez government. In
1998, 48% of Venezuelans
lived in poverty while another 21% lived in extreme poverty. By 2010, these figures
were reduced to 27% and 7%,
respectively. But this doesn’t
seem to matter to El Pais or
to its evaluation of “solid bases for wealth creation”. What
about university enrollment? This has tripled during Chavez’s time in office,
placing Venezuela second in
Latin America – after Cuba –
with respect to percent of the
populace enrolled in higher
education. This is also irrelevant for El Pais, which
doesn’t bother to back any of
its wildest assertions.
Other Spanish dailies including El Periodico, La Vanguardia, La Razon, and ABC
differ very little from the
El Pais editorial line. They
cite oil as the only reason
for Chavez’s success at the
polls and repeatedly mention baseless “symptoms of
fatigue” within the Venezuelan populace.
In short, within Spain’s
corporate media it is difficult to find any sort of selfevaluation or rectification
as it relates to Venezuela.
For 14 years they’ve repeated the same baseless discourse that has lost all credibility. How do they explain
that after years and years
of what they define “disastrous governance”, support
for Chavez continues to
grow? Can that many people
be fooled for that long? How
long can the press ignore
objective facts and still pretend to be objective media?
How do they find peace between their own perception
of themselves as ‘democrats’
while publishing an open
disregard for the people’s
will? Perhaps the answer
to these questions can be
found in the words of a former El Pais owner who, after earning 11 million euros
in 2011, fired 25% of the El
Pais workforce in a letter
stating, simply, “we cannot
continue living this well”.
Friday, October 19, 2012 | Nº 131 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve
INTERNATIONAL
!PUBLICATIONOFTHE&UNDACION#ORREODEL/RINOCOsEditor-in-Chief%VA'OLINGERsGraphic Design Pablo Valduciel L. - Aimara Aguilera
Opinion
How Western press distorts Venezuela
T/ Aaron Benedek - Green Left
Weekly
“V
enezuela
Elections
‘Free, But Not Fair’”,
was Germany’s Spiegel Online headline on a
piece about Venezuela’s October 7 presidential elections,
won by socialist President
Hugo Chavez by more than
55% of the vote. “Chavismo
wins, Venezuela loses”, was
The Wall Street Journal’s
take.
Compared with such
headlines, the Sydney
Morning Herald’s reprint
of a New York Times article “Socialist Chavez
hangs onto Power in Venezuela” by William Neuman might seem a reasonably balanced report.
It is not.
Note that politicians in
Australia or the US get reelected, but if you’re a socialist in Latin America
you “hold onto power”.
Then there is the article’s very first clause,
where we learn that
Chavez is a “fiery foe of
Washington”. Although
no doubt a badge of honor
for many, this language
still paints Chavez as
impassioned rather than
considered.
This, along with the article’s other main Chavez
descriptor of “polarizing”,
g”,
conveys an image of him beeing unreasonably confronn
tational and divisive in a
way that the also accurate
“a democratic leader who
has withstood Washington
orchestrated violence and
sabotage” does not.
And then there is the assumption that the first thing
to mention in an article
about a Venezuelan election
is Washington. The pitfalls
of your reportage coming
from the New York Times
perhaps.
The article does convey a
sense of joy on the street following Chavez’s re-election, but it’s
always “his ... revolution”, “his
version of socialism”.
That a large section of the
population feel some kind of
ownership over the process
of social transformation in
Venezuela is never acknowledged. The Venezuelan people
have agency in Neuman’s writing only if they’re part of the
opposition.
Moreover, in selecting quotes
and comments about Chavez
“reigning forever”, “guns being
fired into the air” and Chavez
being a “former soldier”, some
sense of violence and dicta-
re-elected for a third full presidential term by 11 percentage
points and holding a majority
in the National Assembly.
It is said the opposition “raised
the possibility that an upset
victory was within reach”. To
what extent the opposition relied on reprints of biased NYT
articles about Venezuela to
raise this sense of “possibility”
is difficult to quantify.
We are informed, as always,
that Chavez’s “health is a question mark”. Maybe he is going
to die soon! And maybe the
mainstream media will start
showing some human decency
and ease up on the celebrations
when an elected leader gets
cancer, but I would not hold my
breath for either.
“Facing
pressure
from
Mr Capriles”, Neuman says,
torship is still conveyed.
conveyed This
comes straight after Chavez
and his supporters once again
peacefully won what in any
other Western country would
be referred to as a landslide
electoral victory.
By contrast, we are informed
of the opposition’s “democratic
temperament” via the one full
quote the re-elected president
is afforded in the article.
What about a quote interpreting the election result
and the future for Venezuela?
Well there is one, just not from
Chavez. It’s from Henrique
Capriles, the opposition candidate who was resoundingly
defeated.
After the election, we’re told
Chavez is “ailing and politically weakened”, despite being
Chavez,
told, will now
Chavez we’re told
move forward “even more aggressively ... although his pledges were short on specifics”. For
Neuman, the specifics detailed
in the million or so copies of the
39-page plan for deepening popular participation and humancentered development over the
next six years that were distributed for mass discussion,
amendment and ratification by
the Venezuelan National Assembly early next year do not
count.
And how specific was the
opposition’s plan? Capriles’
pledge to maintain the
Chavez government’s social
programs the same ones the
opposition have violently opposed for a decade, but now
pledge to improve.
“[Chavez] pledged to ... pay
more attention to the quality
of government programs such
as education”.
In reality, the popularity of
the government’s social programs is such that Capriles had
to publicly say the opposition
was in favor of them, but leaked
opposition documents revealed
his plan to dismantle them.
Capriles had to pitch himself
as a leftist and the opposition
was forced to accept the election results due to the painstaking efforts to institute a
transparent electoral system
with unprecedented international supervision. But we are
told it was Capriles who pressured Chavez.
And better still, the same
opposition that denigrated the
literacy and other mass education campaigns of the past
decade is said to have forced
the government “to pay attention to quality education”.
We are told Chavez spent
much of the year insulting
“Capriles and his followers”
as “squalid good-for-nothings,
little Yankees and fascists”.
Left out is the opposition’s
regular jibes about Chavez’s
African facial features, his
“common” way of speaking or
his hilarious cancer-induced
baldness.
And anyway, was it really
the “Yankee and fascist”
credentials of the opposition
(that is, organizing a fascist
coup and
getting funding
a
from Washington) that
“represented
nearly
“re
half
hal the electorate” as
Neuman
claimed? Or
Neu
did those that voted
for Capriles do so for
a rrange of other reasons,
son not least among
them
the that the private
media
sold him as a
med
progressive
left-wing
pro
candidate?
can
At
A any rate, Chavez’s
insults,
we’re
told,
insu
“seemed
to lose their
“see
sting”
stin as the campaign
went
wen on (he can’t even
insult
insu effectively!) under the weight of the
opposition’s
growing
opp
“momentum”.
The
“mo
Chavez
campaign fillCha
ing Caracas’s seven
major
avenues with
maj
almost
certainly the
alm
largest
demonstration
larg
in V
Venezuela’s history
three days before the vote
clearly does
not constitute
d
momentum
worth mentionmomentu
ing for Neuman.
Ne
Through selection of evidence, bias language, omission, and unsubstantiated
claims, Neuman paints a
false picture and this is an article that, by comparison with
other Western media coverage, is relatively generous towards the Bolivarian process
that has halved poverty in
Venezuela.
Serious journalism regarding Venezuela requires
covering
the
significant
social achievements of the
revolution and an informed
discussion of its many shortcomings. Unfortunately, if
Neuman’s article is anything
to go by, the liberal corporate
media will not provide you
with either.