ENGLISH EDITION/The artillery of ideas INTERNATIONALFriday, March 7, 2014 | Nº 194 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve

Marches, parades and solemn events were held on Wednesday, March 5th, in remem-brance of President Hugo Chavez, who passed away one year ago. A large civil-military parade celebrated the leader’s legacy, as thousands of Venezuelans who have benefited from literacy and healthcare programs he founded took to the streets. Chavez was also honored at his tombsite in the 4F military barracks, where he remains upon the “Flow-er of Four Elements”, an intricately beautiful structure built for his resting place. Page 2

Peace conference eases tensions

In a move designed to end the violent protests that have affected a number of Venezuelan cities over the past 3 weeks, President Nicolas Maduro inaugurated a National Peace Conference last Thursday. Important members of the Venezuelan businesses community and the Catholic church were on hand for the encounter which has sought to discuss proposals to ease tensions in the nation and promote solutions to economic and security problems. Page 3

Politics

Celebrating Carnaval

Despite ongoing protests, most Venezuelans enjoyed Carnaval holidays this past week. Page 4

Security

Arrests made in protestsSeveral foreigners were amongst those arrested in violent protests in Venezuela. Page 5

Social Justice

Caracazo rememberedThousands of Venezuelans marched in remembrance of the Caracazo uprising in 1989. Page 6

Venezuelans commemorate Hugo Chavez a year after his passing, call for peace

Analysis:

The Washington Post promotes propaganda against venezuela Page 7

Opinion

Venezuela is notUkraine Page 8

Celebrating Chavez: modern independence hero

T/ Ryan Mallett-Outtrim

Venezuela has commemo-rated the one year an-

niversary of the death of former President Hugo Chavez with rallies across the country.

Supporters of the social-ist president turned out in hundreds of thousands for official commemoration ser-vices, despite ongoing oppo-sition protests.

In a show of force, in Ca-racas red crowds flooded the city center for military and civil parades. Supporters of social programs launched under Chavez, along with so-cial movements aligned with the government also rallied in the capital.

Representatives of neigh-boring governments attend-ed the commemorations, including Cuban president Raul Castro, Bolivia’s Evo Morales and officials from Ecuador, Argentina, Suri-name and others.

Rallies in honor of Chavez’s memory took part across the country. In the Andean city of Merida, several thousand marched to the central Plaza Bolivar. They chanted slo-gans such as “Chavez lives, the struggle goes on” and “this government will contin-ue”, in response to the oppo-sition marching chant “this government is going to fall”.

In the evening, the pre-miere of a new documentary by Oliver Stone on Chavez’s life titled “Mi Amigo Chavez” (My Friend Chavez) aired on TeleSUR and 10 networks worldwide.

President Nicolas Maduro described the late head of state as representative of the “greatest democratization of political life in the 200 years of the (Venezuelan) republic”.

“Never before in history was there a leader who au-thentically loved the people, who loved the humble and re-spected the poor”, he stated.

Polls show Venezuelans reject violence

T/ AVN

The most recent public opi-nion survey published by pollster Hinterlaces notes that 83% of Venezuelans reject violent street actions led by the opposition, said Hinterlaces Director Oscar Schemel.

“Around 83% of Venezuelans do not support violent protests”, Schemel said in an interview, where he also stressed that only 2 of 10 Venezuelans agree with “the idea of going out on the streets to provoke a rapid or immediate end to the government”.

“There is, definitively, a demo-cratic, constitutional [and] pea-ceful calling in a vast majority of Venezuelans”, he highlighted in referring to the survey.

“It is not true that civil society is out on the street. Protests have been focused in the opposition’s electoral base, and very particu-

larly, in the middle class, which is clearly not [representative of] the country”, Schemel continued.

“The Bolivarian Revolution still has very important levels of su-pport and backing in popular sec-tors...Voting continues to be dee-ply instilled in Venezuela’s political culture”, Schemel concluded.

The artillery of ideas2 Impact | Friday, March 7, 2014

T/ Eva GolingerP/ Presidential Press

A year has passed since the physical parting of Hugo Chavez and it’s still im-

possible to accept. His voice was a constant in revolution-ary Venezuela, his discourse was a school in continuous development. A humble man with a noble soul, Chavez had the courage of warriors and a heart filled with patriotism. He defied the most powerful interests without ever flinch-ing. His hand never trembled, he never bowed down, he was always firm with serenity and conviction, ready to confront the most powerful threats. His value was immense, a soldier of the people, a giant of centu-ries. Knowing him was a priv-ilege and a priceless treasure.

Chavez had an impact on the world, leaving his fin-gerprint in struggles and dreams of social justice, from north to south. His legacy is transcontinental, without borders. “Chavez” translates to a symbol of dignity in all languages.

I had the honor of accom-panying him on several of his international trips. I wit-nessed the massive support he received on almost every continent. His mere presence inspired millions. He repre-sented the dreams of so many struggles, so many commit-ments to humanity, and he proved that another world is possible.

All around the world peo-ple ran to see him up close, anxious to hear his words full of hope, simple yet full of profound intimacy. Chavez breathed love, and although millions received him with open arms, there were always dangerous threats around him. He was unpredictable, always a step ahead. Washing-ton called him a “wise compet-itor”, and coming from the US government that wasn’t only a compliment, but evidenced his grandeur. Not even the empire could control him.

In May 2006 I was on a book tour in Europe with the pub-lication of the German and Italian editions of my first book, The Chavez Code. While finishing up my events in Ger-many, I had the luck of coin-

A tribute

Chavez: A Giant under the Moonwas strict and they weren’t used to waiting. A while later, the presidential protocol folks asked me to go on stage with the rest of the delegation. We had to do something, they said, the people were waiting for too long to just leave them in limbo. I went to talk to the other mem-bers of the delegation, which in-cluding Nicolas Maduro, then President of the National As-sembly, legislator Juan Barreto and Planning and Development Minister Jorge Giordani. “They president is not coming”, they told me. “So what are we going to do now?”, I asked. “We can’t just go out there when they are expecting Chavez”.

Two hours had passed from the start time of the event and the public was restless. We went to talk to the organizers, a group of friendly European ac-tivists. We told them about the possibility that Chavez wouldn’t come. He was tired and already resting in the hotel, preparing for the heads of state summit the following day.

The news hit them like a rock. It wasn’t possible, they said. Never before in history had so many people come out to a public place to hear a head of state from anywhere. We had to understand the historic impor-tance of the moment.

We understood clearly that under no circumstances could we replace President Chavez before that crowd. It was Chavez or nothing, o better yet, it had to be Chavez, period. We took footage of the venue and thousands present, and we sent it with the Presidential Guard and the President’s assistants, asking them to please convey the importance of the event to him so he would come.

Two hours went by and it was now nighttime, but no one had left. People actually kept ar-riving. They stayed alert sing-ing “Uh Ah, Chávez no se va” in Spanish and in German, “Chávez geht nicht”.

After four hours under the beautiful full moon of Vienna, anxious for the arrival of the Comandante of the XXI century, there was movement. Chavez had seen the images and he un-derstood the magnitud of the moment and the importance of speaking before European youth. Despite his fatigue and lack of sleep, he appeared, radi-

ant, smiling as he looked upon the young crowd.

The arrival of the Presi-dent was met with an impres-sive applause from the public around 10pm. The brilliant light of the moon reflected on the awe and intensity of the faces in the crowd. Everyone was completely attentive, lis-tening hard to the Venezuelan leader. And President Chavez was inspired by the attention and dedication of the Vien-nese youth, and there outside “Arena”, he launched into a master class about building an international revolutionary movement. He talked about “The Triangle of Victory”, comprised of three principle factors: political objectives, strategy and power framed within conscientiousness, commitment and organiza-tion. Everyone stayed during the two hours that Chavez spoke, listening carefully to every detail about the interna-tional revolutionary project, showing their support and approval in applause, chants and smiles. “They accuse us of wanting to build an atomic bomb”, exclaimed Chavez. “But we aren’t interested in having atomic bombs. The em-pire can have all the atomic bombs. We don’t need an arse-nal of bombs to save the world. We are the atomic bombs! And above all, youth of the world, you are the atomic bombs...bombs of love, passion, ideas, strength, organization”.

Sixty-four European media outlets covered that historic event in Vienna. “The Che Gue-vara of the XXI century”, they called him, fascinated with what had happened that night under the full moon. Never before had a head of state gone out to the streets to speak with the people. Never before had so many people spontaneously gathered outdoors in Vienna to hear a head of state speak, let alone one from Latin America. Chavez brought the love and sincerity of the Venezuelan people to Austria, and the peo-ple of Vienna received him with open arms.

“You are going to save the world”, he affirmed. “Know that you are not alone here. Know that youth all around the world, who speak different languages, who are bathed in other colors, have the same calling as you...In Latin America, in Africa, in Asia...Youth of the world awak-en, workers of the world rise up, women rise up, students rise up. Let’s go together on the path of revolution!”

When he ended his speech, Chavez looked at the glorious full moon that had illuminat-ed the event. “Ah...”, he said. “That full moon, so beauti-ful, makes me want to grab a guitar and go with you all to the Danub river to sing until dawn”. The glimmer in his eyes gave away his sincer-ity. It was a special moment, those that occur only once in a lifetime. It seemed like an intimate gathering amongst friends, although most of us didn’t know each other. But, we shared a love for jus-tice and a dream for a better world. Chavez was just anoth-er brother in the fight for that dream.

Years later, Chavez’s in-ternational influence turned him into the number one en-emy of Washington. Some-one of his humility, sincerity, courage and conviction was not common, especially as the president of the country with the largest oil reserves on the planet. The threats against Chavez were constant, at-tempts against his life never ceased. There was a systemat-ic aggression against his gov-ernment from the most pow-erful interests in the world, together with their agents in Venezuela. They gave their all against Chavez. A leader of his stature, influence, strength and dignity, with an immense capacity for love, was danger-ous for the imperial agenda. They did what they could to neutralize him.

We may never know if his death was provoked or not, although enough evidence ex-ists to investigate. What we do know is that his mortal depar-ture was not a goodbye. Men like Chavez don’t disappear, though some wish they would. Chavez’s legacy lives today and grows beyond the Boli-varian Revolution. His voice is present in every cry for free-dom, his gaze is seen in brave young people who defy power-ful and dangerous interests to expose truths. His love is pres-ent in the solidarity and heart-felt commitment that millions feel for revolutionary Venezu-ela. His strength and dignity guide the defense of the Patria Grande, today under threat again from those who seek to erase us from history.

Chavez will never disappear. His presence will continue to grow and multiply in every sol-dier of peace, every warrior for justice. Smiling, with a heart of gold, Chavez will always be a giant under the moon.

ciding with President Chavez’s visit to Vienna, Austria for the Latin America-European Union summit.

I arrived at the hotel where the presidential delegation was staying and after greeting fa-miliar faces in the lobby, I went to my room to rest. An hour later, I went downstairs to see what was going on and to find out the president’s schedule. When I entered the lobby, the friendly presidential protocol officer informed me we would be leaving in a few moments. He asked me to join them in the caravan. I hadn’t yet seen the president but I assumed we were heading out before him to an event, so I got in the car with the delegation.

They took us to a place in the center of Vienna. When we arrived, we saw an enor-mous amount of people, mainly young, who were both outside and inside the venue. “What is this place?”, I asked. “It’s a pop-ular cultural center here called Arena”, I was told.

We got out of the car and saw thousands of people around the place. There was an event that evening with none other than President Hugo Chavez, leader of the Bolivarian Revolution. A while later, when we had entered the venue to see the impressive amount of people there, I was approached and told that I would be speaking at the event that night, there in front of the European crowd. “What an honor”, I thought, to participate in a public event in Vienna alongside Chavez.

The evening air was brisk and so many people kept ar-riving that they didn’t fit in the venue. The organizers decided they had to change the event from inside, where only 500 people fit, to right outside in a public square, where thousands could arrive. Never before had there been a phenomenon like this in Vienna. Thousands of European youth had gathered outdoors in a Viennese square to listen to a Latin American head of state. The quantity of people present was spectacu-lar. Chavez wasn’t just a Latin American leader, he was an in-ternational sensation.

Time went by and the Presi-dent didn’t arrive. People were getting anxious waiting for so long – punctuality in Austria

The artillery of ideasFriday, March 7, 2014 | Politics 3

T/ COIP/ Presidential Press

In an move designed to end the violent protests that have af-fected a number of Venezuelan

cities over the past 3 weeks, Pres-ident Nicolas Maduro inaugu-rated the government’s National Peace Conference last Thursday in the capital Caracas.

Important members of the Ven-ezuelan businesses community and the Catholic church were on hand for the encounter which has sought to discuss proposals to ease tensions in the nation and promote solutions to economic and security problems.

“We cannot wait until (vio-lent) acts and bickering esca-lates before we make a call to talk... We need to act early and for this reason I have called this National Peace Conference so that it takes on it’s own force”, The unrest began early last month when opposition groups in the Andean states of Tachira and Merida took to the streets to demonstrate against what they have decried as insecurity and the shortages of some basic food products.

From the onset, the demon-strations have had a violent character as government build-ings, health clinics, and securi-ty vehicles have been attacked by the protestors.

Barricades have been erect-ed by extremist elements of the right-wing movement in a handful of cities, prohibiting citizens’ access to health care, food supplies, and employment.

At least 17 people have been reportedly killed as a direct result of the demonstrations in-cluding both government sup-porters and opposition backers.

An untold number of resi-dents have also died due to the inability to receive proper med-ical attention because of the transit blockades imposed by the protestors.

Members of the United So-cialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) have condemned the acts which they have attribut-ed to an attempted coup d’etat, pointing out that the vast ma-jority of the protests have tak-en place in middle and upper-class neighborhoods.

The government has re-sponded to the demonstrations by calling for marches by work-ers, farmers, students and oth-er sectors demanding an end to the violence.

The National Guard has also been mobilized to restore

National Peace Conference launched in Caracas

order in the few areas where the protests have been partic-ularly aggressive.

According to the govern-ment, 72 people have been ar-rested for acts associated with the violence.

Last Thursday’s inaugura-tion of the on-going National Peace Conference has formed another prong of the Maduro administration’s plan to quell the disorder.

But the call to discuss the is-sues at hand have rung hollow with many of those who have actively encouraged the anti-government demonstrations.

While some members of the Venezuelan opposition at-tended the launch of the con-ference, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) coalition decided to boycott the initia-

tive, calling the encounter “a rehearsal” that would “mock” it’s members.

Maduro informed on Thurs-day that, while the opposition coalition had been invited to participate, the conference is meant to reach all social sec-tors, not only political factions.

“This is not a dialogue be-tween the United Socialist Par-ty of Venezuela... and the Demo-cratic Unity Roundtable. They (the opposition) will also be welcome but this goes beyond parties. We must advance to-wards a model which incorpo-rates different sectors because we can’t allow our society to go over the cliff of violence”, the Venezuelan President said.

Maduro further called for the creation of a Coordinating and Liaison Commission to reach

out to other social organizations to encourage their attendance in the conference’s meetings.

ECONOMIC TRUTH COMMISSIONThe Peace Conference saw the

attendance of Jorge Roig Presi-dent of the conservative cham-ber of commerce, FEDECAMA-RAS, as well as the presence of Lorenzo Mendoza, President of Empresas Polar, Venezuela’s largest food distributor.

Mendoza proposed the for-mation of an Economic Truth Commission to evaluate the state of private business in the country and to work with the government to find solutions to common problems.

“From an economic perspec-tive, it’s important that we establish an honest and fluid dialogue... We’re going to have a robust country in which the upright citizenry prospers and has the necessities which it re-quires... What we are lacking is that there is peace for economic actors”, the billionaire said.

For his part, President Ma-duro expressed his willing-ness to work with the business community to propose concrete ways for the Venezuelan econo-my to continue to grow and to root out the speculation, hoard-ing, and contraband that has prohibited the availability of certain goods.

“We’re going to create a com-mission for economic truth and we’re going to concentrate on stopping the violence... Let’s

establish a high level of respect for the constitution and concen-trate on the economy. I’m pre-pared to do this and I want to do it”, the head of state affirmed.

FEDECAMARAS President Roig also articulated his or-ganization’s willingness to collaborate with government initiatives.

“The tone with which you have addressed the country today is the tone that a head of state must have”, Roig said of the Venezuelan President.

“You must listen to the dif-ferent voices that accompany you... FEDECAMARAS is not going to substitute any govern-ment, and no government is going substitute FEDECAMA-RAS”, he commented.

Tibisay Lucena, President of Venezuela’s National Electoral Commission (CNE) took ad-vantage of the meeting to urge Venezuelans to abandon the anti-democratic actions that have shaken the nation in re-cent weeks.

“The electoral branch has joined the movement for peace... I want to remind the country that we are men and women of peace”, the CNE head asserted.

“In this country we haven’t had a war for more than a cen-tury and we’ve decided to re-solve our differences through voting... The Venezuelan people have chosen their representa-tives through the weapon which the constitution has given them - suffrage”, Lucena said.

The artillery of ideas4 Politics | Friday, March 7, 2014

T/ COIP/ Agencies

Undeterred by violent street protests orchestrated by

extremist elements of the na-tion’s opposition, millions of Venezuelans took part in the traditional vacation activities associated with Carnaval last weekend.

The Mardi Gras celebrations saw thousands of beach goers enjoy the sun and sand of the Caribbean nation’s expansive coastline as well as scores of parades, costumes and enter-tainment for children in the country’s urban areas.

“Carnaval is a cultural right of the people and an opportu-nity for happiness for our chil-dren and the entire Venezuelan family”, President Nicolas Ma-duro wrote via his Twitter ac-count on Friday.

The Venezuelan President had assured the nation that the small minority of violent protes-

Venezuelans enjoy Carnaval despite extremist threats to peace

tors who have captured inter-national headlines with aggres-sive and illegal street activities would not succeed in preventing the yearly celebrations.

As such, Maduro decreed last Thursday and Friday national vacation days, adding 2 days to the traditional holiday period of Saturday through Tuesday.

Venezuelans took advantage of the extended time off to visit tourist locations throughout the nation, with the country’s beaches receiving the greatest number of vacationers.

Tourism Minister Andres Izarra informed that prelimi-nary data indicates that Ven-ezuela’s Simon Bolivar Interna-tional Airport has registered a 5.6% growth in domestic and in-ternational travel for Carnaval with respect to last year.

“This large mobilization of tourists who are taking part in Carnaval are showing that those engaged in violence are a minority. They are closed-in and becoming more and more

isolated. I’m saying today... that the violent street protests have been defeated by the people’s happiness”, Izarra de-clared on Monday.

Minister for Indigenous Af-fairs, Aloha Nunez, echoed Izarra’s affirmation, stating that in the Eastern regions of the country, residents have enjoyed the weekend’s activities “despite the small group of fascists who want to take the celebrations away from the people”.

“Here, everyone is having a good time with their family, in peace. Nobody is going to take that away from the Venezuelan people. Here we have a govern-ment that is going to guaran-tee the revolution”, Nunez said from the capital of the state of Delta Amacuro, Tucupita.

Heightened security details went into effect to ensure safe-ty for vacationers and other social programs of the na-tional government were also deployed to provide plenty of free entertainment as well as supplies for the fiestas.

Food Minister Felix Oso-rio informed on Saturday that more than one thousand open-air markets had been

established to distribute products to residents during the holiday.

Nearly 7,000 tons of fair-priced food was made available through the markets which form part of the government’s country-wide network of prod-uct distribution.

Osorio commented that the government has invested 18 million bolivars ($2.8 million) “in order to maintain the price

of the food at 85% less than spec-ulative prices” being offered in the private market.

“We have vegetables, fish and seafood, meat, a mobile kitchen... [We’re working] with the Land and Agricul-ture Ministry, the Food Min-istry, the Ministry of Defense, and the Government of the Capital District”, Osorio said while attending a public mar-ket in Caracas.

T/ COIP/ Agencies

Foreign Minister Elias Jaua rejected claims last Sun-day that the Venezuelan

government has been engaged in human rights violations as it responds to violent protests that have attempted to bring down the democratically elect-ed government of President Ni-colas Maduro.

Jaua’s declarations were given in front of the United Na-tion’s Human Rights Commis-sion’s 25th meeting in Geneva.

In his address, the Venezu-elan diplomat criticized the ef-forts of the international media and other actors to discredit the South American nation’s gov-ernment by falsely accusing the state’s security forces of ram-pant human rights violations.

Such allegations have no basis in truth, Jaua pointed out, citing that the use of vio-lence, vandalism, and illegal barricades by opposition pro-testors have been the true danger to peace and democ-racy in the country.

According to the former Vice President, the government has a duty to restore order to areas that have been victimized by

Venezuela defends human rights record before UN

flagrant criminal activity and has done so with restraint, es-pecially when compared to re-sponses seen in other countries to similar activity.

The discourse of human rights, he said, is being used “to undermine understanding between nations and violating the norms and principles of the United Nations charter by being detrimental to interna-tional peace”.

Upon meeting with UN Gen-eral Secretary Ban Ki-Moon, Jaua reaffirmed his govern-

ment’s “firm commitment to dialogue” and cited the Maduro administration’s convocation of a peace conference as an ex-ample of reaching out to opposi-tion sectors.

“The international com-munity needs to know that the nature of the aggression against democracy is politi-cal, ideological, and its goal is to overthrow a legitimately established government”, the Foreign Minister said.

Jaua’s trip to Switzerland fol-lowed a tour of the South Amer-

ican nations that form part of the MERCOSUR trade alliance last week.

This includes full member states Brazil, Argentina, Uru-guay and Paraguay, as well as participating nations Bolivia, Suriname and Guyana.

“In the 7 countries that we have visited, we have found un-derstanding, solidarity, support for Venezuelan democracy, sup-port for the Venezuelan people, and support for the legitimate government of President Nico-las Maduro”, he stated.

During the trip, the min-ister called for a summit of the Union of South American nations (UNASUR) regional alliance to deal specifically with the question of Venezu-ela’s latest round of violent protests.

The request has come in response to proposals from Washington and the Venezu-elan opposition that have ap-pealed to the Organization of American States (OAS) to spearhead efforts to ease ten-sions in the country.

The Maduro administra-tion has argued that the dis-proportionate influence that the US exercises in the OAS and the organization’s track record of permissiveness with respect to coup d’etats in the region suggests that the UNASUR alliance would be a better venue for discussing the Venezuelan situation.

UNASUR has been success-ful, Jaua notes, in resolving political conflicts between member nations including dip-lomatic crises that both Ecua-dor and Venezuela have had with Colombia.

“Our North is the South”, the Foreign Minister said on Friday.

The artillery of ideasFriday, March 7, 2014 | Security 5

T/ Paul DobsonP/ Agencies

As Venezuelans attempt to cre-ate an atmosphere of dialogue,

peace, and democratic respect, evidence has been made public regarding the participation of foreigners and paramilitaries in the attempt to overthrow the government of Nicolas Maduro led by extremist factions of the opposition.

In the violent protests (called “guarimbas” in Venezuela) in middle and upper class neigh-borhoods in Caracas, eight foreigners were detained this week. The announcement was made by President Maduro.

“An operation of the Bo-livarian National Guard in Altamira Square in Caracas achieved the arrest of 41 gua-rimberos, of which 8 are for-eigners, some of who are being

sought for for international terrorism”, he tweeted. Inter-pol has been informed.

The protests in Altamira caused public infrastructure damage, blocked off major road-ways, and were responsible for violent aggressions against the public and National Guard, including the use of firearms, molotov cocktails and stones.

The National Guard reported that the foreigners have been passed onto the intelligence authorities for investigation. Two of those arrested have since been released: North American Andrew Rosati from the Miami Herald newspaper was released half an hour af-ter his arrest, and Italian pho-tographer Francesca Commi was released the following day. More details regarding the re-maining six are expected to be released shortly.

In the city of Maracay, 2 hours from Caracas, three other foreigners involved in the violent protests were re-cently captured and are to stand trial here in Venezuela. Jayssam Mokded and two com-panions, all of Middle Eastern origins, were captured “with convincing evidence that they were going to perpetrate ter-rorist acts”, revealed gover-nor, Tarek El Aissami.

The men were found with “communication devices from the US and Colombia”, “bank transfer vouchers for hun-dreds of thousands of dollars to the US and other destinations”, bomb making equipment, and 11 international telephones. “They were preparing to place car bombs, to fill our country with violence and try to lead us to craziness”, denounced Presi-dent Maduro.

In the Venezuelan-Colom-bian border, similar findings have been made public showing the participation of Colombian paramilitaries in the violence.

In the border state of Tachi-ra, which is undergoing some of the most violent protests, state governor Jose Vielma Mora declared that “Colom-bian paramilitaries, terror-ists, experts, have joined the protests. They wanted to destroy an electrical substa-

tion which would have meant that 63,000 people would have been without electricity for at least 6 weeks”.

In declarations on the conti-nental Telesur news network, Vielma Mora suggested that more than 120 paramilitar-ies have been shipped in from neighboring Colombia, a coun-try that has undergone de-cades of civil war between left-ist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries.

Foreigners, paramilitaries arrestedin violent opposition protests

T/ Ryan Mallett-OuttrimP/ Agencies

The Caracas metro system has undergone major main-tenance work with limited

impact on passengers, despite repeated attacks on stations by violent opposition groups.

Maintenance work was scheduled between Thurs-day, February 27 and Tuesday March 4, coinciding with the long weekend of carnival cel-ebrations. While many Ven-ezuelans took advantage of the six-day holiday to head to the beach or cultural festivals, 400 metro workers rotated on a 24-hour schedule to complete 1200 different maintenance jobs by the Tuesday deadline.

However, on Monday the transport minister Haiman El Troudi announced that work was running ahead of sched-ule, with 95% of maintenance already being completed. According to El Troudi, the maintenance mostly consisted of preventive works. Repairs were made to 79 metro sta-tions, 42 electrical substations,

the Cabletren and MetroCable systems and even MetroBus. Escalators, carriages and other components of the metro sys-tem also underwent work.

“For example, we have 323 escalators and all are under preventive maintenance, but specifically, deep mainte-nance is being done on 72”, El Troudi stated.

“We have a total fleet of 117 trains... and thorough main-tenance was done on 89”, he said. However, he also pointed

out that part of the mainte-nance plan involved “beauti-fication” of trains.

The Caracas metro system normally carries around two million passengers daily. How-ever, authorities expected low-er demand over the six-day car-nival holiday. Later this year authorities expect to add new trains and buses to the capital’s public transport system.

Along with praising workers for completing jobs ahead of schedule, during an inspection

on Monday El Troudi explained that until three years ago, maintenance was contracted to foreign companies. “Now the Caracas metro has a com-prehensive maintenance plan that we created ourselves”, El Troudi stated.

“We have broken the depen-dency [on foreign companies], and now we do the mainte-nance ourselves from a logic of sovereignty – to the point that 40% of spare parts...and sup-plies required by the system are produced in the country”, the minister explained.

The maintenance ran ahead of schedule despite repeated attacks on public transport in recent weeks. Metro sta-tions including Chacao, Alta-mira and Los Cortijos were all forced to close due to vandal-ism amid violent clashes in the days after 12 February. More than 30 public transport work-ers were injured last month, while over 40 metro buses were attacked with rocks. Ac-cording to a statement by El Troudi last month, more than a dozen passengers had been

Caracas Metro repaired despite opposition attacks

injured during the attacks. Some bus services around the capital have been suspended in recent weeks, particularly in the east of the city. Attacks have continued this week, with state media reporting on Monday an incident of violent groups attempting to disrupt a BusCaracas service.

On Monday, El Troudi con-demned attacks on public transport as the “height of ir-rationality”, and against the interests of the majority of the population. The minister urged opposition leaders to condemn attacks against pub-lic transport.

This week he also called on violent opposition groups to “lay down their hostile at-titude” towards the public transport system. However, he also expressed optimism that attacks are becoming less fre-quent, and stated that most ser-vices damaged by vandalism have since been repaired, and are now operational.

“For days we have been oper-ating normally”, he stated. “Un-til recently we were subjected to violent, disproportionate and unreasonable attacks by a minority group that appeals to violence and destabilization as a political weapon”, he stated.

“It is absurd to attack a pub-lic service that transports everyone regardless of their political persuasion”, the min-ister said.

The artillery of ideas6 Social Justice | Friday, March 7, 2014

T/ Ewan Robertsonwww.venezuelanalysis.comP/ Presidential Press

Last Thursday Venezuelans marked 25 years since the mass rebellion known as

the “Caracazo” against neolib-eral policies, and the massacre of civilians at the hands of secu-rity forces that followed.

On February 27, 1989 protests, riots and looting broke out in Caracas and other cities across Venezuela. More than half of the population lived in poverty at the time, and some who lived in extreme poverty resorted to dog food or spaghetti water to fill their stomachs.

The spark that set off the protests was the announce-ment of an International Mon-etary Fund (IMF) “structural adjustment package” by the government of Carlos Andres Perez, which had recently as-sumed office. Transport, fuel, and utilities prices were all to increase, while price caps on some basic goods were to be lifted.

This was part of a plan which would also privatize utility com-panies, remove import tariffs,

Venezuela marks 25 years since“Caracazo” uprising against neoliberalism

lift exchange controls, liberate interest rates, and attempt to reduce the fiscal deficit.

To control the uprising, Car-los Andres Perez declared a state of emergency and sent the army onto the streets to quell the riots. In the massacre that followed, estimates of those killed range from 300 to 3,000.

Many consider that the politi-cal and social impact of the up-rising and repression led to the downfall of the reigning two-party system and the election

of Hugo Chavez as Venezuelan President in 1998.

LOOKING BACK, LOOKING FORWARD

“The people who were massa-cred 25 years ago are the revo-lutionary people that today are constructing Bolivarian social-ism, that is being consolidated this century”, wrote President Nicolas Maduro on Twitter. “The people broke their bind-ings and said “enough of neo-liberalism”. They were massa-

T/ Peter Hart - FAIR

It's fair to say that the complex anti-government protest move-

ments in both Venezuela and Ukraine were boiled down by US corporate media to send a clear message to their domestic audi-ence: These are the good guys.

In Ukraine, the takeaway was that there are two sides, and the people seeking to topple the government (successfully, as it turned out) wanted to be more like us. On NBC Nightly News (2/18/14), correspon-dent Richard Engel explained: "The Ukrainian government is backed by Moscow. The protest-ers want closer ties with Europe and the United States”.

ABC World News correspon-dent Terry Moran (2/19/14) framed it this way:

“Not good.Will this country of 46 mil-

lion people turn West toward

The good kind of protesters–and the bad kind

the US and Europe and democ-racy, or turn East to Vladimir Putin and Russia, which ruled here for centuries?"

And ABC anchor Diane Sawyer(2/20/14) called it

“an unremitting duel be-tween protesters who say they want Western freedom and po-lice enforcing the alliance with Russia and Russia's President Vladimir Putin and all that he represents”.

This casting of the conflict is obviously simplistic. There is a case to be made that now-de-posed Yanukovych spurned an economic deal with the Euro-pean Union–one that he seemed inclined to accept weeks earli-er–because it was insufficient to deal with the scale of the country's economic problems (Reuters, 12/19/13), which made Putin's offer more attractive.

That is not to suggest that anti-government protesters

do not have serious griev-ances with the state of their country. Likewise, it has to be said that, for all the portraits of a movement that wants US-style freedoms, a substantial minority of the protest move-ment is drawn from fascist and neo-Nazi factions (Guard-ian, 1/29/14; Slate, 2/20/14).

In Venezuela, meanwhile, demonstrators are similar-ly labeled. Here's Mariana Atencio on ABC World News (2/23/14):

“It's been 12 straight days of violent clashes here in Venezu-ela. On one side, students and the middle class. On the other, police and pro-government groups, followers of the party of anti-American President Hugo Chavez”.

So it's students versus people who support the "anti-Amer-ican" government–not diffi-cult to figure out whose side you're supposed to take. Nor did Newsweek (2/21/14) leave much doubt when it described protest leader Leopoldo Lopez this way:

“With twinkling choco-late-colored eyes and high cheekbones, López seems to have it all: an attractive and supportive wife, two chil-dren who get along with each other and impossibly ador-able Labrador puppies. He is charismatic, athletic and good-looking”.

In the Washington Post (2/26/14), the Venezuelan pro-tests were portrayed as a reac-tion to the country's "hangover from 14 years of Chavez rule: a country with not enough milk or sugar in the supermarkets and far too many carjackings and murders in the streets".

If that were the most impor-tant legacy of the past dozen years, you'd expect the entire country to be protesting–and it'd be hard to fathom how Chavez and current president Nicolas Maduro managed to win numerous elections. But in truth, by many indicators, life for poor Venezuelans sharply improved during the Chavez years (FAIR Media Advisory, 3/6/13), which ex-

plains their support for his party.

But the lesson is these are protest movements–despite adopting militant and in some cases quite violent tactics–that US media by and large were cheering.

In the midst of these conflicts, a new report from Amnesty International (2/27/14) on Is-raeli violence in the West Bank "documented the killings of 22 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank last year, at least 14 of which were in the context of protests". The report received minimal coverage in the US press, though–and perhaps be-cause–it raised profound ques-tions about how a close US ally attacks protesters against mili-tary occupation.

Would the US press champion the cause of Palestinian demon-strators, or criticize harsh Is-raeli response to dissent? How about actually cheering on vio-lent Palestinian resistance? It is simply unfathomable–Pales-tinians are the wrong kind of protester.

cred but not defeated, and there began this revolution of the 21st century”, he continued.

In a march in Caracas at-tended by grassroots activists, government and army officials, Manuel Saenz of the work-ing class 23 de Enero district argued that the Caracazo has great importance for under-standing Venezuela today.

“The rebellion was the push that was needed so that a revo-lution like the Bolivarian one came along…to get to where we

are now, many fought, many had to go out that February 27th and say an overwhelming 'no' to neoliberal impositions and 'no' to inequality”, he said to AVN.

As part of efforts the Boli-varian government has un-dertaken to make reparations for the actions of the state during the Caracazo, officials announced on Thursday that a further 112 family members of Caracazo victims would re-ceive indemnification.

The artillery of ideas Friday, March 7, 2014 | Analysis 7

T/ Murtaza Hussain - The Intercept

The Washington Post’s Feb. 19 article about the recent spate of unrest in Venezu-

ela took a breathlessly lauda-tory stance towards the opposi-tion against President Nicolas Maduro. The opening para-graphs offer a good indication of its tenor:

“Leopoldo Lopez, the defiant Venezuelan opposition leader taken into custody Tuesday in front of thousands of anti-government protesters, spent last night in a prison on a mil-itary base.

But even there, the govern-ment couldn’t shut him up….

It was the kind of passionate, personal appeal and call to ac-tion that showed exactly why the Harvard-educated Lopez has been at the center of the most serious challenge yet to the struggling Maduro, succes-sor to the late Hugo Chavez”.

The piece continues in a simi-larly effusive manner through-out; but what’s most interesting about it are the sources which the authors choose to cite as impartial experts. Not only do they appear hostile to the Ven-ezuelan government and sup-portive of the opposition, they also appear to have serious, unstated conflicts of interest that cast doubt on the integrity of the Washington Post‘s entire reportage on this issue.

At one point, the article quotes Michael Shifter “president of Inter-American Dialogue, a think-tank in Washington”, as giving the following analysis of the situation: “Lopez is say-ing, ‘this is intolerable, let’s not be resigned to it.’… He felt this was his moment to act, to take to the streets.” Going further, the piece also quotes Moises Naim – omitting to mention that he too is a member of the Inter-American Dialogue – ex-coriating the previous opposi-tion leader for not going far enough in challenging Maduro when he had the opportunity.

What the authors failed to explain is that the Inter-Amer-ican Dialogue is a think-tank whose members happen to include several officials from Venezuela’s previous govern-ment – the same one deposed

by Hugo Chavez’s Bolivar-ian Revolution. Even more distressingly, the Dialogue counts among its funders orga-nizations such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron, the US government through USAID, and the em-bassies of Canada, Mexico and Guatemala among others.

That these groups have dis-tinct political and financial in-terests in Venezuela casts some doubt on the impartiality of the viewpoints their funded ana-lysts produce. Indeed, a 2006 diplomatic cable revealed by WikiLeaks uncovered the fact that US officials were planning to implement a “5-point strat-egy” to undermine the Chavez government, specifically using USAID as a means to accom-plish this. That USAID also happens to be a prime funder of the Inter-American Dialogue raises some serious questions about its unstated mission in the country.

For his part, Shifter has be-come a high-profile public crit-ic of the Maduro administra-tion in the mainstream press, where his organization is still depicted as a benign, “nonpar-tisan policy group”.

Indeed, a 2012 study by Fair-ness and Accuracy in Report-ing (FAIR) documented both Shifter’s political and corpo-rate connections as well as the breadth of his reach in the media, remarking that, “What he says is very likely indistin-guishable from the views of the monied interests backing his think tank.“ His appear-ance in the Washington Post

last week was far from an ab-erration. He — along with oth-ers from the Dialogue — are regularly cited in articles on the region and Shifter himself has penned articles for the New York Times, Foreign Pol-icy and others. In a 2005 op-ed in the Post he wrote:

“Chavez is aggressively using rhetoric that bashes the Bush administration and claims the banner of social justice to con-solidate his power…The chal-lenge for US policy is to contest the validity of Chavez’s claims and his grandiose but wrong-headed designs”.

Not to be outdone, Moises Naim also took to the pages of Post in 2011 to publish an article entitled “Imagining a World Without Hugo Chavez“, forecasting his death and the continued empowerment of his elected government. At one point, Naim laments American hesitance to involve itself more forcefully in Venezuelan poli-tics due to its entanglements elsewhere saying:

“[W]hat role would Chavez’s opponents play in a transi-tion? These include the grow-ing segment of Venezuela’s civil society that opposes him — especially the student move-ment and a new breed of young leaders — and, of course, the United States. In both cases, their influence would probably be limited: The former lacks guns, thugs or money; the lat-ter is too busy dealing with cri-ses elsewhere”.

That the sources of this sup-posedly expert analysis are

funded by corporations and governments openly hostile to the Venezuelan government, and which have even attempt-ed its overthrow in the past, would appear to be a fairly glaring omission.

A Washington Post reader emailed the co-author of the story, Post staff writer Nick Miroff, asking why he didn’t explain the Inter-American Dialogue’s ties to Venezuela’s opposition and to business in-terests. In an email that made its way to The Intercept, Miroff wrote back that he didn’t think it necessary. (Contacted by The Intercept, Miroff confirmed the email was his, but said we did not have his permission to publish it. We don’t need his permission.)

Miroff wrote that he “quoted Michael Shifter for the simple reason that he’s a terrific Lat-in America analyst, and often has smart, thoughtful obser-vations to share”. He pointed out that he stated in the story that Shifter had known Lopez for many years, “signaling to readers that he has a personal relationship with him.” He continued:

“As for his organization re-ceiving money from oil com-panies, or USAID, I think it’s relevant, but not necessarily worth spending ink on. A LOT of DC think tanks and univer-sities and NGOs receive mon-ey from oil companies and other interests. Do we need to disclose all of those affilia-tions, every time? Chevron is one of the biggest foreign oil

companies working in Ven-ezuela and paying royalty $ to the government”.

Miroff praised what he called “a good question”, but conclud-ed that “I think in many cases it’s up to the reader to look up the organization and decide whether or not they think the comments are colored by do-nor interests. In Shifter’s case, I don’t believe they are”.

So there you have it: Because the infiltration of oil compa-nies and other vested interests in policymaking has become so entrenched, there’s no point even mentioning it anymore. That Michael Shifter runs an organization funded by many of the same corporations and governments which have open conflicts with the Venezuelan government is apparently im-material to him also providing expert analysis on political de-velopments in Venezuela.

Even more incredibly, his colleague at the Inter-Ameri-can Dialogue Moises Naim was formerly Venezuela’s Minister of Trade and Industry during the tenure of President Carlos Andrés Pérez – a leader who was deposed by Chavez and who presided over the mas-sacre of hundreds of unarmed protestors in the country. Nonetheless, his commentary has been included without even the slightest acknowledgment of what appears to be a deeply prejudicial history.

None of this is written nec-essarily as a defence of the Venezuelan government or a commentary on events in that country, but rather to demon-strate the fundamental inca-pacity of the mainstream me-dia to cover this story in a way that is not corrupted by corpo-rate and political interests.

The corrosive influence of corporations and govern-ment in the news media has long been documented. The establishment press has dem-onstrated time and again its reflex to serve as a tool of powerful vested interests, and to act essentially as the communications arm of US foreign policy. The Washing-ton Post‘s coverage is just the most glaring and recent ex-ample of such behavior.

The Washington Post uses biased expertsto promote propaganda on Venezuela

Editor-in-Chief Graphic Design Pablo Valduciel L. - Aimara Aguilera - Audra Ramones

INTERNATIONAL Friday, March 7, 2014 | Nº 194 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve

Opinion

T/ Mark Weisbrot

The current protests in Ven-ezuela are reminiscent of another historical moment

when street protests were used by right-wing politicians as part of an attempt to overthrow the elected government. From December of 2002 through Feb-ruary 2003, there was strike of mostly white-collar workers at the national oil industry, along with some business owners. The US media made it look like most of the country was on strike against the government, when, in fact, it was less than one per-cent of the labor force.

The spread of cell phone vid-eos and social media in the past decade has made it more diffi-cult to misrepresent things that can be easily captured on cam-era. But Venezuela is still gross-ly distorted in the major media. The New York Times had to run a correction last week for an article that began with a state-ment about “The only television station that regularly broadcast voices critical of the government …” As it turns out,all of the pri-vate TV stations “regularly broadcast voices critical of the government”. And private me-dia has more than 90% of the TV-viewing audience in Venezuela. A study by the Carter Center of the presidential election cam-paign period last April showed a 57 to 34% advantage in TV cov-erage for President Maduro over challenger Henrique Capriles in the April election, but that advantage is greatly reduced or eliminated whenaudience shares are taken into account.

Although there are abuses of power and problems with the rule of law in Venezuela – as there are throughout the hemisphere – it is far from the authoritarian state that most consumers of western media are led to believe. Opposition leaders currently aim to topple the democratically elected gov-ernment – their stated goal – by portraying it as a repressive dictatorship that is cracking down on peaceful protest. This is a standard “regime change” strategy, which often includes violent demonstrations in order to provoke state violence.

The latest official numbers have eight confirmed deaths of opposition protesters, but no ev-idence that these were a result of efforts by the government to crush dissent. At least two pro-government people have also been killed, and two people on

motorcycles were killed (one be-headed) by wires allegedly set up by protesters. Eleven of the 55 people currently detained for alleged crimes during protests are security officers.

Of course violence from either side is deplorable, and detained protesters – including their leader, Leopoldo Lopez – should be released on bail unless there is legal and justifiable cause for pre-trial detention. But it is dif-ficult to argue from the evidence that the government is trying to suppress peaceful protest.

From 1999-2003, the Venezu-elan opposition had a strategy of “military takeover”, according to Teodoro Petkoff, a leading op-position journalist who edits the daily Tal Cual. This included the military coup of April 2002 and the oil and business own-ers strike from December 2002 - February 2003, which crippled the economy. Although the op-position eventually opted for an electoral route to power, it was not the kind of process that one sees in most democracies, where opposition parties accept the le-gitimacy of the elected govern-

ment and seek to co-operate on at least some common goals.

One of the most important forces that has encouraged this extreme polarization has been the US government. It is true that other left governments that have implemented progressive eco-nomic changes have also been politically polarized: Bolivia, Ecuador, and Argentina for ex-ample. And there have been vio-lent right-wing destabilization efforts in Bolivia and Ecuador. But Washington has been more committed to “regime change” in Venezuela than anywhere else in South America – not sur-prisingly, given that it is sitting on the largest oil reserves in the world. And that has always given opposition politicians a strong incentive to not work within the democratic system.

Venezuela is not Ukraine, where opposition leaders could be seen publicly collaborating with US officials in their efforts to topple the government, and pay no obvious price for it. Of course, US support has helped Venezuela’s opposition with funding: one can find about $90

million in US funding to Ven-ezuela since 2000, just looking through US government docu-ments available on the web, including $5m in the current federal budget. Pressure for opposition unity and tactical and strategic advice also helps: Washington has decades of ex-perience overthrowing govern-ments, and this is a specialized knowledge that you can’t learn in graduate school. Even more important is its enormous influ-ence on international media and therefore public opinion.

When John Kerry reversed his position in April and recog-nized the Venezuelan election results, that spelled the end of the opposition’s campaign for non-recognition. But the opposi-tion leadership’s closeness to the US government is also a liability in a country that was the first to lead South America’s “second independence” that began with the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998. In a country like Ukraine, political leaders could always point to Russia as a threat to na-tional independence; attempts by Venezuelan opposition lead-

ers to portray Cuba as a threat to Venezuelan sovereignty are laughable. It is only the United States that threatens Venezu-ela’s independence, as Washing-ton fights to regain control over a region that it has lost.

Eleven years since the oil strike, the dividing lines in 2002 have not changed all that much. There is the obvious class di-vide, and there is still noticeable difference in skin color between opposition (whiter) and pro-government crowds – not sur-prising in a country and region where income and race are often highly correlated.

In the leadership, one side is part of a regional anti-imperial-ist alliance; the other has Wash-ington as an ally. And yes, there is a big difference between the two leaderships in their respect for hard-won electoral democ-racy, as the current struggle il-lustrates. For Latin America, it is a classic divide between left and right.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles tried to bridge this di-vide with a makeover, morphing from his prior right-wing incar-nation into Venezuela’s Lula in his presidential campaigns, praising Chavez’s social pro-grams and promising to expand them. But he has gone back and forth on respect for elections and democracy, and – outflanked by the extreme right (Leopoldo Lopez and María Corina Macha-do), last week refused offers of dialogue by the president. At the end of the day, they are all far too rich, elitist, and right wing (think of Mitt Romney and his contempt for the 47%) for a coun-try that has repeatedly voted for candidates running on a plat-form of socialism.

Back in 2003, because it did not control the oil industry, the government had not yet deliv-ered much on its promises. A decade later, poverty and unem-ployment have been reduced by more than half, extreme poverty by more than 70%, and millions have pensions that they did not have before. Most Venezuelans are not about to throw all this away because they have had a year and a half of high infla-tion and increasing shortages. In 2012, according to the World Bank, poverty fell by 20% – the largest decline in the Americas. The recent problems have not gone on long enough for most people to give up on a govern-ment that has raised their living standards more than any other government in decades.

Venezuela is not Ukraine