ENGLISH EDITION/The artillery of ideas INTERNATIONALFriday, October 26, 2012 | Nº 132 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve

Chavez praises Venezuela’s democracy, grassroots organizing

In the first cabinet meeting since the landslide victory on October 7 that re-elec-ted the Venezuelan head of state to a third 6-year term, President Hugo Chavez highlighted the democratic nature of his nation’s revolutionary process and called on his team to excelerate the creation of communal structures. The Venezuelan President also urged the Communications Ministry to dramatically improve the way information is presented to the public and to create an efficient, national sys-tem of public media. page 2

Nine Venezuelans in World SeriesVenezuela is proud and

euphoric that nine Venezuelan

ball players in the US Major

Leagues are participating in

this year’s World Series games

between the Detroit Tigers

and the San Francisco Giants.

Four Venezuelans play on the

Tigers, including Triple Crown

winner Miguel Cabrera, while

five are on the Giants team,

including the popular Pablo

“Panda” Sandoval and MVP

Marco Scutaro. No matter

which team wins, Venezuela

comes out on top. page 6

Economy

Social Programs a Priority

Venezuela’s 2013 budget prioritizes spending on social programs. page 3

Politics

Inmate vote favors socialismFor the first time in history, Venezuela’s prisons voted overwhelmingly for the current government. page 4

Interview

Developing communesAn interview with two activists about building communes at the grassroots level. page 5

Venezuela ranked among the world’s happiest countries

T/ Correo del Orinoco

According to the Happy Planet Index published this year by the London-based New Economics Founda-tion, Venezuela is the ninth happiest country in the world. At the top of the list are Costa Rica, Vietnam and Colombia.

According to the execu-tive summary of the report, the Happy Planet Index measures sustainable well-being, or “how well nations are doing in terms of sup-porting their inhabitants to live good lives now” as well as in the future, taking into account environmental im-pacts. Nine of the ten hap-piest countries are located in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Following Costa Rica, Vietnam and Colombia on the list are Belize, Jamaica, El Salvador Panama, Nica-ragua, Venezuela and Gua-temala. The United States is ranked 105th, while Norway is 29th, the highest among European countries. Spain is ranked 62nd, Haiti 78th, and Botswana is last in the 151st spot.

According to the report, the Happy Planet Index de-termines “which countries are most efficient at pro-ducing long, happy lives for their inhabitants, while maintaining the conditions for future generations to do the same”.

The New Economics Foundation makes its cal-culations based on three factors: experienced well-being, life expectancy and ecological footprint.

The executive summary states: “this is largely still an unhappy planet – with both high- and low-income countries facing many chal-lenges… But it also demon-strates that good lives do not have to cost the Earth”.

Analysis

Investing in democracy in Venezuela page 7

Opinion

Nobel Peace Prize goes to war-makers while peacemakers are shunned page 8

Collective communicationRecently-named Venezuelan Minister of Commu-

nication and Information Ernesto Villegas called on all political sectors of public, alternative, community communication along with the people to build toge-ther a more efficient communication system.

“We are all summoned to build a collective com-munication. I have no divine gift to build something by my own. Here we all are summoned to take part ... This is a joint process in progress and most im-portantly, we have to complete the task”, he said.

Villegas said the National Public Media System is tasked with efficient communication in Venezuela and committed to assuming responsibility together with community and alternative media outlets to achieve this goal.

“The National Public Media System is not a pur-pose per se, but rather a means to achieve a goal, which is to make inclusive communication a reality in Venezuela”, he added.

akers age 8

The artillery of ideas2 Impact | Friday, October 26, 2012

T/ COIP/ Presidential Press

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez highlighted the democratic character of

his country’s revolutionary process last Saturday during the Executive’s first cabinet meeting since the head of state won re-election on October 7.

While in session with his Ministers at the Presidential Palace of Miraflores, Chavez called on his backers to main-tain the rule of democracy in the country and “to not im-pose, but rather convince” people of their socialist ideas during the next 6 years of his presidential term.

As part of this approach, the leftist leader explained, the government need to improve its communicational strategy to publish and disseminate self-criticisms from the grassroots, which the former lieutenant colonel said “nourishes us and is lacking”.

“We need to generate instru-ments, in the most systematic of ways, to continue convincing Venezuelans that this project is the one that is conducive to the great majority of them”, he said.

“We don’t have a National System of Public Media and we should create one. In it, we should interconnect other sys-tems such as community media as well as regional and interna-tional outlets”, the Venezuelan President asserted.

While discussing the gov-ernmental period 2013 - 2019, Chavez emphasized the com-patibility of socialism with democracy and reiterated the need to transform the country’s economic base to one that pro-motes inclusion and participa-tion in decision making.

Increasing the efficiency and responsiveness of govern-ment to ensure these changes come about will be key in this respect, the head of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) affirmed.

BUILDING THE COMMUNESChavez also made reference

on Saturday to the Hungar-ian Marxist, Istvan Meszaros, in advocating for the greater distribution of political and economic power in regional entities not held captive to the capital of Caracas where the vast majority of public admin-istration takes place.

“It’s about creating, as Meszaros says, a combination of coordinated parallel systems and from there, the regional-ization of different centers. We haven’t created one of these centers yet and we have a law for it. We decreed a [Law of Communes] but that was it”, Chavez said.

According to the President, the time has come “to achieve the transformation of the state to one that is communal, where the people can exercise all the capac-ity of the Executive”, he said.

To this extent, Chavez spoke of the possible elimination of the Ministry for Communes, due to the error that the cabinet position may play a role in fos-tering the idea “that the com-munes are just the responsibil-ity of this ministry” when they should in fact be designed and carried out at the local level.

“In this stage of transition to socialism, we have to spread out the models to all the dif-ferent territories”, the head of state said.

INAUGURATIONS During the cabinet session,

broadcast by state television, Chavez participated in a num-

ber of factory inaugurations via satellite including a fruit processing plant in the Western state of Zulia that has the ca-pacity to produce ten thousand tons of food items per year.

The Mene Grande facility is the product of a bilateral agree-ment with Argentina and has benefited from an investment of 136 million bolivars ($31 mil-lion) from the Venezuelan na-tional government.

The head of state also made contact with the facilities of Ca-naima Industries, a computer factory built with the assis-tance of the Portuguese govern-ment in Caracas to provide all Venezuelan primary students with free mini-laptops.

Officials report that to date, the factory has produced 2.6 million computers and that the plant will soon have the capacity to provide 500,000 units a year in addition to oth-er devices.

“In this process of national independence is also the pro-cess of technological indepen-dence”, Chavez said.

For his part, Vice President and Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro praised the Canaima initiative and the fruitful collab-

oration between the Venezuelan and Portuguese governments.

“With respect to technology, there had always been a gap between the first world and the South. This (technological ad-vancement) is reducing this gap and is of great importance for the future development of the country”, Maduro said.

Chavez additionally pointed out in Saturday’s meeting that the Venezuelan state oil com-pany Pdvsa now represents the second largest company in Lat-in America - proof of the viabili-ty of the socialist model promul-gated by his government.

Likewise, the Venezuelan President informed of the 1.1 billion bolivar surplus ($255 million) earned by the govern-ment-run Bank of Venezuela in the past two months.

Since its nationalization in 2009, Bank of Venezuela has in-creased its investments by 280 percent, reported Public Bank-ing Minister Marco.

“This forms part of the via-bility of the Bolivarian project, how to get out of oil rents and extreme dependency on oil”, Chavez said.

HOUSING Public housing was a fur-

ther topic discussed during Saturday’s cabinet meeting as Housing and Habitat Minister Ricardo informed on the con-struction of 630 new homes to be built in the capital.

The initiative forms part of the Chavez administration’s Mis-sion Housing Venezuela social program and has benefited from a government investment of 363 million bolivars ($84 million).

Molina mentioned that the plan is part of a greater con-struction project in Caracas that foresees the erection of “a total of 31,512 homes in the next six years” with a total govern-ment investment of 17 billion bolivars ($3.9 billion).

An important aspect of the pro-gram, the minister explained, is the collaboration occurring between the executive and local grassroots activists to ensure the completion of the works.

“We’re working with orga-nized communities and with community councils to build directly with them and with the participation of Construction Brigades”, Molina said.

Venezuela’s Chavez hails nation’s democracy,calls for a dissemination of local power

The artillery of ideasFriday, October 26, 2012 | Economy 3

T/ COIP/ Agencies

Venezuelan Finance and Planning Minister, Jorge Giordani, presented the 2013

Executive budget to the nation’s congress last Tuesday in an ad-dress that underscored the so-cial investment that continues to define the policies of recently re-elected President Hugo Chavez.

Minister Giordani delivered the nearly 400 billion bolivar ($93 billion) financial plan to the National Assembly, citing a 33 percent increase from last year’s budget of 297 billion ($69 billion).

The balance sheet has been based on a $55 barrel of crude, Venezuela’s largest export, as well as an inflation rate of be-tween 14 and 16 percent for the coming year.

Giordani defended the low price of oil, currently trading at over $100 a barrel, as a pre-cautionary measure to shield the budget from any potential fluctuations in the interna-tional market.

The high-level official also pointed out that the income from oil established in the plan only represents 21 percent of the total budget.

Social investment a priorityin Venezuela’s 2013 budget

T/ COIP/ Agencies

With a festive agenda of rec-reational activities that

included sports, dance, music and games, Venezuelans cel-ebrated International Energy Saving Day in the capital’s Francisco de Miranda park last Sunday

The event was organized by the Energy Ministry in col-laboration with the state-run electricity company Corpo-elec with the intention of rais-ing consciousness regarding energy use, especially in the country’s youth.

“It’s important that the little ones in the house begin to un-derstand the relevance of en-ergy saving at a international and national level. They need to see it as an important aspect of the formation of ‘the new

Venezuelans take part in Energy SavingDay, promote greater responsibility

man’ and in that way make a commitment to themselves and society”, said the Vice Minister of Energy Use, Hector Constant.

Venezuela ranks number one in per capita energy consump-tion in Latin America, evidenc-ing what the Venezuelan News Agency (AVN) has referred to as a “squandering” and “lack of awareness in the population on energy production costs”.

A report released by the Ministry of Electric Energy in 2011 detailed this consump-tion, pointing out that that the average Venezuelan consumes 85 percent more than her Bra-zilian counterpart, 25 percent more than in Argentina, and 254 percent more than the aver-age Colombian.

Much of the problem is asso-ciated with the high use of air-conditioning units, especially in commercial establishments.

Indeed, some shopping cen-ters such as the Galeria Mall in the city of Maracaibo, which has average high temperatures well over 90 degrees, offers its clients the opportunity to skate on the facility’s own ice-rink.

But the problem, accord-ing to officials, is also linked to the energy use of average Venezuelans.

To combat the excess, the government has been em-barking on a series of new cut-back measures that have been planned in conjunction with its public awareness campaigns.

These measures, some of which have been passed as laws by the country’s congress, in-clude restricting the importa-tion and commercialization of specific electric appliances that display high energy use.

“Being a responsible actor, the state will have to prioritize the most efficient appliances and discourage the importa-tion of those devices which are not efficient. It will also have to

be on guard to not receive from any country appliances which are of low quality or obsolete”, Vice Minister Constant said.

As a further way of reduc-ing energy consumption, the

Chavez administration has also been distributing energy-conserving light bulbs that use 80 percent less electricity than traditional incandescent bulbs.

Since 2006, the government has distributed 150 million such light bulbs with another 18 million for planned distri-bution through the first tri-mester of 2013.

According to Constant, initiatives such as these are beginning to have an important effect in the con-sciousness of the people.

As a consequence, national consumption has been re-duced by close to 2,000 Mega-watts over the past year and it is estimated that the new light bulbs will provide a further savings of between 500 and 1,000 additional megawatts.

“We all need to become ad-vocates of the importance of energy conservation so that it becomes widespread around the world”, the Vice Minister affirmed on Sunday.

“This strengthens, once again, non-oil fiscal income as the principal source of financ-ing for the national budget”, he said.

Six percent growth in Gross Domestic Product is being predicted in 2013, Giordani explained as the Finance Minister discarded the possi-bility of a devaluation in the country’s currency which is currently fixed at 4.3 bolivars to the dollar.

The bulk of the nation’s spending in 2013, the cabinet member highlighted, will be focused on social programs and economically productive projects.

Health care, education, housing, social security, and public services are slated to see a boost in funding as part of the social investment that represents more than 37 per-cent of the total budget.

This follows the pattern of spending established by Presi-dent Hugo Chavez whose gov-ernment has invested more than $500 billion between 1999 and 2012 on projects intended to improve the living stan-dards of the Venezuelan peo-ple, Giordani said.

Other sectors that will re-ceive substantial funding in-clude electricity with an allo-cation of $363 million, oil and mining with $742 million, and transportation with $256 mil-lion planned.

An additional $773 million has been provisioned for in-

dustry while agriculture will receive $683 million in fund-ing and communications will be granted $657 million.

During his presentation, Giordani made reference to the country’s “new financial architecture” which has es-tablished a number of funding bodies that work with local currency and foreign exchange to promote productivity and development.

As such, Venezuela’s Nation-al Development Fund (Fonden) has allocated more than $92 million to 442 social projects in the country over the past seven years.

Also key to the nation’s new financial structure has been the relationship between the Chavez administration and the People’s Republic of China, which has provided Venezuela with $20 billion in loans for de-velopment initiatives.

With respect to workers’ rights, the Finance Minister spoke to the adjustment of the budget to the benefits granted as a result of Venezuela’s new Labor Law, signed by Presi-dent Chavez at the end of April.

Greater severance pack-ages, bonuses and double time shifts have been calculated in 2013’s plan which Giordani de-scribed as promoting “a social-ist and productive model with the purpose of achieving work and social security” as well as “strengthening the well-being of the working class”.

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The artillery of ideas4 Politics | Friday, October 26, 2012

T/ Paul DobsonP/ Agencies

Minister for Penitentiary Services, Iris Varela, an-nounced that for the first

time ever, inmates voted in fa-vor of President Hugo Chavez in the recent Presidential elec-tions. Speaking on her regular radio program ‘Don’t Deprive Yourself’, Varela stated that 69% of inmates had voted for the victorious Chavez, proving that the government’s human-istic approach to prison reform is considered positive by those condemned to serve time.

“Normally, the penitentiary population vote against the government” that is responsi-ble for depriving them of their freedom and putting them be-hind bars, she stated, “but this time it wasn’t like that”.

The Minister compared the policies of the Chavez govern-ment to those of the previous neoliberal governments, which treated inmates as third class citizens. “The opposition want us to go into the prisons firing guns and repress the prison populations, just as they did in the past”, she said. But the cur-rent administration is revising its approach and addressing the grave problems in the pe-nal system by experimenting

and finding a “humanistic” approach, which gives certain offenders a second chance, af-firmed Varela.

The Minister highlighted certain frontline penal pro-grams, such as Llegó Maíta , Cayapa, and Cambote, which are dignifying the network of 35 state prisons which, due to decades of underinvestment, are widely considered to be overcrowded, highly violent, and generally inadequate to house prisoners.

The Llegó Maíta program, which was launched in June, looks to give extra support to family members of inmates, especially mothers, by pro-viding them with access to government social programs and incorporating them into socio-productive employment through training workshops.

Valera describes it as “a plan without precedent”.

The Capaya operation is aimed at speeding up the ad-ministrative proceedings to process prisoners, hence reduc-ing certain complications that arise.

The Cambote program, now into its second phase, aims to renovate and redesign the peni-tentiary institutions across the country - both holding facilities as well as prisons. Cambote I lasted between January and June of this year, and renovated seven facilities, whilst Cambote II was launched in September, and aims to improve and ex-pand 10 more prisons.

“With the Plan Cambote, we will be able to recuperate the fa-cilities and offer adequate spac-es where those who are behind bars can live in dignified and salubrious conditions”, stated Minister Varela.

The plan is currently reno-vating 8 centers across the country, where prisons will be increased in capacity, and will have improved toilet, dormi-tory, and sporting facilities, as well as better infrastructure. Under the scheme, prisoners can volunteer to work on the renovation, and payment is made available to their family members on the outside.

Plan Cambote looks to ad-dress not only the overcrowd-ing of the prison system, but the historical underinvestment, which has left many prisons in terrible conditions. Using simi-lar reasoning to that employed to the general public housing system of the country, the plan looks to reduce violence and criminality by treating the prisoners as dignified beings, and providing them with digni-fied spaces in which they will be kept. The new neighborhoods being built by the public hous-ing program that offer a bet-ter quality of life have already seen significant reductions in criminality as they replace the network of shanty towns which have traditionally bred inflated violent crime levels.

Varela also announced the construction of 24 new peni-tentiary centers during the next year, one in each state, to deal with the problem of overcrowding.

She was under the spotlight this week following two deaths at the Coro Prison. As part of the Plan Cambote, the prison was formally closed this week, and its 1600 prisoners moved to better equipped facilities in other parts of the country. Dur-ing the process of prisoner relo-cation a gun battle broke out, in which two men were killed. A total of 56 guns, 11,445 bullets, and 12 grenades were found in the premises when inspected after the completion of the relo-cation of the inmates.

The Coro prison, which has functioned for 85 years, was deemed too far beyond repair by the Ministry, and hence was doomed to closure under the census conducted by the Plan Cambote: “In the diagnostic which we ran, it was decided

that there were certain peni-tentiary spaces which weren’t worth repairing because of their conditions”.

Speaking outside the now closed facility, Varela stated that “this is a debt that we have with the people of Coro All of the neighbors of Coro are very content and happy, because we are vacating the prison”. The prison is located in the center of Coro, an old colonial town and a Unesco World Heritage site, in the middle of a residential dis-trict. The site will now be refur-bished by the local government and will hold the Symphonic Orchestra of Coro.

Commenting on the small out-break of violence at the prison during the relocation of inmates, Minister Valera stated that “there is a majority which is allowing the reloca-tion in peace… we have other facilities where they can serve their time in more dignified conditions… the violent sec-tors are a minority”.

In further comments made to public television, the Minister explained that those respon-sible for the violence were unof-ficially controlling the prison through organized crime and smuggling, and who now felt threatened by the shakeup of the prison network. “There was no riot in Coro, what happened was the result of the breaking of the routine of those people who have led the business deal-ings within the penitentiary facilities, a minority which has confronted the majority of the inmates, who didn’t want to stay as they were losing control of the prison to the penitentiary authorities which are now ar-riving. Normally when a prison is relocated, they know that we do a meticulous check of the fa-cilities… so we presume that it (the violence) is part of a reac-tion from certain inmates who want to erase the evidence and use up the munitions”.

Varela also launched a re-buttal against sectors of the opposition, who, through their media outlet, Globovision, have heavily criticized the govern-ment’s approach to the pris-ons. In response to comments made by Humberto Prado on Globovision, Minister Varela stated that “it was Prado, when he was director of Yare Prison, who started the creation of the mafias, of the introduction of arms, and even drugs into the prison”. She also commented that in her opinion “there are many delinquents who are not in the prisons, despite the fact that they do the worst damage”, which she went on to define as “white collar delinquents”.

Historic inmatevote for socialism

“The new neighborhoods being built by the public housing program that offer a better quality of life have already seen significant reductions in criminality”

“But the current administration is revisingits approach and addressing the grave problemsin the penal systemby experimenting and finding a “humanistic” approach”

“The plan is currently renovating 8 centers across the country, where prisons will be increased in capacity, and will have improved toilet, dormitory, and sporting facilities, as well as better infrastructure”

The artillery of ideasFriday, October 26, 2012 | Interiew 5

T & P/ Rachael Boothroyd

In his first ministerial meet-ing since being re-elected on October 7, President Hugo

Chavez said the construction of communes would be at the heart of the Bolivarian Revo-lution over the next 6 years, and described them as “part of the soul of this project”. Here, Correo del Orinoco Inter-national brings you excerpts from two interviews with on-the-ground activists who have been trying to develop the communes at a local level over the past few years.

Melitza Orellana is a mem-ber of the Ezequiel Zamora National Peasant Front, a revolutionary grassroots or-ganization that works mainly in rural areas, where it fol-lows a methodology of popu-lar education to politicize and organize communities. Edwin Velasquez is a member of the Youth Bureau Caricuao, a youth organization aimed at promoting the communes and a new communal culture in Caracas.

–What are the communes exactly from your point of view?

–Orellana: In order to move on to the construction of communes it is necessary to consolidate the communal councils as a basic cell or nu-cleus. The communes would be something much more com-prehensive, which would in-clude a diverse range of things throughout the community and which would allow for col-lective action to resolve the basic needs of those communi-ties. However the communes are also an organized space that allows people to govern di-rectly for themselves, to make decisions and have an opinion and discuss and develop that opinion in citizen assemblies. The communes are a new way of living, and they are about planting that seed from child-hood, about how to live collec-tively, how to live in a unified manner, based on socialist and humanist values and the de-fence of our territories.

We believe the principal motor for the construction of Bolivarian socialism is the communes, because the com-munes are quite simply inter-action between people in a de-lineated space, a space where your needs become my needs, where someone else can feel what you are living. It is a com-plex but effective project. Right now, this phase of the revolu-tion demands popular organi-

Developing communesat the local levelzation and the construction of the communes as geo-political spaces, which will allow us to integrate and relate to one an-other, and put into practice po-litical processes on both a local a national level. Basically, they will allow us to make serious political proposals for the con-struction of Bolivarian social-ism. That’s the way we conceive of the communes and that’s the way we have been developing them from the various experi-ences that we have been imple-menting in our communities. These experiences have allowed people to gain a certain level of consciousness and politiciza-tion, as well as having allowed people to make decisions and to decide exactly what they want to do in their communities.

–What work has the Eze-quiel Zamora Front been doing to develop the com-munes?

–Orellana: We work in 18 states, including Apure, Tachi-ra, Portuguesa, Barinas, Zulia, and in all of these places there are communes and communal cities in construction – which is a higher level of organization than the commune. Of course

some areas are more developed than others and some have more concrete experiences, but they have all been developed with the same logic of deepen-ing popular power.

One of our principal ideolo-gies is to live within the com-munity and accompany them in their struggles, this method has gained us the acceptance of the community, because they know that we are not going to come at them with political “lines,” but rather they see the possibility of developing their communi-ties and growing in all spheres through us as an organization. The work we have been doing has been very systematic, orga-nizing in all spheres, carrying out the promotion of communal organization, we hold political training courses and workshops in the barrios and countryside, and we also promote direct mo-bilization, holding events in the street where people can talk about what they have been do-ing. That is what we have been doing and it has yielded results.

–Why are the communes so important for this project?

–Orellana: The construction of the communes is essential be-

cause they will allow the people to take part in decision-making in all aspects, from the littlest decisions to those that will affect the destiny of the country. We as a collective have always sup-ported the leadership of Hugo Chavez, but right now the process demands collective leadership; because socialism comes from popular power, because those sectors are the productive base of society, and that base, when it is organized and politicized, is what will direct this process.

–What do the communes mean for you?

–Velasquez: We are coming from a representative democra-cy before the revolution, where the people elected their politi-cians but didn’t actively par-ticipate in politics or their com-munity. The difference between Venezuela pre-1998 and now, the Bolivarian Republic, is that the logic of social organization has changed and now it allows people to take control over their own social spheres. We have a state, a government, which calls on you to get organized in order to resolve your own problems. This is obviously massively dif-ferent to before when we had

a representative democracy when everything was in the hands of the elite. Today people can organize, take control of their resources, produce for the community, generate their own politics and transform the real-ity of the community.

The communes, which are formed thanks to a group of communal councils, should think with a different kind of logic. They shouldn’t just think about the material and physi-cal transformation of commu-nities, but also other things, such as how to transform this culture (of capitalism and rep-resentative democracy).

The communes have to be a government; they are about creating a new form of power, a micro-power, but a power all the same. It is a power that takes on responsibility for ed-ucation, culture and sport etc. They are the conformation of people’s government but small-scale, and this makes it easier to resolve problems. Of course, we have to move beyond just resolving problems and move towards creating truly eman-cipatory politics. How are we going to move beyond exploita-tion and alienation if we don’t attack them from within our communities?

–Why is the creation of the communes so impor-tant for the transition to socialism?

–Velasquez: We started a bat-tle against a huge enemy. The biggest monster in all history is neo-liberalism and imperi-alism, it’s an immense power and it is going to be extremely difficult for us. But we have to start somewhere and create something alternative to what exists, and obviously we can-not in a million years fall into the same logic as capitalism. If we are trying to construct socialism, then it is obvious we need social organization which will take on a character of its own and resolve its own prob-lems first of all, and to do this it has to move away from neo-liberalism and individualism and move towards a collective way of life. If we make a huge effort in the community pro-ductive sector (through the communes), and through this generate ourselves the resourc-es which allow people to resolve their problems and self-govern, then obviously we will be mak-ing the bureaucratic State ap-paratus disappear without even meaning to, because the community will be taking on its role and as a result it loses its reason for being.

The artillery of ideas6 Sport & Science | Friday, October 26, 2012

Venezuela euphoric as countrymenabound in US World SeriesT/ Elliott Almond and David PollakP/ Agencies

Baseball-loving Venezuelans from the Bay Area to South America celebrated Tues-

day the most anticipated World Series in their long history with America’s pastime. A euphoria spread across the nation the moment countryman Marco Scutaro put his stamp on the postseason Monday night by lifting the San Francisco Giants into the Fall Classic.

This is a milestone mo-ment for a South Ameri-can country that has a serious love affair with a game that has nothing to do with soccer.

“They waited for this mo-ment”, Giants third baseman Pablo Sandoval said.

Sandoval and Scutaro are two of nine Venezuelans on the ros-ters for the 2012 World Series, which began Wednesday at AT&T Park with San Francisco playing the Detroit Tigers.

Also on the Giants’ active roster are Venezuelans Hec-tor Sanchez, Jose Mijares and Gregor Blanco. Slugger Miguel Cabrera is joined on the Tigers by Anibal Sanchez, Avisail Gar-cia and Omar Infante.

“It’s going to be exciting play-ing against players you know for a long time”, Cabrera said

Tuesday. “I think it’s going to be extra motivation”. In a year of chest-pounding achievements for Venezuela, the latest came Monday night in the rain when Scutaro was named NLCS most valuable player. His wife held up a Venezuelan flag as he re-ceived his trophy.

“Venezuela Grows Giant”, blared the headline Tuesday

in the sports daily Meridiano. “The entire country is having a party”, Oscar Eduardo Izagu-irre, Venezuela Baseball Fed-eration executive director, said in an email in Spanish.

The South American country known for oil, chocolate and coffee has been at the forefront of the Latin American influence on Major League Baseball. Ven-

ezuelans comprise the second largest group of foreign-born athletes in the majors after the Dominican Republic with a reported record 66 players on opening day rosters this year. And what a year it has been.

Cabrera became the first play-er to win the prestigious Triple Crown in 45 years. In August, the Seattle Mariners’ Felix Her-nandez became the first Venezu-elan-born player to throw a per-fect game. Also, Johan Santana became the first New York Mets pitcher to throw a no-hitter.

And Omar Vizquel, 45, con-cluded a four-decade career as one of the game’s greatest short-stops this month. “I don’t think there is anything else people want to talk about other than baseball”, said Vizquel, who played with the Giants from 2005-08. “It is just amazing to see the impact these people can bring to a game”.

Cabrera gave a nod to Ven-ezuelan trailblazers such as Vizquel. “We’ve got to keep go-ing what they did -- try to open more doors”, he said.

“You never can forget where you come from”, Scutaro added.

American oilmen introduced baseball to Venezuela in the 1920s. Although part of South America, Venezuelans relate to Caribbean countries such as the Dominican Republic and Cuba, which also have unsur-

passed passion for baseball no matter where it takes place.

In Venezuela’s biggest event of the early baseball season last weekend, fans turned away from action on the field to watch a scoreboard showing the Gi-ants-Cardinals playoff game.

Never mind Navegantes del Magallanes -- Magellan’s Navi-gators -- were playing hated ri-vals Caracas Leones at the time. The crowd chanted in unison for Scutaro and Sandoval.

“It was very emotional”, said Ismael Granadillo, Venezuela Professional Baseball League spokesman.

There is little like baseball to unify Venezuelans who ex-perienced a divisive election October 7 in which socialist President Hugo Chavez won a landslide victory.

The Winter League that be-gan four days after the election was like a salve, said Venezu-elan lawyer Arturo J. Marcano Guevara, co-author of “Steal-ing Lives: the Globalization of Baseball and the Tragic Story of Alexis Quiroz”.

“It’s like going to a spa to for-get about everything for three hours”, he said.

Now fans have the World Se-ries to occupy their time. That includes about 2,600 Venezu-elan immigrants living in the Bay Area, according to US Cen-sus Bureau estimates.

“We root for Venezuelans to make something good of them-selves inside or outside the country”, said Adriana Lopez, owner of PicaPica Maize Kitch-en in San Francisco’s Mission District.

“But we’re over the moon that Scutaro is one of the top players right now”.

T/ Rachael Boothroyd www.venezuelanalysis.comP/ AVN

The Venezuelan government has released the first images

taken by its new “Miranda” satellite, launched 3 weeks ago in collaboration with the Chinese government. The first images were presented during a televised press conference last Wednesday by a number of Venezuelan ministers.

According to the Venezuelan government, the satellite will transmit up to 350 images a day and will be used principally to help the government plan “strategic areas of interest”, in-

Venezuela’s first satelliteimages released

cluding agriculture, industry, the country’s national housing mission and the environment.

The images will also alert the government to climatic changes and help it to prepare for sudden rains, such as those that left thousands of Venezu-elans homeless in 2010, as well as to improve planning for na-tional harvests. They will also be used to aid military opera-tions, specifically those on the frontier with Colombia.

According to Minister of Sci-ence and Technology, Jorge Ar-reaza, the satellite’s images will be extremely important for pub-lic planning and will be made available to communal councils

who wish to undertake public works in their local areas.

“These images are not just for academics and ministries, they are also for the people”, he said.

The satellite was launched on September 28 from China, which is jointly managing the project with Venezuela. Over 50 Venezuelan professionals are currently out in China be-ing trained to take over control of the satellite, which will be transferred over to Venezuela in January next year.

“(Then) the relationship will be more of a cooperation and exchange of images with Chi-na”, confirmed Mariano Im-bert, Executive Director of the Bolivarian Agency for Space Activities.

Imbert also commented that the government was discussing the possibility of sharing the

images from the satellite with countries of the ALBA (Boli-varian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) in an attempt to deepen regional integration, as well as discussing further collaboration with the Chinese government in order to have ac-cess to the data recorded from two Chinese satellites.

“We are taking a further step towards independence”, Imbert explained.

Miranda is the second satel-lite to be launched in conjunc-tion with the Chinese govern-ment since Hugo Chavez was elected in 1998, with a first, named Simon Bolivar, being sent into orbit in 2008.

The artillery of ideasFriday, October 26, 2012 | Analysis 7

Investing in democracy in VenezuelaT/ Susan Scott and Azadeh Shahshahani

As part of an eight-member delegation from the Na-tional Lawyers Guild, we

spent the week leading up to the October 7 Venezuelan presiden-tial election in Caracas, learn-ing about the electoral system that Jimmy Carter has called “the best in the world.” On the day of the election, we observed it in action all over the country as part of a group of more than 220 international parliamentar-ians, election officials, academ-ics, journalists, and judges. As predicted by the vast majority of polling organizations, Hugo Chavez was re-elected by a double digit margin (55.11% to 44.27%) with an unprecedented turnout of 80.9%.

Free and fair elections are only one feature of a democracy, but in Venezuela, elections have become something more—a na-tional project which knows no party and constitutes a major investment.

What makes Venezuela’s elec-toral system stand out resides in a combination of factors. The Bolivarian project of “21st Century Socialism” and Latin American integration, initi-ated by Hugo Chavez and his supporters after his first elec-tion in 1998, is a fundamentally democratic project. Chavez has repeatedly emphasized that its legitimacy and viabil-ity lies in the will of the people as expressed in free and fair elections. The 1999 Bolivarian Constitution was itself drafted by an assembly of elected mem-bers with significant popular input and was adopted in a national referendum by a 72% popular vote. It provides for an independent National Elec-toral Council (CNE), chosen by the elected National Assembly (Congress), and with a constitu-tional status equal to the other four branches of government (executive, legislative, judicial, and Poder Ciudadano, “Peo-ple’s Power,” which includes the Attorney General, Human Rights Defender, and Comp-troller General). The Constitu-tion provides for more than the election of political representa-tives – there are provisions for referenda to change the Consti-tution (used in 2007 and 2009), referenda to abrogate laws, and even for recall of the president (attempted in 2004).

As more and more elections are conducted under the CNE’s

leadership (28 since the Boli-varian Constitution) and more electoral laws and regulations passed, the electoral system has become increasingly trusted and respected by the Venezuelan populace. The system has been used by unions to elect leader-ship and even by the opposition to elect its standard bearer in a primary last February (also wit-nessed by an NLG delegation).

Since the 1998 election of Hugo Chavez and the 1999 adoption of the Bolivarian Constitution,

voter registration has climbed from 11 million in 1998 to almost 19 million today, as a result of a robust registration program throughout the country, target-ing the country’s poorest com-munities. The number of polling places has increased from 20,202 in 1998 to 38,239 in 2012.

Perhaps the most outstand-ing aspect of the Venezuelan electoral system is the technol-ogy used to record, verify, and transmit the votes. The technol-ogy provides for accessible elec-

T/ Rachael BoothroydP/ Cubadebate

Former Venezuelan Vice-President, Elias Jaua, has

dispelled rumors that Cuban revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro, had suffered a stroke after a Venezuelan doctor told international press that the former head of state was seri-ously ill.

Rumors began circulating in the international press after Miami-based physician Jose Marquina told Spanish news network, ABC, that the Cuban leader was near to a “neuro-vegetative state” following a stroke and could “recognize absolutely no-one”.

Marquina is most famously known for having falsely re-ported last year that Venezue-lan President Hugo Chavez had

Venezuelan meets with Castro,dispels stroke rumours

just months to live after he was diagnosed with cancer. Despite this, many news outlets such as the Miami Herald and the New York Post reported the Venezu-elan doctor’s comments as fact.

“We were conversing for quite a while on different top-ics, such as the Bolivarian revolution, the peoples’ victory on October 7, agriculture, and some experimental harvests that he [Castro] is carrying out. This is a demonstration that he is perfectly fine”, said Jaua af-ter making a “surprise” visit to Cuba on Saturday.

“He is a human being who thinks about humanity, about what the men and women of this planet are going to eat, both now and in the future...he is an extraordinary being, at the ser-vice of everyone....We’ll have Fi-del for a while yet”, he added.

Pictures of 86 year-old Fidel have since appeared on the Cuban news site, Cubadebate, showing the Cuban leader look-ing active and healthy in a gar-den. Fidel has also hit out at the “imperialist yellow press” for deceiving readers following the incident, but stated that people were becoming more distrust-ful of mainstream media re-porting.

“Although many people in the world are deceived by the infor-mation bodies which publish

these stupid things, almost all of which are in the hands of the rich and privileged, many people believe in them less and less... no one likes to be deceived”, the former Presi-dent wrote.

“I like to write and I write, I like to study and I study... I stopped publishing [my col-umn] because it is certainly not my role to fill up the pages of our press, which is focused on other areas required by the country”, he added.

tronic voting with a verifiable paper trail and instant trans-mission of vote counts from remote locations to CNE head-quarters. CNE’s anti-hacking and multiple transparent audit and identity authentication sys-tems have put to rest past oppo-sition claims of fraud.

At each of the polling sta-tions we visited, there were observers present represent-ing both the Capriles and the Chavez camps. The observers expressed satisfaction with the

integrity and transparency of the process, regardless of their political affiliation.

We were present at the CNE headquarters in Caracas for the announcement of the election results within a few hours of the closing of the more than 38,000 polling stations throughout the country. And we watched as Capriles conceded on television with the next hour.

What struck us most was the national commitment to de-mocracy as showcased by the very level of financial and pop-ular investment in the entire system. Aside from the cost for the technology transfer from the Venezuelan company that designed the machines (Smart-matic), there is the cost of pro-ducing, maintaining, repairing, packing, and transporting the 46,000 machines, each with its separate electronic ballot and fingerprint authentication ma-chines, as well as the significant investment in training field op-erators for polling stations all over the country. The CNE em-ploys over 400,000 people to do the work that relates directly to the electoral process. We can only begin to imagine all the other jobs that result from this complex national process to en-sure a fully transparent demo-cratic system.

Susan Scott is the National Lawyers Guild International Committee Co-Chair.

Azadeh Shahshahani is Pres-ident-Elect of the National Law-yers Guild.

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

INTERNATIONAL Friday, October 26, 2012 | Nº 132 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve

Opinion

Nobel Peace Prize goes to war-makers,while peacemakers are shunned

T/ Dan Kovalik

“There are two types of people in the world -- those that love and cre-

ate, and those that hate and de-stroy”. -- Jose Marti

While the Nobel Prize Com-mittee has again awarded the Peace Prize to a war-maker on a grand scale -- this time to the European Union, which, through NATO, has been car-rying out war continuously for decades in such far-flung places as Yugoslavia, Libya and Af-ghanistan -- it is important to remember that there are indeed peacemakers in the world de-serving of the prize. However, these deserving peacemakers may not be people you would think of because they have ei-ther been vilified or completely ignored by the Western press.

Contemplate this story from The Guardian, titled, “Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez played

role in Colombia’s peace talks with Farc” guerillas:

“The ailing former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, together with Venezuela’s recently re-elected leader Hugo Chavez, played a critical role in bring-ing the Colombian government and the... FARC guerrilla group together for peace talks that could end one of Latin Ameri-ca’s longest-running civil wars, the Observer has learned. Ac-cording to sources closely in-volved in the peace process, which sees historic talks open-ing in Oslo on Wednesday, the key breakthrough after almost four years of back-channel talks between the two sides came during a visit earlier this year by Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, to Cuba, where he met both Castro and Chavez, who was in Cuba being treated for cancer”.

Spending almost four years to end a bloody civil war that

has been going on for more than 50 years, and which has cost tens of thousands of lives, certainly seems a feat worthy of a peace prize. Undoubtedly, this outshines the efforts of the US, which, through three dif-ferent administrations, includ-ing the Obama administration, has spent more than $8 billion in military aid to the Colom-bian regime to keep the war go-ing. Incredibly, though, it was Obama who was awarded the Nobel Prize, despite the fact that he has helped stoke the Co-lombian conflict, most recently by sending military advisers to Colombia; continued the war in Afghanistan; maintained the shameful gulag in Guantanamo Bay; expanded the war to Paki-stan; started a war in Libya; and threatened further conflict in both Syria and Iran.

Meanwhile, while Obama’s “assistance” to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake consisted of

sending 14,000 armed troops, it was Fidel and Chavez who sent doctors and medical as-sistance to Haiti -- help that, according to The New York Times, prevented Haiti from being overrun by the cholera epidemic. Again, this use of peaceful means, in contrast to the US usual violent means, to provide desperately-needed aid to the poorest country in our Hemisphere seems worthy of the Nobel Prize.

In addition, there are other brave men and women living in Colombia who have for many years risked their lives to try to bring peace to that country. Foremost among these is for-mer Senator Piedad Cordoba, who has been a key figure in jump starting the Colombian peace talks. Ms. Cordoba has sacrificed her political career for peace, thus being stripped of her right to stand and run for political office because of her

contacts with the FARC gue-rillas -- contacts which were necessary to bring about the release of captives held by the FARC as well as to advance peace discussions. It is unsung heroes like Piedad who deserve to be singled out for their sacri-fices in the interests of peace.

The Nobel Committee should also consider giving the Peace Prize to La Marcha Patrotica in Colombia, led by such brave souls as my friend Carlos Lo-zano, which has also played a key role in advancing the peace in that country. La Marcha has worked closely with those at the center of the conflict -- poor peasants -- to pressure the Co-lombian government to come to the negotiating table. For their efforts, a number of the leaders and rank and file members of La Marcha have been vilified, threatened, jailed, murdered and disappeared. Again, the Nobel Prize was created to re-ward the type of courage shown by such peacemakers.

I also think of my friend Ma-rino Cordoba, who, after escap-ing Colombia to the US after multiple attempts upon his life by right-wing paramilitary groups -- groups closely aligned with the military, which the US has been funding for years -- re-cently returned to Colombia in the interest of accompanying fellow Afro-Colombians in their struggle for peace and justice in Colombia. Afro-Colombians have been particularly affected by the conflict in Colombia, with more than 12 percent of Afro-Colombians being inter-nally displaced, thus dispro-portionately filling the ranks of the more than 5 million inter-nally displaced persons (IDPs) in Colombia -- the largest IDP population on earth. Marino, without any means of support, has put everything on the line for this effort, leaving his wife and three children behind in the US while risking his life for peace in Colombia.

Sadly, however, it is not such people who are considered for the Nobel Prize these days. Instead, the Prize is going to the world’s most powerful, like Obama and the European Union, who wield their power destructively, in the interest of war rather than peace. Mean-while, those truly working for peace are ignored or ridiculed. This is the upside-down world in which we find ourselves.

Dan Kovalik is a humanand labor rights lawyer.