Venezuela

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Tue May 28, 2019 3:30 pm

NYT Parrots US Propaganda on Hezbollah in Venezuela
VA's Lucas Koerner and Ricardo Vaz examine the New York Times' recycled claims of a relation between Venezuela and Hezbollah, all based on a mysterious "dossier."

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New York Times depiction (5/2/19) of Tareck El Aissami and Nicolás Maduro at an economic conference. What are they whispering about? Drugs or terrorism, no doubt. (photo: Marco Bello/Reuters)
By Lucas Koerner and Ricardo Vaz – FAIR

May 27th 2019 at 10.17am

Judith Miller and Michael Gordon published their now infamous New York Times article on September 8, 2002, falsely claiming on the basis of unnamed “American officials” that Iraq had acquired “aluminum tubes” with the aim of producing “an atomic bomb.”

Disgraced by her regurgitation of bogus claims, Miller left the Times in 2005, but her spirit is “alive and well” at the “paper of record.” Nicholas Casey follows faithfully in Miller’s footsteps, authoring dubious, anonymously sourced stories that coincidentally happen to further US regime-change objectives.

In a recent piece headlined “Secret Venezuela Files Warn About Maduro Confidant” (5/2/19), the Times’ Andes bureau chief claimed, on the basis of a leaked Venezuelan intelligence “dossier” that only his paper has seen, that Venezuela’s current Industry Minister and former Vice President Tareck El Aissami has active links to Hezbollah and drug trafficking. Casey wrote:

The dossier, provided to the New York Times by a former top Venezuelan intelligence official and confirmed independently by a second one, recounts testimony from informants accusing Mr. El Aissami and his father of recruiting Hezbollah members to help expand spying and drug trafficking networks in the region.

Unsurprisingly, the article has been endorsed by Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, widely considered the point man for Trump’s Latin America policy, and whose zeal for regime change in Caracas appears unperturbed by elementary facts or international law. In a May 16 tweet, Rubio openly celebrated the fact that Venezuelan President Maduro “can’t access funds to rebuild electric grid,” thereby dispensing with any pretence that US sanctions are not directly aimed at the Venezuelan population.

The claims of an alleged relationship between Caracas and Hezbollah are, however, entirely unoriginal, having been repeated by corporate journalists and national security pundits without evidence for years.

“Hezbollah has a long and sordid history in Venezuela,” wrote Foreign Policy (2/2/19) earlier this year. Newsweek claimed in a 2017 article (12/8/17) that the Lebanese political party “was involved in cocaine shipments from Latin America to West Africa, as well as through Venezuela and Mexico to the United States,” while The Hill (1/13/17) labeled El Aissami a “fan of Iran and Hezbollah,” rehashing US allegations going back to 2008.

Likewise, corporate media claims about Hezbollah presence in Latin America have not been exclusive to Venezuela, with similar baseless rumors circulating about the Lebanese political party operating in the so-called Tri-Border Area of Paraguay (Extra!, 9–10/07).

Such stories just happen to buttress similar unsupported claims by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that Hezbollah has “active cells” in Venezuela. Pompeo and other senior administration officials have repeatedly warned that a military option to remove the Maduro government is “on the table,” while self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaidó has requested “cooperation” from the Pentagon’s US Southern Command.

Casey himself has a long-established track record in dodgy Venezuela reporting, ranging from ludicrous stories about Cuban doctors (FAIR.org, 3/26/19) to false claims that private media like Globovision and El Universal “toe a government line.” (See FAIR.org, 5/20/19.)

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The New York Times (5/2/19) publishes sensational charges about an official enemy, based on documents only the Times has seen, vouched for by unnamed intelligence agents. What could go wrong?

Suspect sources
According to Casey’s “dossier,” Tareck El Aissami conspired with his father, Carlos Zaidan El Aissami,

in a plan to train Hezbollah members in Venezuela, “with the aim of expanding intelligence networks throughout Latin America and at the same time working in drug trafficking.”

We should begin by recognizing that Casey provides no proof of the authenticity of the alleged documents, and there is no reason why readers should take the assurances of unnamed “former top Venezuelan intelligence official[s]” at face value, especially those currently outside Venezuela collaborating with Washington. Similar sources were used to craft the fraudulent case for war in Iraq.

For instance, former Venezuelan intelligence czar Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal, who broke with the Maduro government in 2017, is facing extradition to the US from Spain on cocaine-smuggling charges. In February, the ex-general gave an interview to Casey and the Times (2/21/19) in which he accused El Aissami of similar drug trafficking and Hezbollah links. Nowhere in the article did Casey think it relevant to mention that Carvajal plans to cooperate with US authorities, and thus has reasonable motive to fabricate information that improves the conditions of his plea bargain.

Taking refuge in anonymity, which the Times’ own handbook describes as a “last resort,” Casey leaves open the question of whether his source is Carvajal or another ex-official collaborating with the US who authored the dossier after leaving Venezuela, since no date is provided. From “Curveball” to North Korean defectors, corporate media have been consistently guilty of not examining sources’ motives so long as their “information” bolsters US foreign policy interests, even at the cost of tens or hundreds of thousands of lives.

Urea-gate?
Beyond the issue of sourcing, the alleged “dossier” has a troubling number of logical and factual inconsistencies. A case in point is the alleged testimony from an unnamed National Guard officer about a 2004 raid near the border with Brazil, which reportedly found more than 150 tons of urea in a warehouse. Casey disingenuously refers to urea as a “precursor substance used to make cocaine,” when in fact over 90 percent of industrially produced urea is used for fertilizer. Casey does concede later on that urea has non-cocaine purposes, but cannot conceive of the possibility of the substance being stored in a given location only to be used elsewhere.

The narrative function of the urea bust, which for some reason was not reported until a mysterious dossier was handed to the New York Times 15 years later, is to provide a link to Walid Makled, allegedly the owner of the urea warehouses, and a drug trafficking kingpin of sorts. Even assuming that the urea was meant for cocaine production, and not for more mundane agricultural purposes, a key fact is that Makled is currently serving a jail sentence in Venezuela for drug trafficking. This inconvenient reality, noted but not explained by the Times, on its face seriously undermines the idea that the current Industry minister, supposedly a close associate of Makled, is a powerful figure running a drug ring at the heart of the Venezuelan state.

That aside, it’s worth reviewing the “links” that Casey presents between Makled and El Aissami:

According to the “dossier,” El Aissami’s brother, Feraz, went into business with Makled.
The government gave “contracts” to a company “tied to Mr. Makled.” (Casey doesn’t think it relevant to explain the nature of these “ties” or “contracts”)
The US government offered a similarly vague level detail regarding El Aissami’s alleged “ties” to drug-running when it sanctioned the then-vice president in 2017, and even Casey admits that Washington “never revealed the evidence.”
“Two people familiar with [El Aissami’s] family” identified Haisam Alaisami as being El Aissami’s cousin, with Alaisami supposedly telling prosecutors he was a legal representative of Makled’s company. Beyond the anonymous genealogy, no concrete evidence is presented linking El Aissami to Alaisami, and hence to drugs.
In the absence of any externally verifiable evidence, what Casey presents as bombshell revelations of solid links to drug trafficking come out looking like 15-year-old gossip from unnamed sources.

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Attempts to tie Venezuela to demonized Middle Easterners are nothing new (The Hill, 1/13/17).

Hezbollah hysteria
While Casey’s story provides very questionable allegations on links to drug trafficking and to Hezbollah, the connection between both is even more dubious.

The dossier concludes with informant testimony on the family’s ties to Hezbollah…. One of the sources of the information was the drug lord, Mr. Makled, who described Mr. El Aissami’s involvement in the scheme, according to the intelligence memo.

After establishing highly questionable ties between Tareck El Aissami and Walid Makled, largely based on their shared Syrian ancestry, Casey’s “dossier” then claims it is none other than Makled who “reveals” El Aissami’s supposed Hezbollah plot.

According to the alleged “documents,” El Aissami and his father were “involved in a plan to train Hezbollah members in Venezuela, ‘with the aim of expanding intelligence networks throughout Latin America and at the same time working in drug trafficking.’”

The unspoken assumption is that Hezbollah, which is a resistance movement and political party that forms part of the the elected Lebanese government, would be interested in conducting such illicit activities halfway around the world. Here Casey displays a geopolitical illiteracy on par with top Trump administration officials since, according to Middle East expert As’ad AbuKhalil, “there is no agenda or reason for Hezbollah to have an international presence.”

“For what purpose? Doesn’t the party have enough on its plate in Lebanon itself?” he asked, while acknowledging that the party does have sympathizers and supporters worldwide.

On the assertion that Hezbollah is engaged in drug trafficking, the University of California at Stanislaus professor is equally skeptical. “There has been no credible story in Arabic or in Western languages about Hezbollah’s involvement in drugs,” he stressed:

Hezbollah publicly and organizationally took a stance against drugs and issues fatwas against drugs not only among members but even in Shiite areas of Lebanon. Hezbollah has even allowed Lebanese government agencies to penetrate deep into its strongholds [this year] to search for drug traffickers.

Casey and his editors cleverly shield themselves from any reputational damage over the ludicrous nature of these allegations with a rather significant proviso buried in the 14th paragraph of the article:

Whether Hezbollah ever set up its intelligence network or drug routes in Venezuela is not addressed in the dossier. But it does assert that Hezbollah militants established themselves in the country with Mr. El Aissami’s help.

In other words, what was originally presented as anonymously sourced claims about Hezbollah spying and drug trafficking in Venezuela turn out to be little more than speculation about intent to carry out such activities.

In giving credence to these allegations, the Times repeats the propaganda of top Trump administration officials and the Israeli government about the “global terrorist ambitions” of Iran/Hezbollah, which is in league with Venezuela’s socialist “narco-dictatorship.”

Having played a key propaganda role in recent US regime change operations in Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere, corporate media outlets like the New York Times are all too eager to beat the drums of war once again. With Washington actively threatening military force in both Iran and Venezuela, Nicholas Casey lends a hand in manufacturing public consent for not one but two illegal wars.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14509
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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Tue May 28, 2019 7:56 pm

Chancellor Arreaza to Carlos Vecchio: Eagle does not hunt flies!
28.MAY.2019 / 02:55 PM / MAKE A COMMENT


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Photo: With the Dando Deck

If anything has characterized the pseudo opposition leadership during the last 20 years is the ability to overcome their own ridicule and their inclination to resort to manipulation and cynicism to their continued failures in their claims to overthrow the Bolivarian Government, either by the via the coup d'état, the destabilization, the economic war or even the assassination.

It is a pattern that has been repeated in the last two decades, but that has increased since last January 23 with the self-proclamation of the puppet Juan Guaidó as "president in charge" of Venezuela with the support of the United States government and its lackeys.

And it is precisely in this context, in which such insignificant figures emerge as self-proclaimed "ambassadors", appointed by a self-appointed "president" in a Caracas plaza; an absolutely unprecedented event that will go down in history as a true comedy.

Some of them, as is the case of Carlos Vecchio, have dared to attack the diplomatic headquarters of Venezuela in countries of the continent. Vecchio, in particular, promoted the invasion of the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington.

This fugitive from Venezuelan justice has been one of the main accomplices of Juan Guaidó in the last and failed coup plot of the Venezuelan right against the Bolivarian Government. It is also one of the main promoters of the economic blockade of the United States to Venezuela without taking into account the consequences it produces for the Venezuelan people.

On the contrary, Vecchio like Pontius Pilate washes his hands and attributes the harmful damages of the sanctions of the North American government to the National Executive, in a maneuver of typical manipulation of the right that little or no effect surte in the international community.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said in his account on Twitter @jaarreaza social network that the international community agrees that US unilateral financial blockades are inhumane, cruel and criminal.

"Of rest, read well, as Plato said and repeated the Chávez commander: Aquila non capit muscas (eagle does not hunt flies)," he said alluding to the babbled Vecchio on a sensitive issue for Venezuela, as it is the meaning of children's death They were waiting for a bone marrow transplant and treatments, thanks to the agreements that the Venezuelan State has.

It is noteworthy that the Venezuelan State has not been able to give continuity to the agreement between Citgo and an association for bone marrow transplantation, product of the US economic blockade that makes it impossible to comply with commitments by illegally retaining Venezuelan money in international financial institutions through from which the transaction is made.

Vecchio responded to the accusation made by Arreaza of media manipulation regarding this issue, victimizing himself and defending the base position of the Venezuelan opposition, which after widely requesting sanctions for Venezuela, denies all responsibility and seeks to blame the Venezuelan State.

Arreaza did not stop to answer him, but let him see very elegantly in his trill, that he would not sit down to discuss with someone who clearly does not possess the political credentials to debate with a Chancellor.

Who is Carlos Vecchio?

On February 17, 2014, the Public Ministry (MP) issued an arrest warrant against Carlos Vecchio for the crimes of arson, public incitement, damage to property and association to commit a crime, after a new escalation of violence on the right "The Exit" that resulted in the death of more than 40 people and left more than 800 injured.

That insurrectionary action began on February 12, 2014 with the attack on the Office of the Attorney General in Caracas, with incendiary bombs, gunshots and blunt objects.

After the arrest warrant, Vecchio was hidden for 108 days as a true coward in Venezuela until he fled to the United States, where he is protected by the government of that country.

Carlos Vecchio is part of the terrorist cell Voluntad Popular created by Leopoldo López, who violated a measure of house by jail was one of the main leaders of the failed coup of 30 April last.

With the Dando Deck

http://www.psuv.org.ve/temas/noticias/c ... O2RfhZKiM8

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Fri May 31, 2019 1:43 pm

Venezuela: Norway Talks End as Pence Telephones Guaido
Maduro praised “constructive dialogue” while the opposition reiterated appeals to the armed forces.

By Lucas Koerner
May 30th 2019 at 3.47pm

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Guaido met with US Vice President Mike Pence in Bogota on February 25. (EFE)

Caracas, 30 May 2019 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The second round of dialogue between the Maduro government and the opposition concluded in Oslo on Wednesday.

The Norwegian government issued a statement praising the “willingness” of both parties to “move forward in the search for an agreed-upon and constitutional solution for the country, which includes political, economic and electoral matters.”

Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide did not comment on the progress of the talks and urged the participants to “show utmost caution” in public statements on the process.

Speaking on Wednesday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro applauded the dialogue, which he hoped would lead to a “peace agreement.”

“I am proud that we are in a phase of constructive dialogue with the Venezuelan opposition,” the head of state emphasized, claiming that the current negotiations are the fruit of “two or three months” of secret discussions and that dialogue with the opposition would continue.

Maduro has in recent days proposed bringing forward elections for the National Assembly, originally scheduled for 2020, as a path to resolving the country’s political standoff. The opposition-held legislature has been in contempt of court since 2016 due to a dispute with the judicial branch.

The Venezuelan opposition, for its part, struck a sharply discordant chord, affirming that the “face to face” talks had “ended without an agreement.”

In a public statement, the office of self-proclaimed “Interim President” Juan Guaido stressed that any agreement must include the ouster of Maduro, the formation of a “transition government,” and the convening of new presidential elections, which has been rejected by the Venezuelan government as a non-starter.

The opposition also reiterated its calls to the Venezuelan armed forces to remove Maduro from office. On April 30, Guaido led a failed military putsch that saw opposition supporters accompanied by a small group of soldiers attempt to take over the Carlota air base in Caracas and march on Miraflores Presidential Palace. More recently, the opposition-led National Assembly approved a bill this Tuesday supporting Venezuela’s reentry into the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR), a mutual defense pact involving sixteen countries in the hemisphere which has been cited as a possible legal justification for US military intervention.

Speaking to Fox News on Wednesday afternoon, Guaido vowed his supporters would “remain in the streets” until Maduro is ousted. The parliamentary president has, however, come under fire from other opposition figures for participating in the negotiations, with hardline Vente Venezuela party leader Maria Corina Machado penning a public letter to Colombian President Ivan Duque warning that the talks could see the opposition “lose its political momentum.”

The opposition statement was followed by a phone call placed by US Vice President Mike Pence to Guaido on Wednesday afternoon.

“Told him America will continue to stand with Venezuela until freedom is restored!” Pence tweeted, adding that “Nicolas Maduro must go.”

The phone call came on the heels of a communique issued by the US State Department on Monday alleging that past talks had been used by the Maduro government to “divide the opposition and gain time.”

“The only thing to negotiate with Nicolas Maduro is the conditions of his departure,” the statement continued, echoing previous comments by Trump administration officials dismissing negotiations with Caracas.

Despite the opposition from Washington, the latest round of talks has been endorsed by the International Contact Group, which brings together a dozen European and Latin American governments along with the European Union in search of a resolution to Venezuela’s crisis.

“The International Contact Group (ICG) welcomes the continuation of the Norwegian facilitated negotiation process between the Venezuelan political actors,” the body said in a joint statement on Sunday.

The ICG held its third meeting in Costa Rica in early May, and the next meeting is scheduled to take place in Lima, Peru, on June 3.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14515
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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Fri Jun 07, 2019 2:29 pm

Neoespartan people will march in defense of the CLAP
7.JUN.2019 / 09:28 AM / MAKE A COMMENT


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Photo: PSUV Nueva Esparta

Press / PSUV-Nueva Esparta.- The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), together with the political forces of the Simón Bolívar Great Patriotic Pole (GPPSB) and the Social Movements of the Bolivarian state of Nueva Esparta, summon the island people to march in defense of the Local Committees of Supply and Production (CLAP), before the imperialist onslaught against this system of popular organization that has guaranteed together with the Bolivarian government the food security of the Nation.

The political leader of the Revolution in Nueva Esparta, Dante Rivas, informed that the activity will be carried out this Saturday, June 8, starting at 9:00 in the morning in the Bolivarian municipality Tcnel. Gaspar Marcano. "This Saturday we are going together to march in defense of our CLAP, fight together against the blockade and in favor of peace."

Junior Gómez, coordinator of Organization of the PSUV in the insular entity, said that the march will start from the Industrial Technical School "Alejandro Hernández", located in the Laguna Honda sector of Juangriego, the same will end in the street Aurora of the city twilight.

"We invite all the people of Nueva Esparta to march in defense of the Local Supply and Production Committees, a program that has allowed the Venezuelan people to resist the criminal economic blockade of Yankee imperialism," Gómez said.

http://www.psuv.org.ve/portada/movimien ... Pp0MxZKiM8

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

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Sun Jun 09, 2019 2:27 pm

GUAIDÓ WANTS TO DO WITH THE ESSEQUIBO WHAT MACRI DID WITH LAS MALVINAS
June 5, 2019 , 1:00 pm .

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An overview of Guyana, a country that has allowed (illegally) the explorations of ExxonMobil in territory disputed with Venezuela (Photo: Archivo)

Argentina since 1833 maintains a territorial dispute with Great Britain after its Navy occupied the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and South Sandwich, located a few kilometers from the continental shelf of Argentina.

In those years, the British Royal Navy used those islands as a military outpost to supply coal to its ships, based on its strategy of controlling the South Atlantic and the maritime passage of the Strait of Magellan.

In the twentieth century, Great Britain used this military point to stock up on Argentine oil, located in Patagonia, but it largely lost its possession to such an extent that in 1968 it came close to returning Malvinas to Argentina through a Memorandum of Understanding

What happened next is known: in 1982, Leopoldo Galtieri, one of the leaders of the last military dictatorship, ordered the recovery of the Malvinas Islands, taking advantage of the carnal relationship with the United States, and Great Britain with the help of Chile and Washington repelled the advance leaving hundreds of Argentine soldiers dead, who are remembered today as heroes.

Since that date, the Argentine governments have alternated between leaving aside the issue in the bilateral relationship with Great Britain, or even providing facilities to the artificial population installed by the British called kelpers , or defending the Argentine sovereignty trying to receive as much as possible of international support to force Great Britain to negotiate the return of the islands to Argentine hands.

THE MACRI CA CASE, A MIRROR FOR VENEZUELA
In the last government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner progress was made in a common position at the regional level in favor of the Malvinas cause. Even Unasur, in an unprecedented event, declared that any ship with flag of the "Falkland Islands", name with which the British renamed the Malvinas, would be considered illegal in South American ports.

Thus Argentina advanced in blocking flights, fishing permits and materials for oil exploitation in the islands, taking into account that its rich natural resources are considered Argentine. However, this position, which even received the support of African countries and the G7 plus China, was dismissed as soon as Mauricio Macri became president, the first president who does not name the Malvinas cause in his inauguration.

The height of the infamy came in 2016 when Argentine Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Foradori and his British counterpart Alan Duncan signed an agreement , which gives flexibilities to the "Falkland Islands" to grant fishing permits, oil exploitations and relieves restrictions on travel to the islands from Argentine soil.

SOVEREIGNTY IS A MYTH WHEN NEOCOLONIAL GOVERNMENTS ARE COMPLACENT WITH TRANSNATIONALS

In addition to the disappearance of the Malvinas from the bilateral agenda, the Macri government did not worry too much about denouncing the militarization of the same with the shipment of nuclear submarines, in a context where a base of the Atlantic Treaty Organization is located on its territory. North (NATO).

Instead, the Argentine government set a lousy precedent for the Argentine claim to have signed an agreement that discards the steps that the Argentine Republic had taken to recover a territory, which in addition to rich in natural resources, is located near the Antarctic where 80% of the world's fresh water is located.

MACRI IN ACTION IN THE SAME WAY AS GUAIDÓ
Regarding Malvinas, there is also a situation similar to that of the Venezuelan Essequibo, where ExxonMobil intends to exploit oil in an area considered Venezuelan. As in Guyana, the government of the Kelpers , like the British called the artificial population of the Malvinas, granted consensuses to oil companies such as the British Rockhopper Exploration and Tullow, and the Norwegian state Equinor.

The normal thing of the case would be that the government of Mauricio Macri, immediately, prohibited these companies to operate in Argentine territory to go against the sovereignty of the country. However, the answer to this was to grant two of these companies , Equinor and Tullow, consessions to search for oil in the maritime zones close to where they operate illegally in the Malvinas.

Although in the case of Equinor you can make the proviso that sold its settlements in Malvinas to Rockhopper, the truth of the matter is that the Argentine government did not even bother to check that one of its executives, Anne Drinkwater, was the one who The Falklands devised the road map to exploit the hydrocarbons of the territory in dispute.

But not only happy with that, Macri granted consessions in the maritime zones contiguous to Malvinas to transnationals of British origin like British Petroleum and Shell. According to experts, if these concessions are launched, any difference could be settled in an international court relegating the local jurisdiction of Argentina.

Moving the case to Venezuela, if the government were chaired by Juan Guaidó, this would be like Venezuela giving ExxonMobil all the areas adjoining the Venezuelan Essequibo, and the rest of the same to transnationals in the United States.

As much as it seems pulled by the hair, it is worth remembering that, in addition to helping with the theft of 30 billion dollars to Venezuela, the party of Guaidó, Voluntad Popular, has been one of the most supported by the claim of ExxonMobil about the end of its oil concessions in the country.

http://misionverdad.com/ENTREVISTAS/que ... -argentino

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Thu Jun 13, 2019 1:43 pm

MANIPULATION AND LOGIC OF THE SHOW IN THE FIGURES ON VENEZUELAN MIGRATION
11 Jun 2019 , 4:00 pm .

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The migratory figures of Venezuela are manipulated for political and economic purposes (Photo: AFP)

The corporate media has resumed the campaign on the "Venezuelan exodus" once the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) presented a new figure of migrants and refugees totally scandalous.

According to these agencies, there would be more than 4 million Venezuelans out of the country, positioning it as an exceptional migratory phenomenon in the region. Of this amount , 3.3 million would be disbanded in 16 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, with Colombia (1.3 million), Peru (768 thousand), Chile (288 thousand) and Ecuador (263 thousand), the countries with the largest amounts.

Prior to these figures, UNHCR had announced in mid-February that 3.4 million people were outside of Venezuela. In December of last year they "projected" that in 2019 it would amount to 5 million migrants and refugees, which would impact overloading the institutional and financial capacities of the recipient countries.

The management of this balance came after the Quito Process, a meeting held by the countries of the Lima Group in September 2018 and which brought as response to the "migratory crisis" a Regional Humanitarian Response Plan for Refugees and Migrants (RMRP) , for its acronym in English) addressed to 2 million Venezuelans and 580 thousand people in host communities in 16 countries.

Based on the assumption that this migratory flow will continue to prevail, it was determined that to meet the needs of Venezuelans abroad it was necessary to disburse the amount of 737 million 611 thousand dollars, which would be distributed to 95 partner organizations, among governments, churches and civil organizations. More than 300 million of that money would be destined to Colombia.

The report, which details the problems that Latin American nations are facing to address the requirements of Venezuelan migrants that require some kind of assistance, is a call headed by the special envoy of UNHCR and IOM Eduardo Stein, to the developed countries and international financial institutions to increase the amount of investment in "humanitarian operations", being that only 21% are covered so far.

Individually, countries make budgetary assessments of the funds they demand. Colombia determined that it should allocate 0.5% of its GDP to meet the arrival of Venezuelans, this translates into 1 million 500 thousand dollars per year. For its part, Ecuador demands 550 million dollars for its plans until 2021.

BIASED PROJECTIONS TO RAISE BETS TO EXODUS
The estimate that the UN makes of 5 million Venezuelan migrants is complacent with the alarms reactivated by international actors to politically instrumentalize the migratory movement in the region.

The reappearance of the UNHCR ambassador Angelina Jolie, now on the Colombian-Venezuelan border, is a sign of the media approach implemented. The efforts are aimed at retaking the vision of a mass exodus of Venezuelans who would be collapsing Latin American countries, reason enough to receive extraordinary financial resources to those who have already received in the past two years, as denounced by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza.
Jorge Arreaza M

@jaarreaza
Está de más recordarle a ACNUR que su mandato se circunscribe a REFUGIAD@S. Tratar de obtener recursos utilizando la migración económica y confundiendo a la opinión pública, no sólo escapa de su mandato, sino que devela una clara estrategia política intervencionista

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At the beginning of the migration matrix, the number of Venezuelans outside the country that spread through different organizations, maintained the characteristic of being irregular and contradicting itself on many occasions. In 2017, scandalous estimates of 2 million migrants were made, while in 2018 they projected that the year would end with 4 million abroad.

The bid to oversize the migratory phenomenon and influence its ancestry ended up being ordered by UNHCR, which in July of last year estimated it at 2 million 300 thousand Venezuelans settled abroad. Since then, the amount has been jumping exponentially until arriving in June of this year to 4 million 1 thousand 917 at the close of this note, a figure that doubles the 2018 count.

The Regional Platform for Interagency Coordination , an IOM initiative that coordinates the road map of multilateral organizations to address the migratory situation in Venezuela, details on its website that the estimate is based on the "sum of migrants, refugees and applicants. of asylum reported by host governments. "

Of the urgency highlighted by multilateral organizations, the large investments in international aid funds are justified. The United States is the main benefactor of the agencies that apparently would be responding to the situation in countries of the Latin American region, having allocated 61 million dollars last April, as announced by Vice President Mike Pence , which would correspond to another 200 millions already approved by the United States.

THE EUROPEAN UNION AND CANADA ARE OTHER COUNTRIES THAT HAVE ALLOCATED MONEY TO THE MIGRATORY FLOW
Also, the World Bank (WB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), two financial institutions invited by the organizers of the Quito Protocol, have explained the technical cooperation to pay resources to the region. The Global Mechanism of Concessional Financing participated in the donation of the WB for 31.5 million dollars only for the Colombian State, as it was the one that most Venezuelan migrants housed.

For its part, the IDB developed the proposal to create a fund of 1 billion for Latin American cities that are receiving greater amounts of cross-border immigrants.

Broadly speaking, it is known that the funds of countries and multilateral institutions have the objective of financing infrastructure, education and health projects that improve the migrant status of Venezuelans and lessen the impact on destination countries, however, it has been avoided reveal the details of each amount, managing the administrative process discretionally.

Certainly, the willingness to invest resources is an incentive for the countries of the Latin American region to adopt legal facilities that attract the migratory movements of Venezuelans. Hence the example of Peru, second nation with the largest number of Venezuelans where only in 2018 received 90 thousand applications for asylum , after they eliminated the passport requirement for entry into the country and applied the Temporary Permit of Permanence (PTP).

REALITY OF THE VENEZUELAN ABROAD: WHY DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN "MIGRANT" AND "REFUGEE"?
It is necessary to remember that the propaganda operation of the "migration crisis" carried out by corporate means does not differentiate between migrants and refugees, a fundamental issue that modifies the reality of Venezuelan migration. Migration is a natural phenomenon of globalized territories that occurs for different reasons, but the number of refugees would indicate a forced displacement of the population and its vulnerability in countries of asylum. It is false the fact that there are 4 million refugees who are outside the country.

In previous investigations of this portal, it was determined that the migration was first media and then began to increase outside the ordinary standards in 2017 (from the financial sanctions applied from the United States), for essentially economic reasons.

The WB, in a document to measure the impact of Venezuelan migrants in Colombia , describes the Venezuelan case as a mixed migration, including returning Colombians, regular and irregular migrants and pendular migrants (people who cross the border daily and return ). He explains that this classification is placed "as it is composed of economic migrants, mostly, people returning to their countries of origin, and to a lesser extent, asylum seekers".

On the other hand, in an interview with the UNHCR envoy, Stein, admitted that one of the reasons why the population flow increased in the first half of 2019 could be due to the sabotage of electrical services in March and the intensification of the financial blockade, which prevents access to medicines and food to the Venezuelan State.

This scenario has not been able to be made up by the organisms that carry the data of the migratory tendency and, to add validity to the financing request, they require maneuvering with the terms of refugees and asylees, conditions that would place Venezuela in the same category of countries besieged by wars like Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

Image
Thousands of Venezuelans cross the border with Colombia and return to Venezuela

Carlos Eduardo Ramírez
In that sense, it seems that the regional coordination is based on reverting the regularization of the Venezuelan population to increase the asylum applications and refugee status. Of the 400,000 requests handled by UNHCR , 60% were made last year. The five countries that have received the most asylum requests between 2014 and 2018 are Peru, with 167 thousand 238; Brazil, with 83 thousand 893; United States, with 72 thousand 722; Spain, with 29 thousand 603; and Ecuador, with 13 thousand 535.

Despite this, they do not show the actual figure of refugee status that the host countries have accepted. The latest estimate, made by the IOM, was 5,664 Venezuelan asylees throughout the Latin American region. Different political actors have emphasized that granting that status is an important aspect to legitimize the version that Venezuelans flee a conflict in Venezuela.

The pressure for nations to recognize as many refugees as possible would allow UNHCR and IOM to operate more widely internationally to raise the required amounts of assistance funds.

PROMISES DENIED TO MIGRANTS: CASES IN COLOMBIA, PERU AND ECUADOR
In Colombia, of the 396 thousand people who reaffirmed their intention to remain in the country, 99% were not affiliated with the social security system, so they have denied access to health. Maryhen Jiménez Morales, a Venezuelan researcher in the Department of Politics and International Relations of the University of Oxford after a visit to the country, explained in an interview to Al Navío that this generates a problem because "there are no resources in Colombia even to attend to the own Colombian population. "

The legal irregularity of the Venezuelans also makes them easy prey for labor precariousness, that by not having special permits to work and being in a territory where the drug business is the main source of income, they are incorporated into the derived networks as the trafficking of people, prostitution and child exploitation.

Even disinformation about the legal facilities for Venezuelans caused the existence of children born in Colombia without nationality because the Venezuelan mothers moved, believing that when their children were born there they would obtain both legal status. Only in Cartagena, 600 children were born who do not exist as citizens.

Ecuador has also reported human trafficking. At least 17% of Venezuelans surveyed in Quito have witnessed some form of trafficking, while 30% said they were victims of crime, scams and intimidation during their trip, most of them from Colombia.

Labor exploitation in Peru has been accentuated since Venezuelans have access to the PTP, a program praised by the international community for being "an example of how states can protect refugees and migrants by offering regularization of their situation." Despite this work permit, professionals still have difficulty validating their credentials and entering the formal labor market in a country where informal jobs predominate. Many Venezuelan migrants have to resort to work where they are exposed to exploitation and labor abuse.

Even when the countries of the Lima Group preach their policy of open borders towards Venezuelans, guaranteeing protection and solutions for people who decide to migrate, in order to attract foreign financing, the precariousness of their conditions are becoming more and more noticeable. The irregular situation not addressed by public institutions is attributed to the overload of national capacities, making it appear that the money paid is not enough.

The resources destined to offer assistance in the areas of health, education and social protection to migratory flows, stimulated by actions of deterioration to the Venezuelan economy and propaganda of destination countries, have not improved the conditions of Venezuelans abroad.

It is once again confirmed that, at the cost of what they are trying to position as a humanitarian action to respond to the "mass exodus", at the same time the concrete steps to achieve the stated objectives are omitted, there is a lucrative business for regional actors to squeeze out Other benefits to the coordinated siege against Venezuela.

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Thu Jun 13, 2019 1:48 pm

MIKE POMPEO PUTS THE OPPOSITION IN CRISIS AND DISMANTLES THE GUAIDÓ PLAN
9 Jun 2019 , 5:00 pm .

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Juan Guaidó, Iván Duque and Mike Pence seek to pressure Venezuela from Bogotá (Photo: Presidencia de Colombia)

Various are the reactions of the anti-Chavez leadership on the statements of the head of US diplomacy, Mike Pompeo, leaked by The Washington Post a few days ago. What seems to be a communication oversight could be, in fact, an operation of distancing the plutocratic management train that commands the White House to, as on other occasions, make turns in its agenda and discard the decadent current operators.

The dismantling of anti-Chavez platforms in Venezuela by the US administrations has had different moments; It already happened with the Democratic Coordinator at the beginning of this century and more recently with the Democratic Unity Table (MUD).

The internal tensions of the different expressions of anti-Chavism came to light, which in addition to confirming the words of Pompeo, gives an opportunity for everyone to attack or defend the operating group on duty: Popular Will.

DEFEAT DECLARED?
The special representative of the Trump Administration for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, recommended Chavismo to return to Parliament and to agree with the opposition on a transition that leads to elections, a declaration that indicates a change in the language and the resignation of an abrupt departure from the political crisis.

That of "all options" seems discarded because the threats are in another tone, while seeking to intensify sanctions, generate discontent and open an electoral scenario to induce a result like the legislative of 2015.

In this way Abrams admits that the blow to overthrow the national government has failed, that they can not visualize an immediate future
without Chavez as part of the country's political culture and that the deep State that really takes the reins of the United States
sees excessive risk military intervention.

The way to take power by assault in the midst of social upheaval tends to be extinguished while antichavism already recognizes that the dialogues in Oslo, Norway, are binding in their actions. With the interest of hiding his fractures, the antichavistic political scientist Luis Salamanca said that the US government is opting to present a strategy against the constitutional government of Venezuela from different fronts, with all the options on the table, as well as the "interim president. ", which did not rule out the path of dialogue in Norway.

"Guaidó's strategy goes hand in hand with that of the United States, I see no contradiction, it has to fight on all fronts and that is what Guaidó is doing on the electoral, international, negotiation and military front," he added. name the economic front.

DIVERGENT OPINIONS SUCH AS ANTI-CHAVISM
One of the personages that expressed opinion was the ex- presidential candidate Henri Falcón, that agreed last Thursday with the
declarations of Pompeo on the Venezuelan anti-Chavez political class. "Pompeo told the truth, He confirmed what we have criticized in the opposition," Falcon wrote in his social networks.

The leader of the Avanzada Progresista party added: "We call to reflect on Pompeo's warrant, and to see it as a constructive criticism to propitiate, from now on, a profound revision of the current opposition strategy, which has failed to get out of this bad government" .

ANTICHAVISM IS HEADING TOWARDS THE ELECTORAL OPTION WITH THE SPEARHEAD OF THE ECONOMY AS THE SPEARHEAD

For his part, Andrés Velásquez, another former presidential candidate from the left and political leader of the Causa R, supported the statements made by the Secretary of State of the United States, stating : "What Pompeo says is not new. it is short, in addition to the opposition we must also count those who aspire in the PSUV, in the former Chavism, those of the military party, those who want to cohabit, evangelical and related. "

Contrary to these statements, Salamanca and Deputies Williams Dávila, of Acción Democrática, and Luis Lippa, of Primero Justicia, declared that, despite internal disagreements, the anti-Chavez leadership has backed Guaidó and that there is a convergence between the political parties in a common goal: the (forced) exit of President Maduro from power.

In this regard, Salamanca declared that the MUD died, although no one had formalized his death, and said that, with his statements, Pompeo "does not try to weaken the Venezuelan opposition, but to send a message to him so that he understands himself above differences". He added that Guaidó has achieved "the convergence around the strategy he proposed to stop the usurpation and go to democratic elections."

He also said that "the only force that has the united opposition is an electoral force, it has no military force, it has no capacity to knock out, Maduro closed the democratic electoral path because he knows he loses and that is the only strong opposition", without specifying regarding the call for legislative elections that Maduro has been carrying out in recent weeks.

Lippa, meanwhile, declared that they will not return to the anti-politics that in the past caused "the Chavez regime" to take power while Dávila indicated that "the important thing is to strengthen unity, strengthen parties and strengthen Guaidó , which is the leader we have. "

GUAIDÓ DOES DAMAGE CONTROL: "THAT'S DEMOCRACY"
On the other hand, and in response to Pompeo, Guaidó himself ratified on the same Thursday that anti-Chavism remains united "in the desire" to achieve the exit of Nicolás Maduro from power. "We are united in the desire and the need to get rid of Maduro," he said in an interview with Bloomberg. "If 40 people want to compete for the presidency, they're welcome, that's democracy."

He also insisted on the permanence of the economic sanctions imposed by the United States after considering that any uprising would only "normalize" the crisis. These measures have constituted a kind of extortion against the Venezuelan population, although supposedly only high-ranking officials of Chavismo have affected negatively on the economy in general and the lives of the people.

Suddenly the electoral has returned to the anti-Chavez speech while the estrangement and denial of the talks in Oslo disappeared. The sign seems to have changed from the headquarters of the transnational deep state that governs in the United States, that is, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

That's where Trump Administration figures come from as the national security advisor and one of the main actors in the aggressive policy against Venezuela, John Bolton; the war criminal Elliott Abrams, who has been presented regularly at the AEI summits and as a guest on his panels and podcasts; Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who were invited to a "secret" meeting of the AEI in early March.

It seems that the antichavism is heading towards the electoral option with the spearhead of the national economy, the Guaidó plan is shipwrecked and Pompeo turns the agenda to reduce the number of direct employees of the White House.

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Fri Jun 14, 2019 1:36 pm

Building ‘Patria’: A Conversation with Sergio Requena of the Productive Workers’ Army
In this interview with Venezuelanalysis, we talk to a central figure in a voluntary workers’ initiative to jumpstart industrial plants, both state‐owned and worker‐controlled.

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Sergio Requena of the Productive Workers’ Army. (Ejército Productivo Obrero)

By Cira Pascual Marquina – Venezuelanalysis.com
Nov 16th 2018 at 10.36am

Born in 1974 in Puerto Ordaz, in the industrial heartland of Venezuela, Sergio Requena is a worker at CVG CARBONORCA[1]. He is a key player in the formation of the “Productive Workers’ Army,” a voluntary initiative that takes on the challenge of jumpstarting industrial plants (both state‐owned and worker‐controlled). Since 2016, the organization’s “Productive Workers’ Battles” have become a reference amongst those committed to rebuilding the industrial muscle of the nation. The project has brought hundreds of workers together and put some twelve industrial plants back on their feet. Of the twelve Workers’ Battles carried out by this volunteer brigade, eight happened while Requena headed CORPIVENSA[2] and was able to channel some state resources to the initiative. Today that support has dried up, but the struggle continues.

I would like to begin by asking you to give us a brief overview of the situation of Venezuela's state-owned factories today.

As is the case with most of Venezuela’s productive apparatus, the state enterprises are in crisis. Furthermore, those enterprises are fragmented and disjointed: each plant, each factory has its own specific objective, its own logic, meaning that there is a large number of isolated initiatives. Each is on its own, with nothing bringing them together in a network, because there isn’t a national production plan, nor is there a plan that would organize even the whole state-owned sector.

To make matters worse, there are some deliberate obstacles put up to production from within, from the enterprises’ leadership. So the main problem is that there isn’t a centralized production plan, but add to that the fact that within the crisis (and the disorder that comes with it) some particular economic interests have surfaced, and you get the picture.

[State firms form] an archipelago of islands, each with its own little ruler, who single-handedly decides if the enterprise will produce, under what conditions, what happens with the product, etc. Additionally, he decides who they will contract to acquire raw materials and services. In general, a director will contract outside of the state-owned enterprises, and will do so with the aim of seeking personal economic benefits.

When President Maduro launched the Economic Recovery Plan, he referred to the fact that there are many companies producing very little or nothing at all. Our view is that there are two roots to the problem: there is no productive plan for state enterprises, and private objectives and interests organize production (or lack thereof) in state-owned plants.

There is another bottleneck: in many of these plants, the bosses argue that production has come to a halt because the enterprise doesn’t have funds to purchase the machine parts that need to be acquired so that the operations can get back on track. But it turns out that the machine parts that have to be replaced come from abroad and must be purchased in US dollars.

Historically in Venezuela, and especially in state enterprises, machines and machine parts came from abroad and were purchased in dollars. All this happened without finding out if within the country, and particularly within state enterprises, partnerships could be found leading to joint solutions. Today, the bosses continue to request dollars (which are not available) and they justify the stalled production by pointing to funding limitations instead of looking for solutions that can be found within [the country].

Image
José Cedeño, president of the Workers’ Board at Indorca, has participated in all twelve Productive Workers’ Battles. Here in the Sixth Productive Workers’ Battle in the Ambrosio Plaza Communal Gas plant, Miranda State, January 2018. (Ejército Productivo Obrero)

You are part of a collective volunteer project for the recovery of the country's productive apparatus, both state-owned and worker-controlled enterprises, which has come to be known as the “Productive Workers’ Army.” In 2016, a group of workers from the industrial heartland of Venezuela in Bolívar State began to recover a state enterprise called “La Gaviota,” a fish processing plant. Can you tell us about this initiative?

I would like to begin by going back to 2013. It was the beginning of the crisis, and the workers of three privately-owned factories occupied the plants after the owners infringed workers’ rights and sabotaged production. The companies were Indorca, Calderys, and Equipetrol in Guyana's industrial ring. The process of recovering the plants was collective and very efficient. Soon after their occupation, the plants were back on a regular production schedule. These three plants continue to operate under worker control.

Three years later, in February 2016, folks from La Gaviota in Cumana [Sucre State], a state‐owned plant, invited workers from Indocra, Calderys, and Equipetrol plus others to jumpstart the fish flour plant’s industrial oven. It was a five-day journey where the knowledge of each worker plus a lot of collective creativity (and sacrifice) allowed us to jumpstart production. We did this with no resources beyond our knowledge and our tools… Really, in five days we were able to raise production from zero to 100 percent!

During those five days, we worked long hours and slept in the plant. The work was voluntary and the whole process of recovery became a crash course – we all learned a lot, and all the workers who participated were remoralized. The fact is that each “Productive Workers’ Battle” is a school in which we teach each other, we share knowledge, and we look for solutions collectively...

And this brings us back to what I was saying earlier: by now there is plenty of evidence that workers are capable of recovering stalled factories and that large investments are not necessarily needed, even when production has dropped to zero.

La Gaviota was the first in a long and ongoing campaign to recover state‐owned factories and factories under worker control.

Yes, after La Gaviota we went to Maquinarias Barinas in Barinas State, and there we waged the second battle. In the factory, an important part of the machinery was non‐operative. Actually, there was a machine room with all new equipment that had never been made operative. It was never put to use and repairs were needed. We left it at about 80 percent of its productive capacity.

Again, the collective process of getting the plant back on its feet (well, on its feet for the first time!) remoralized the factory’s staff.

In this battle, we also implemented a parallel learning space, an initiative that is now key to every battle and that we call “Collective, Integral and Permanent Self-Formation.” We organized a workshop on freehand drawing of mechanical parts.

Then, in March of 2017, we carried out a battle in Planta Madre Wuanaguanare, a factory that produces food-processing machinery in Portuguesa State.

Little by little the Productive Workers’ Battles began to draw attention. They began to be known, and we got an invitation to head up CORPIVENSA, a state initiative to promote industrial and productive sovereignty in the country. During the seven-month period that we were in CORPIVENSA, we were able to carry out eight “productive battles.” Since we had institutional support, we had that extra muscle. Of the eight productive battles that we carried out during that period, four were in gas cylinder plants, and one was in a Nutrichicha plant that produces rice-based drinks for the School Alimentation Plan. We also waged another battle in La Gaviota, and finally a battle at the Amuay Oil Refinery in Falcon State.

We have had 12 productive battles in total, and we have begun to call ourselves a “Productive Workers’ Army.” Some 2,200 people have participated in these battles, so we feel that we are an army that can be deployed to any plant in any state to raise productivity.

Our army is very varied… Our army is made up of both active workers and retired workers, both workers from the public and the private sector – in short, people with very diverse experiences. But the most important thing about our army is that it is made up of revolutionaries who want to overcome the current crisis…

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First Productive Workers’ Battle in La Gaviota, Cumana, Sucre State, February 2016. (Ejército Productivo Obrero)

When you go to a factory, your main goal is to jumpstart production, but the educational process is also very important. Can you tell us more about this?

First, I should clarify something. We don’t only repair machinery, we also repair consciousnesses. There is a mystique[3] to the whole process. When the Productive Army goes into a factory, a process of remoralization begins. The plants’ workers participate in the recovery of their factory and transform their own reality. This practice of doing (this praxis, if you will) opens the way to what Che called creating the new man and the new woman. Jumpstarting production with our own hands, with limited resources, getting the factory back on its feet, yes, all that is important. But if we do that and we fail to remoralize workers, then the plant will fall back into its earlier slumber.

Raising morale is through praxis, that is key for us, but we also foster parallel collective educational activities, as I said before when we mentioned the ongoing “Collective, Integral and Permanent Self-Formation” that we undertake. During the Productive Battles, we share experiences – skills acquired through work – and we also address organizational problems.

As a result of this, the plant’s workers get organized in workers’ councils, in feminist brigades, and in Productive Workers’ Councils (CPT)[4]. Ensuring that some form of organization grows out of the experience is fundamental, as workers’ organization is the only thing that will guarantee the continued production in a plant.

Basically, our main goal is to break with the inertia that installs itself due to bureaucracy: inertia that ends up killing production. After we leave, there must be internal conditions (not only material conditions) to continue the work, and that is why we emphasize organization.

The “Chinese Model”[5] has discursively entered the public sphere. On the other hand, your model is a socialist model that points to workers’ control and seeks to bring solutions to our problems from below and from within. It could even be called a Guevarist and patriotic model, couldn't it?

We refer to our effort, our collective epic struggle, as an “Admirable Campaign,” a term that recalls Bolivar’s campaign for the liberation of Venezuela’s western regions [1813]. We understand that there is a crisis situation, with some elements of conspiracy and economic war. Yet on top of that, there are serious management problems in public enterprises, corruption and other interests that don’t contribute to a solution. Faced with this complex situation, many are looking for solutions elsewhere.

For our part, we cast our lot with the people of Venezuela. The gaze of Venezuela has historically been directed to the exterior: we felt that we couldn't solve our own problems. Chavez offered a brief respite from that logic; with him, we were able to see what we had, we recognized ourselves. I think it is time that we begin again to acknowledge that we can do things, that we do have skills. Our productive apparatus has practically come to a complete halt, but there are thousands of men and women who are committed to coming out of this crisis, and they have incorporated themselves to the Productive Workers’ Army. These workers do not want to be spectators. They want to be subjects again, reactivating our participatory and protagonic democracy.

So indeed our proposal is patriotic. We believe that we can do and make things, that we aren’t doomed. We have a strong conviction that the people, the workers, the working class… together we can bring ourselves out of the crisis that we face in the industrial sector and elsewhere. We are the ones who will build the sovereign and emancipated Patria [homeland] that Chavez aspired to create with the protagonic participation of the people. We are convinced that we can do this, that patriotic Venezuelans can do this, although we will always welcome with wide open arms comrades from other countries, people who are committed to socialism. But this is a war that we have to wage and that we must win. Only the people of Venezuela can solve the problems of Venezuela, and from our point of view, this must be done with Chavez and with commitment to participatory and protagonic democracy.

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11th Productive Workers’ Battle in Amuay Refinery, Falcon State, June 2018. (Ejército Productivo Obrero)

One of the most intense debates within Chavismo right now is the debate about the “ethical referent” and the need (since Chavez’s death) to point to exemplary experiences that might bring the project out of the stagnation that we are facing now. There is a mystique around El Maizal Commune and the Admirable Campesino March, but in the working class, in the industrial sector, the Productive Workers’ Army has become a referent as well. Can you talk about this?

When we talk about ethical referents, we must talk about revolutionary coherence, and revolutionary coherence is a kind of North Star that guides our praxis. Our objective is to help to recuperate the productive apparatus of the nation. For this to happen, as I said before, there must be a process of remoralization and organization, which is key to the success of our initiatives.

In the Productive Workers’ Army we teach by example, with a praxis that brings together political and social commitment with work. So we hope that we will carry with us a school for the workers with whom we work, arm in arm, during the Productive Battles.

Sacrifice is, like it or not, an essential part of our epic struggle. We often travel for thousands of kilometers to get to a factory; we leave our family behind; we sleep very little and when we do, we sleep in the plant… All this tends to change the plant's dynamics. We can actually say that we – the hundreds of men and women of the Army – teach by example. The sacrifice that a Battle entails is key to a shift towards a revolutionary ethos.

All this, of course, happens with President Chavez as a guiding light. His example fills us with strength day in and day out. He taught by example and he sacrificed himself for us. In return, we commit our lives to our country.

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Sixth Productive Workers’ Battle in the Ambrosio Plaza Communal Gas plant, Miranda State, January 2018. (Ejército Productivo Obrero)

Notes
[1] CARBONORCA is state-owned plant producing anodes, a component needed to process aluminum.
[2] CORPIVENSA is a state institution whose mission is to encourage industrial sovereignty and productivity.
[3] In progressive Latin American contexts, mística or mystique refers to nonmaterial values such as morale, hope, and confidence.
[4] A Productive Workers’ Council (CTP for its Spanish initials) is an organizational figure promoted by a February 2018 Constituent Assembly law. CTPs are meant to encourage production in a plant or factory, be it public or private.
[5] The term “Chinese Model” is used in Venezuela to refer to the growing participation of Chinese capital in the reorganization of the economy. Chinese officials are also assuming advisory roles in the Caribbean nation, encouraging “development” initiatives such as “Special Development Zones”: territories where certain laws do not apply to encourage foreign investment.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14149

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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Mon Jun 17, 2019 1:10 pm

NYT Parrots US Propaganda on Hezbollah in Venezuela
VA's Lucas Koerner and Ricardo Vaz examine the New York Times' recycled claims of a relation between Venezuela and Hezbollah, all based on a mysterious "dossier."

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New York Times depiction (5/2/19) of Tareck El Aissami and Nicolás Maduro at an economic conference. What are they whispering about? Drugs or terrorism, no doubt. (photo: Marco Bello/Reuters)
By Lucas Koerner and Ricardo Vaz – FAIR

May 27th 2019 at 10.17am

Judith Miller and Michael Gordon published their now infamous New York Times article on September 8, 2002, falsely claiming on the basis of unnamed “American officials” that Iraq had acquired “aluminum tubes” with the aim of producing “an atomic bomb.”

Disgraced by her regurgitation of bogus claims, Miller left the Times in 2005, but her spirit is “alive and well” at the “paper of record.” Nicholas Casey follows faithfully in Miller’s footsteps, authoring dubious, anonymously sourced stories that coincidentally happen to further US regime-change objectives.

In a recent piece headlined “Secret Venezuela Files Warn About Maduro Confidant” (5/2/19), the Times’ Andes bureau chief claimed, on the basis of a leaked Venezuelan intelligence “dossier” that only his paper has seen, that Venezuela’s current Industry Minister and former Vice President Tareck El Aissami has active links to Hezbollah and drug trafficking. Casey wrote:

The dossier, provided to the New York Times by a former top Venezuelan intelligence official and confirmed independently by a second one, recounts testimony from informants accusing Mr. El Aissami and his father of recruiting Hezbollah members to help expand spying and drug trafficking networks in the region.

Unsurprisingly, the article has been endorsed by Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, widely considered the point man for Trump’s Latin America policy, and whose zeal for regime change in Caracas appears unperturbed by elementary facts or international law. In a May 16 tweet, Rubio openly celebrated the fact that Venezuelan President Maduro “can’t access funds to rebuild electric grid,” thereby dispensing with any pretence that US sanctions are not directly aimed at the Venezuelan population.

The claims of an alleged relationship between Caracas and Hezbollah are, however, entirely unoriginal, having been repeated by corporate journalists and national security pundits without evidence for years.

“Hezbollah has a long and sordid history in Venezuela,” wrote Foreign Policy (2/2/19) earlier this year. Newsweek claimed in a 2017 article (12/8/17) that the Lebanese political party “was involved in cocaine shipments from Latin America to West Africa, as well as through Venezuela and Mexico to the United States,” while The Hill (1/13/17) labeled El Aissami a “fan of Iran and Hezbollah,” rehashing US allegations going back to 2008.

Likewise, corporate media claims about Hezbollah presence in Latin America have not been exclusive to Venezuela, with similar baseless rumors circulating about the Lebanese political party operating in the so-called Tri-Border Area of Paraguay (Extra!, 9–10/07).

Such stories just happen to buttress similar unsupported claims by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that Hezbollah has “active cells” in Venezuela. Pompeo and other senior administration officials have repeatedly warned that a military option to remove the Maduro government is “on the table,” while self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaidó has requested “cooperation” from the Pentagon’s US Southern Command.

Casey himself has a long-established track record in dodgy Venezuela reporting, ranging from ludicrous stories about Cuban doctors (FAIR.org, 3/26/19) to false claims that private media like Globovision and El Universal “toe a government line.” (See FAIR.org, 5/20/19.)

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The New York Times (5/2/19) publishes sensational charges about an official enemy, based on documents only the Times has seen, vouched for by unnamed intelligence agents. What could go wrong?

Suspect sources

According to Casey’s “dossier,” Tareck El Aissami conspired with his father, Carlos Zaidan El Aissami,

in a plan to train Hezbollah members in Venezuela, “with the aim of expanding intelligence networks throughout Latin America and at the same time working in drug trafficking.”

We should begin by recognizing that Casey provides no proof of the authenticity of the alleged documents, and there is no reason why readers should take the assurances of unnamed “former top Venezuelan intelligence official[s]” at face value, especially those currently outside Venezuela collaborating with Washington. Similar sources were used to craft the fraudulent case for war in Iraq.

For instance, former Venezuelan intelligence czar Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal, who broke with the Maduro government in 2017, is facing extradition to the US from Spain on cocaine-smuggling charges. In February, the ex-general gave an interview to Casey and the Times (2/21/19) in which he accused El Aissami of similar drug trafficking and Hezbollah links. Nowhere in the article did Casey think it relevant to mention that Carvajal plans to cooperate with US authorities, and thus has reasonable motive to fabricate information that improves the conditions of his plea bargain.

Taking refuge in anonymity, which the Times’ own handbook describes as a “last resort,” Casey leaves open the question of whether his source is Carvajal or another ex-official collaborating with the US who authored the dossier after leaving Venezuela, since no date is provided. From “Curveball” to North Korean defectors, corporate media have been consistently guilty of not examining sources’ motives so long as their “information” bolsters US foreign policy interests, even at the cost of tens or hundreds of thousands of lives.

Urea-gate?
Beyond the issue of sourcing, the alleged “dossier” has a troubling number of logical and factual inconsistencies. A case in point is the alleged testimony from an unnamed National Guard officer about a 2004 raid near the border with Brazil, which reportedly found more than 150 tons of urea in a warehouse. Casey disingenuously refers to urea as a “precursor substance used to make cocaine,” when in fact over 90 percent of industrially produced urea is used for fertilizer. Casey does concede later on that urea has non-cocaine purposes, but cannot conceive of the possibility of the substance being stored in a given location only to be used elsewhere.

The narrative function of the urea bust, which for some reason was not reported until a mysterious dossier was handed to the New York Times 15 years later, is to provide a link to Walid Makled, allegedly the owner of the urea warehouses, and a drug trafficking kingpin of sorts. Even assuming that the urea was meant for cocaine production, and not for more mundane agricultural purposes, a key fact is that Makled is currently serving a jail sentence in Venezuela for drug trafficking. This inconvenient reality, noted but not explained by the Times, on its face seriously undermines the idea that the current Industry minister, supposedly a close associate of Makled, is a powerful figure running a drug ring at the heart of the Venezuelan state.

That aside, it’s worth reviewing the “links” that Casey presents between Makled and El Aissami:

According to the “dossier,” El Aissami’s brother, Feraz, went into business with Makled.
The government gave “contracts” to a company “tied to Mr. Makled.” (Casey doesn’t think it relevant to explain the nature of these “ties” or “contracts”)
The US government offered a similarly vague level detail regarding El Aissami’s alleged “ties” to drug-running when it sanctioned the then-vice president in 2017, and even Casey admits that Washington “never revealed the evidence.”
“Two people familiar with [El Aissami’s] family” identified Haisam Alaisami as being El Aissami’s cousin, with Alaisami supposedly telling prosecutors he was a legal representative of Makled’s company. Beyond the anonymous genealogy, no concrete evidence is presented linking El Aissami to Alaisami, and hence to drugs.
In the absence of any externally verifiable evidence, what Casey presents as bombshell revelations of solid links to drug trafficking come out looking like 15-year-old gossip from unnamed sources.

Image
Attempts to tie Venezuela to demonized Middle Easterners are nothing new (The Hill, 1/13/17).

Hezbollah hysteria

While Casey’s story provides very questionable allegations on links to drug trafficking and to Hezbollah, the connection between both is even more dubious.

The dossier concludes with informant testimony on the family’s ties to Hezbollah…. One of the sources of the information was the drug lord, Mr. Makled, who described Mr. El Aissami’s involvement in the scheme, according to the intelligence memo.

After establishing highly questionable ties between Tareck El Aissami and Walid Makled, largely based on their shared Syrian ancestry, Casey’s “dossier” then claims it is none other than Makled who “reveals” El Aissami’s supposed Hezbollah plot.

According to the alleged “documents,” El Aissami and his father were “involved in a plan to train Hezbollah members in Venezuela, ‘with the aim of expanding intelligence networks throughout Latin America and at the same time working in drug trafficking.’”

The unspoken assumption is that Hezbollah, which is a resistance movement and political party that forms part of the the elected Lebanese government, would be interested in conducting such illicit activities halfway around the world. Here Casey displays a geopolitical illiteracy on par with top Trump administration officials since, according to Middle East expert As’ad AbuKhalil, “there is no agenda or reason for Hezbollah to have an international presence.”

“For what purpose? Doesn’t the party have enough on its plate in Lebanon itself?” he asked, while acknowledging that the party does have sympathizers and supporters worldwide.

On the assertion that Hezbollah is engaged in drug trafficking, the University of California at Stanislaus professor is equally skeptical. “There has been no credible story in Arabic or in Western languages about Hezbollah’s involvement in drugs,” he stressed:

Hezbollah publicly and organizationally took a stance against drugs and issues fatwas against drugs not only among members but even in Shiite areas of Lebanon. Hezbollah has even allowed Lebanese government agencies to penetrate deep into its strongholds [this year] to search for drug traffickers.

Casey and his editors cleverly shield themselves from any reputational damage over the ludicrous nature of these allegations with a rather significant proviso buried in the 14th paragraph of the article:

Whether Hezbollah ever set up its intelligence network or drug routes in Venezuela is not addressed in the dossier. But it does assert that Hezbollah militants established themselves in the country with Mr. El Aissami’s help.

In other words, what was originally presented as anonymously sourced claims about Hezbollah spying and drug trafficking in Venezuela turn out to be little more than speculation about intent to carry out such activities.

In giving credence to these allegations, the Times repeats the propaganda of top Trump administration officials and the Israeli government about the “global terrorist ambitions” of Iran/Hezbollah, which is in league with Venezuela’s socialist “narco-dictatorship.”

Having played a key propaganda role in recent US regime change operations in Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere, corporate media outlets like the New York Times are all too eager to beat the drums of war once again. With Washington actively threatening military force in both Iran and Venezuela, Nicholas Casey lends a hand in manufacturing public consent for not one but two illegal wars.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14509
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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blindpig
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Re: Venezuela

Post by blindpig » Mon Jun 17, 2019 8:08 pm

A THOUSAND DOLLARS A DAY OF "HUMANITARIAN AID" WAS SPENT BY THE DELEGATES OF GUAIDÓ IN CÚCUTA
June 17, 2019 , 3:00 a.m. .


The information leaked by the editor in chief of PanAm Post, Orlando Avendaño, has generated a stir in local and international public opinion. The documents presented by this anti-Chavez media point directly to a corruption scheme woven into the main ring of power of the Venezuelan opposition: Juan Guaidó and Leopoldo López.

Misión Verdad
@Mision_Verdad
ATENCIÓN | Un artículo de PanamPost, escrito por Orlando Avendaño, acusó a los emisarios de Juan Guaidó de robarse el dinero y los recursos que supuestamente iban resolver la situación del desamparo de los soldados desertores de la FANB en Colombia.

En este hilo, los detalles.

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To mount this network of misappropriation of funds, Juan Guaidó displaced Juan Manuel Olivares (Primero Justicia) and Gaby Arellano (partner of the Voluntad Popular party) from the coordination of "humanitarian aid" in Cúcuta. Once this internal coup was executed, he placed Kevin Rojas and Rossana Barrera to supervise and execute the funds for "Venezuelan citizens, civilians and military, who enter Colombian territory, seeking help and refuge."

Avendaño reviews that Rossana Barrera "is the sister-in-law of the Popular Will party deputy, Sergio Vergara, right-hand man of President Juan Guaidó." She, along with Rojas, "fully assumed the operation of what was happening in Cúcuta and was in charge of handling funds for the payment of the stay of the military" who defected from February 23 and fled to Cúcuta, under the promises of Guaidó

Avendaño obtained constituent documents of "Invoices that show excesses and, several, very strange, of different books, signed on the same day and with identical writing styles, almost all without stamp, expenses of more than 3,000,000 pesos in Colombian hotels and in nightclubs, per night, about a thousand dollars in food and drink, clothing expenses in very expensive stores in Bogotá and Cúcuta, car rental reports and hotel payments at surcharge, silver flowing, lots of money.

http://misionverdad.com/TENDENCIAS/mil- ... -en-cucuta

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Yer tax dollars at work, haw haw. Comedy Tonight!
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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