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Replying to @leithfadel
My name Baña, I'm 7 yo from Venezuela. Maduro kill his own people. Donald Trump we have nothing to eat. Please send a lot of weapons.
Venezuela
Re: Venezuela
Антикаратель @Antikaratel 24h24 hours ago
More
Replying to @leithfadel
My name Baña, I'm 7 yo from Venezuela. Maduro kill his own people. Donald Trump we have nothing to eat. Please send a lot of weapons.
More
Replying to @leithfadel
My name Baña, I'm 7 yo from Venezuela. Maduro kill his own people. Donald Trump we have nothing to eat. Please send a lot of weapons.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Venezuela
Defend the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela!
By Eugene PuryearAug 05, 2017
Supporters of the Bolivarian Revolution celebrate as members of the Constituent Assembly are sworn in, Aug. 4, Caracas.
Amidst massive demonstrations, Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly has been sworn in in the country’s capital of Caracas. At the same time, the struggle between the socialist Bolivarian movement and the pro-capitalist rightwing opposition is heating-up with several figures arrested and the country’s Attorney General replaced. International media is pushing aggressively to undermine the government and fan the flames of discontent.
The enemies of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela are in overdrive trying to discredit the July 30 vote for Constituent Assembly delegates. Unable to break the Chavista base and set the stage for a coup, the opposition and the international supporters have no choice but to try to discredit the outcome to strengthen their relative position. At the center of this entire controversy is whether the officially declared number of voters, 8,089,320, was accurate.
This allegation is based on a few claims. With no evidence, the opposition is circulating absurdly low estimates of 2-3 million total voters. Their claim is further marred by their own so-called referendum process, occurring two weeks earlier, which lacked basic elements of a democratic vote like the secret ballot. In fact, in the rightwing’s “referendum,” all evidence required for an audit was burned! How convenient!
News agency Reuters has seen what it claims are internal documents from election officials from several hours before the polls closed that allegedly show a voter participation rate too slow to support claims of eight million votes. Finally, SmartMatic, the company that made the electronic voting hardware claims they have information from their systems that show the turnout was seven million.
SmartMatic has not provided any technical information as to how they know this, and some reports have it that their role is only limited to supplying hardware and software. Almost immediately after making these declarations, SmartMatic appears to have closed their offices and removed 20 managers from the country.
Results reflect deep roots of revolutionary process
These three thinly sourced and widely divergent claims also stand in stark contrast to the performance of the Bolivarian forces at the ballot box since Hugo Chavez was elected in 1998. The largest ever vote achieved by the Bolivarian socialist movement was Hugo Chavez’s Presidential election in 2012, the last before he died in which 8,191,132 Venezuelans cast ballots for Chavez and his socialist movement. By contrast, in his first election in 1998 Chavez only received 3,673,685 votes.
Only once in the last decade have the forces of Chavismo gained less than five million votes in the five national elections during that time.
If we assume that each of the 7,587,579 people who voted for President Maduro in 2013 voted, then roughly five hundred thousand more people would have had to turn out to reach the total of just over eight million. This is a number smaller than the just over six hundred thousand vote difference between Chavez’s presidential vote in 2012 and Maduro’s total in 2013.
In other words the announced vote total in the Constitutional Assembly election is well within the demonstrated voting base of the Bolivarian movement, if on its upper end.
Was voter turnout hurt by economic and social crisis?
The argument to bolster claims of much lower voter turnout centers on the current economic turmoil in the country. In this telling, the economic difficulties have resulted in mass desertions from the Chavista camp. There are serious reasons to doubt this narrative.
Since the 2015 National Assembly election won by the opposition served as a warning of how serious a toll the economic crisis was taking, the economic situation has clearly stabilized to a degree. While there are shortages of certain goods, the government has established a baseline through a central goods distribution program known as CLAP.
The program distributes subsidized food and basic household goods directly to just under six million households. A progressive tax overhaul has reduced the reliance on oil revenues to fund the government’s budget, over 70 percent of which is spent on various social programs and popular democratic organs. Establishing this greater fiscal certainty makes the continuation of pillar social programs much more realistic even amidst crises.
The announcement in the spring that CLAP would push to expand to six million families tellingly coincided with the rise in support (as measured by opinion polls) for the Bolivarian coalition from 27 percent in January to 35 percent in April. Datanalisis,
a polling company often cited by the Western press, recorded a similar 6 percent increase in the approval rating of President Nicolas Maduro between the end of 2016 and March 2017.
In the 2015 National Assembly, despite losing their majority, the Chavista coalition tallied more votes than in 2010 when they won a majority of the votes in the National Assembly. There are other reasons to believe that grassroots participation drove voter enthusiasm as well.
The constituent process is not simply a commandist exercise. Major components of the Bolivarian coalition like the Communist Party and Fatherland for All Party presented candidates in an anti-imperialist front. Along with the Tupamaros, a socialist collective, and socialist currents inside the ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV), there were a range of radical and socialist candidates.
Yes, there also capitalist and bureaucratic elements trying to opportunistically benefit, which only reinforces that the process contains within it real debate on how to confront various challenges and contradictions. These issues range from practical issues shuch as how to deal with shortages to the larger questions of how to integrate the tens of thousands of communal councils, thousands of communes and the broader areas of the economy; how much to impinge on private property and whether and how to combine workers control and nationalization of industry or what the proper balance is between the regular army and the popular militias.
Indigenous nations chose representatives to represent their communities at the assembly and Afro-Venezuelan groups are more or less united in support of and participating the constituent process.
The revolution is taking bold steps to develop solutions that meet the scale of their problems; things that need new structures and governing processes and a new constitution.
In the face of that was a total boycott by the opposition and sanctions from the most powerful nation on earth whose President also leveled vague threats. Rank bigot Vice President Mike Pence placed a pre-election called to Leopoldo Lopez, one of the leaders of the street opposition that burns people alive just for being suspected of Bolivarian loyalties.
Both internally and internationally it became clear that this was a turning point election. A poor turnout meant the end of the Bolivarian experiment. A strong showing would give legitimacy to a deepening of the revolution and a more explicit embrace of a people centered society, socialism.
As a turning point election it fits another pattern that buttresses the CNE election results. The ratification of the first Bolivarian constitution in 1999 opened up new space for progressive moves. It also provoked a vicious backlash by capitalist elites who launched an employers lockout to sabotage the economy and ultimately launched a coup in 2002. The coup, the first major turning point, was defeated after mass crowds thronged the streets of Caracas demanding the return of President of Chavez.
In 2004 the opposition attempted to recall President Chavez who they felt was still weak from the failed coup attempt. In 1998 Chavez had been elected with roughly three million votes. In 2004 over five million went to the ballot box to support him in a second major turning point election. After the victory in the referendum the Bolivarian process began to radicalize and implement large scale social missions and promote the growth of communal structures.
In 2006 President Chavez, having been vilified by major powers but celebrated for the remarkable social achievements of Venezuela was facing a major test. Some 74.6 percent of the voting eligible population showed up. Chavez and the socialist camp won 62 percent of those votes as 7.3 million people raised the red flag at the ballot box reaffirming the mass support of the radical turn of the Venezuelan process.
After a failed constitutional reform in 2007 Chavismo was facing the reality that their leader was term-limited. The socialist bloc rallied two million more voters to their banner than 2007 as 54 percent of voters ratified abolishing term limits giving new life to the Bolivarian coalition.
In 2012 the opposition nominated Henrique Capriles, the most electrifying candidate they had yet fielded, who demagogically and totally disingenuously ran on a Chavismo-light campaign. Which drove turnout to 80 percent and saw Chavez walk away with the convincing victory of 55 percent of the electorate, eight million votes.
Just over seven million rallied to save the Bolivarian government from disaster in 2013 after the tragic death of Hugo Chavez. It seems imminently plausible then that a movement that has rallied at the ballot box at critical moments; the masses who defeated a coup with nothing but the presence of their bodies; the neighborhoods that formed councils and communes; the movement that seized land from oligarchs and occupied the factories of industrialists; a movement that is forming armed defense brigades to defend that seized land and those occupied factories from opposition sabotage attempts; that a movement like that would rally one more time when their process to build another world was threatened.
Opposition divided by results, dangers remain
The final confirmation that the turnout on July 30 was indeed robust is the split in the opposition and the cautious statements of U.S. officials who have stressed “dialogue.” Some State Department figures have tried to tamp down speculation about U.S. support for a coup.
Major opposition party Accion Democratica has already announced they will participate in regional elections in December. These forces recognize that the violent opposition protests have failed to paralyze the country to the point where a coup is possible, and failed to expand its base beyond the more affluent areas of the country
However, violent protests will continue, the opposition is split and some such as Maria Corina Machado, Leopoldo Lopez and Fredy Guevara want to establish an alternate government. Some forces internationally undoubtedly will continue to rally to their cause.
Without any doubt the struggle will become sharper as this happens. The government will undoubtedly take measures to protect the Bolivarian movement and the opposition will most likely escalate their violence in certain areas. The international media, the major imperialist governments, and right wing movements will claim any suppression of opposition forces is a terrible breach of democracy by an authoritarian dictatorship.
They will never truly explain what’s really at stake. They won’t pose the question as being a strugle between the hope of true progress and a country being dragged backed into the morass of inequality and squandered wealth dominated by a few elites.
For progressive people who think housing, education, healthcare, should be rights, that believe the shameful histories of genocide of the indigenous and the enslaving of Africans in the Americans must be confronted; these people must stand shoulder to shoulder with the Bolivarian revolution. If it is crushed, a beacon of hope for all the causes we just mentioned will be snuffed out.
https://www.liberationnews.org/defend-t ... venezuela/
Not bad for a Trot publication, but don't turn your back...
By Eugene PuryearAug 05, 2017
Supporters of the Bolivarian Revolution celebrate as members of the Constituent Assembly are sworn in, Aug. 4, Caracas.
Amidst massive demonstrations, Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly has been sworn in in the country’s capital of Caracas. At the same time, the struggle between the socialist Bolivarian movement and the pro-capitalist rightwing opposition is heating-up with several figures arrested and the country’s Attorney General replaced. International media is pushing aggressively to undermine the government and fan the flames of discontent.
The enemies of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela are in overdrive trying to discredit the July 30 vote for Constituent Assembly delegates. Unable to break the Chavista base and set the stage for a coup, the opposition and the international supporters have no choice but to try to discredit the outcome to strengthen their relative position. At the center of this entire controversy is whether the officially declared number of voters, 8,089,320, was accurate.
This allegation is based on a few claims. With no evidence, the opposition is circulating absurdly low estimates of 2-3 million total voters. Their claim is further marred by their own so-called referendum process, occurring two weeks earlier, which lacked basic elements of a democratic vote like the secret ballot. In fact, in the rightwing’s “referendum,” all evidence required for an audit was burned! How convenient!
News agency Reuters has seen what it claims are internal documents from election officials from several hours before the polls closed that allegedly show a voter participation rate too slow to support claims of eight million votes. Finally, SmartMatic, the company that made the electronic voting hardware claims they have information from their systems that show the turnout was seven million.
SmartMatic has not provided any technical information as to how they know this, and some reports have it that their role is only limited to supplying hardware and software. Almost immediately after making these declarations, SmartMatic appears to have closed their offices and removed 20 managers from the country.
Results reflect deep roots of revolutionary process
These three thinly sourced and widely divergent claims also stand in stark contrast to the performance of the Bolivarian forces at the ballot box since Hugo Chavez was elected in 1998. The largest ever vote achieved by the Bolivarian socialist movement was Hugo Chavez’s Presidential election in 2012, the last before he died in which 8,191,132 Venezuelans cast ballots for Chavez and his socialist movement. By contrast, in his first election in 1998 Chavez only received 3,673,685 votes.
Only once in the last decade have the forces of Chavismo gained less than five million votes in the five national elections during that time.
If we assume that each of the 7,587,579 people who voted for President Maduro in 2013 voted, then roughly five hundred thousand more people would have had to turn out to reach the total of just over eight million. This is a number smaller than the just over six hundred thousand vote difference between Chavez’s presidential vote in 2012 and Maduro’s total in 2013.
In other words the announced vote total in the Constitutional Assembly election is well within the demonstrated voting base of the Bolivarian movement, if on its upper end.
Was voter turnout hurt by economic and social crisis?
The argument to bolster claims of much lower voter turnout centers on the current economic turmoil in the country. In this telling, the economic difficulties have resulted in mass desertions from the Chavista camp. There are serious reasons to doubt this narrative.
Since the 2015 National Assembly election won by the opposition served as a warning of how serious a toll the economic crisis was taking, the economic situation has clearly stabilized to a degree. While there are shortages of certain goods, the government has established a baseline through a central goods distribution program known as CLAP.
The program distributes subsidized food and basic household goods directly to just under six million households. A progressive tax overhaul has reduced the reliance on oil revenues to fund the government’s budget, over 70 percent of which is spent on various social programs and popular democratic organs. Establishing this greater fiscal certainty makes the continuation of pillar social programs much more realistic even amidst crises.
The announcement in the spring that CLAP would push to expand to six million families tellingly coincided with the rise in support (as measured by opinion polls) for the Bolivarian coalition from 27 percent in January to 35 percent in April. Datanalisis,
a polling company often cited by the Western press, recorded a similar 6 percent increase in the approval rating of President Nicolas Maduro between the end of 2016 and March 2017.
In the 2015 National Assembly, despite losing their majority, the Chavista coalition tallied more votes than in 2010 when they won a majority of the votes in the National Assembly. There are other reasons to believe that grassroots participation drove voter enthusiasm as well.
The constituent process is not simply a commandist exercise. Major components of the Bolivarian coalition like the Communist Party and Fatherland for All Party presented candidates in an anti-imperialist front. Along with the Tupamaros, a socialist collective, and socialist currents inside the ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV), there were a range of radical and socialist candidates.
Yes, there also capitalist and bureaucratic elements trying to opportunistically benefit, which only reinforces that the process contains within it real debate on how to confront various challenges and contradictions. These issues range from practical issues shuch as how to deal with shortages to the larger questions of how to integrate the tens of thousands of communal councils, thousands of communes and the broader areas of the economy; how much to impinge on private property and whether and how to combine workers control and nationalization of industry or what the proper balance is between the regular army and the popular militias.
Indigenous nations chose representatives to represent their communities at the assembly and Afro-Venezuelan groups are more or less united in support of and participating the constituent process.
The revolution is taking bold steps to develop solutions that meet the scale of their problems; things that need new structures and governing processes and a new constitution.
In the face of that was a total boycott by the opposition and sanctions from the most powerful nation on earth whose President also leveled vague threats. Rank bigot Vice President Mike Pence placed a pre-election called to Leopoldo Lopez, one of the leaders of the street opposition that burns people alive just for being suspected of Bolivarian loyalties.
Both internally and internationally it became clear that this was a turning point election. A poor turnout meant the end of the Bolivarian experiment. A strong showing would give legitimacy to a deepening of the revolution and a more explicit embrace of a people centered society, socialism.
As a turning point election it fits another pattern that buttresses the CNE election results. The ratification of the first Bolivarian constitution in 1999 opened up new space for progressive moves. It also provoked a vicious backlash by capitalist elites who launched an employers lockout to sabotage the economy and ultimately launched a coup in 2002. The coup, the first major turning point, was defeated after mass crowds thronged the streets of Caracas demanding the return of President of Chavez.
In 2004 the opposition attempted to recall President Chavez who they felt was still weak from the failed coup attempt. In 1998 Chavez had been elected with roughly three million votes. In 2004 over five million went to the ballot box to support him in a second major turning point election. After the victory in the referendum the Bolivarian process began to radicalize and implement large scale social missions and promote the growth of communal structures.
In 2006 President Chavez, having been vilified by major powers but celebrated for the remarkable social achievements of Venezuela was facing a major test. Some 74.6 percent of the voting eligible population showed up. Chavez and the socialist camp won 62 percent of those votes as 7.3 million people raised the red flag at the ballot box reaffirming the mass support of the radical turn of the Venezuelan process.
After a failed constitutional reform in 2007 Chavismo was facing the reality that their leader was term-limited. The socialist bloc rallied two million more voters to their banner than 2007 as 54 percent of voters ratified abolishing term limits giving new life to the Bolivarian coalition.
In 2012 the opposition nominated Henrique Capriles, the most electrifying candidate they had yet fielded, who demagogically and totally disingenuously ran on a Chavismo-light campaign. Which drove turnout to 80 percent and saw Chavez walk away with the convincing victory of 55 percent of the electorate, eight million votes.
Just over seven million rallied to save the Bolivarian government from disaster in 2013 after the tragic death of Hugo Chavez. It seems imminently plausible then that a movement that has rallied at the ballot box at critical moments; the masses who defeated a coup with nothing but the presence of their bodies; the neighborhoods that formed councils and communes; the movement that seized land from oligarchs and occupied the factories of industrialists; a movement that is forming armed defense brigades to defend that seized land and those occupied factories from opposition sabotage attempts; that a movement like that would rally one more time when their process to build another world was threatened.
Opposition divided by results, dangers remain
The final confirmation that the turnout on July 30 was indeed robust is the split in the opposition and the cautious statements of U.S. officials who have stressed “dialogue.” Some State Department figures have tried to tamp down speculation about U.S. support for a coup.
Major opposition party Accion Democratica has already announced they will participate in regional elections in December. These forces recognize that the violent opposition protests have failed to paralyze the country to the point where a coup is possible, and failed to expand its base beyond the more affluent areas of the country
However, violent protests will continue, the opposition is split and some such as Maria Corina Machado, Leopoldo Lopez and Fredy Guevara want to establish an alternate government. Some forces internationally undoubtedly will continue to rally to their cause.
Without any doubt the struggle will become sharper as this happens. The government will undoubtedly take measures to protect the Bolivarian movement and the opposition will most likely escalate their violence in certain areas. The international media, the major imperialist governments, and right wing movements will claim any suppression of opposition forces is a terrible breach of democracy by an authoritarian dictatorship.
They will never truly explain what’s really at stake. They won’t pose the question as being a strugle between the hope of true progress and a country being dragged backed into the morass of inequality and squandered wealth dominated by a few elites.
For progressive people who think housing, education, healthcare, should be rights, that believe the shameful histories of genocide of the indigenous and the enslaving of Africans in the Americans must be confronted; these people must stand shoulder to shoulder with the Bolivarian revolution. If it is crushed, a beacon of hope for all the causes we just mentioned will be snuffed out.
https://www.liberationnews.org/defend-t ... venezuela/
Not bad for a Trot publication, but don't turn your back...
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Venezuela
Venezuela elections: resurgent chavismo and “unrecognised” democracy
01 Aug 2017 RICARDO VAZ
After weeks of imperialist threats and opposition violence, the elections for the Constituent Assembly (ANC) in Venezuela took place on July 30th. The result was a massive turnout of over 8 million voters, around 41% of the electorate, which gave chavismo a much-needed shot in the arm. The western media reacted by trying to dispute the number and sticking even closer to the narrative being pushed by the opposition and the US State Department. With the opposition scrambling and US authorities bringing more sanctions and threats, it is now chavismo that has the political initiative. The Constituent Assembly will not solve everything by itself, but it is a tremendous opportunity to push the Bolivarian Revolution forward.
A tale of two elections
On July 16th the Venezuelan opposition held a “consultation” in which it called on its supporters to symbolically reject the Constituent Assembly, appeal for military coup and support a so-called “national unity” government. Here is how Associated Press reported on the turnout:
“The opposition said 7.6 million Venezuelans participated in Sunday’s symbolic referendum, which the government labelled an internal party poll with no relevance for the country.”
There is no mention of the fact that people were free to vote more than once, that no electoral roll was used and that no audit was possible because everything was burned at the end of the day. Apart from this, in a recent article we explored other reasons why this total was very doubtful, based on simple estimations given the number of voting booths available. A phone conversation between opposition leaders in Aragua state also revealed how the numbers were being cooked.
President Maduro was the first to vote, casting what he called “the first vote for peace”.
In contrast, Sunday’s elections had the full weight of the electoral authorities behind them, over 12.000 voting centres and 24.000 voting booths, and the approval of international monitors. The main obstacle was the opposition’s violence, and so additional voting centres, such as the Caracas Poliedro pavilion, were set up for people who were not able to vote in their own neighbourhoods (1). Pictures showed voting queues forming since early morning and the voting deadline was extended so everyone could vote.
It is also worth reminding how the Venezuelan voting system is as close to foolproof as it gets. Voters access voting machines using their fingerprints, exercise their vote electronically, and then a paper ballot is printed. The voter checks that it matches the vote he/she just made and places this paper ballot in a box. Once the voting is done, a random audit of voting centres is made to ensure that the paper ballot tally matches the electronic tally to a margin of 0.1%. In particular, a big discrepancy between the voting totals, paper and electronic, would stand out immediately. And yet, this is how Associated Press reported Sunday’s turnout:
“National Electoral Council President Tibisay Lucena announced just before midnight that turnout was 41.53 percent, or 8,089,320 people. Members of the opposition said they believed between 2 million and 3 million people voted and one well-respected independent analysis put the number at 3.6 million.”
Based on what, exactly? If they have evidence they should present it. Some pictures of empty voting centres in middle-class neighbourhoods, which for all we know could have been taken the day before, do not prove anything. Surely, among the thousands of electoral commission workers, one of them would report that there were 3 times more electronic votes than paper ballots in his centre. When Donald Trump claimed that he lost the popular vote because 3 million illegal immigrants voted for Hillary Clinton the media checked and disproved the wild claim. But apparently these standards, or any standards for that matter, do not apply to the Venezuelan opposition.
What’s in a number?
The ineffable Guardian (2), which went into propaganda overdrive in recent days, simply let the US State Department set the tone to describe Sunday’s events in Venezuela. Perhaps still in denial, the Guardian had yet to report the total number of votes on Monday morning. A second piece that revealed the 8M votes surrounded by all the supposed controversy also shed some light on the disputed predictions and the “well respected independent analysis”:
“An exit poll based on surveys from 110 voting centers [note: out of a total of 12.000] by New York investment bank Torino Capital and a Venezuela public opinion company estimated that 3.6 million people voted…” (3)
It would be interesting to know the sample size, the margin of error, which voting centres were used and which baseline is being compared against. Exit polls work by comparing against exit polls from a previous election, or a model based on previous elections. Voters are interviewed during a certain period of time, and numbers are compared to similar ones in a previous election during the same time to predict turnout (and also how the vote might swing, which is not relevant in this case). Since exit polling has been forbidden in the past in Venezuela, it really makes us wonder how these predictions are made.
We also need to point out that in this case not all voting centres are created equal. Given that the opposition flat-out refused to participate, turnout will have been much more suppressed in the opposition strongholds, and even more so in the vicinity of violent opposition barricades. An oversampling of these would inevitably skewer the prediction, which is why the data needs to be scrutinised and compared to the official results if it is to be taken seriously. The opposition’s long track record of crying fraud and presenting fabricated evidence (or none at all) also makes these claims very hard to believe.
In any case, we expect the media to uncritically parrot the opposition “prediction” with the same bias that they uncritically parrot the 7.6M total for the opposition’s consultation. (4)
Voters in Barquisimeto (photo from Alba Ciudad)
“The world is ending tomorrow. If not, then next week”
After winning the legislative elections in December 2015, the Venezuelan opposition announced that it would get rid of the government in six months. Following protests in September 2016, again we were told that the end was near.
The same doomsday announcements were found in the recent wave of protests and violence. In response to the call for a Constituent Assembly, opposition leaders boldly announced that it would not take place! And finally, the opposition announced that their July 16th marked the “zero hour” of a new phase, in which they would nominate a “national unity” government. This was later downgraded to an “governability accord” which some factions refused to sign. Their demand that the Constituent Assembly elections be cancelled was also a failure.
Last week’s events capture this phenomenon in a nutshell. After a two-day “civic strike”, which amounted to little more than closed shops in wealthy areas and bosses locking out their workers, they announced the “takeover of Caracas” for Friday. This then became a “takeover of Venezuela”, and finally another “trancazo”, in which opposition groups simply lock down their own areas. Then they wanted to march to voting centres on Saturday and physically impede the elections from taking place, but this too was to become another “trancazo”…
There is very little credibility left to this opposition that behaves like a doomsday cult, predicting the end of the world on a given day and later re-scheduling. For their own sake, one hopes that they have a “no refund” policy, otherwise funders like the National Endowment for Democracy or USAID might want their money back.
Lessons in democracy and international recognition
The pressure and propaganda against Venezuela in recent weeks were centred on the idea that the simple fact of these elections taking place would mean the “end of democracy” and the definitive arrival of a “dictatorship”. Often absent from these pieces is the fact that everyone could vote and anyone could stand as a candidate.
But beyond this we encounter the obvious question of why Venezuela should get lessons in democracy or electoral procedures from the likes of the United States. Intellectual Gore Vidal famously said that
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.”
The fact that Brazil (!) complained about the legitimacy of this process shows that an unexpected victim of last year’s parliamentary coup, which brought Temer to power, was irony.
Mainstream outlets were determined to paint the narrative of government repression but could not resist using a photo of a bomb detonated by the opposition against security forces. As a result, many simply referred to an “explosion” without identifying the culprits!
When it became clear that the Venezuelan government was not going to back down and the vote was going ahead, the tone changed slightly. The US, the European Union and the usual suspects (Argentina, Mexico, Colombia,…) now announced they would not recognise the election results. Here it is worth recalling a few episodes of international recognition:
– the US initially refused to recognise the results of the 2013 Venezuelan presidential election, even after it was proven beyond any doubt that Maduro was the winner.
– the US and Spain rushed to recognise Pedro Carmona’s government after the 2002 coup, even though the coup authorities dissolved all public powers
– European countries and later the US recognised an unelected body, chosen by delegates appointed by the various sponsors of the Syrian war, and operating in Turkey, as “the legitimate representative of the Syrian people”. This body would later be consigned to irrelevance.
To these we could add a multitude of leaders who came to power following bloody or back-door coups, from Pinochet to Temer, and never had any trouble being “recognised”. The Israeli apartheid regime has no issues in terms of recognition despite its permanent history of crimes and ethnic cleansing. So there is hardly any correlation between legitimacy and recognition from the US and its followers.
What happens next?
The total of 8M votes is higher than Maduro’s 2013 total and 2.5M more than what chavismo got in the 2015 legislative elections. This is being presented as “evidence” against the official results. This stems from a very narrow-minded perspective that does not understand that chavismo is much bigger than Maduro, just like it was much bigger than Chávez himself. The Venezuelan opposition and the mainstream media also seem incapable of considering that people would actually vote in defiance of the violent actions of the opposition and the imperialist threats from the US. Instead we hear the same recycled allegations that public workers or people living in houses built by the government were forced to vote. (5)
The poor showing in 2015 was blamed by the grassroots on the top-down nature of the chavista electoral machine, which simply chose the candidates. For these elections the more radical sectors were able to put forward their own candidates, and as a result many people who would not necessarily vote for Maduro or for PSUV legislative candidates went out to vote for the specific proposals put forward by friends, co-workers and comrades.
A popular assembly of “Chavismo Bravío”, a radical current that presented several candidates to the ANC, a few days before the vote (photo from Reinaldo Iturriza’s twitter)
In retrospect, Maduro’s gamble can only be seen as a huge success for chavismo and a huge failure for the opposition. With the opposition ramping up (violent) pressure on the streets and claiming they were an overwhelming majority, Maduro essentially “called their bluff” (phrase borrowed from Mike Prysner). By calling for a Constituent Assembly, Maduro hoped, and managed, to galvanise chavismo with a participatory process that could reach the bases, and at the same time expose the opposition by forcing them bring forward their ideas. Polls reveal that Venezuelans are aware that the opposition has no plan whatsoever, and the opposition duly backed itself into a corner by refusing to participate, reducing their political arguments to these lobotomised slogans “we do not want to be Cuba”.
While the turnout represents a victory for chavismo, the battle is far from over. The Constituent Assembly is not a magical cure for all problems, and whatever comes out of it will depend heavily on the balance of forces among its members. Now more than ever it is urgent to make clear push to the left, with more power to the communes, increased worker control over the economy, expropriations against the instigators of the economic war, etc. With the opposition hell-bent on their violent regime change plans and a permanent imperial onslaught, only radicalisation will ensure the survival of the Bolivarian Revolution.
Notes
(1) It is quite remarkable that, according to the media, the EU, the US, etc, the “pro-democracy” faction is the one that was physically trying to stop others from voting and destroying electoral material.
(2) In the run-up to the elections the Guardian also published an “explainer” which essentially a propaganda piece. We tried to expose some of the lies and distortions in this article.
(3) The Venezuelan company involved in the exit poll was Innovarium, which has no track record of having done electoral polls, or exit polls in particular.
Innovarium appears to be headed by Carlos Guzmán Cárdenas. A quick look at his social media accounts reveals a very strong anti-government bias. As a reference, Maria Corina Machado’s US-funded Súmate ran a phony exit poll for the 2004 recall referendum predicting an 18-point defeat for Chávez. Chávez ended up winning by a landslide, and former US-president Jimmy Carter slammed Súmate for having
“…deliberately distributed this erroneous exit poll data in order to build up, not only the expectation of victory, but also to influence the people still standing in line”
We have contacted both Torino Capital and Carlos Guzmán Cárdenas asking for more information about this exit poll, and will update the article if this information is provided.
(4) The media has also latched on to the revocation of the house arrest deals of opposition leaders Leopoldo López and Antonio Ledezma. What the media failed to mention is the repeated violations of the terms of their house arrest, with constant calls for anti-government actions and for a military coup.
(5) It is not too hard to understand that people living in houses built by Misión Vivienda would take part in a process that, among other things, aims to solidify social gains and missions. Especially when the opposition has already made it clear that their intentions are to privatise the housing mission.
http://www.investigaction.net/en/venezu ... democracy/
01 Aug 2017 RICARDO VAZ
After weeks of imperialist threats and opposition violence, the elections for the Constituent Assembly (ANC) in Venezuela took place on July 30th. The result was a massive turnout of over 8 million voters, around 41% of the electorate, which gave chavismo a much-needed shot in the arm. The western media reacted by trying to dispute the number and sticking even closer to the narrative being pushed by the opposition and the US State Department. With the opposition scrambling and US authorities bringing more sanctions and threats, it is now chavismo that has the political initiative. The Constituent Assembly will not solve everything by itself, but it is a tremendous opportunity to push the Bolivarian Revolution forward.
A tale of two elections
On July 16th the Venezuelan opposition held a “consultation” in which it called on its supporters to symbolically reject the Constituent Assembly, appeal for military coup and support a so-called “national unity” government. Here is how Associated Press reported on the turnout:
“The opposition said 7.6 million Venezuelans participated in Sunday’s symbolic referendum, which the government labelled an internal party poll with no relevance for the country.”
There is no mention of the fact that people were free to vote more than once, that no electoral roll was used and that no audit was possible because everything was burned at the end of the day. Apart from this, in a recent article we explored other reasons why this total was very doubtful, based on simple estimations given the number of voting booths available. A phone conversation between opposition leaders in Aragua state also revealed how the numbers were being cooked.
President Maduro was the first to vote, casting what he called “the first vote for peace”.
In contrast, Sunday’s elections had the full weight of the electoral authorities behind them, over 12.000 voting centres and 24.000 voting booths, and the approval of international monitors. The main obstacle was the opposition’s violence, and so additional voting centres, such as the Caracas Poliedro pavilion, were set up for people who were not able to vote in their own neighbourhoods (1). Pictures showed voting queues forming since early morning and the voting deadline was extended so everyone could vote.
It is also worth reminding how the Venezuelan voting system is as close to foolproof as it gets. Voters access voting machines using their fingerprints, exercise their vote electronically, and then a paper ballot is printed. The voter checks that it matches the vote he/she just made and places this paper ballot in a box. Once the voting is done, a random audit of voting centres is made to ensure that the paper ballot tally matches the electronic tally to a margin of 0.1%. In particular, a big discrepancy between the voting totals, paper and electronic, would stand out immediately. And yet, this is how Associated Press reported Sunday’s turnout:
“National Electoral Council President Tibisay Lucena announced just before midnight that turnout was 41.53 percent, or 8,089,320 people. Members of the opposition said they believed between 2 million and 3 million people voted and one well-respected independent analysis put the number at 3.6 million.”
Based on what, exactly? If they have evidence they should present it. Some pictures of empty voting centres in middle-class neighbourhoods, which for all we know could have been taken the day before, do not prove anything. Surely, among the thousands of electoral commission workers, one of them would report that there were 3 times more electronic votes than paper ballots in his centre. When Donald Trump claimed that he lost the popular vote because 3 million illegal immigrants voted for Hillary Clinton the media checked and disproved the wild claim. But apparently these standards, or any standards for that matter, do not apply to the Venezuelan opposition.
What’s in a number?
The ineffable Guardian (2), which went into propaganda overdrive in recent days, simply let the US State Department set the tone to describe Sunday’s events in Venezuela. Perhaps still in denial, the Guardian had yet to report the total number of votes on Monday morning. A second piece that revealed the 8M votes surrounded by all the supposed controversy also shed some light on the disputed predictions and the “well respected independent analysis”:
“An exit poll based on surveys from 110 voting centers [note: out of a total of 12.000] by New York investment bank Torino Capital and a Venezuela public opinion company estimated that 3.6 million people voted…” (3)
It would be interesting to know the sample size, the margin of error, which voting centres were used and which baseline is being compared against. Exit polls work by comparing against exit polls from a previous election, or a model based on previous elections. Voters are interviewed during a certain period of time, and numbers are compared to similar ones in a previous election during the same time to predict turnout (and also how the vote might swing, which is not relevant in this case). Since exit polling has been forbidden in the past in Venezuela, it really makes us wonder how these predictions are made.
We also need to point out that in this case not all voting centres are created equal. Given that the opposition flat-out refused to participate, turnout will have been much more suppressed in the opposition strongholds, and even more so in the vicinity of violent opposition barricades. An oversampling of these would inevitably skewer the prediction, which is why the data needs to be scrutinised and compared to the official results if it is to be taken seriously. The opposition’s long track record of crying fraud and presenting fabricated evidence (or none at all) also makes these claims very hard to believe.
In any case, we expect the media to uncritically parrot the opposition “prediction” with the same bias that they uncritically parrot the 7.6M total for the opposition’s consultation. (4)
Voters in Barquisimeto (photo from Alba Ciudad)
“The world is ending tomorrow. If not, then next week”
After winning the legislative elections in December 2015, the Venezuelan opposition announced that it would get rid of the government in six months. Following protests in September 2016, again we were told that the end was near.
The same doomsday announcements were found in the recent wave of protests and violence. In response to the call for a Constituent Assembly, opposition leaders boldly announced that it would not take place! And finally, the opposition announced that their July 16th marked the “zero hour” of a new phase, in which they would nominate a “national unity” government. This was later downgraded to an “governability accord” which some factions refused to sign. Their demand that the Constituent Assembly elections be cancelled was also a failure.
Last week’s events capture this phenomenon in a nutshell. After a two-day “civic strike”, which amounted to little more than closed shops in wealthy areas and bosses locking out their workers, they announced the “takeover of Caracas” for Friday. This then became a “takeover of Venezuela”, and finally another “trancazo”, in which opposition groups simply lock down their own areas. Then they wanted to march to voting centres on Saturday and physically impede the elections from taking place, but this too was to become another “trancazo”…
There is very little credibility left to this opposition that behaves like a doomsday cult, predicting the end of the world on a given day and later re-scheduling. For their own sake, one hopes that they have a “no refund” policy, otherwise funders like the National Endowment for Democracy or USAID might want their money back.
Lessons in democracy and international recognition
The pressure and propaganda against Venezuela in recent weeks were centred on the idea that the simple fact of these elections taking place would mean the “end of democracy” and the definitive arrival of a “dictatorship”. Often absent from these pieces is the fact that everyone could vote and anyone could stand as a candidate.
But beyond this we encounter the obvious question of why Venezuela should get lessons in democracy or electoral procedures from the likes of the United States. Intellectual Gore Vidal famously said that
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.”
The fact that Brazil (!) complained about the legitimacy of this process shows that an unexpected victim of last year’s parliamentary coup, which brought Temer to power, was irony.
Mainstream outlets were determined to paint the narrative of government repression but could not resist using a photo of a bomb detonated by the opposition against security forces. As a result, many simply referred to an “explosion” without identifying the culprits!
When it became clear that the Venezuelan government was not going to back down and the vote was going ahead, the tone changed slightly. The US, the European Union and the usual suspects (Argentina, Mexico, Colombia,…) now announced they would not recognise the election results. Here it is worth recalling a few episodes of international recognition:
– the US initially refused to recognise the results of the 2013 Venezuelan presidential election, even after it was proven beyond any doubt that Maduro was the winner.
– the US and Spain rushed to recognise Pedro Carmona’s government after the 2002 coup, even though the coup authorities dissolved all public powers
– European countries and later the US recognised an unelected body, chosen by delegates appointed by the various sponsors of the Syrian war, and operating in Turkey, as “the legitimate representative of the Syrian people”. This body would later be consigned to irrelevance.
To these we could add a multitude of leaders who came to power following bloody or back-door coups, from Pinochet to Temer, and never had any trouble being “recognised”. The Israeli apartheid regime has no issues in terms of recognition despite its permanent history of crimes and ethnic cleansing. So there is hardly any correlation between legitimacy and recognition from the US and its followers.
What happens next?
The total of 8M votes is higher than Maduro’s 2013 total and 2.5M more than what chavismo got in the 2015 legislative elections. This is being presented as “evidence” against the official results. This stems from a very narrow-minded perspective that does not understand that chavismo is much bigger than Maduro, just like it was much bigger than Chávez himself. The Venezuelan opposition and the mainstream media also seem incapable of considering that people would actually vote in defiance of the violent actions of the opposition and the imperialist threats from the US. Instead we hear the same recycled allegations that public workers or people living in houses built by the government were forced to vote. (5)
The poor showing in 2015 was blamed by the grassroots on the top-down nature of the chavista electoral machine, which simply chose the candidates. For these elections the more radical sectors were able to put forward their own candidates, and as a result many people who would not necessarily vote for Maduro or for PSUV legislative candidates went out to vote for the specific proposals put forward by friends, co-workers and comrades.
A popular assembly of “Chavismo Bravío”, a radical current that presented several candidates to the ANC, a few days before the vote (photo from Reinaldo Iturriza’s twitter)
In retrospect, Maduro’s gamble can only be seen as a huge success for chavismo and a huge failure for the opposition. With the opposition ramping up (violent) pressure on the streets and claiming they were an overwhelming majority, Maduro essentially “called their bluff” (phrase borrowed from Mike Prysner). By calling for a Constituent Assembly, Maduro hoped, and managed, to galvanise chavismo with a participatory process that could reach the bases, and at the same time expose the opposition by forcing them bring forward their ideas. Polls reveal that Venezuelans are aware that the opposition has no plan whatsoever, and the opposition duly backed itself into a corner by refusing to participate, reducing their political arguments to these lobotomised slogans “we do not want to be Cuba”.
While the turnout represents a victory for chavismo, the battle is far from over. The Constituent Assembly is not a magical cure for all problems, and whatever comes out of it will depend heavily on the balance of forces among its members. Now more than ever it is urgent to make clear push to the left, with more power to the communes, increased worker control over the economy, expropriations against the instigators of the economic war, etc. With the opposition hell-bent on their violent regime change plans and a permanent imperial onslaught, only radicalisation will ensure the survival of the Bolivarian Revolution.
Notes
(1) It is quite remarkable that, according to the media, the EU, the US, etc, the “pro-democracy” faction is the one that was physically trying to stop others from voting and destroying electoral material.
(2) In the run-up to the elections the Guardian also published an “explainer” which essentially a propaganda piece. We tried to expose some of the lies and distortions in this article.
(3) The Venezuelan company involved in the exit poll was Innovarium, which has no track record of having done electoral polls, or exit polls in particular.
Innovarium appears to be headed by Carlos Guzmán Cárdenas. A quick look at his social media accounts reveals a very strong anti-government bias. As a reference, Maria Corina Machado’s US-funded Súmate ran a phony exit poll for the 2004 recall referendum predicting an 18-point defeat for Chávez. Chávez ended up winning by a landslide, and former US-president Jimmy Carter slammed Súmate for having
“…deliberately distributed this erroneous exit poll data in order to build up, not only the expectation of victory, but also to influence the people still standing in line”
We have contacted both Torino Capital and Carlos Guzmán Cárdenas asking for more information about this exit poll, and will update the article if this information is provided.
(4) The media has also latched on to the revocation of the house arrest deals of opposition leaders Leopoldo López and Antonio Ledezma. What the media failed to mention is the repeated violations of the terms of their house arrest, with constant calls for anti-government actions and for a military coup.
(5) It is not too hard to understand that people living in houses built by Misión Vivienda would take part in a process that, among other things, aims to solidify social gains and missions. Especially when the opposition has already made it clear that their intentions are to privatise the housing mission.
http://www.investigaction.net/en/venezu ... democracy/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
-
kidoftheblackhole
- Posts: 318
- Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 6:09 pm
Re: Venezuela
Kind of makes other "left" analyses of Venezuela seem unworthy of discussion, no? Most of which can't refrain from talking about "mistakes" or "failure", especially the failure to simply submit to "reality" (which is their definition of materialism) or bla bla bla. Times like this make it easy to see the dividing line and who is on which side..While the turnout represents a victory for chavismo, the battle is far from over. The Constituent Assembly is not a magical cure for all problems, and whatever comes out of it will depend heavily on the balance of forces among its members. Now more than ever it is urgent to make clear push to the left, with more power to the communes, increased worker control over the economy, expropriations against the instigators of the economic war, etc. With the opposition hell-bent on their violent regime change plans and a permanent imperial onslaught, only radicalisation will ensure the survival of the Bolivarian Revolution.
Re: Venezuela
Yep, and exactly what we have been advocating here too. My only hesitancy lies in our not having all the information, in particular about the armed forces and state of the people's militia. But even if the answers to those questions are less than what we hope for there is no choice, just more work.kidoftheblackhole wrote: ↑Thu Aug 10, 2017 7:48 pmKind of makes other "left" analyses of Venezuela seem unworthy of discussion, no? Most of which can't refrain from talking about "mistakes" or "failure", especially the failure to simply submit to "reality" (which is their definition of materialism) or bla bla bla. Times like this make it easy to see the dividing line and who is on which side..While the turnout represents a victory for chavismo, the battle is far from over. The Constituent Assembly is not a magical cure for all problems, and whatever comes out of it will depend heavily on the balance of forces among its members. Now more than ever it is urgent to make clear push to the left, with more power to the communes, increased worker control over the economy, expropriations against the instigators of the economic war, etc. With the opposition hell-bent on their violent regime change plans and a permanent imperial onslaught, only radicalisation will ensure the survival of the Bolivarian Revolution.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
-
kidoftheblackhole
- Posts: 318
- Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 6:09 pm
Re: Venezuela
Well, its not really a recommendation as though there are other options. Either they do it or they die. Either we line up hand in hand with them or we keep our place in line for the slaughter.blindpig wrote: ↑Fri Aug 11, 2017 11:53 amYep, and exactly what we have been advocating here too. My only hesitancy lies in our not having all the information, in particular about the armed forces and state of the people's militia. But even if the answers to those questions are less than what we hope for there is no choice, just more work.kidoftheblackhole wrote: ↑Thu Aug 10, 2017 7:48 pmKind of makes other "left" analyses of Venezuela seem unworthy of discussion, no? Most of which can't refrain from talking about "mistakes" or "failure", especially the failure to simply submit to "reality" (which is their definition of materialism) or bla bla bla. Times like this make it easy to see the dividing line and who is on which side..While the turnout represents a victory for chavismo, the battle is far from over. The Constituent Assembly is not a magical cure for all problems, and whatever comes out of it will depend heavily on the balance of forces among its members. Now more than ever it is urgent to make clear push to the left, with more power to the communes, increased worker control over the economy, expropriations against the instigators of the economic war, etc. With the opposition hell-bent on their violent regime change plans and a permanent imperial onslaught, only radicalisation will ensure the survival of the Bolivarian Revolution.
Re: Venezuela
Venezuelan Armed Forces Calls for Firm Position on US Threats
The Defense Minister called on the Venezuelan people to unite and deal firmly with US threats. | Photo: AVN
Published 14 August 2017 (4 hours 29 minutes ago)
By Ilka Oliva Corado
So, we must recognize that Donald Trump is a pornopuritan, because this man has lived between two contradictions, that of the Puritanism of the Ku-Kux-Klan, inherited from Anglicanism, and that of the porn world as a very lucrative business in which Has carved his fortune.
The retroconservative pornopuritano or the worker
By Luis Pino
The defense minister said that Donald Trump "took off his mask" to go against Venezuela by military means.
Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López spoke on Monday about the actions of the United States against the South American country and reaffirmed the defense of the country and the institutions.
Padrino López, along with High Military Command, said that he is evaluating the actions against the sovereignty of Venezuela are wanted to do, recently United States President Donald Trump threatened to intervene militarily Venezuela.
Lopez called for a national union. He asked the Venezuelan Armed Forces to join the people and defend the sovereignty and independence of Venezuela.
The Venezuelan official urged all Venezuelans to reject the pretensions of the US government and noted that this is not the first time that Venezuela faces such situations.
He recalled that from the very moment of the arrival of the Bolivarian Revolution large groups of world power have deployed hybrid war tactics to affect the economy and peace of the South American nation.
Padrino López expressed the support of the Armed Forces to the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro.
http://www.telesurtv.net/news/Fuerza-Ar ... -0024.html
The Defense Minister called on the Venezuelan people to unite and deal firmly with US threats. | Photo: AVN
Published 14 August 2017 (4 hours 29 minutes ago)
By Ilka Oliva Corado
So, we must recognize that Donald Trump is a pornopuritan, because this man has lived between two contradictions, that of the Puritanism of the Ku-Kux-Klan, inherited from Anglicanism, and that of the porn world as a very lucrative business in which Has carved his fortune.
The retroconservative pornopuritano or the worker
By Luis Pino
The defense minister said that Donald Trump "took off his mask" to go against Venezuela by military means.
Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López spoke on Monday about the actions of the United States against the South American country and reaffirmed the defense of the country and the institutions.
Padrino López, along with High Military Command, said that he is evaluating the actions against the sovereignty of Venezuela are wanted to do, recently United States President Donald Trump threatened to intervene militarily Venezuela.
Lopez called for a national union. He asked the Venezuelan Armed Forces to join the people and defend the sovereignty and independence of Venezuela.
The Venezuelan official urged all Venezuelans to reject the pretensions of the US government and noted that this is not the first time that Venezuela faces such situations.
He recalled that from the very moment of the arrival of the Bolivarian Revolution large groups of world power have deployed hybrid war tactics to affect the economy and peace of the South American nation.
Padrino López expressed the support of the Armed Forces to the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro.
http://www.telesurtv.net/news/Fuerza-Ar ... -0024.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
-
kidoftheblackhole
- Posts: 318
- Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 6:09 pm
Re: Venezuela
Makes your blood pump a little faster, don't it?
And nothing has really happened yet
And nothing has really happened yet
Re: Venezuela
Exposing Extreme Right-Wing Violence in Venezuela
Tim Young takes an in-depth look at some of the recent violence in Venezuela. (11/08/17)
Since early April, violence by anti-democratic, extreme elements associated with right-wing protests in Venezuela have resulted in at least 120 deaths and over 1,200 people injured.
The right-wing opposition coalition claim that they are defending democracy and human rights but their central purpose is to bring about ‘regime change,’ and for some of the right-wing this includes by violent, unconstitutional means.
The current street campaign is the latest effort in a consistent line of undemocratic attempts to topple elected Presidents in the country, dating back to the failed coup in 2002 which tried to unseat President Hugo Chávez.
The campaign’s wave of violence has been taken to a new and disturbing level. In the process, both pro-government supporters and anti-government protestors have been killed or injured, as well as bystanders and other people caught up in the violence. A number of police officers and members of the army have also been killed and injured, on two recent occasions by roadside bombs being detonated to blow up police motorcyclists.
As part of this, a key tactic engaged in by elements of the right-wing has been co-ordinated action to blockade over fifty main roads across the country. This has led to a number of deaths, through buses and motorcycles colliding with the barricades or by victims being shot as they tried to bypass them.
Alongside this, extreme acts of vandalism and arson have been targeted against infrastructure and public institutions, including state electricity facilities and food distribution networks. On June 30, for example, a food storage depot in Anzoátegui state (supplying free school meals for children), was set on fire, destroying 50 tons of food.
Alarmingly, attacks have also been made on crèches, with children inside, and hospital patients. For two consecutive days the Carrizal Maternity Hospital was put under siege. Barricades of burning rubbish were set up by protesters just 50 metres from the building, requiring mothers and newborn babies to be evacuated.
Ramping up this tactic to a new level of illegality, on June 27 a right-wing opposition supporting policeman piloting a stolen helicopter fired shots and dropped grenades in an attack on the Interior Ministry and the Supreme Court in Caracas. The pilot was identified as Oscar Alberto Perez, an inspector with one of Venezuela’s specialist police agencies.
A series of videos posted at the same time as the attacks to Perez’s Instagram also showed him reading a statement, surrounded by several men in military uniform, masked and carrying machine guns, in which he claimed to represent a group of military and other officials committed to toppling the government.
In an echo of the use of right-wing death squads in Latin America in the 1980s, a number of pro-government supporters appear to have been the target of assassinations. These include trade unionists such as Jose Luis Rivas Aranguren, who was also a candidate for the Venezuelan National Constituent Assembly, and activists in the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.
Pro-government supporters have also been killed on the streets. In one horrific case, Orlando Figuera died in hospital from knife wounds and extensive burns to his body, after masked protesters accused him of being a government supporter as he was passing through the opposition stronghold of Chacao.
Unfortunately, hardly any of these cases have been mentioned in much UK (and US) media coverage, where often the impression is given that violence in Venezuela only originates from one side of the country’s deeply polarised political divide.
There is a desperate need for dialogue in Venezuela. But media impressions that the violence is one-way from the government side can be taken as a green light by extreme sections of Venezuela’s right-wing to feel they can use violence without international condemnation.
It is important to recognise that a number of anti-government protestors have been killed as well and that all violence must be condemned. Every loss of life is a tragedy and those responsible for each death must be held to account.
Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez has reiterated that incidents of police brutality will not be tolerated, and that officers who use excessive force will be punished.
Cases are being pursued where members of the security have been suspected or positively identified as perpetrators of unlawful killings, and arrests and indictments have already taken place.
Venezuela’s current difficulties are best resolved by dialogue as a way to peacefully address the problems the nation faces, where all forces renounce violence as a way to achieve political ends.
The means for a regional dialogue under the auspices of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) exist, with the participation of the former Presidents of numerous countries. The Venezuelan government and much of civil society have indicated a willingness to take part in such talks.
Instead, Venezuela now has to contend with the further imposition of sanctions by Trump against the country, including against President Maduro himself. Additionally, the CIA recently confirmed the courting of Mexico and Colombia as part of its strategy of regime change. All this will further embolden the extreme elements of the right-wing opposition in their violent campaign and make a dialogue process less likely.
Governments internationally, including Britain and the EU, should do all they can to facilitate and support such a dialogue process. Trump’s sanctions will not help the Venezuelan people, or to facilitate dialogue, but exacerbate the country’s difficulties and divisions.
This article was originally published in the Morning Star (11/8/17)
http://www.venezuelasolidarity.co.uk/ex ... venezuela/
Actually, Venezuela's problems might be best addressed by expropriation of the means of production.(No compensation)
Tim Young takes an in-depth look at some of the recent violence in Venezuela. (11/08/17)
Since early April, violence by anti-democratic, extreme elements associated with right-wing protests in Venezuela have resulted in at least 120 deaths and over 1,200 people injured.
The right-wing opposition coalition claim that they are defending democracy and human rights but their central purpose is to bring about ‘regime change,’ and for some of the right-wing this includes by violent, unconstitutional means.
The current street campaign is the latest effort in a consistent line of undemocratic attempts to topple elected Presidents in the country, dating back to the failed coup in 2002 which tried to unseat President Hugo Chávez.
The campaign’s wave of violence has been taken to a new and disturbing level. In the process, both pro-government supporters and anti-government protestors have been killed or injured, as well as bystanders and other people caught up in the violence. A number of police officers and members of the army have also been killed and injured, on two recent occasions by roadside bombs being detonated to blow up police motorcyclists.
As part of this, a key tactic engaged in by elements of the right-wing has been co-ordinated action to blockade over fifty main roads across the country. This has led to a number of deaths, through buses and motorcycles colliding with the barricades or by victims being shot as they tried to bypass them.
Alongside this, extreme acts of vandalism and arson have been targeted against infrastructure and public institutions, including state electricity facilities and food distribution networks. On June 30, for example, a food storage depot in Anzoátegui state (supplying free school meals for children), was set on fire, destroying 50 tons of food.
Alarmingly, attacks have also been made on crèches, with children inside, and hospital patients. For two consecutive days the Carrizal Maternity Hospital was put under siege. Barricades of burning rubbish were set up by protesters just 50 metres from the building, requiring mothers and newborn babies to be evacuated.
Ramping up this tactic to a new level of illegality, on June 27 a right-wing opposition supporting policeman piloting a stolen helicopter fired shots and dropped grenades in an attack on the Interior Ministry and the Supreme Court in Caracas. The pilot was identified as Oscar Alberto Perez, an inspector with one of Venezuela’s specialist police agencies.
A series of videos posted at the same time as the attacks to Perez’s Instagram also showed him reading a statement, surrounded by several men in military uniform, masked and carrying machine guns, in which he claimed to represent a group of military and other officials committed to toppling the government.
In an echo of the use of right-wing death squads in Latin America in the 1980s, a number of pro-government supporters appear to have been the target of assassinations. These include trade unionists such as Jose Luis Rivas Aranguren, who was also a candidate for the Venezuelan National Constituent Assembly, and activists in the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.
Pro-government supporters have also been killed on the streets. In one horrific case, Orlando Figuera died in hospital from knife wounds and extensive burns to his body, after masked protesters accused him of being a government supporter as he was passing through the opposition stronghold of Chacao.
Unfortunately, hardly any of these cases have been mentioned in much UK (and US) media coverage, where often the impression is given that violence in Venezuela only originates from one side of the country’s deeply polarised political divide.
There is a desperate need for dialogue in Venezuela. But media impressions that the violence is one-way from the government side can be taken as a green light by extreme sections of Venezuela’s right-wing to feel they can use violence without international condemnation.
It is important to recognise that a number of anti-government protestors have been killed as well and that all violence must be condemned. Every loss of life is a tragedy and those responsible for each death must be held to account.
Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez has reiterated that incidents of police brutality will not be tolerated, and that officers who use excessive force will be punished.
Cases are being pursued where members of the security have been suspected or positively identified as perpetrators of unlawful killings, and arrests and indictments have already taken place.
Venezuela’s current difficulties are best resolved by dialogue as a way to peacefully address the problems the nation faces, where all forces renounce violence as a way to achieve political ends.
The means for a regional dialogue under the auspices of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) exist, with the participation of the former Presidents of numerous countries. The Venezuelan government and much of civil society have indicated a willingness to take part in such talks.
Instead, Venezuela now has to contend with the further imposition of sanctions by Trump against the country, including against President Maduro himself. Additionally, the CIA recently confirmed the courting of Mexico and Colombia as part of its strategy of regime change. All this will further embolden the extreme elements of the right-wing opposition in their violent campaign and make a dialogue process less likely.
Governments internationally, including Britain and the EU, should do all they can to facilitate and support such a dialogue process. Trump’s sanctions will not help the Venezuelan people, or to facilitate dialogue, but exacerbate the country’s difficulties and divisions.
This article was originally published in the Morning Star (11/8/17)
http://www.venezuelasolidarity.co.uk/ex ... venezuela/
Actually, Venezuela's problems might be best addressed by expropriation of the means of production.(No compensation)
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Re: Venezuela
Statement by the Press Secretary on New Financial Sanctions on Venezuela
President Donald J. Trump has signed an Executive Order imposing strong, new financial sanctions on the dictatorship in Venezuela.
The Maduro dictatorship continues to deprive the Venezuelan people of food and medicine, imprison the democratically-elected opposition, and violently suppress freedom of speech. The regime’s decision to create an illegitimate Constituent Assembly—and most recently to have that body usurp the powers of the democratically-elected National Assembly—represents a fundamental break in Venezuela’s legitimate constitutional order.
In an effort to preserve itself, the Maduro dictatorship rewards and enriches corrupt officials in the government’s security apparatus by burdening future generations of Venezuelans with massively expensive debts. Maduro’s economic mismanagement and rampant plundering of his nation’s assets have taken Venezuela ever closer to default. His officials are now resorting to opaque financing schemes and liquidating the country’s assets at fire sale prices.
As Vice President Mike Pence has said, in Venezuela, “we’re seeing the tragedy of tyranny play out before our eyes.” No free people has ever chosen to walk the path from prosperity to poverty. No free people has ever chosen to turn what was once, and should still be, one of South America’s richest nations into its poorest and most corrupt.
We will not stand by as Venezuela crumbles. The President’s new action prohibits dealings in new debt and equity issued by the government of Venezuela and its state oil company. It also prohibits dealings in certain existing bonds owned by the Venezuelan public sector, as well as dividend payments to the government of Venezuela.
To mitigate harm to the American and Venezuelan people, the Treasury Department is issuing general licenses that allow for transactions that would otherwise be prohibited by the Executive Order. These include provisions allowing for a 30-day wind-down period; financing for most commercial trade, including the export and import of petroleum; transactions only involving Citgo; dealings in select existing Venezuelan debts; and the financing for humanitarian goods to Venezuela.
These measures are carefully calibrated to deny the Maduro dictatorship a critical source of financing to maintain its illegitimate rule, protect the United States financial system from complicity in Venezuela’s corruption and in the impoverishment of the Venezuelan people, and allow for humanitarian assistance.
The United States is not alone in condemning the Maduro regime. Through the Lima Declaration of August 8, our friends and partners in the region refused to recognize the illegitimate Constituent Assembly or the laws it adopts. The new United States financial sanctions support this regional posture of economically isolating the Maduro dictatorship.
The United States reiterates our call that Venezuela restore democracy, hold free and fair elections, release all political prisoners immediately and unconditionally, and end the repression of the Venezuelan people. We continue to stand with the people of Venezuela during these trying times.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-of ... -venezuela
Damn, there he goes getting 'presidential' again. Now if Trump just kills a bunch of people somewhere he'll be in the good graces of his peers again.
President Donald J. Trump has signed an Executive Order imposing strong, new financial sanctions on the dictatorship in Venezuela.
The Maduro dictatorship continues to deprive the Venezuelan people of food and medicine, imprison the democratically-elected opposition, and violently suppress freedom of speech. The regime’s decision to create an illegitimate Constituent Assembly—and most recently to have that body usurp the powers of the democratically-elected National Assembly—represents a fundamental break in Venezuela’s legitimate constitutional order.
In an effort to preserve itself, the Maduro dictatorship rewards and enriches corrupt officials in the government’s security apparatus by burdening future generations of Venezuelans with massively expensive debts. Maduro’s economic mismanagement and rampant plundering of his nation’s assets have taken Venezuela ever closer to default. His officials are now resorting to opaque financing schemes and liquidating the country’s assets at fire sale prices.
As Vice President Mike Pence has said, in Venezuela, “we’re seeing the tragedy of tyranny play out before our eyes.” No free people has ever chosen to walk the path from prosperity to poverty. No free people has ever chosen to turn what was once, and should still be, one of South America’s richest nations into its poorest and most corrupt.
We will not stand by as Venezuela crumbles. The President’s new action prohibits dealings in new debt and equity issued by the government of Venezuela and its state oil company. It also prohibits dealings in certain existing bonds owned by the Venezuelan public sector, as well as dividend payments to the government of Venezuela.
To mitigate harm to the American and Venezuelan people, the Treasury Department is issuing general licenses that allow for transactions that would otherwise be prohibited by the Executive Order. These include provisions allowing for a 30-day wind-down period; financing for most commercial trade, including the export and import of petroleum; transactions only involving Citgo; dealings in select existing Venezuelan debts; and the financing for humanitarian goods to Venezuela.
These measures are carefully calibrated to deny the Maduro dictatorship a critical source of financing to maintain its illegitimate rule, protect the United States financial system from complicity in Venezuela’s corruption and in the impoverishment of the Venezuelan people, and allow for humanitarian assistance.
The United States is not alone in condemning the Maduro regime. Through the Lima Declaration of August 8, our friends and partners in the region refused to recognize the illegitimate Constituent Assembly or the laws it adopts. The new United States financial sanctions support this regional posture of economically isolating the Maduro dictatorship.
The United States reiterates our call that Venezuela restore democracy, hold free and fair elections, release all political prisoners immediately and unconditionally, and end the repression of the Venezuelan people. We continue to stand with the people of Venezuela during these trying times.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-of ... -venezuela
Damn, there he goes getting 'presidential' again. Now if Trump just kills a bunch of people somewhere he'll be in the good graces of his peers again.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."