Venezuela

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Mon Nov 29, 2021 2:06 pm

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A Cold-Blooded Analysis of Venezuela’s 21N Elections
November 29, 2021

I.Preface
In the Venezuela of the 21st century, perhaps now as never before, it is important to stop and observe the electoral results in detail. If we stick to the most visible result—despite the poor choice of the US government and the few who, counter to all political wisdom, continue supporting the fiction of the “interim government”—the official candidates of Chavismo won the majority of the contested positions. Quite significantly, the anti-Chavista opposition returned to the electoral fold, which undoubtedly constitutes extraordinary news for Venezuelan society.

That said, it is appropriate to examine data that I consider to be not only very valuable, but as essential as it is revealing, and that nevertheless seem to be absent in other analyses of the political class—at least those made publicly.

What follows is a ruthless analysis of the results of the contest on November 21, 2021. To this end, I proceeded to reconstruct the historical results of regional elections (for governors) since 2004, reviewing and processing the information available through the National Electoral Council (CNE). I decided to omit the data related to the 2000 mega-elections, because on that occasion the position of President Hugo Chávez was also in direct dispute, which makes that a very unique historical contest, not comparable, in my opinion, to the regional elections held later.

I added as votes for Chavismo only those received by the official candidacies [of the PSUV /GPP], and as votes for the opposition the total accumulated by the political forces that competed against the official candidates of Chavismo, almost always identified with anti-Chavismo. Regarding the latter, it is worth noting that as a general rule, the percentage of votes received by candidates who are not anti-Chavista but compete against the official candidates of Chavismo is rather negligible, which justifies this decision that seeks to facilitate the method of presenting the results.

In the case of the state of Barinas, where the CNE has not yet proclaimed the governor-elect (as of Thursday, November 25, 2 p.m.), I counted the votes offered in the first official bulletin of the electoral body.

Having made such considerations, I now present the first table, which summarizes the result of the five regional contests:

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Next, let’s review in more detail.

II. Participation percentage
The following graph shows the voter turnout in each year since 2004:

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As can be seen, popular participation in the regional electoral contest on November 21, 2021 was at its all-time low, decreasing 18.84 percentage points compared to 2017.

III. Chavismo and opposition total votes
The following graph includes information on the number of votes received by both the official Chavismo candidates and the opposition:

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The most relevant data is that in the elections of November 21, 2021, and for the first time, the number of votes obtained by Chavismo was less than the amount received by the opposition candidates. Additionally, Chavismo lost almost two million votes in relation to 2017.

IV. Percentage of Chavismo and opposition votes
As can be seen in the following graph, and consistent with the previous one, in the electoral contest on November 21, 2021, and for the first time, the percentage of votes obtained by Chavismo, 45.3%, was less than the percentage received by the opposition, 52.3%. Chavismo decreased by 7.39 percentage points in relation to 2017, while the opposition increased 5.2 percentage points in the same period:

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V. Percentage of votes regarding the Permanent Electoral Registry
The following graph illustrates the percentage of votes obtained by each group of political forces with respect to the population registered to vote, or the Permanent Electoral Registry (REP). Again, this 21N of 2021, and for the first time, Chavismo obtained a lower percentage of voters in relation to the REP than the opposition, decreasing 13.05 percentage points compared to 2017, and 14.8 percentage points compared to its historical peak in 2008. Notably, the opposition also decreased: 6.68% compared to 2017, and 6.96% compared to 2008, also its historical peak.

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Taken together, Chavismo and the opposition constituted 41.22% of the REP, a significant decrease of 19.74 percentage points with respect to the regionals of 2017, and of 21.76% with respect to 2008, when both represented 62.98% of the REP. This data is very important, as it constitutes a kind of index of political affiliation, and it describes the way in which political disaffiliation has been gaining ground in recent years.

VI. Chavismo victorious with more than 50%
Finally, the following table shows the number of victories obtained by Chavismo with more than 50% of the votes, in the election in question. Contrary to its historical performance (a low of 94.44% of victories with more than 50%, in 2017), this 21N election of 2021, Chavismo managed to exceed such percentage only in five states: Aragua, Carabobo, Delta Amacuro, La Guaira, and the capital district of Caracas.

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No other data so clearly reveals the opposition’s disaster as a result of the divided vote. In fact, if we thoroughly review, and take as a reference those states where Chavismo was victorious with less than 50%, adding only the votes obtained by the opposition candidates in second and third place, the opposition could have won in nine states: Amazonas, Anzoátegui, Apure, Falcón, Guárico, Lara, Mérida, Táchira, and Trujillo. Barinas should be added also, if the candidate of Chavismo emerges victorious. Adding these to the three victories actually achieved (Cojedes, Nueva Esparta, and Zulia), the opposition would have control of most of the governorates: 57% of them, to be exact, if we excluded the Mayor of Caracas from the account.

VII. Very brief preliminary conclusion
I have considered it necessary to privilege the detailed review of the electoral numbers and to show them in the most orderly way possible, rather than trying to offer any explanation about the performance of the political forces in conflict. There has already be an opportunity to present the latter.

In any case, I would just like to insist on a point that, it seems to me, is indisputable: in Venezuela in 2021, the politically disaffiliated population is a solid majority. A majority that, for the moment, cannot find a political expression. Will the political class be capable of capturing the inspiration, or rather of putting itself in the place of the popular majorities? It is something that remains to be seen.



Featured image: Venezuelan woman casting her voting machine voting receipt. Photo by Cristian Hernandez/AFP.

(Saber y Poder)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

https://orinocotribune.com/a-cold-blood ... elections/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Tue Dec 07, 2021 3:43 pm

Western Media: Venezuelan Elections Must Be Undemocratic, Because Chavismo Won
RICARDO VAZ

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Reuters depiction of a Venezuelan campaign rally, featuring an image of former President Hugo Chavez.
NYT: In Venezuela’s Flawed Vote, Maduro Shows One Way to Retain Power
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The main “flaw” identified by the New York Times (11/23/21) in the recent Venezuelan elections is that the wrong party won.
Corporate media’s coverage of Venezuela has been constantly biased over the past 20 years, but especially when reporting on elections (FAIR.org, 11/27/08, 5/23/18, 1/27/21).

The latest flurry of dishonesty and faithful stenography came as Venezuelans voted for new regional and local authorities on November 21. The ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) won resoundingly, securing 19 of 23 governorships and 212 of 335 mayoralties. Pundits who are happy to equate “democracy” with elections are not so keen on people voting when Washington’s enemies are poised to win (Washington Post, 11/22/21).

The hardline Venezuelan opposition made life easy for the media establishment in recent years by boycotting elections altogether. Outlets could then just echo the ever baseless “fraud” allegations from US officials and move on (NPR, 5/21/18; BBC, 5/21/18; Reuters, 5/20/18; Bloomberg, 5/7/18; New York Times, 5/17/18).

However, this time around, these right-wing actors returned to the ballot. Corporate journalists, having paid little attention to Venezuela in recent months as US-backed regime change efforts floundered, had to scramble to explain and discredit the events. Unable to reheat the “fraudulent” label, there was a return of classics such as “rigged” (CNN, 11/24/21) or “flawed” (New York Times, 11/23/21), which happened to be the State Department’s choice too.

‘Flawed’ reporting

There was already a sense that the US-favored parties would not do so well on their return to the electoral path. Reports talked of a “skeptical” opposition (Al Jazeera, 11/19/21; AFP, 11/19/21) to dampen expectations, after building the myth that anti-government parties had overwhelming support in the country.
Reuters: With catchy jingles and cautious optimism, Venezuela opposition returns to the ballot
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Reuters (11/22/21): “Some Maduro opponents fear the freedom being given to the opposition to campaign is part of a government strategy to deliberately lower political tensions and so discourage participation.”
Beyond managing expectations, there were less-than-convincing efforts to explain the change of course. Reuters (11/22/21) claimed that, in justifying boycotts, the opposition argued “a fair ballot was impossible because of interference from President Nicolas Maduro’s government and violent gangs loyal to him.” But then the same piece ends up undermining the thesis that the boycott was all about “fair” conditions. In saying that the return to the ballot happened “amid frustration over the failure of US sanctions to dislodge Maduro,” there’s an unwilling confession that opposition forces hoped US intervention would rid them of Venezuela’s democratically elected government.

It was not the first time that Reuters ran the “interference and gangs” line (11/17/21). But then to explain how “cautiously optimistic” opposition politicians were able to campaign free from intimidation, the explanation was that the hillside barrios of Caracas no longer “belong to Chavismo.” Journalists Vivian Sequera and Mayela Armas could not hide their disdain for the poor and working class who identify with the Bolivarian Process, referring to popular neighborhoods as “fiefdoms of former president Hugo Chavez and…Maduro.” For what it is worth, Chavista candidate Carmen Meléndez secured the Caracas mayoralty with 59% of the vote, performing even better in those very barrios.


Making use of EU

The opposition’s electoral defeat prompted some outlets to publish sobering headlines, suggesting that the opposition needed to “regroup” (NPR, 11/25/21), “rebuild” (Reuters, 11/22/21) or “lick wounds” (Financial Times, 11/25/21). But others doubled down on propaganda.

The New York Times (11/23/21) led the way, as Isayen Herrera and Anatoly Kurmanaev argued that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro had found a “way to retain power”: winning elections. In a hyperbolically dramatic tone, the Times charged Maduro with “subverting the vestiges of democratic institutions” and “perfect[ing] a political system” that ensures success.

The paper of record flagrantly distorted the conclusions of the European Union’s electoral observation mission. The article’s teaser says “European observers said the elections were neither free nor fair.” But that was not the case. Rather, the mission’s chief, Isabel Santos, when repeatedly asked the question, declined to answer, which other reports made clear (Reuters, 11/23/21). To assume this means the mission declared the elections not to be free or fair is disingenuous, to say the least.
WaPo: E.U. observers say Venezuelan elections show major improvement, but uneven playing field remains
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Oddly, US sanctions designed to force out the Venezuelan government by destroying the nation’s economy were not mentioned by the Washington Post (11/23/21) as part of an “uneven playing field.”
Most corporate outlets clung to EU conclusions that pro-government candidates allegedly spent state resources in campaigning, or were favored in public outlets (Washington Post, 11/23/21; Financial Times, 11/25/21; Bloomberg, 11/23/21). Of course, opposition forces getting foreign resources (Financial Times, 7/18/19) or being favored in private media (FAIR.org, 5/20/19) has never been a concern.

Corporate journalists conveniently downplayed the mission’s endorsement of the reliability of Venezuela’s voting system, seriously undermining past and future “fraud” claims. Indeed, Washington, the Post (11/8/21) admits, was “not amused” by its European partners actually wanting to witness the process. US officials even wanted to impose the report’s findings ahead of time.

The coverage likewise suggests the European presence by itself meant improved conditions and a previously absent level of international scrutiny, when in fact the EU had been repeatedly invited to send electoral delegations. Not just that, all Venezuelan elections have had numerous international monitoring missions, only not from close US allies (Venezuelanalysis, 5/31/18, 12/9/20).

The ‘divided’ opposition

There was an overriding consensus that opposition disunity proved costly. The results speak for themselves, with the PSUV securing most offices, despite having less than 50 percent of the vote. However, instead of scrutinizing why opposition parties could not get on the same page, many outlets found it easier to just blame Maduro.

The New York Times (11/23/21) accused the seemingly all-powerful Venezuelan president of “dividing opposition parties” to compete against “carefully calibrated opponents.” Times journalists accused the non-hardline candidates of adopting “a softer line against the president,” when in fact the key difference is that moderate opposition sectors condemn US sanctions and US-endorsed coup attempts. Corporate journalists will accept nothing less than absolute loyalty to Washington’s designs.

Reuters (9/23/21) had set the tone in the build-up to the elections by referring to non-US-backed figures as “spoiler candidates,” with possible “disguised ties” to the government. They were said to pose a threat to the “opposition,” meaning that reporters Vivian Sequera and Brian Ellsworth took it upon themselves to decide who qualified as “opposition.” In fact, the “spoilers” had promising candidates in a number of races, and it was the US-backed Democratic Unity Roundtable (known in Spanish as MUD) that cost them victory by fielding their own.

One of the highest-profile cases of opposition infighting happened in the state of Miranda, where candidates Carlos Ocariz and David Uzcátegui traded barbs and accusations. Ocariz did finally drop out, and as the Washington Post (11/21/21, 11/23/21) reported more than once, “the electoral council ruled it was too late” to take his name off the ballot. The Bezos-owned newspaper makes this sound like an arbitrary decision by a pro-government body, when the electoral calendar had been published months before. And Ocariz knew it, since he was posting messages on social media announcing “there is X time left to reach an agreement.”

The cardboard ‘interim president’

The Western media’s sudden scrutiny of election rules and opposition candidates contrasts with its laissez-faire attitude towards the self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaidó. The opposition leader’s made-up post never had a constitutional leg to stand on, but the Washington Post (11/23/21) is happy to let him talk about his “constitutional mandate.”

The Post (11/21/21) likewise remains wedded to the idea that “50 other countries” recognize Guaidó, when this number is probably closer to single digits after the European Union withdrew its recognition earlier this year. In contrast, it is refreshing to see some outlets stop pretending and just admit that in their view it is up to the US to decide who is the legitimate (parallel) leader of Venezuela (Financial Times, 11/25/21; Bloomberg, 11/22/21).
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Pretend president Juan Guaidó watches as a cardboard presidential seal falls off the backdrop behind him during a news conference (Twitter, 11/22/01).
For his part, Guaidó recently had an unfortunate episode as a presidential shield made of cardboard fell to the floor behind him in the middle of a press conference. It is not hard to imagine how the symbolism of the affair would have stolen headlines had it involved Maduro or any other official enemy. But the corporate media chose to look the other way, just as it does concerning a string of scandals that have seen the opposition leader jeopardize billions worth of state assets under his control, leaving them at the mercy of corporate predators (Venezuelanalysis, 9/25/21; 10/4/21; 10/23/21).

All in all, the latest elections have shown how, like the US State Department under Biden, media will not change their tune on Venezuela. Rather than correcting past biases, corporate journalists continue to look for ever more creative ways to push the official line coming from the White House, even if that means propping up a discredited con artist like Guaidó or, worse, whitewashing policies that kill tens of thousands (FAIR.org, 6/4/21). And a self-declared commitment to democracy rings very hollow alongside such efforts to discredit elections because the US empire did not like the results.

https://fair.org/home/western-media-ven ... vismo-won/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Wed Dec 08, 2021 3:05 pm

BORGES VS. GUAIDÓ: FIRE IN THE US HOUSE OF CARDS
7 Dec 2021 , 1:22 pm .

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Julio Borges, the (anti) politician engendered by Marcel Granier's media industry (Photo: Juan Díaz / Misión Verdad)

We are witnessing live and direct the unveiling of a fiction that has lasted for too long, whose protagonists are the most extreme sectors of anti-Chavez and whose outcome is destined to be the failure of the US strategy against Venezuela. Its dolphins and hitmen have run out of anti-politics time and are being ignored by the prevailing reality in the country, with most of the political parties participating in the democratic arena.

Julio Borges has finally decided to depart from what Washington called the "interim government or in charge of Venezuela", with a confrontational speech similar to those proper during his years in Justice for All of RCTV. This time Juan Guaidó received the accusations from the leader of Primero Justicia (PJ), who now advocates that "the interim government disappear completely."

The contradiction within the Venezuelan opposition that has the greatest ties with the United States (federal government, Congress, Wall Street, South Florida) increases as the days go by and the date of the end of the supposed "interim term approaches ", even though Guaidó has already announced that he will perpetuate his fictitious status until there are" free presidential elections. "

But the only way for this parapet to survive is with the North American endorsement, since it dominates the resources used by the bandits of Popular Will (VP), now fully owners of the resources that the federal government has available for them through the Department. of the Treasury and other entities such as USAID and NED, with the money stolen from the Venezuelan State through the western financial system.

Of the rest, the communication and propaganda media aligned to that circuit do public relations work on the image of Guaidó and VP, a structure that cannot hide the fact that the aforementioned contradiction exists, being notorious and public.


PEER ROUNDS

Borges snapped:

"The interim government was an instrument to get out of the dictatorship, but at this moment it has been deformed to become a kind of end in itself, managed by a caste that exists there. It has become bureaucratized and no longer fulfills its function. It has to disappear. "

He gave a curious fact: the "interim government" has 1,600 officials, this in the framework of a parasitic looting operation of which some have been aired through scandals in the handling of assets abroad: such is the case de Monómeros , a Barranquilla-based company controlled at this time by the Uribista government in collusion with the said "interim officials" in Colombia.

"The management of assets is a scandal. A trust must be created so that there is transparency. There is no accountability, the assets are used for personal purposes," Borges accused, once again washing his hands of his key role in the origins and development of this strategy of theft both from Venezuela and from Colombia.

In fact, for the PJ leader the problem is not the "interim government" itself, as an entity, but those who "govern" it, in a rhetorical disguise to broadcast the message that they are asking for a chair rotation, as they did during the legal years of the National Assembly (AN) during the period 2015-2021:

"The things that the interim government does that have to continue to be done, such as the humanitarian issue, such as the international issue, must be absorbed by this new political platform and civil society to carry them efficiently, and not under a single issue. of an interim government that simply wants to perpetuate itself and become part of the problem and not part of the solution. "

It speaks of a "new political platform and civil society" that most surely brings with it all the brokerage of NGOs and other politicized organizations, with the aim of replacing the Venezuelan State by other means, which we have investigated and analyzed in this special work on Forum civic . In fact, he has a medical record according to that profile.

Before founding PJ, Julio Borges took the reins of an NGO called Asociación Civil Primero Justicia in 1992. He called his ministry "Justicia de Paz", with which he echoed within the corrupt law firm that the Fourth formed with austerity. With this organization he managed to get into the drafting of the 1999 Constitution promoted by the Constituent Assembly called by Commander Chávez.

In this way, Borges came to life on the country's political scene hand in hand with the construction of the image that he had thanks to the endorsement of Marcel Granier from RCTV, with Justicia para todos .

It has been shown that this NGO received funding from Antonietta Mendoza de López, Leopoldo's mother, who at that time (1998) held the position of manager of Public Affairs of the PDVSA Services Division. This woman would have given a check to the Inter-American Foundation (IAF, its acronym in English), an autonomous body of the United States government, for the benefit of the NGO led by Julio Borges. This case of corruption was justified by the same "judge" connecting this money with the development of the "peace" program; "Rather, I am very proud of it," he said unscrupulously in 2013.

The PJ party was created in 2000 by the Henrique Capriles-Leopoldo López-Julio Borges triad, with the initiative and planning of the latter. Since then, Julio Borges was anchored in his seats as deputy for the Miranda state and in his position as general coordinator of the party.

Tony Cartalucci comments that PJ received about a decade monetary funds arranged by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED, in its acronym in English) through the NGO for its maintenance and actions.

Who doubts his coup vein: in this video he is shown (April 11, 2002) as a spokesperson, along with two jewels of Creole fascism (Leopoldo López, Armando Briquet, Gerardo Blyde and Henrique Capriles), demanding the resignation of Chávez, as well as the entire PDVSA executive and board of directors at that time. An advance, then, of the Carmona decree.

But the López-PJ alliance broke down in 2009, say the gossip, during an impasse in January 2015. But the coup route always tied them: Borges, according to Patricia Poleo , maintained ties with the coup military discovered by the Nicolás government Maduro ( Operation Jericó - 2015).

That of PJ, in this way, accuses Guaidó of what he himself has built together with his anti-Chavista peers, with the support of the US and Colombian governments. Let's not forget that while he refused to sign a dialogue agreement with the national government in 2018 and went on several tours asking for "sanctions" against "officials", which have clearly resulted in damage to the population, Julio Borges directed the assassination plan against the President Nicolás Maduro on August 4, 2018 on Avenida Bolívar in Caracas.


This was confessed by the head of the Communications Directorate of the Presidential Honor Guard, Ovidio Carrasco Mosqueda, who worked in one of the security circles closest to the head of State for four and a half years inside the Miraflores Palace and confessed that it was the token infiltrated by Julio Borges to carry out the plan and a coup d'état.

Borges has a straw tail, whether he lives in Caracas or " in exile ." Question that credits it to add fuel to the fire.

AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO WASHINGTON'S STRATEGY?

Most likely, the Joe Biden government will give Juan Guaidó a certain "political" status, in the way the European Union did, if he decides to scrap the "Guaidó project" as it is conceived today. Borges' request to dissolve the entity they call "interim government" would be transformed into something that would in any case be in accordance with the next requirements of Washington, Florida and New York to continue with the siege and anti-Venezuelan asphyxiation.

If it survives, the fake Guaidó government now only has the support of five parties with little or no influence, with the exception of VP, which maintains the umbilical cord with the declining US empire. The contradiction within Creole fascism has come to set the United States house of cards on fire, and there is little that can be done to make damage control successful through political and institutional media and spokespersons.

Both in the United States and in Europe and Asia they recognize the failure of the Trump-Biden strategy, and it is time for another paradigm of relations between the North American country and Venezuela to be built, as President Nicolás Maduro has also suggested.

For this reason, the greatest demand from Chavismo has always been the lifting of the blockade against Venezuela, whose sanctioning scheme was a request from Julio Borges for years. The nominal disappearance of the "interim government" does not necessarily imply that the prerogative of the Bolivarian Government is fulfilled. Both the gold in the UK would continue to be seized by the Bank of England as would the billions stolen by the United States in Venezuelan state money and assets.

Well, the real power behind Guaidó is in the Global North. The Guaireño is just one more piece of the puzzle in the transnational war against Venezuela.

https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/borg ... es-de-eeuu

Google Translator

***********************************

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UN Support for President Maduro Reaches 92%
December 7, 2021

Yesterday the General Assembly of the United Nations recognized the credentials of the government of President Nicolás Maduro as the legitimate representative of the nation of Venezuela.

These statements were released by Venezuela’s United Nations ambassador, Samuel Moncada, who explained that the recognition of constitutional government of Venezuela occurred during the voting process carried out every year by the General Assembly in order to determine the legitimacy of each country.

Moncada commented, during a phone interview with Últimas Noticias, that the credentials of the Venezuelan government were vouched for by the great majority of UN member countries.

The nations which still insist on refusing to recognize Nicolás Maduro are Australia, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, the United States, Georgia, Guatemala, the Marshall Islands, Israel, Paraguay, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Honduras. This last country, however, will soon recognize the legitimacy of Maduro’s government.

The list of countries which oppose this official recognition was proposed by Colombia at the General Assembly.

Moncada described the decision of the UN General Assembly as a victory with important implications for Venezuela, especially in regards to Venezuela’s gold, the ownership of which depends on who presides over the recognized government of Venezuela. Additionally, this decision will have repercussions for the International Monetary Fund, which now holds six billion in Special Drawing Rights which were allocated to Venezuela.

Moncada reiterated that last year the enemies of Venezuelan totaled more than 50 votes at the UN, and that now they are barely 16.

He also reminded the public that in 2019 “the colonial slave created by the US in order to loot Venezuela was supported by six countries. Now in the UN General Assembly, only 16 countries out of 60 refuse to recognize President Maduro. This is a victory for international law and the self-determination of peoples.”

Featured image: Venezuelan representative speaks at the United Nations. Photo: Últimas Noticias

(Últimas Noticias) by Narkys Blanco)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

https://orinocotribune.com/un-support-f ... eaches-92/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Fri Dec 31, 2021 3:20 pm

Venezuela condemns British Supreme court ruling to maintain blockade on gold
The Central Bank of Venezuela has been engaged in a legal battle to recover 31 tons of public gold deposited at the Bank of England

December 21, 2021 by Peoples Dispatch

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Britain’s Supreme Court ruled to uphold the blockade on Venezuela and the government of Nicolás Maduro will not be able to access 31 tons of gold from Venezuela's international reserves. Photo: Presidential Press

Britain’s Supreme Court decided on Monday December 20 to maintain the blockade of 31 tons of Venezuelan gold, valued around 2 billion dollars, deposited at the Bank of England. With the ruling, the magistrates annulled part of the Court of Appeals’ decision that favored the claim of the legitimate government of Nicolás Maduro over the country’s international reserves.

The Foreign Ministry of Venezuela released a statement condemning the ruling stating that it was an “abusive action” and represented a subordination of Britain’s judicial system to “the illegal foreign policy actions deliberately taken by the British Executive, thus openly violating their own domestic and international legislation”.

The Bolivarian government pledged to use “all the resources at its disposal to defend the gold that is part of its international reserves and the legitimate rights of the Venezuelan people, both internationally and within its own jurisdiction. Venezuela will continue following its course of peace and prosperity.”

The case went to court because the Bank has refused to release the gold reserves to the Bolivarian government stating that it recognizes the opposition activist Juan Guaidó as a legitimate authority. In October 2020, the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) won an appeal in the British Court of Appeal, which considered the possibility that the British state would recognize a “de jure” president, which in this case would be Guaidó, and a “de facto” one, which would be Maduro.

In the new verdict, the British Supreme Court relies on the so-called “one voice” doctrine, saying that the courts cannot go against the UK prime minister’s political decision to recognize Juan Guaidó as president-in-charge of Venezuela as of February 2019. Therefore, until the “conflict of authorities” is resolved, the money would be kept at the Bank of England.

The judges still left it to the Commercial Court to decide whether or not to accept the appeal filed by Venezuela’s Supreme Court of Justice, alleging the nullity of Guaidó’s appointment of a parallel board of directors of the BCV.

During the dialogues with the opposition, Maduro proposed that the gold blocked in the UK be used in the fund to combat COVID-19 in Venezuela, administered by the United Nations Development Program. The proposal was rejected by the opposition.

The decision to maintain the blockade sets a dangerous precedent for at least 30 nations that also keep part of their international reserves at the Bank of England.

Juan Guaidó, isolated among the opposition after allegations of corruption with Venezuelan public money, celebrated the court decision and thanked the British Foreign Office for its support.

With reports from Brasil de Fato

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2021/12/21/ ... e-on-gold/

Sheer hubris. Were I a state with my gold there I'd pull it pronto, before I get on the imperial shit list.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Fri Jan 14, 2022 2:09 pm

BACKGROUND POLITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE ELECTIONS IN BARINAS
13 Jan 2022 , 8:08 am .

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A man rides a bicycle in front of Hugo Chávez graffiti in Barinas this January 7 (Photo: Federico Parra / AFP)

According to the first bulletin of the National Electoral Board, issued at 11:20 p.m., Garrido obtained 172 thousand 497 votes (55.36% of the total), while Jorge Arreaza, candidate of the Great Patriotic Pole and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) obtained 128 thousand 583 votes (41.27%).

Meanwhile, fellow opponent Claudio Fermín reached 5,528 votes (1.6%). While the participation of voters in the contest was 51.8%.

Regarding the result of this election, it is important to specify some key elements, below.

1. THE PRECEDING INERTIA

In strictly mathematical terms, the November 21 elections left an electoral asymmetry adverse to Chavismo of 66% of votes against, combining the votes of Freddy Superlano and Rafael Rosales, both opponents. This was the last electoral referent prior to the January elections.

This asymmetry was now maintained in a nucleated way, around Sergio Garrido, who managed to bring together the votes of the previous candidates in his favor.

Arreaza's candidacy managed to take the votes of Chavismo, from 103 thousand 693 votes (37.2%) to about 128 thousand 583 votes (41.2%), in just one month of his presence as a political standard-bearer in the state. It is evident that the result was not enough to give a victory to the Chavista candidate, but it was in statistical terms an electoral option that grew widely.

Therefore, in electoral terms, the explanation for Garrido's victory is largely due to the preceding inertia in Barinas, which was not possible to reverse and which, furthermore, is not only electoral, since in reality this ended up being a feature of other inertias. existing in the state.

2. THE POLITICAL ACCUMULATED IN BARINAS

Barinas was until today a state with a great particularity. It was the only one in the country that had been governed by relatives of Commander Chávez, creating an internal political climate that was highly differentiated from that of the rest of the territory.

This referred to the formation of new subjective realities in the state, based on a feeling of "perpetuity" and "immobility" of the leadership, through excessive confidence in the state electorate, traditionally Chavista. In Barinas, political networks of trust were also created around the leaders, through caste forms.

In other words, clientelistic relationships based on a false belief in political "eternity" prevailed. A situation that, as a whole, generated a sustained and prolonged deterioration of the political fabric in the state, in the management and handling of public affairs.

Structurally, but in an accelerated manner during Argenis Chávez's term in office, an extremely adverse political accumulation was generated that Chavismo did not manage to reverse at the polls on January 9.

In Barinas there was an emphasis on the impact of the fall in national income, the accumulated blockade and the loss of the material base of the Venezuelan State, which translated into a significant loss of management capacities.

Although the foregoing is due to a national phenomenon, it is also a fact that the leadership of Barinas in recent years did not adequately maneuver these circumstances in the political sphere, allowing them to penetrate deeply in all areas of public policy.

The negative balance in relation to the management ended up being expressed in the behavior of the votes in two consecutive elections, in a short time.

3. THE ORGANIC FABRIC OF CHAVISMO IN BARINAS

In Barinas, in addition to the unique process of family ties between the governors and Commander Chávez, the unique process of intra-family dispute occurred, specifically between Adán and Argenis Chávez, and then between Argenis and Hugo Chávez Terán, the latter son of Nacho Chávez.

The family dispute, which took place for years in an underhanded manner, acquired more notoriety at the end of the last period of Adán Chávez and the rise of Argenis in 2017, reaching worrying levels in the last four years. The appearance of Hugo Chávez Terán only sharpened the picture of contradictions, generating an organic division of the base structures and an upward integral functioning of the PSUV structure.

In the PSUV primaries of 2021, Argenis Chávez managed to circumvent the party's methods but also the space was used by Hugo Chávez Terán to project himself, unleashing a bloody and difficult dispute that forced the structures to take sides.

Subsequently, when the November 21 election took place, many who followed Chávez Terán abstained from supporting Argenis. Others, who rejected mayoral candidates imposed by Argenis, abstained and the political balance ended up being evident. Barinas saw the particular phenomenon that in some municipalities more people voted in the PSUV primaries than Chavistas on November 21.

Let us remember that Argenis Chávez had an unfavorable balance against Freddy Superlano of just 630 votes on November 21, and could have won with 37% of the votes. Hence, this minimal difference, which has been catastrophic, could only be avoided if the structures in the state had been united. Read with it the levels of magnitude and scope of this dispute and its balances.

An immense part of these divisions created an inertia in the organizational modalities, in the operation of the machinery, in the composition of the 1x10, which were manifested on 21N and that have left their tail until 9E.

In another vein, the programmatic, methodological and organizational division in the structural and grassroots instances of the PSUV are not the only feature of the deterioration in the fabric of the Chavismo organization in Barinas. There also appear more dangerous features, typical of a social decomposition.

The dispute between the Chávez family led to displacements, divisions and attacks among regional factors, but also favored the creation of networks of "loyalty" around the leaders.

On the other hand, the diatribe disabled the internal comptroller mechanisms in the party, in the institutions and in society, since many criticisms, many legitimate complaints and acts of rejection of corruption were taken as "treason" and "attack" by the political "other side".

These circumstances generated a downward spiral of social decomposition. In other words, corruption and its benefits, at different scales and levels, began to take shape as an amalgam of political loyalties.

Then, the organization of the party, which took shape by the impositions of Argenis even down to the grassroots, and which largely replicated the practices of the circle around the former governor, was weakening due to the decomposition of the social pacts. In other words, it was weakened by the very weight of the corruption of the middle and senior leaders.

All the accumulated balance of destruction of the political fabric ended up being key to affect the election, including the machinery processes and the other vital processes that failed on 9E.

4. THE OPPOSING FACTOR
At the expense of a very negative accumulation, both due to the national situation and the specific negative circumstances of the leadership in Barinas, Chavismo found other very unique adverse conditions in the state.

Again the phenomenon of possible vote buying in the state appeared and again the factor of the flow of resources from mafia channels of different denominations appeared. This is an alert component in national security proportions.

In addition to this, there was a flow of resources from the corruption of the parallel government, rampant in Barinese politics, making the election a national laboratory.

In purely mathematical terms, the overall opposition of 9E did not grow significantly relative to its level of 21N. Hence, the "mood" factor of the November post-election events was not significant in real terms. It was the accumulated rejection and the monetary incentives that made an adverse difference to Chavismo.

Barinas has not had a right-wing government in the Chavista era, hence its constituents have now entered unknown territory. Many of the expectations of many opposition Barinese are not based on concrete solutions or hopes, rather on a rejection of what has been experienced in recent years. Therefore, defining Barinas as a subjectively "oppositional" state can be short-lived.

5. WHAT CHAVISMO WON

Jorge Arreaza's campaign managed to compose, at least temporarily, an immense part of the political fabric of Chavismo. Arreaza managed to unite Chavismo in his candidacy, through a hopeful campaign, which stirred fibers by invoking the common meanings of deep Chavismo in the state.

Curiously, and against many forecasts, Arreaza, who had a solid profile as a civil servant and not as a political leader of the masses, managed to connect with original and identity codes, in an exciting and clear epic; to rescue the sense of being a Chavista and to propose significant ideas, not only before Barinas, but before the country.

Although this did not translate into overcoming the adverse statistics, it proposes by means of the facts that the significant ideas of Chavismo have great validity and potential and have not been overwhelmed by the imposed war, by the destruction of the material base that the country has suffered and by the changes in national subjectivity in these years.

In numbers, Chavismo in Barinas increased its vote by 25% in just 4 weeks after recovering its identity discourse.

On the other hand, the PSUV campaign, which had an important deployment and presence of the national leadership, allowed Barinas to be palpated as a sample, although particular, largely representative of the political processes in the country. If Argenis Chávez or Jorge Arreaza had won in the Barinas elections, a regional X-ray would not have resulted, which is very useful to understand the new national realities.

Chavismo in Barinas, but also on a national scale, today has a minimal but invaluable space to maneuver, seeking in itself the keys to its recomposition. Barinas demonstrated that social and political structures are dynamic, and that they also demand permanent 3Rs, as forms of everyday life.

Barinas gains the urgency to rethink politics as an inexorable destiny to revitalize itself, and to endure.

Although the state, with a great sentimental and symbolic value, has been taken over by the opposition, it is not true that it is a reference to suppose an end of Chavismo at the national level, since there are no solid elements that allow to verify such an inference due to the complexity and diversity of the national country.

This state, which is now a space for experimentation for anti-Chavismo, can also be a space for experimentation for Chavismo to try out a new framework of possibilities, in reorganization, in management, and in repoliticization.

The "defeats" are also mothers of opportunities.

https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/anal ... en-barinas

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 27, 2022 2:53 pm

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Workers of the state-oil company Pdvsa holding Iranian and Venezuelan flags greet during the arrival of the Iranian tanker ship “Fortune” at El Palito refinery in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela May 25, 2020. (Photo by Reuters)

Venezuela doubles oil output despite U.S. bans thanks to Iran’s help
Originally published: Press TV by Press TV (January 22, 2022 ) | - Posted Jan 26, 2022

The Venezuelan oil production reached an estimated average of 900,000 barrels per day (bpd) in December and could reach 850,000 bpd in January, oil industry sources told the Miami Herald.

The sources, cited by U.S. daily Miami Herald, stressed that the rise in Venezuela’s oil output mainly stemmed from the regular shipments of thinners from Iran that had allowed the country to make up for the decline in domestic production.

Thinners, usually the petroleum derivative known as naphtha, are essential to reducing the viscosity of the super-heavy Venezuelan crude oil.

Venezuelan oil experts confirmed the significant growth in the country’s oil production, underlining that the Iranian naphtha is essential for the government in Caracas to be able to sell crude from the Orinoco Oil Belt, which needs to be diluted to be sold on world markets.

“Indeed, they have increased production and there are several elements that indicate this,” said Juan Fernandez, former Executive Director of Planning for Venezuela’s state-run firm Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).

A lot of it is because they have been receiving the Iranian thinner and that goes directly to production in the Orinoco heavy-oil belt.

Fernandez said the Venezuelan industry estimates that each barrel of thinner allows Venezuela to produce three of Orinoco Belt oil, adding,

Oil production estimates for the belt currently add up to 450,000 to 500,000 barrels a day and that is due mainly to Iran’s help.

Fernandez stressed that the increase, together with the sharp rise in oil prices, is providing significant additional income to the government of President Nicolas Maduro and it is helping fuel forecasts that Venezuela will notch in 2022 its first GDP increase in six years.

Experts said that of the nearly 900,000 bpd currently being produced, some 600,000 could be destined for export despite the U.S. ban.

An unnamed industry source told the Miami Herald that the Venezuelan crude is normally sold for $25 less per barrel than the benchmark Brent crude due to the U.S. sanctions, but given that the Brent crude is now at around $90 a barrel, the sale of 600,000 bpd could be generating a monthly revenue of about $1.1 billion a month.

The source added that the flow of oil income could go even further in the near future considering that analysts believe the price of the Brent crude could exceed $100 a barrel in coming weeks.

During his annual address to the nation on Monday, Maduro said the South American country’s economy grew by more than 4% last year, following eight years of recession and rising prices.

“After five years of (U.S.-led) economic war of boycotts and blockades, Venezuela is back on track for economic growth,” Maduro said in his address before the National Assembly, also forecasting the country’s economic growth in the third quarter of last year to be at 7.6%, without further explaining.

Crude production had been gradually declining over the years from the 3.2 million barrels per day that Venezuela was generating when the late President Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999.

By the time Maduro took office in 2013, production stood at 2.5 million bpd, and lack of investment in the industry as a result of U.S. sanctions had reduced the level to an average of 1.34 million bpd by 2018.

Venezuela’s oil production fell below one million bpd after the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump sanctioned PDVSA in January 2019.

The U.S. Treasury Department banned business with PDVSA, in essence prohibiting the purchase of Venezuelan crude in the United States and threatening to punish any U.S. or foreign company dealing with or even discussing business with state-owned companies.

In September last year, a U.S. Treasury spokesperson said the U.S. government was “concerned” about reports that Iran and Venezuela had reached major deals to increase their cooperation in the oil sector.

Braving illegal U.S. sanctions, Tehran sent several gasoline cargoes to Venezuela to help it overcome fuel shortages in 2020, as well as equipment to help state oil company PDVSA repair its dilapidated refineries.

Iran’s supply of condensate can help Venezuela increase its crude exports as the country needs the revenues to improve an economy that has suffered because of U.S. sanctions. The Islamic Republic has shipped food, refinery parts, condensate and fuel, receiving crude oil and other commodities from Venezuela in return.

Iran’s own oil sales have been targeted by U.S. sanctions since 2018 when a former administration in Washington unilaterally pulled out of an international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program and imposed sanctions on the country.

Both Iran and Venezuela have managed to withstand the economic pressures of the unprecedented sanctions while gradually finding ways to get round them.

https://mronline.org/2022/01/26/venezue ... rans-help/

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Venezuela: An Oasis of Environmental Conservation
January 26, 2022
By William Urquijo Pascual – Jan 21, 2022

Bathed by the Caribbean Sea, and with a territory that extends from the foothills of the Andes through the extensive llanos plainlands all the way to the forests of the Amazon, Venezuela stands out today as an oasis of natural wealth and environmental conservation.

The situation of Venezuela as an Amazonian, Andean and Caribbean country gives it a wide diversity of climatic zones, habitats, and geological units, which make the country a land of inexhaustible resources and extensive biodiversity.

Venezuela has a total of 44 national parks, all of them protected areas, that include a wide range of ecosystems and mountainous landscapes, forests, coastal lagoons, beaches, deserts, rivers, and archipelagos, and cover almost a third of the Venezuelan territory.

According to historical records, the first national park in Venezuela dates back to 1937, when the Rancho Grande National Park was created, with which the foundations of the National System of Protected Areas were established.

This national park, which is located in the central Venezuelan states of Aragua and Carabobo, was renamed in 1953 as Henri Pittier National Park, in honor of the outstanding Swiss engineer, geographer, naturalist and botanist who extensively toured Venezuela and devoted a lot of his time and research to the country.

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A view of the Henri Pittier National Park, Venezuela

The Law of Protected Areas defines national parks as natural areas in which important ecosystems are represented, or natural areas of national and international relevance where plant and animal species, geomorphological conditions and habitats are of interest to the population, to science, education and for recreation.

The national parks of Venezuela are grouped into four large natural regions: the coastal-island region, the mountainous region, the Llanos and the Guayana Shield region, and the Amazon region. Each one of these regions has its own geological, geographical and natural characteristics.

Caura, an achievement of Venezuelan ecosocialism
Considered as one of the greatest achievements of Venezuelan ecosocialism, the recently created Caura National Park, located in the southeastern state of Bolívar, was decreed as a protected area in 2017, and is the largest protected area in the country, with more than 75,339 square kilometers.

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Caura National Park, Bolívar state, Venezuela

Caura National Park has received the United Nations Environment Program’s recognition as the largest protected forest area in the world.

Under the administration of the National Parks Institute, the Caura National Park was created to strengthen and integrate environmental management policy, and to safeguard the protection of its ecological heritage such as important watercourses, biodiversity reservoirs, fragile ecosystems, and the indigenous peoples of the region and their communities.

According to the Venezuelan Ministry of Ecosocialism, Caura National Park covers approximately 20% of Bolívar state and 8.2% of Venezuela’s national territory.

The Caura river, considered as the heart of this protected area, forms its main hydrographic basin, which extends over an area close to 4,533,600 hectares. This river is the third most important in Venezuela due to its water volume, after the Orinoco and the Caroni.

The Caura River Basin houses a great wealth of biodiversity: 475 species of birds, 168 mammals, 46 reptiles and 16 amphibians, in addition to holding a landscape diversity typical of the Guayana Shield.

In addition, the use of at least 358 plant species of the lowland forests by indigenous communities of the region constitutes a valuable indicator of the fundamental role that these ecosystems have in the sustenance of these traditional cultures.

Preservation, a state policy

In line with a policy based on the preservation and rational use of the environment, Venezuela is today among the most advanced countries in terms of conservation of nature, as indicated by the wide distribution of national parks and protected areas throughout its territory.

During the High-Level Segment of the 15th Meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity, held in October 2021, Venezuelan Minister of Ecosocialism Josué Lorca asserted that Venezuela has increased its number protected areas from 22 to 30, in compliance with Aichi Target 11.

Minister Lorca highlighted the importance of the Caura National Park as well as informed of the creation of seven new conservation areas.

Lorca stressed that, as a very diverse country, Venezuela is committed to the conservation of its biological diversity and the preservation of life on the planet, through the promotion of the concept of Ecosocialism.

Venezuela has programs focused on conservation and management of threatened and invasive species, community fruit and medicinal nurseries, and sustainable agricultural and fishing practices. All this validates the Venezuelan State’s efforts for the protection of its ecosystems.

Featured image: Sunset at the Orinoco Delta National Park, Venezuela. Photo: Prensa Latina

(Prensa Latina)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

https://orinocotribune.com/venezuela-an ... servation/

Talk about 'contradictions', huh? It's complicated....
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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Fri Jan 28, 2022 3:00 pm

CAUGHT IN THE LOOP OF REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY

Ernest Cazal

27 Jan 2022 , 7:14 pm .

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At least from the general perception in Venezuela, we can still read the country from Fernando Coronil's "Magic State" thesis (Photo: University of Piura)

Very difficult to deny it: we are imbued in a loop of the liberal democratic experience, which never said goodbye to the Venezuelan political scene and rather took hold with new nuances in its forms, and which are protected both in the constitutional framework and in political activity. and institutional.

It is also true that the population is constantly criticizing that political culture that was widely rejected during the late 1980s and the following decade in a sharp manner, assuming a direct contradiction with the hegemonic power of Punto Fijo, whose remains are still shipwrecked in the present.

And, in the same way that a political uprooting of representative democracy has not yet been consolidated, even though there have been no excuses for the promotion of the Chavista alternative (participatory and protagonist democracy) in two decades, likewise some sectors of the Bolivarian project, both on the political-institutional base as well as on the social one, they have been subsumed by that logic of pre-chavista heritage.

I am not saying that these sectors are necessarily fifth-columns or are emaciated disguised as Chavistas, but rather that there prevails in certain Bolivarian circles (if the expression is allowed, without alluding to the organizations so called in the past) a way of operating that is typical of a political culture already contested beforehand, but not buried.

A diagnosis of this can easily be deduced from the last elections in December and January in our country, since in several states and mayors' offices where Chavismo was an unparalleled political and social force, now they are regional and municipal foci in which the electoral majority forms part of the political capital of the Venezuelan opposition.

I am referring, above all, to the states of Cojedes and Barinas, plains regions that have played key roles in the subversive history of the Venezuelan people, which have so much symbolic roots for Bolivarianism and where Chavismo was in good health. Until very recently.

The crux of the matter lies, as a good portion of the local population has expressed, both in the media and digital networks as well as through the vote, in the actions of the so-called low and middle cadres, those who are in charge of operationalizing the management of government and militancy, where the crucial meeting point between people and government resides.

One does not have to be a staunch critic of the government of President Maduro, or even since the periods of Hugo Chávez, to notice that there is a "disconnection" (of interests, but sometimes even material) between some political actors of Chavismo who are in charge of mayors, governors and other spaces of institutional power, as well as between those who have in their hands the responsibilities of grassroots organizations such as CLAP, UBCH, etc., and the rest of the population that is not active in politics and managerial administration.

How is said "disconnection" expressed? In omissions to reality, ignoring popular complaints that are not addressed (as in the extreme case of public services). In turn, in the small-scale criminal accumulation of goods and services; the denunciations of abuses of power (albeit in micro), corruption and conflicts of interest in the social plane have constituted an active inheritance of the Venezuelan political tradition (and human, if you want to extend the thing), consolidated under the partisan format during the Fourth Republic, and whose logic no longer operates only at the political-institutional level but also at the social level.

But also the political disunity, the little solvency in the contradictions between sectors of the militant, managerial and operational ecosystem of Chavismo, have had repercussions in the scenarios of the suffrage, as happened recently in Barinas, according to what was commented on the matter in an analysis of fund recently published in Mission Truth .


It seems that this scenario only unfolds in the empirical field because it is easier to analyze reality with the narrative mirage of corporate media platforms, but in reality it is about the reproduction of the logic of representative democracy, now expanded in Bolivarian times. Its forms have been in crisis for decades in Venezuela and have made a dent in the "professional revolutionaries", the popular leaders, the leading cadres of the Great Patriotic Pole and even among the people themselves, disseminated as ideology and consent in favor of capital.

Hence, we remain submerged in the loop of representative democracy, and whose tail continues to animate the work of the average politician, but also the average Venezuelan.

It is paradoxical that the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela allows the uses and customs of the type of democracy that we are describing here, at the same time that it encourages the flourishing of the so-called participatory and protagonist democracy, but it is there, at that point where they meet. the two systems, where we must delve into the analysis to end up specifying the embryonic aspirations of the majorities, collected in the design of the Chavista project. A kind of Venezuelan updating of the strategy of Nicos Poulantzas: " the democratic road to socialism ".

The discontent and weariness that many sectors of the population have regarding the national political situation is a paradigmatic symptom of this contradiction. However, the impetus for a change in the short and medium term to this trend must be established among the middle and lower ranks themselves (which is why the national leaders decided to adapt the content of "The 3 R's" to the new circumstances). Well, the vast majority of the Venezuelan population, like some of those political actors that we have mentioned, is too busy "solving" daily life, even in times of economic recovery, to be able to deal with politics (even at the neighborhood level). ), much less of the training (own and others) for the future.

But we could also widen our gaze and return to Fernando Coronil's thesis to give a precise image to the matter: the magical State continues to project itself as the all-powerful and only entity in Venezuela capable of achieving "the miracle of progress", through the logic of the rentier petro-state. The Venezuelan population has been immersed in the imaginary of this system since the dictatorial times of Juan Vicente Gómez and Marcos Pérez Jiménez, going through the puntofijismo (Carlos Andrés Pérez as its maximum expression) and having its last expressions during the government of Hugo Chávez. , before oil prices plummeted in the past decade at the dawn of President Maduro's administration.

Highly regarded oil analysts, such as Carlos Mendoza Potellá , consider that Venezuela as a "country must assume that the era of oil dependence is over", an analysis that does not seem to be very far from the intention of the official economic policy to liberate "the productive forces that exist in the country, and the deep recovery of the capacities of the real economy”, according to the President.


In the Venezuelan social field this "change of era" is not yet perceptible, accustomed as we are the majorities (some classes to a greater extent than others, as well as sectors and citizen tribes) to the demand that the State is the first and last actor of importance in the political, economic and cultural life of the country. Perhaps for this reason, as has already been mentioned in other analysis spaces, many people in the country prefer to believe the anti-Chavista myth that the economic, financial and commercial blockade is a fiction or perhaps a lesser evil without much impact on the population.

This prevailing logic is precisely what is in crisis, with the forms of representative democracy standing out over those of direct democracy, whose roots are already inserted in Venezuelan society if we think of the communal councils, communes and other decentralized organizations by the Constitution.

In this way we continue trapped in the loop of representative democracy. It has been exhausted for a long time, both officials and political operators (at the national and local levels) as well as the majority of the population are immersed in its impoverished dialectic and these are the times in which we have to assume resolve the difficulties that emanate from this scenario. This taking into account that we are not alone in the world, and that Venezuela is not cornered in its sovereign will.

https://misionverdad.com/chavismo/atrap ... esentativa

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Tue Feb 01, 2022 2:41 pm

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Role of Workers’ Productive Councils in Venezuela’s Economic Recovery—Interview with Manuel Páez
February 1, 2022

On February 19, 2020, President Nicolás Maduro decreed an energy emergency and a state of exception in the country’s hydrocarbon industry, which led to the creation of the General Staff of the Workers’ Productive Councils (CPTT). Manuel Páez, who belongs to the presidential commission of the CPTT for the hydrocarbon sector, in an interview with Últimas Noticias, explained that there are “71 colleagues who were assigned (by the president and the working class itself) the task of directing the transformation of the industry… presenting a new management model, which is basically collective management.”

Páez indicated that “the socialist management model consists of collective management of work units… A spokesperson is elected for each process in each area, and the spokespersons elect a representative who reports to the general staff in each work unit.”

CPTT and unions

On the difference between unions and CPTT, Páez said that the function of the former is “purely vindictive, to defend a collective contract, the Organic Law of Labor, Workers and Workers, or the LOPCYMAT (Organic Law of Prevention, Conditions and Environment Work Environment, enacted on July 26, 2005 in Official Gazette 38,236). However, the CPTT empower the social process of work, so that through their functions distribution, production, marketing, administration, and operating decisions” of the industry are improved.

“It is the empowerment itself of the working class in decision making about production processes,” he emphasized.

These functions are “codified by the Constitutional Law of the CPTT, approved by the National Constituent Assembly (in 2017),” said Páez, while the functions of the unions “are codified in national and international legal bodies and agreements.”

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Manuel Páez, member of the presidential commission of the CPTT for the hydrocarbon sector. Photo: Últimas Noticias

Facts

As one of the achievements of the CPTT, Páez notes that “today, thanks to a recovery plan presented by the workers (of PDVSA), fuel, oils, and lubricants for the country’s automotive fleet are being produced.” He added that it is “the best demonstration that the industry has undergone a structural change, thanks to the tireless work of the working class—first agent of change.”

“Today we can proudly say that we have achieved the goal of 1,450,000 barrels [barrels of oil produced per day],” he added. “Perhaps for some that goal is nothing, because before [in 2014] we produced three million, but we must take into account the price of crude oil; that for more than four years world production fell and the oil-producing countries did not even have the capacity to store and were insuring the wells; being in the middle of a pandemic and a quarantine, and even so, we managed to overcome difficulties and trace a clean path for another million barrels and continue to grow steadily… that is our main letter of introduction,” said Páez. In addition, Venezuela suffered under the brutality of the US and European economic blockade of PDVSA.

He warned that “only with the commitment, work, and tenacity of the working class can we get out of this difficulty” imposed, not only by the situation of the blockade, but by the very structure of the industry, inherited from the energy transnationals since before the so-called nationalization of oil in 1976.

Another achievement of the CPTT is the domestic manufacture of subway rails, despite the boycott of the companies that were supposed to supply them to the country.

Páez also mentioned how, following the electrical sabotage of March 2019, it took “40 days to recover and stabilize the system… and less than a month ago a similar sabotage occurred. In four hours, that working class that learned from the previous sabotage and generated procedure manuals.” This allowed for the prompt restoration of electrical services throughout the territory. “That is the commitment of the working class, because… it is not the minister or the manager who knows the production process,” but the workers, said Páez.

“Today we can say that SIDOR (publicly owned steel company Siderurgica del Orinoco), which transnationals dismantled,” Páez continued, “is producing the necessary steel for parts and pieces, and recovery plans are being designed with the working class.”

Páez recalled that cement factories imported their sacks, and could not market their production. “The working class carried out the necessary tests, and today those sacks are produced nationally,” Páez said. The same working class that “is presenting a water pump to the Ministry of Science that works without electricity… A pendulum, the way oil pumpjacks work.”

Páez recounted how PDVSA “is already producing its own bolts and screws” and INTEVEP [PDVSA subsidiary Venezuelan Institute Of Oil Technology] is producing bakelite for spare parts for the pumps being restored at the El Palito refinery in Carabobo state.

Political response

The implementation of the CPTT “is a correct state policy in response to the situation of the blockade and the coercive measures,” said Páez. “The workers are the ones who know the productive processes… It is not the manager, the director, or the president of the company who knows them, but the worker with the heat of the hammer, the wrench, the plant and the pump, who truly know how to optimize them.”

He said that the CPTTs are not merely President Maduro’s policy to face the blockade that is undermining the national economy, but “a political response to the situation in a country that deserves transformation and change in the management model.” The oil industry continues to employ “a management model that obeys the transnationals, designed by those companies at the time, and the industry has a debt,” Páez continued. “The revolutionary government has a debt to the Venezuelan people, so that there is a transformation of the industry, and that it be by and for the people.”

“It should not be just a slogan—’PDVSA now belongs to the people,'” said Páez. “It should transcend. And for that, the management model and the philosophy of how it was designed must be changed… The hydrocarbon industry must truly be at the service of the country and not at the service of transnational interests, as it continues to be.”

Venezuelan effort

“We have recovered our industry with effort… with Venezuelan effort,” Páez said, explaining that it is the “effort of those men and women who get up and leave their homes every day under very precarious economic and working conditions… Despite these conditions—the blockade and the coercive measures—we are uplifting the industry.”

He explained that the achievements of restoring and boosting the industry, now bearing fruit after a couple of years of management by the CPTTs—which will be two years old on February 19—was achieved precisely because the working class is being listened to.

“When the national government begins to believe in its working class, phenomena such as those that are happening in [Venezuela’s region of] Guayana arise,” said Páez. “Some essential enterprises were very deteriorated, and the impact generated by the electrical sabotage ended up killing their productive processes. Yet today, they are gradually recovering their productivity, along with the quality of life of those workers who every day exert great efforts to restore its industry.”

He pointed out that “for four years, maybe five” the oil workers have been carrying out “a root-cause diagnosis of what the hydrocarbon industry suffered,” and for this reason “we can see how Pequiven [publicly owned Petrochemical Venezuela] in the next quarter of 2022, will have close to 80% of its capacity in some important plants.” Páez noted the importance of petrochemicals for the development of Venezuela’s industrial and agricultural sectors.

Páez noted that the recovery experienced by the country “is not an improvisation” and that the workers, grouped in study centers and in production committees, trained with the Jesús Rivero Bolivarian University of Workers (UBT). Páez also highlighted the role of the Bolivarian National Militia for logistics and security training, and emphasized the joint effort to “combine a national production plan not only for fuels and lubricants, but also for spare parts.”

“It consists of intertwining the iron, aluminum, steel, electricity, cement, construction, and hydrocarbon sectors,” Páez said, “that cut across the country’s economy, to achieve reverse engineering through the Fábrica de Fabricas and resolve what the blockade has caused.”

He recalled that the Fábrica de Fábricas is “that wonderful complex that Comandante Chávez left us in Anaco [Anzoategui state].”

Technological sovereignty

Páez praised how the UBT, the Fábrica de Fábricas, the united productive sectors, the consensual effort of the working class, and the recognition of that contribution by the national government, create the dialectic that is permitting Venezuela to overcome its current difficulties. At the same time these converging forces are laying the groundwork for a profound transformation that will strengthen the productive apparatus of the country, and render it more effective against future aggression.

He pointed out the importance of reverse engineering that makes it possible to recognize the bottlenecks, and to produce domestically, through the ingenuity and experience of the workers, elements that allow Venezuela to “overcome the difficulty, generating spare parts that clearly will provide a true technological sovereignty.”

Páez explained that “one of the most significant pieces that have been made are subway rails, which were [originally] made by a French company, which is actually suing the Venezuelan state, alleging that they have to be paid for the construction of those rails (despite not providing them for timely replacement).” In this case, Venezuelan engineering and domestic manufacturing have permitted the repair and recovery of the transport system critical to the capital Caracas.

The emblematic case of the rails, Páez said, “is breaking the paradigms of onerous contracts” with which the state was handcuffed to make it dependent and submissive. “All the parasitic bourgeoisie that benefited from those contracts, who have lived from the oil income and the resources of the Venezuelan people, it makes them sting” that Venezuela is sovereign, said Páez.

Organization and training are key

Regarding the organizational capacity of the working class, Páez highlighted the importance of training, not only ideological but productive, and the exchange of knowledge to benefit society in the midst of adversity. “An entire training process is being systematized that allows education to become widespread,” said Páez, “which consists of knowledge applied beyond the academic; that is, of the years of experience that today prove to be much more valuable than degrees from large foreign universities.”

“Since the UBT Jesús Rivero is not academic, nor does it take place in the classroom, but rather is based on practice, everyone learns from everyone, which generates continuous and permanent collective knowledge,” said Páez.

“That class never stops learning and never stops advancing,” Páez explained.

Years of fighting
“The transformation processes have their times… we have been fighting for years for the transformation of the state so that it is a social state, of justice and of law,” Páez said. He recalled how “a serious political crisis, of moral values ​​and of the country’s values, ​​generated an uprising that managed to destroy an era of fictitious democracy,” giving rise to the government of President Chávez in 1998, who had to face military and economic attacks from the beginning, in addition to the failed oil industry coup in 2002.

The national oil industry continues to suffer “the consequences of 2002,” commented Páez. “More than $20 billion were lost… We have been a besieged industry.”

He highlighted how “since President Obama took off his mask and said that Venezuela was an unusual [and extraordinary] threat, the framework was created for an open blockade. At the time it was a sneaky blockade.” In this regard, Páez referred to that milestone whereby the economic siege on Venezuela was overtly expressed, issued by the US administration on March 9, 2015. The fragility of the national oil industry was subsequently revealed, exacerbated by its dependence on transnationals for its operation in all sectors.

“This crisis revealed that there is a structure within our industry that obeys transnational interests,” said Páez, noting how “it is no coincidence that the president of PDVSA for 11 years (Rafael Rámirez) walks freely around the world without even an investigation (by the US).” Ramírez was at the head of the company when graft allegedly occurred which, to a great extent, the last three administrations of the White House have used to justified the blockade against the primary national industry.

“It is incoherent that the United States points to the state oil company with accusations that are sometimes embarrassing to repeat, and that whoever was in charge is not responsible for anything,” noted Páez. “That means that Rafael Ramírez was a CIA agent all his life, and he was a fifth columnist… This is not new, we have always had traitors in our revolutionary processes throughout the world. The important thing is not to repeat that mistake. Identify the enemy in time, and do as little damage as possible.”

Páez explained that during “the management of Rafael Ramírez, of Eulogio del Pino, or Nelson Martínez, the policy was the same, there was no change.”

He pointed out that “with the arrival of the Minister of Petroleum Tareck El Aissami, a different dynamic has been instilled in the hydrocarbon industry, generating real results with it.”

Higher dialectics

For Páez, the working class “understands that the state can only be transformed with unity, organization, and superior training,” to overcome the difficulties, “and it is doing so.” He assured that current events constitute “a living example that contradictions generate dialectical solutions” because “the organization of the class is generating awareness of the seizure of power.” Páez cited the case of Bolívar state as an example, where the organization of the workers was imposed electorally.

There are “more than two million workers involved in the National System of Production and Fair Exchange of Goods and Services,” to break dependency by mainstreaming processes with the interconnection of the entire national productive apparatus, subjected to dismemberment by blockades and economic siege, said Páez.

“In Guayana [Bolivar state] alone there are 80,000 workers, and in the hydrocarbon industry 80,000 or 90,000 are involved in the production processes, and we have been generating class consciousness with the political dynamics that allow us to understand that we are still going through a class struggle,” said Páez.



Featured image: PDVSA oil worker in a Venezuelan refinery. Photo: Carlos Garcia Rawlins/REUTERS.

(Últimas Noticias) by Victor Castellanos, with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

https://orinocotribune.com/role-of-work ... nuel-paez/

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Radical Land Reform in Venezuela: A Conversation with Juan Carlos Loyo (Part I)

Chávez’s agriculture minister talks about the revolutionary changes in land tenure that took place under the former president.

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Juan Carlos Loyo held various posts in Chávez’s government, including Minister of Agriculture from 2010 to 2013. Today Loyo is a researcher and a professor of political economy at the Bolivarian University in Caracas. In this two-part interview, he talks about the origin of Venezuela’s latifundia – large tracts of landed property, under a regime of low-intensity production – and the radical agrarian reform that Hugo Chávez tried to carry out during the heyday of the Bolivarian process.

In the debates about Venezuela’s ongoing struggle for the land, the origins of the latifundia are often left out. However, the latifundium was the defining form of landed property before the Bolivarian Revolution. What can you tell us about its history?

Let’s take the Spanish colonization as a starting point and the many rebellions and insurrections that followed the intitial process of dispossession.

When the Spanish occupied this territory, the crown handed over large tracts of land to what today we might call the agrarian bourgeoisie. People who had served the interests of the crown were retributed with land, which of course meant violently displacing the people inhabiting the territory. If we look at our history, we will discover that the latifundia structure implanted by the colonists survives up until the 21st century.

Of course, it’s worth mentioning that the Libertador [term used to refer to Simón Bolívar] promulgated the Law of Military Assets. The law altered the social order because it gave land to those who had participated in the Independence War. However, with Bolívar’s death, not only was the Law of Military Assets modified, but the lands that had been given by decree generally ended up going back to the old landowners.

The 19th century was characterized by many insurrections. The most critical moment was the Federal War [1847-1863] led by General Ezequiel Zamora, who bequeathed to us the war-cry: “Free land and free men!” Historian Néstor Tablante y Garrido documents no less than 44 rebellions between the years of 1830 and 1903. Tablante y Garrido calls those “the years of continuous violence.”

However, the logic of the latifundia continued into the 20th century. In fact, Juán Vicente Gómez [Venezuelan dictator from 1908-1935], who initiated the Venezuelan 20th century, was a large landowner. Nonetheless, with the beginning of oil extraction and the formation of the modern Venezuelan state in the 1920s, the conflict over agrarian land changed its nature. Still, at the time, the forms of land tenure remained unmodified. In fact, a 1937 census shows that of the approximately 69,000 landowners registered by the state, 3000 owned 90% of the land, 412 owned close to 8 million hectares, while only 13 owned more than two and a half million hectares.

The first attempt to deal with the land problem in the 20th century happened in 1961 with the Agrarian Reform Law of Rómulo Betancourt [Venezuelan president, 1945-1948 and 1959-1964]. However, at its core, the law fell short of an agrarian reform.

During his prior exile, Betancourt had witnessed the revolutionary potential of the struggle for land in Central and South America. That is why he promoted a carefully supervised or controlled land reform, which was carried out with the local elite on board. In fact, in the 1980s, even the Senate of the Republic determined that Betancourt’s attempted agrarian reform had failed.

Why was it a failure? Because it did not change the latifundia property structure. In the best of cases, campesinos were given small plots of not-so-desirable land that had previously belonged to the state, not to the large landowners.

Thus, when the Bolivarian Revolution arrived in 1998, land tenure in Venezuela was still defined by the old latifundia structures that had been overcome in many countries during the 20th century.

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When the Spanish settled what we now know as Venezuela, they established latifundia. (Archive)

What are the main characteristics of Venezuelan latifundia?

The latifundia is a form of land ownership that is not just characterized by its large extension, but also by its low-yield production. For example, in Apure state [in southern Venezuela], landowners occupied land for non-intensive cattle raising, and it is very inefficient from a productive standpoint.

Moreover, this type of model displaces campesinos. If we were to look at a satellite photo of Apure, we would see that the campesinos have been corralled on the banks of the rivers, which are areas where crops are often lost when the water level rises in winter, or where agriculture is simply not viable.

In sum, the latifundia is an economic structure that is not only socially and economically unjust, but it is also of little or no use to the nation.

You mentioned that in Venezuela, throughout the 20th century, the only important land reform happened in 1961, but that it was very restricted and didn’t really change the organization of property in the countryside. Why is it that there wasn’t a more radical land reform here, as happened in most of the continent?

When Venezuela became an oil-producing country, the struggle for the land became a secondary issue. The main objective became capturing as large a chunk of the oil rent as possible.

Additionally, the economic reorganization of society brought about by oil exploitation triggered a huge exodus from the countryside to the city. Venezuela’s population became more and more urban and concentrated in the northern coastal center of the country, where state services also concentrated. We could say that this dynamic made the countryside invisible. The principal conflict became access to what the oil rent had to offer, from basic services to decadent wealth.

In the last decade of the 20th century, however, there were some interesting struggles for land that would leave their mark in the Bolivarian Process. Can you tell us about them?

Yes, in fact, there are two struggles that were important for the renewed left that was emerging in the 90s. The first one is Los Cañizos Paloquemao in Yaracuy, where campesinos occupied a large estate and received a lot of support from leftist university movements.

There is another very important episode: campesino communities in the center of the country confronted the Irish multinational Smurfit Kappa Group, which owned large tracts of land. The young social activist Antonia Muñoz and Douglas Bravo [60s guerrilla commander] participated in this struggle.

These struggles were carried out without any kind of protection from the state. In fact, the state repressed all campesino land struggles during the Fourth Republic [1958-1999].

It was roughly at the time of the Paloquemao and Smurfit struggles that Chávez was developing the idea of the “Tree of Three Roots.” In the mid-80s he spent some time deployed in Elorza, in the plains state of Apure, where he had been sent as punishment for his subversive activity within the armed forces.

There he learned about the injustices of latifundia: the inequality and poverty it generates. The Tree of Three Roots would become the ideological framework for the revolution, and it highlighted Simón Bolívar, Venezuela’s independence leader, and his teacher Simón Rodríguez, but it also included General Ezequiel Zamora, the popular leader of the war against the oligarchy and the latifundia in the 19th Century.

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Hugo Chávez con horseback. (MinCI)

The 1999 Constitution was relatively progressive on issues related to land tenure. Could you outline the constitution’s key articles regarding land distribution in Venezuela?

The 1999 Constitution is a very rich document that incorporates the plurality of demands of the pueblo and the mass movement that had accompanied Chávez. It contains, in a condensed form, a proposal for reorganizing Venezuelan society that had been brewing for years.

When it comes to the problem of the land, the central issue expresses itself in the articles that state that latifundia run contrary to the interests of the nation. The constitution also obliges the state to go against this kind of landholding model.

Two years after the Constitutional Referendum, in 2001, Chávez promoted the Land Law, which was a turning point in Venezuela’s history. What did this law represent?

The Land Law established that the latifundia – which is that tract of land that exceeds the regional average – must be eradicated because it goes against the interests of the nation.

To recover latifundia land, two conditions must be met. First, you must demonstrate that the land is producing 50% below its potential. Second, whoever claims to be the owner must not be able to produce proof of the private origin of the land. In Venezuela, since independence, all property has had a state-produced title.

That is why the person who claims to be the owner must be able to prove the origin of the property. This happens not only in Venezuela, but all around the world: if I want to sell a car, I must prove its origin.

The Land Law also recognises campesino land occupations. In such situations, there are mechanisms that give the campesinos the right to remain on the land. If you occupy formerly idle land for more than two years, and you are producing, then you have the right to a title that allows you to continue occupying and working the land. You are not the owner, but you have the right to usufruct the land.

The Land Law seeks to protect the weakest people in the agrarian structure: the campesino family and women in particular. That is why the law favors giving titles not to the “head of the family” but to whole families or to collectives.

Additionally, the Land Law bound the state to provide campesinos with the tools and equipment needed for farming. For a few years, implements, seeds, and even tractors were given to campesinos. The law bound the state to do so. All this was the outcome of a long struggle, and because of Chávez’s commitment to justice and raising production levels. It was made possible because the nation had gained control of its main resource: oil.

The Land Law unleashed the bourgeoisie's fury. There was an episode in which the President of FEDENAGA [national association of large cattle ranchers] Jose Luis Betancourt publicly tore up the law in contempt as a symbolic gesture.

The 2001 Land Law and other groundbreaking legislation that was passed triggered the 2002 coup d'état. This is not surprising: the Land Law touched the interests of some of the most powerful sectors of the bourgeoisie.

What was the actual impact of the Land Law?

The first stage of land reform took place between 2003 and 2005. During that period, the state resolved some longstanding campesino conflicts – above all, in Cojedes, Apure, and Yaracuy.

At that time the Fundos Zamoranos – which were campesino initiatives involving cooperative farming – began to emerge. Endogenous development nuclei [collectivized initiatives that received direct state financing] also emerged around the same time.

In Venezuela, 70% of the population lives in 30% of the territory. So at that time, the government was also trying to favor a return to the countryside with a view to fostering agricultural production.

During the early days of the Bolivarian Revolution, the government also carried out a census of the countryside and made a map of all the existing latifundia.

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A mural of General Ezequiel Zamora and the “Zamorana” flag, which reads “Land and free men.” (Tatuy TV)

That was the first stage of the agrarian revolution under Chávez. What happened after 2005?

The second stage, which went through 2009-2010, is when the Venezuelan state took on a truly active role in the struggle against latifundia. By then, with the help of the agricultural census, the ongoing problem of the latifundia became very evident. The results were striking: out of 2445 existing estates, less than 1% occupied 7 million hectares, which is almost 25% of the agrarian land in the country.

The Land Law’s struggle against large estates really began with force in 2005. In those years, we intervened huge ranches such as La Marqueseña and La Vergareña. These actions were symbolically important.

The interventions in latifundia were the most visible agrarian policy during that five-year period. However, during that time, historical conflicts continued to be resolved in favor of the campesinos, and campesinos likewise received direct support from the government.

What happened after 2009-2010. Was there a new agrarian strategy?

More than a new strategy, I would say that after 2010, the focus became the nation’s recovery of type I and type II soils, which are highly productive but less common. The objective was to make good on the Simón Bolívar National Plan, which stated that the state should foster agrarian production.

Those were the years in which the struggles in the Aragua-Carabobo Valley and Sur del Lago took place. The occupations of land in the Sur del Lago were very visible because there were people in that land who had lived in conditions of semi-slavery. There, in the Turbio River Valley [Lara and Portuguesa states] and in other places, we encountered complex situations, marked by social exclusion. Although those were the best lands in the country, their production had stalled long ago. Meanwhile, people living in huts on the edge of the latifundia had been plunged into poverty and had no access to the land.

In a few words, the strategic objective from 2010 until Chávez’s death was to intervene in the land and reactivate agriculture for the nation’s development.

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Hugo Chávez and Juan Carlos Loyo in the Aragua-Carabobo Valley, 2011. (Archive)

How much land was recovered between 2003 and 2012?

We recovered 6.5 million hectares of latifundia land and put it in the service of the nation. That is why we can say there was a profound agrarian reform. In Venezuela, there are approximately 30 million hectares of agricultural land, so what happened during those years was no small achievement.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/interviews/15440

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Fewer Than 15 Countries Recognize US-Appointed Venezuelan Coup Leader Juan Guaidó
January 31, 2022
By Benjamin Norton – Jan 28, 2022

A right-wing Venezuelan opposition leader and former top Juan Guaidó functionary admitted a maximum of 15 countries recognize the unelected coup leader as “interim president.” The Joe Biden administration is one of them.

January 23, 2022 marks the third anniversary of the US government’s ongoing coup attempt against Venezuela’s only constitutional government, that of democratically elected President Nicolás Maduro.

On that day in 2019, the Donald Trump administration appointed little-known Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Guaidó, who had never received a single vote in a presidential election, as supposed “interim president” of the Caribbean nation.

At the peak of the US-led coup attempt, fewer than 60 of the 193 UN member states recognized Guaidó. And that number has dropped precipitously since then.

One of Guaidó’s top former functionaries, the right-wing Venezuelan opposition politician Julio Borges, has admitted in an interview that a maximum of just 15 countries still recognize Guaidó as of January 2022.

Major Western media outlets have acknowledged that Guaidó does not actually control anything inside Venezuela, other than what the United States stole for him.

Yet the Joe Biden administration has maintained Trump’s policy of support for Guaidó.

This recognition has continued despite November 2021 regional elections in Venezuela, which were observed by the European Union, in which Guaidó’s party faced a crushing defeat, and the United Socialist Party (PSUV) of President Maduro won in a landslide.

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Venezuelan coup leader Juan Guaidó in the White House with US President Donald Trump in February 2020 (Photo credit: public domain)

The nations that still refuse to recognize Venezuela’s constitutional President Maduro consist primarily of the United States and its right-wing allies in Latin America, including Colombia, Brazil, Guatemala, Paraguay, and Ecuador, along with the Washington-controlled Organization of American States (OAS).

The Liberal Justin Trudeau government of Canada still backs Guaidó as well.

Britain is one of the only remaining European countries that refuses to acknowledge Maduro – partially because, by continuing to formally recognize Guaidó, it provides a judicial excuse for the Bank of England to steal nearly $2 billion worth of Venezuelan gold.

Guaidó’s coup regime in fact used money illegally seized from Venezuela’s Central Bank to pay legal costs in the UK, in its efforts to control these billions of dollars worth of looted Venezuelan gold, journalist John McEvoy revealed.

Even Spain, which harbors Venezuelan fugitives from justice who organized violent coup attempts against the Chavista government, no longer really recognizes Guaidó.

Perhaps the most powerful member of Venezuela’s political opposition, Leopoldo López, a right-wing extremist from an ultra-wealthy oligarch family, lives in Madrid, where he has enjoyed the support of the Spanish government. This is despite the fact that López admitted to orchestrating violent coup attempts and plotting a failed invasion of Venezuela in May 2020, known as Operation Gideon.

In an implicit admission that all of these efforts at overthrowing Venezuela’s legitimate government had failed, the European Union stopped recognizing Guaidó as of January 2021.

Julio Borges, the Venezuelan opposition politician who said a maximum of just 15 countries still recognize Guaidó, knows from firsthand experience.

Borges previously served as so-called “foreign minister” for Guaidó’s parallel coup regime, which has never exercised power inside Venezuela and was never voted on by the Venezuelan people.

Borges resigned from Guaidó’s coup regime in December 2021, saying the unelected “interim government has been deformed,” and “it should disappear.”

https://orinocotribune.com/fewer-than-1 ... an-guaido/

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Venezuelan Coup Attempt Leader Calls for Protests, but he Might End Up in Prison Before Long
January 31, 2022
By Peter Bolton – Jan 29, 2022

As The Canary has consistently reported, the US-backed coup attempt in Venezuela has been degenerating into an increasingly pathetic and embarrassing spectacle. Now, in one final gasp of desperation, Juan Guaidó has called for a fresh round of protests next month. But it looks like he and his dwindling band of followers’ hopes of toppling the government will soon be dashed. Because there are now growing calls for his prosecution for crimes including treason.

Washington and its mouthpieces in the corporate-owned media will surely crow that this somehow constitutes ‘proof’ of the Venezuelan government’s authoritarian nature. But the reality is that the US is, if anything, even less tolerant of the kind of behavior that its proxies in Venezuela have engaged in as part of their attempt to seize power.

Another call to the streets

On 23 January, Guaidó called on his supporters to hit the streets on 12 February to protest president Nicolas Maduro’s government. Guaidó has been the leader of an ongoing coup attempt since early 2019. In January of that year, then-US president Donald Trump declared him Venezuela’s ‘interim president’. In the early months of the coup, most of the US’s major Latin American and European allies recognizedGuaidó as the country’s legitimate leader.

But as time went by, his support from abroad began to decline. As The Canary reported at the time, in January 2021 the European Union withdrew its recognition of his claim to power. Guaidó derived this claim from his position as leader of Venezuela’s legislature, the National Assembly. But because he and his party boycotted the National Assembly elections the previous year, he no longer even held a seat in the body. This therefore voided the premise behind his claim to power even on its own terms.

Pledge for peacefulness undermined by violent past

It’s in the context of this increasingly desperate situation that Guaidó has called for this fresh round of protests against Maduro’s government. He has indicated that the demonstrations should be peaceful. But his past involvement in violent street protests casts doubt on his sincerity.

In his younger years, Guaidó was a member of one of the street gangs that led the ‘guarimba’ protests. In 2014, these protests left over 40 people dead. Then in 2017 the ‘guarimberos’ returned. And, according to Dan Cohen and Max Blumenthal, they were responsible for “causing mass destruction of public infrastructure, the murder of government supporters, and the deaths of 126 people”.

Growing calls to bring Guaidó to justice
But irrespective of the sincerity of his commitment to non-violence, Guaidó might soon find himself behind bars anyway. Members of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV in its Spanish initials) have been increasing their calls for Guaidó’s prosecution. During an event commemorating the overthrow of Venezuela’s general Marcos Pérez Jiménez’s murderous dictatorship in the 1950s, president Maduro assured supporters that “justice will definitely come”.

Meanwhile, a majority of PSUV National Assembly members have petitioned Venezuela’s attorney general to take action against Guaidó. He currently stands accused of treason and fraud by the Assembly’s Anti-Corruption Commission. And he also faces criminal charges of “treason, money laundering, embezzlement, and ties to Colombian-based paramilitary gangs”.
Like their puppet masters in Washington and cheerleaders in the corporate press, Guaidó and his supporters will also presumably characterize this as ‘proof’ of the Maduro government’s inherent authoritarianism. But it should be pointed out that though PSUV members are leading the calls for Guaidó’s prosecution, it’ll be Venezuela’s independent judicial system, not the government, that tries him. Moreover, there’s ample evidence to suggest that Guaidó is guilty of all the crimes for which he stands accused.

Overwhelming evidence of guilt
To take the most obvious example, colluding with a hostile foreign power (the US) that’s imposing unilateral sanctions on his own country (in flagrant violation of international law) seems a cut-and-dry case of treason. The sanctions have been responsible for the deaths of over a hundred thousand people. Yet Guaidó continues to use them as a bargaining chip in negotiations. He recently said during an interview with Reuters, for example, that the offer to withdraw sanctions as part of a peace deal with the government “is not indefinite”.

This kind of behavior is criminalized in most countries, not least in the US where treason is a capital crime. The fact that Guaidó has largely continued his coup attempt unmolested by Venezuelan authorities shows that, if anything, Venezuela is more tolerant of political dissent than the US. After all, given all the fuss over (alleged) Russian influence in the 2016 US election, we can see how powerbrokers in Washington do not tolerate even comparatively minor (alleged) interference in their own country’s internal affairs.

Looting gold and rubbing shoulders with Colombian death squads

There’s also considerable evidence to support the charges of fraud and embezzlement. As The Canaryhas extensively reported, Guaidó attempted to get access to gold belonging to the Central Bank of Venezuela that was being held by the Bank of England. The Bank of England unilaterally froze the assets on the bogus grounds that Maduro was no longer Venezuela’s rightful leader. Maduro’s government is currently taking legal action in the UK to recover these stolen assets.

Likewise, evidence to support charges of ties to Colombian paramilitaries is substantial. In September 2019, the Guardian reported:

Juan Guaidó, the Venezuelan politician fighting to topple Nicolás Maduro, is facing awkward questions about his relationship with organised crime after the publication of compromising photographs showing him with two Colombian paramilitaries.

Clearly, the days Guaidó has left to continue this ridiculous charade are numbered. It may not be long before he finally faces justice for his murderous and destabilizing coup attempt – one that’s plunged Venezuela into ever-greater chaos and turmoil.

https://orinocotribune.com/venezuelan-c ... fore-long/

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Venezuela and Honduras Re-establish Diplomatic Relations

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Honduras and Venezuela restore diplomatic relations broken in 2019. Jan. 30, 2022. | Photo: Al Mayadeen Net

Published 30 January 2022

The handover of accrediting documents ceremony took place at the Government Palace in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, this past Saturday, January 30.

The Governments of Honduras and Venezuela formalized the reestablishment of bilateral diplomatic relations with the delivery and reception of the accrediting copies of Ambassador Margaud Godoy, ambassador of the South American country to the Central American nation of Honduras.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Felix Plasencia indicated on his Twitter account that the documents were handed over to his counterpart of the Central American country, Minister Enrique Reina, in a ceremony held at the Government Palace in Tegucigalpa.

Plasencia lauded that with this procedure, diplomatic relations between both countries have formally resumed.

We delivered to Chancellor Enrique Reina, in a ceremony held at the Government Palace in Tegucigalpa, the Style Copies accrediting Margaud Godoy as Ambassador of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the Republic of Honduras.

The Honduran Minister of Foreign Affairs informed via his Twitter account: "We received the style copies from Ambassador Margaud Godoy in the company of Foreign Minister Felix Plasencia, for the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela".

Godoy, a lawyer, expert in criminal proceedings and graduate of the University of the Andes, was Vice minister of Communes, Governor of the Cojedes State and the Minister of Women and Gender Equality of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.


Subsequent to the appointment of Xiomara Castro as President last Thursday, Honduras and Venezuela announced the renewal of diplomatic ties, which had been broken in 2019 as a result of the then Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández not recognizing the Government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Foreign Minister Felix Plasencia, travelled to Tegucigalpa to attend as a guest at the swearing-in of Castro, who will be in power in the 2022-2026 quadrennium. The Venezuelan foreign minister declared that diplomatic relations have been re-established and that together they will build Latin American and Caribbean unity.

In addition, the Venezuelan foreign minister announced last Friday that they will ask the new Honduran authorities to investigate the theft of tangible goods registered at the headquarters of the Venezuelan embassy in Tegucigalpa during Hernández's term (2014-2022).

Minister Plasencia expressed that the real estate has suffered destruction and that there has been theft of material assets, while other assets such as works of art are missing. They call to the new judicial bodies to search for and punish the perpetrators of these crimes.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Ven ... -0001.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Fri Feb 04, 2022 3:34 pm

"THE 4F IS NOT OVER"
Hugo Chavez

Feb 4, 2022 , 6:15 a.m.

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"February 4 was a day that generated forces that are still expanding, February 4 has not ended" (Photo: Gustavo Bandres)

This is the Commander's last message to the Venezuelan people in the framework of 4F while he was in Havana, shortly before his death. We reproduce it not only because of his historical value as leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, but because of his reflection and what he has in memory as well as because of his current status.

From my soldier's heart go an infinite hug for my people, for the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, feel me among you on this "Day of National Dignity".

Compañeros and compañeras, as we commemorate the twenty-first anniversary of the civic-military rebellion of February 4, 1992, I want to address this fervently Bolivarian and revolutionary message to the people and the Armed Forces as an indivisible whole.

How much I regret being physically absent from the homeland for the first time on this bright date of delivery, but this is what this battle that I am fighting for full recovery here in revolutionary and sisterly Cuba demands, however my spirit and my heart are with you in this Day of National Dignity.

There are dates in which the entire flow of history is revealed and marks the course again of the peoples, there are dates that sign and clear, that become commitment and signaling of a destiny that has to happen to calibrate the past and see with more clarity the libertarian horizon, that was the glorious February 4, 1992.

On that memorable day all the struggles of our people were vindicated, on that memorable day our liberator and our liberators returned by all roads, on that memorable day Bolívar made himself pray and entered into battle for now and forever.

Those of us who rose up in arms at the hands of Bolívar, Robinson and Zamora went out that morning to risk our lives for the country and for the people, we were fully aware that Venezuela had hit rock bottom three years ago with the rebellion of February 27, 1989 that had marked the way for us, the people on that date offered their lives fighting in the streets the savage neoliberalism that Washington tried to impose on us.

Those of us who were in the military ranks did not want to continue carrying the ignominy of being a Praetorian Guard of a political class as oppressive and corrupt as it is criminal, they would never again use us to drown the just popular outcry in blood.

The Caracazo marked an end and a beginning, the end of a system drowned in shamelessness, the beginning of a time of change that demanded rebirth in popular dignity.

Those of us who burst against the darkness of injustice and indignity that overwhelmed Venezuela, at that time we were, as Che Guevara said, guided by great feelings of love, a Bolivarian, popular, rebellious, combatant love, an infinite libertarian frenzy that led, as Father Liberator wanted, to throw fear on our backs to save the country.

Our poet Gustavo Pereira tells us the following with shocking simplicity: "Love is the only important thing in the world", 21 years have passed since that February 4, of anguish and dawn, of courage and sacrifice, and the march continues to be hard, but with the irresistible force of love let us remember Bolívar, we are at the step of winners and winners towards definitive independence, towards the socialist and liberated homeland.

I want to exalt today the role of Venezuelan women on February 4, a Columbas Rivas, a Marisol Terán, express the large group of women who accompanied the rebellion, they were at the time of detachment and heroism, with all their patriotic fervor , with all his dedication.

There is the beating hour, there is the beating history, made one with the people that forges it every day, there is February 4 as a sacred cry that from our collective memory told Venezuela "get up and walk", and so on. It has been thanks to the collective Lazarus that is the people of Bolívar, all of us are architects of the resurrected homeland, of the homeland that finally took the Bolivarian flag in its arms to be reborn in the light of dignity.

From the depths of the heart of the people I say with Aquiles Nazoa that, thanks to February 4, each compatriot can with full certainty "look out over the landscape one morning and say this is my city, this is my homeland."

Sisters and brothers, today after 21 years of that civic-military rebellion, of that decision made with the greatest love for Venezuela, thought and rethought as the only possible way to have a homeland, we live in a truly and truly free country.

On February 4 our people saw the dawn of their hope, thanks to the soldier people they felt again accompanied by patriotic soldiers, we went out to wield our swords in defense of social guarantees, of the rights of the great Venezuelan humanity, we did not moved another ambition than to become heirs and continuators of the liberating army, we wanted to return to our Bolivarian essence, to truly be the people in arms, forgers of freedom.

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Commander Hugo Chávez during his speech "For now" (Photo: File)

It was already my known story, the patriotic and revolutionary military insurgencies, El Carupanazo, El Porteñazo and the sixth decade of the last century opened a historical gap, and despite the fact that both rebellions were brutally suffocated by bourgeois democracy, the furrow had remained for the seed. We and we come from there and from further back, from the Indigenous Resistance, from the slave rebellions, from Chirinos, Gual and Spain, Miranda, Bolívar, Sucre, Zamora, Cipriano Castro.

I remember this memorable reflection of that great revolutionary thinker named Walter Benjamin: "The past carries with it a temporal index through which all redemption is remitted, there is a secret appointment between the generations that were and ours." We can well say that this secret meeting took place on February 4, 1992, and the past and the present and the future were referred to that redemption.

February 4 has been fully justified by history, those of us who rebelled against the Punto Fijo Pact have been blessed by a people that today is at the forefront of the struggle for peace and justice, and that is a living example for the peoples of the world.

Honor and glory to the fallen soldiers and students!

In 1828 our Liberator wrote: "Patriotism is a sacred fire that cannot be hidden and that, as long as it spreads in a truly pure sense, the more the country's happiness will have gained." How much have I meditated on these words of our infinite commander, and the more I do it the more I am convinced that such was the fundamental reason that led us to carry out that heroic action on February 4, that sacred fire that fueled us from within could not continue hidden.

It fell to the brave Bolivarian soldiers, myself among them, to unleash that libertarian fire of justice that will last centuries and centuries, as long as we have a country like now that we finally have it.

Our Luis Alberto Crespo says about this server: "From that February 4 comes his burning, now that burning is not only mine because Chavez is not me, Chavez is a people, and in reality and truth the more the fire spreads sacred in a truly pure sense, so much will the country of our America and this immense homeland called humanity have gained supreme happiness".

We were not mistaken, that certainty that encouraged us Bolivarian soldiers is identical to the one that millions of compatriots embody at this time, and it goes to every corner of the country making reality what was the feeling of that act of rebellion.

I am going to say it with my words from 21 years ago: if our movement is triumphant, we will hand over power to our people so that they can vigorously exercise it, and boy, today the people exercise power fully and fully.

February 4 was a day that generated forces that are still expanding, February 4 is not over, its rebellious spirit must accompany us every day because the powers that we have faced for more than two decades still persist in their attempt to stop the course of history in Venezuela, in our America and in the world, are the powers that threaten to destroy humanity and the planet.

The spirit of rebellion must live in each one of us to continue advancing so as not to stagnate, let us remember this sentence of the eternal commander in chief, Bolívar tells us: "Nothing is done when there is still something to do", for this reason the "For now" of 21 years ago is today a forever of the Bolivarian people.

Let us always hold high the motto of Father Liberator, unity, unity, unity, let us proclaim unity without hesitation and let us build every day, let us prevent the empire and its lackeys in their repeated attempt to divide us from getting away with it, let us make good flourish priceless union, we still have a lot of homeland to liberate and for that very reason we need to be more and more united as a people.

From my heart as a soldier, an infinite hug goes out to my people, to the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, feel me among you on this Day of National Dignity, I am with you wearing the red beret and the tricolor bracelet, multiplied in popular love, the love that heals me and gives me life, February 4 blessed be for now and forever.

Ever onward to victory!

Independence and Socialist Homeland!

https://misionverdad.com/memoria/el-4f-no-ha-terminado

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THE NAME OF HOPE
Carol Chavez

Feb 3, 2022 , 12:31 p.m.

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On 4F I was a girl in my early twenties watching from my balcony, without knowing it, without understanding almost anything, the beginning of a new era.

I grew up on that side of Venezuela where families were Adecas and Copeyanos and shared the table without confrontations, as some say who try to reshape memory so that we feel a nostalgia that we do not have for better times that were not.

Of course there was no confrontation, if both sides were the same, with minimal differences that were summed up in the ordinariness of the adeca that stirred the whiskey with the little finger and the sifrinez copeyana that wrinkled the nose, but toasted with the adeco for the health of the bipartisanship that I stuffed their jowls, their bellies and their bills in Miami.

Alternating between Copeyanos and Adecos, they abused so much that even in the East of the East we were fed up with them: of Lauría's cynicism, of Lepage's arrogance, of Álvarez Paz's drunken arrogance, of Morales Bello's prosopopeia, of the little smile of props of Eduardo Fernández... tired of the rubble left by Blanca Ibañez, of the blind street in which they put us, where the hope was nothing more and nothing less than Carlos Andrés Pérez, the Gocho pal 88. "Don't throw me anymore letters!", my dear Roberto Malaver would say.

We were there, in the middle of the adeca government of hope, drowning in the quagmire prepared for us by Paquetico Rodríguez and that group of young piranhas who sold us like the saviors, like the big cosota with Harvard diplomas and the Norven seal of quality… in the middle of looting moral and physical of a country that seemed to want no one, there he found us on February 4.

The panicked faces of the political leaders of that time told me that something good could be happening. The aggravated stutter of the already stuttering president was like a chill… that they who had deceived us so much, who had defrauded us so much, were screwed, the truth is that, in some way, it made me feel vindicated.

THAT "FOR NOW" CAME TO US LIKE LIGHTNING TO THE CHEST

Then, Chávez came out, and all of Venezuela glued to the television. That's where we saw it: a military man taking responsibility in the country for "I didn't go." A guy that we imagine screwed up, defeated –because those adecos and copeyanos were not going to forgive him for the tarantín jamaqueando them–, standing there alone, with his dignity intact, and still surrounded by his executioners, in a few seconds, with a few words , was able to give us hope.

That "for now" came to us like lightning to the chest. In that Venezuela looted for decades by neocolonial surrender and finished off with the neoliberal scrapping of the 90s. In that country of political bandits, whoremongers and drunkards; of invertebrate soldiers, servile to a rotten power; There, in the most dire and darkest moment, we saw a light and we knew how to cling to it.

I remember that El Diario de Caracas published on its front page the big photo of Chavez with his red beret and his "for now." I remember that we all cut that photo, we stuck it on the elevators of the buildings, on the desks at work… I remember that I worked in a private school and on each billboard there was a photo of Chávez as if telling us that everything that crushed us could end and it was going to end.

I also remember that, a few days later, the school administration sent us to collect all the photos of Chávez, so that not a single one remained, because the supervisor of the Ministry of Education came, democratically, to tell us what we could and could not say. about the events of February 4. The supervisor was brief: it was forbidden to talk about Chávez.

But there was no supervisor or prohibition that prevented us from continuing to talk about him at school, in the bakery, in offices, workshops, universities... everywhere! And the saucepans banged every so often, and on the balconies and windows we chanted "Chá-vez, Chá-vez!", And since then hope bears his name.

https://misionverdad.com/chavismo/el-no ... -esperanza

All above Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Tue Feb 08, 2022 2:21 pm

COUPS AGAINST THE FUEL MAFIAS: A POLITICAL BALANCE
Feb 7, 2022 , 9:29 p.m.

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Within the framework of Operation "Iron Hand" more than 180 judicial procedures have been carried out with a balance of 58 detainees (Photo: Miguel Gutiérrez / EFE)

The criminal economy has been wreaking havoc in Venezuela for some time, consuming phenomena that directly affect the population and at the expense of public revenue. The case of the gasoline mafias is paradigmatic because the queues throughout the country have been protagonists in the streets and on the screens of telephones, televisions and other means of communication and propaganda, perhaps with too much zeal.

But reality exceeds all expectations, especially if we take into account that these mafias were already operating on the country's borders with the aim of smuggling fuel to Colombia (in part, for the cocaine production circuit) or to the Caribbean Antilles. .

Let us remember that Venezuela has its own refining capacity both in its own territory and in other latitudes; Due to the economic, financial and commercial blockade, local facilities have suffered from lack of financing and the importation of additives has been a pipe dream due to infrastructural and technological dependence on US companies; In addition, the kidnapping of Citgo has only given dividends to the pro-American clique represented by Juan Guaidó, leaving the Venezuelan people to their fate.

For this reason, we should not be surprised by the gesture of a certain joy and even relief of the population when seeing the results regarding the fight against the fuel mafias, since it is an issue that not only affects those who use private transport but also private and public, and that also involves the ecosystem of the productive sectors of agriculture.

This agenda was promoted directly by President Nicolás Maduro, who explicitly asked the Oil Minister, Tareck El Aissami, to accelerate an anti-mafia combat plan in the area. Until now, it has been possible to dismantle some illegal trafficking networks in different parts of the country in the framework of the so-called Operation "Iron Hand":

*On January 18, the arrest of three Venezuelans was announced, one of them a worker of the National Transport Company (Gerson Contreras Acuña), for the crime of smuggling gasoline in the state of Táchira. Contreras, says Minister El Aissami, "driver of the tankers that transport gasoline, diverted this fuel to galleons located in border towns with Colombia and then, in complicity with authorities of the Colombian Government, passed the stolen fuel to that country."

*On January 19, the Oil Minister reported that the Blandín service station in Chacao (Caracas) had been intervened a day earlier by the State due to complaints that they were not accepting bolívares in cash for fuel supplies.

*The Attorney General of the Republic, Tarek William Saab, reported on January 19 through his Twitter account that the Public Ministry received 147 complaints about irregularities in gasoline stations, through the line 0800-FISCA-00 to receive and process the respective cases. Saab indicated that "the states with the highest number of calls to 0800 to report irregularities at gasoline service stations are Zulia, Caracas Metropolitan Area, Lara, Miranda and Bolívar." But not only there, but also in the states of Anzoátegui, Apure, Aragua, Carabobo, Cojedes, Falcón, Guárico, La Guaira, Mérida, Portuguesa, Táchira, Trujillo and Yaracuy. The Attorney General also reported that "higher prosecutors were notified so that they could review each of the cases."

*On January 20, the same Attorney General gave a press conference in which he reported the arrest of two other drivers of the National Transportation Company for diverting 37 thousand liters of fuel in the state of Apure. Rey Sánchez and Rodolfo Paredes were charged with the crimes of malicious embezzlement, aggravated fuel smuggling and criminal association, based on an investigation initiated by the Public Ministry on December 27, after receiving a complaint from the Legal Affairs Department of the Apure District of PDVSA, after the loss of the load of a premium gasoline truck , dispatched from the Mamporal plant to later be extracted from the national territory.

*During the same speech, he indicated the arrest of Gerzo Contreras (claims secretary of the union of the National Transport Company PDVSA), Benito Herrera (driver of the National Transport Company La Fría), Eduardo Contreras and Kewin Villalobos for the diversion of a truck of fuel in La Fría, Táchira state, who were charged with the crimes of aggravated fuel smuggling, criminal association, embezzlement of use and illegal obtaining of profit. A truck containing 37,500 liters of fuel was seized, for a total of fuel seized of approximately 137,500 liters. Saab specified that the damage to the nation from these diversions reached 80 thousand dollars.

*"In 48 hours, 205 complaints were received, of which at least 15 have served to initiate criminal investigations, some of which already have detainees," said the Prosecutor that day.

*The authorities also identified and detained a citizen, Anyelit Salas, and are looking for Félix Rincón, for the sale of VIP seats through social networks to fill up gasoline "without any type of queue for amounts of 50,000 to 100,000 Colombian pesos or its dollar equivalent [ MV note : $12 to $25]," Saab explained.

*During the same day, Minister El Aissami announced that the Bolivarian National Police arrested eight people accused of stealing fuel at the El Palito refinery, one of the largest in the country. The criminal group perforated a main tube of a multipurpose pipeline between the El Palito refinery and the Lara state landfill. Authorities seized two vehicles, a pump and a hose. Later it was reported that 1,500 liters of gasoline were seized from those captured.

*In another anti-mafia part, on January 26 , the Attorney General reported that the Venezuelan authorities had received 710 complaints to date, 145 procedures had been carried out and 32 people had been arrested.

*He detailed some of the cases, although this time he did not give names: a citizen of the state of Miranda, accused of his own corruption, and of a chief supervisor of the police of the state of Bolívar, charged with charges of aggravated corruption, aggravated smuggling and collusion (illegal association ), who demanded payments in dollars to supply fuel at service stations.

*Already on January 28, through a statement from the Alí Rodríguez Araque Presidential Commission, the arrest of Carlos Rafael Vidal Bolívar, mayor of the Independencia municipality of Anzoátegui state, was subsequently charged with aggravated fuel smuggling and financing of terrorism. , own fraudulent embezzlement and association to commit a crime. In addition, they also captured the superior prosecutor of Bolívar state, Manuel Junior Gil Da Silva; the commander of the Third Company of the National Guard in Soledad (area within the town of Independencia), Antonio José Barrios González; the person in charge of a service station in that town, Virginia María Azocar Guilarte; and citizens Luis Javier Corona Bolívar and Junior Enrique Nicolás Pérez.

*Douglas Rico, director of the CICPC, posted on his Instagram account on January 29 about the recovery of 644 liters of fuel in the Santa Rosa urbanization, Cúa parish, Rafael Urdaneta municipality, Miranda state. After surveillance in the area, the modus operandi used by the already detained Lucas Eduardo Santos Dos Ramos (46 years old) and Cristian Adrián Pereira Tinoco (19 years old) to obtain the fuel was revealed. María Carolina Cipriani Artaya (previously detained) was found to supply two vehicles several times. Said citizen, by the way, would be a couple of Santos Dos Ramos.

*On January 31, the Venezuelan authorities reported the arrests of the superior prosecutor of the Delta Amacuro state (east), Jorge Peña, and the PDVSA worker Juan García Barragán, for illicit gasoline trafficking. In addition, they announced that six prosecutors were arrested in the states of Mérida, Bolívar and Delta Amacuro related to acts of corruption in the aforementioned cases.

*On February 3 , in a new appearance to offer the balance of the Antimafia Plan, Attorney General Saab said that more than 180 judicial procedures had been carried out with a balance of 58 detainees, accused of being involved in diversion, illegal collection and smuggling. made out of fuel. Including the capture of the former mayor of the Pedro María Freites municipality of Anzoátegui state, Daniel Haro Méndez, who belonged to a criminal gang that demanded from users "a single payment of 10 dollars, in exchange for filling 30 liters of gasoline. However, used the user's fingerprint, through the Patria biometric system, to record a consumption of 120 liters. The remaining amount was diverted and stored in illegal collection centers," explained the official.

*It is important to note that Saab the Prosecutor highlighted that during the last police procedures an organized crime group dedicated to the diversion and illegal marketing of gasoline was dismantled, with the intention of supplying irregular groups that are dedicated to illegal mining, which was articulated with the referred former mayor of the Independencia municipality and the former superior prosecutors of Bolívar and Delta Amacuro.

*Unofficially, at the closing of this article, the arrest of the head of the Comprehensive Defense Operational Zone (ZODI) 51 of Anzoátegui state, G/D Marco Tulio Álvarez, was known through the Twitter account of the VTV journalist Carlos Arellán. Reyes, arrested for smuggling fuel.

Put in perspective, all these data give unequivocal signs that there is an operation willing to investigate, dismantle and provide justice against the gasoline mafias that prevail in all parts of the country, "whoever falls" according to the slogan of the high leaders of the PSUV and the high government.

Indeed, the apprehended public officials who were elected mayors in the last December 2021 mega-elections and who were part of the Chavista party were expelled from the party and are being prosecuted, as well as important military officers in charge of large regions, such as the last of the cases mentioned.

The concordance of the Antimafia Plan with the presidential speech of the updated 3R has a sense here not only of refreshing the government's actions, but also involves a purge, within the PSUV and institutional instances, of rubbish, corruption and related herbs illegally with other sectors of criminal economies in Venezuela and in other cross-border latitudes.

For this fight, the different sectors of Venezuelan society, whether Chavista or not, have been summoned to channel the complaints and, thus, have real consequences in the face of a problem that affects the entire nation.

Finally, it is noted that, according to the official investigations, the cases briefly outlined are not isolated events, but rather, for the most part, they are (or were) part of a network that involved low-ranking officials, middle and high hierarchy, with extensions in different local and regional entities throughout the country.

With these blows to the fuel mafias, the Venezuelan population is getting to know the names and faces that have been undermining the capacities of the State to satisfactorily supply agricultural workers and producers with something as essential in the modern world as gasoline, taking taking into account that we are an oil producing country. Now it is the State itself that is proposing a solution to bloodshed: the people-authorities combination, a formula that has given favorable results to the Republic at different times in our political history.

https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/golp ... e-politico

Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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