English Edition Nº 131

ENGLISH EDITION/The artillery of ideas INTERNATIONALFriday, October 19, 2012 | Nº 131 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve

Venezuelans revere indigenousgoddess Maria Lionza

Thousands of Venezuelans make an annual pilgrimage to the high mountains in Ya-racuy, in central Venezuela, to participate in rituals and spiritual ceremonies hono-ring Maria Lionza, an indigenous goddess of nature revered by millions. Lionza was born from a myth of an Indian princess with light eyes who became enchanted in the jungles of Yaracuy and takes refuge there. Believers say she offers miracles and “beautiful things for humanity”. page 2

Chavez shuffles cabinetAfter winning a landslide

victory in last week’s

presidential elections,

President Hugo Chavez called

for greater efficiency in his

own government and swore

in six new high level cabinet

members, including a new

Vice President. Some of the

outgoing officials are heading

off to run for governor of

several Venezuelan states

in the upcoming regional

elections in December. Overall,

Chavez pledged a revamping of

his administration in order to

improve government. page 3

Politics

Former UnionLeader New VP A man who once drove a bus and organized unions is now Venezuela’s Vice President. page 4

International

Venezuela callsfor peacein Middle EastThe Chavez government condemned Israel’s aggression against Palestine. page 5

Fidel & Chavez playrole in Colombian pact

Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Chavez help negotiate an end to Colombia’s civil war. page 6

Venezuelaexpels Paraguay’s diplomats after coup

T/ Agencies

Venezuela’s government has decided to expel Para-guay’s remaining diplomats from the country, the top en-voy at the Paraguayan Em-bassy said Wednesday.

Charge d’affaires Victor Casartelli said that he and three other Paraguayan dip-lomats in Caracas were told by Venezuela’s Foreign Min-istry to leave within three days. Casartelli said that he received a call Tuesday from the Foreign Ministry in-forming him of the decision and that he met Wednesday with Venezuelan officials who confirmed that the four should go.

The expulsion of Para-guay’s diplomats follows a bitter dispute between the countries that began in June with the congressional im-peachment and ouster of Paraguayan President Fer-nando Lugo – called by many a legislative coup d’etat -, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

In July, the two govern-ments withdrew their ambas-sadors amid rising tensions over Lugo’s removal. Chavez later said he had ordered his country’s military attaches to leave Paraguay, citing threats against diplomats.

Casartelli said he was told by Venezuelan officials that when their government with-drew its diplomats, “they were waiting for Paraguay to do the same thing with us”.

Since months passed and Paraguay didn’t follow suit, Venezuelan officials decided to expel the remaining dip-lomats, Casartelli said. He said in a phone interview that he and the other three diplomats had made plans to leave this week.

One Paraguayan Embassy employee who is not a dip-lomat will be allowed to re-main to perform consular duties, Casartelli said.

Analysis

Spain’s press promotesanti-Chavez propaganda page 7

Opinion

Western media distortscoverage on Venezuela page 8

Miranda satellite imagesOn Tuesday, the Venezuelan government revealed

the first images transmitted by its new satellite “Mi-randa”. The satellite was launched from China nearly three weeks ago.

This terrestrial observation and remote imaging satellite will offer high-resolution pictures that pro-vide scientific data used for planning in the areas of the environment, agriculture, industry, health, secu-rity, risk management and disaster prevention.

Its images will also be used to help locate natural resources, monitor crops and border areas, and im-prove oil industry activities.

Early next year a group of 54 Venezuelan scientists trained in China will take control of the satellite from the Captain Manuel Ríos Space Center in Guarico and the Simon Rodriguez Technological Complex in Caracas.

The Venezuelan personnel received training from their Chinese counterparts regarding the proces-sing, interpretation and use of satellite images of the national territory.

The artillery of ideas2 Impact | Friday, October 19, 2012

T/ COIP/ COI

Every October 12, the oth-erwise sleepy town of Chi-vacoa in the mid-western

state of Yaracuy becomes the host to thousands of pilgrims making their way to nearby Sorte Mountain where devo-tees of the cult of Maria Lionza seek spiritual cleansing and fa-vors from the indigenous god-dess of nature revered by mil-lions of Venezuelans.

The majority of the prac-titioners are from humble backgrounds, as evidenced by the dilapidated buses that usher in the believers from around the country. While each traveller comes for their own reasons, the bulk of dev-otees arrive at the holy site looking for a solution to their problems, whether they be economic, romantic, or health related.

According to Aura Piscano, a 64 year-old practitioner of the cult, Maria Lionza is “a Holy Goddess who carries out miracles and does beautiful for things for humanity”.

Piscano, who identifies her-self as a “daughter of Maria Lionza”, recounts the myth of an Indian princess with light eyes who became enchanted in

the jungles of Yaracuy and who takes refuge in the dense veg-etation of Sorte Mountain.

Having been involved in the religion for 55 years, the native of the state of Barinas has seen the belief in the cult expand in-ternationally, attracting more and more people every year.

“Many people come for the necessity of help because the

truth is that this mountain has a geomagnetic, spiritual, and scientific power. Regardless of their career or their level of study, people’s faith makes them come here”, Piscano said.

Pablo Vazquez, President of the Venezuelan Spiritual As-sociation, claims that the total number of believers in the cult of Maria Lionza has grown to approximately 15 million people in recent years, roughly half of the entire Venezuelan population.

“Everything takes place here in Sorte Mountain... this whole area possesses a power where Maria Lionza, through her rivers, streams and nature provides positive energy for those who seek it, those seek-ing health and healing where perhaps scientific medicine has not been successful... Maria Li-onza receives us if we don’t have money and independent of our race or ethnicity”, he said.

Such is the character of this intrinsically grassroots religious expression, which involves members of the cult hiring spiritual advisers who through trance and possession offer their clients an answer to their troubles. These “works” form the basis for the rituals that occur at Sorte mountain, which blend a variety of spiri-tual practices culled from tra-ditions associated with Christi-anity and the African diaspora such as Santeria and Palo.

Various sects, known as courts, form part of the pan-theon of which the indigenous princess Maria Lionza reins supreme. These divisions are comprised of a diversity of his-torical and spiritual personnel including Simon Bolivar, the Venezuelan independence hero; Guaicapuro, the indigenous warrior who led revolts against the Spaniards; and even Erik the Red, the Viking.

Other branches of this spiri-tual universe include the Corte Cale, which venerates Robin Hood style urban criminals.

“Everybody has a space here because this is sacred territory where Maria Lionza as a great matriarch provides shelter and maternal support”, said Aura Piscano.

Without a written canon, the rites carried out at Sorte Mountain display extreme variations. Some rituals are excessively bloody and involve practitioners possessed by Vi-king spirits slicing their tongue with razor blades and breaking bottles over their head to dem-onstrate their manliness.

Pablo Vazquez attributes these practices to followers of the cult who are operating out-

side the traditional boundaries of the established courts and whose spiritual works are ex-ecuted more as spectacle than as true curative ceremonies.

Indeed, with the proliferation of such acts, many members of the international press have seized upon the cult’s sensation-alist elements, exploiting the more outlandish occurrences at Sorte for the amusement of international readers.

To combat the stereotypes being circulated as a result of fringe rites, Vazquez’s Spiri-tual Association is embarking on educational campaigns to raise awareness about the cult through community workshops and lectures.

The organization of practi-tioners is also attempting to or-ganize the seasoned members of the cult in order to set out guidelines involved in the wor-ship of Maria Lionza.

“We’re working towards res-cuing the traditions and sowing greater respect for Maria Lion-za and her environment... It’s time to unify criteria to stave off the distortions that are tak-ing place”, he said.

Such codification of the cult has been attempted before without luck and one could argue that the very idea of for-mulating rules goes against the syncretic fundamentals of the religion that are defined by the innovation and interpretation of followers.

Yet regardless of its amor-phous nature, the growth of the cult of Maria Lionza has not been met with open arms by the Catholic Church, which has outright rejected the belief as incompatible with its own teachings.

Followers of Maria Lionza however, compare to their wor-ship of the “The Queen” to the worship of Christian saints and fail to see how their faith in God is conflictive with their faith in the cult.

“We all come from one God and God is here. God created Maria Lionza and her nature”, Aura Piscano relates.

Vazquez, along with the great majority of practitioners at Sorte, also defines himself as Catholic despite his involve-ment in the cult for more than 40 years.

“Above all we believe in God and Jesus Christ. Maria Lionza would have said that she is not a goddess but rather a queen that belongs to part of our cul-ture... We go to church, read the bible, preach the gospel and pray to Our Father. But that doesn’t prevent us from taking part in the cult because it’s our culture”, Vazquez affirmed.

The goddess of Venezuela

Maria Lionza:

The artillery of ideasFriday, October 19, 2012 | Politics 3

T/ COIP/ Presidential Press

In a shuffling of his cabinet personnel following a robust election victory on October 7,

Venezuelan head of state Hugo Chavez swore in six new minis-ters last Saturday during a cer-emony held in the presidential palace of Miraflores.

Nicolas Maduro, the coun-try’s new Vice President, also

took an oath of office as the 49 year-old current Foreign Min-ister prepares to perform the duties of two offices simultane-ously.

Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader from the capi-tal Caracas, will be replacing Vice President Elias Jaua who is running for Governor of the state of Miranda in the coun-try’s upcoming local elections slated for December 16.

The other high officials con-firmed on Saturday are Ernesto Villegas as Communication Minister; Nestor Reverol as Interior and Justice Minister; Juan Carlos Loyo as Minister of Agriculture and Land, Aloha Nuñez as Indigenous Affairs Minister; Cristobal Francisco Ortiz as Minister of Environ-ment; and Admiral Carmen Te-resa Melendez, the nation’s first female admiral, as Presidential

Venezuela’s Chavez reconfigures cabinet;calls for greater efficiency in government

T/ COI

In preparations for the coming fiscal year, the Venezuelan

Executive branch submitted its proposed budget for 2013 to the country’s legislative body, the National Assembly (AN), last Monday.

The budget, which includes requests for the funding for a diversity social development projects, will be first discussed in the Assembly on October 23 after Finance and Planning Minister Jorge Giordani pres-ents a series of related reports to congress.

Once these annexing docu-ments are received, the pro-posal will be examined in committee before being sub-mitted to a larger debate on the legislator floor.

Venezuelan congress receives 2013 budgetwith ‘strong emphasis’ on social spending

Details on 2013’s request have yet to be released to the public but initial reports indicate that the budget will be based on a $50 per barrel price of crude, Venezuela’s main export.

2012’s budget consisted of a total of $69 billion for the Ex-ecutive, also based on an aver-age price of $50 per barrel to prevent fiscal shortfalls in the event of a drop in the commod-ity’s value on the international market.

Forty percent of last year’s spending was requested, ac-cording to officials at the time, for an increase in social spend-ing in areas such as education, social security, housing, and urban development.

Congressman Ricardo San-guino, socialist representa-tive from the state of Tachira

and member of the legislator’s Economic Development and Fi-nance Committe, said that this spending trend will continue as the new budget is designed to complement the Chavez gov-ernment’s development plan for the years 2013-2019.

Essential to this plan is in-creased investment in the so-cial programs, or missions, which have characterized Venezuela over the past 14 years since Chavez first came to power.

Greater resources will be dedicated, Congressman San-guino explained, on housing construction, agricultural proj-ects, and high profile public works.

Opposition congressman and Finance Committee member, Alfonso Marquina, commented

that much of the debate over the submitted budget would re-volve around development proj-ects that require various years to complete.

“There are works that, for technical and financial reasons, cannot be executed in one year. For that reason previsions are made to establish commitments made in subsequent budgets”, Marquina said.

Independent of the debate, the 2013 proposal “is going to have a strong emphasis” on social programs said Con-gressman Julio Chavez of the Assembly-controlling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

Chavez explained that the goal of the spending is to “make our country the least unequal as possible”, citing the fact that Venezuela has achieved the highest equality rating in Latin America, according to the Unit-ed Nations Economic Commis-sion for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac).

During an interview on the private television station Venevision, the representa-tive from the state of Lara also addressed the question of decentralization in Ven-ezuela and the complaint by opposition governors and mayors that the National Assembly has systemati-cally denied loans to local governments.

“It’s not true that the May-or’s and Governor’s Offices have been denied resources through the approval of credits... [One] cannot dis-criminate against any local government whether or not it be in the hands of the op-position... Credits are desig-nated on an equal basis to all Governor’s Offices”, Chavez asserted.

“I think that this argument [of not funding local govern-ments] is being used a way to pressure and manipulate peo-ple, but the community is not buying it”, he added.

Chief of Staff also charged with follow-up and monitoring of government offices.

Loyo will be taking the reins of the Agriculture and Land Ministry for the second time following an illness-related ab-sence in January.

He will be charged with con-tinuing the country’s agrarian reform that seeks to break up large landholdings in favor of small farmers and democratize production through low credit loans and technical support.

“Landlords beware! Loyo has come back! They were very pleased because you were not around”, President Chavez said of the return of his minister on Saturday.

During the ceremony, the so-cialist head of state called on his new cabinet members to challenge themselves and work towards a more effective and responsive government over the next six years.

The ministers must “increase the capacity and efficiency of our management to the highest degree”, Chavez insisted.

“We’re giving a spiritual component to this swearing-in which is not in front of the head of state but rather in front of the people. You must have a strong

commitment and I’m sure that you are all up to this challenge”, Chavez said.

As part of his first address as Vice President of the Republic, Nicolas Maduro spoke of the new era of Venezuela’s Boli-varian Revolution following the electoral victory of Hugo Chavez and the strengthening of the nation’s “Socialism of the 21st Century”.

“From this very moment, we are beginning a deep process of revision, renovation and the creation of something new. Af-ter 14 years of experience there are now sufficient theoretical, political and moral bases to be-gin deepening the Revolution with new methods”, he said.

Saturday’s ceremony also saw Chavez thank ex-Vice Pres-ident Elias Jaua for his years of service, expressing his con-fidence that the former second in command will defeat recent opposition presidential candi-date Henrique Capriles for the governorship of Miranda state in December’s elections.

“I’m sure that you in this new battle you will demonstrate just as equally your capacity to struggle and to win”, he said.

Other outgoing officials who will be participating in guber-natorial races include Erika Farias, former Presidential Dispatch head and Tareck El Aissami, ex-Interior and Jus-tice minster.

Farias and El Aissami will be vying for the governorship of Cojedes and Aragua states respectively.

The artillery of ideas4 Politics | Friday, October 19, 2012

President Chavez nameslabor leader new Executive VPT/ COIP/ AFP

Just days after his landmark 2012 election victory, Ven-ezuelan President Hugo

Chavez named Foreign Af-fairs Minister Nicolas Maduro to be the country’s new Execu-tive Vice President. Maduro, a labor leader turned trusted confidant, replaced former Executive VP Elias Jaua who stepped aside to run for Gover-nor of Miranda in elections set for mid-December. Re-elected last October 7 for the 2013-2019 term, President Chavez told reporters that Jaua and Ma-duro “are currently reviewing all of their tasks so as to allow for the successful handover of responsibilities”.

FROM LABOR LEADER TO TOP VPBorn in Caracas on Novem-

ber 23, 1962, Nicolas Maduro Moros began his political in-volvement as a high school student activist. In the 1980’s and 90’s, at which time the country was living through several harmful experiments with neo-liberal economic policies promoted by the In-ternational Monetary Fund (IMF), Maduro worked and organized as a driver of the Caracas MetroBus, an above-ground bus system linking the city’s metro stations to bus routes. His leadership ca-pacity within the transporta-tion workers’ union got him elected president of the union, a commitment he maintained until joining Chavez’s first successful election campaign in 1998.

Through his contacts in the labor movement, Maduro played an important role in launching the Movement for the Fifth Republic (MVR), a mass social movement that helped Chavez win the 1998 election. A year later, Maduro took part in the National Con-stitutional Assembly and ad-vocated for workers’ rights. In 2000, he was elected to the country’s National Assembly and was re-elected in 2005. Maduro was also briefly Presi-dent of the National Assem-bly until 2006 when President Chavez named him Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Successful with numer-ous efforts to advance Latin American unity and integra-tion while Foreign Minister, Maduro has become one of the most widely-recognized voices of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Rev-olution.

As Foreign Minister, he oversaw the expansion of the Bolivarian Alliance for the People’s of the Americas (ALBA), the consolidation of the Union of South American Nations (Unasur), and the birth, in December 2011, of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac). Minister Maduro also firmly pushed for Venezuela’s accep-tance into the Common Market of the South (Mercosur), a his-torical achievement approved by Mercsour earlier this year. A strong advocate of a “multi-polar” world, in direct oppo-sition to US imperialism and the Washington Consensus in Latin America, Maduro also worked tirelessly to strength-en ties between Venezuela and China, Russia, Belarus, Iran, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, and Bolivia. A trusted member of President Chavez’s cabinet,

Maduro has been Vice Presi-dent of the Council of Minis-ters since November 2010.

Naming Maduro his Execu-tive Vice President last week, President Chavez thanked Jaua “for giving his all” while in office and explained that Maduro “has been an excel-lent public servant all these years”. Chavez asked the rest of his cabinet to “give Maduro all the support he needs” and congratulated the Foreign Minister for “taking on the new responsibilities”.

Maduro responded to the designation by affirming, “to-day, you (Chavez) place me in a role with great responsibili-ties, a task that implies a lot of work, a job that is very de-manding, and I thank you for that trust”.

SUCCESSION?Eager to spread divisive

rumors in both Venezuela and abroad, corporate media responded to Chavez’s an-nouncement by suggesting that Maduro is the President’s “most-likely successor”. Ignor-ing the fact that Venezuelan democracy continues to prove

itself in election after election, media focused their report-ing on Maduro’s “close ties to Cuba” and “unwavering loy-alty to Chavez”.

The Associated Press (AP), for example, wrote, “Maduro, a burly former bus driver, is considered the member of Chavez’s government with the closest ties to Cuba’s Fidel and Raul Castro”. AP added that “the vice presidential job has assumed new importance because of Chavez’s recent struggle with cancer” and, providing no evidence to back its claims, affirmed that “ru-

mors have circulated that Ma-duro is being groomed as his (Chavez’s) successor”.

As stipulated by the Con-stitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (1999), the country’s Executive Vice President is responsible for the presidency if, for any rea-son, the President is unable to finish out his term. If this occurs during the first four years of the six-year term, the Executive VP holds office until a national presidential election can occur. If the President is unable to govern during the last two years of a period, the Executive VP holds office until the term comes to an end.

Using this constitutional-ity as basis to produce specula-tions, EFE warned that Maduro “is now in a position with a great deal of power, in case of an emergency”. The media firm de-scribed Maduro as “a convinced leftist who began his political activism as a Maoist student leader in high school who, with-out attending the university, worked as a bus driver”.

EFE went on to quote Vladi-mir Villegas, a former Chavez advocate turned opposition spokesman, who described Maduro as “the government’s political cadre with the great-est potential”. Using Chavez’s successful bout with cancer as cause for uncertainty, Vil-legas called Maduro “the gov-ernment’s heavyweight, which is why the President (Chavez) chose him to be his number two while he attends to his ‘health issues’”.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan po-litical analyst Nicmer Evans explained, “Chavez must of course have a great deal of trust in someone to name them Executive Vice President…but that doesn’t mean people should begin to see phantoms nor successors”.

JAUA TO MIRANDAWith some 2.6 million inhab-

itants, most of who work in and around the nation’s capital, Miranda is considered one of the most important states in Venezu-elan politics. Before this year’s presidential election, it was gov-erned by defeated opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski, who now hopes to retake the governor-ship. His competitor, Elias Jaua, is a widely-respected socialist leader known for his dedication to the Bolivarian Revolution. Also recognized for his role in helping to build the ruling Unit-ed Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Jaua will face Capriles in gubernatorial elections sched-uled for December 16.

Through his contactsin the labor movement, Maduro played an important role in launching the Movement for the Fifth Republic (MVR), a mass social movementthat helped Chavez winthe 1998 election.

The artillery of ideasFriday, October 19, 2012 | International 5

T/ Paul DobsonP/ Agencies

On Monday, the Venezu-elan ambassador to the United Nations warned

the Security Council of the consequences of Israeli expan-sionism into the Palestinian Occupied Territories, which, according to him, is “putting the peace of the whole world at risk”.

His comments come amidst various violent attacks by the Israeli military into the Pal-estinian territories this week, killing over 10 people, including unarmed citizens, as violence, fuelled by foreign intervention in Syria, yet again re-sparks in the region.

The Venezuelan ambassador to the UN, Jorge Valero, speak-ing at an open session of the Security Council in New York, which was scheduled to ad-dress Middle Eastern affairs, yet again carried the torch of anti-imperialist struggle from Venezuela into the heart of the United Nations, where Venezu-ela has repeatedly backed Pal-estinian calls for nationhood, calls for Palestine to be made a full member of the United Na-tions, and calls for peace in the region.

Referring to recent air at-tacks, he stressed Venezuela’s “profound frustration about the inaction of the Council against the expansionism of Is-rael and the Occupying Forces in the Palestinian territories”.

Valero went on to state, “This inaction is, as we all know, the product of the threat of veto (to any motion calling for in-tervention against the Israeli aggressions) from the govern-ment of the United States and its closest allies”.

He went on to stress the threat that these aggressions pose to international law, by highlighting that “these war-like acts put in some doubt the institutionalism of the UN, the validity of the UN constitution, and of international rights”. Furthermore he drew wider conclusions about the contin-ued attacks against the resis-tant peoples of Palestine, and declared that the attacks from the government of Israel are “evident threats to peace and international security”.

Venezuelan ambassador to the UNSlams Israeli expansionism

Further attacking both the United States and their allies, especially Israel, Valero pre-sented an analysis about the po-litical and economic interests of the imperialist powers. In com-ments which were backed up by a press release here in Ven-ezuela, he explained how the

political-military industry in Western nations dominates pol-icy decisions of the UN: “Those who today speak of peace, with cynicism, are those who have the most interest in wars of co-lonial expansion”.

In light of such international outcry about the supposed Irani-

T/ Reuters

Ecuadorean plaintiffs on Tuesday said an order is-

sued by a court in the Andean country lets them seize some $200 million worth of assets belonging to Chevron in a new legal blow to the No. 2 US oil company.

The plaintiffs from villages in the oil-rich Amazon won an $18.2 billion case against the oil giant over claims that Texa-co, bought by Chevron in 2001, contaminated the area from 1964 to 1992. Damages were in-creased to $19 billion in July.

Among the assets ordered turned over are $96.3 million that Ecuador’s government

Ecuador Court deals Chevronfresh blow In pollution case

owes Chevron, money held in Ecuadorean bank accounts by Chevron, and licensing fees generated by the use of the com-pany’s trademarks in the coun-try, the plaintiffs said.

“This is a huge first step for the rainforest villagers on the road to collecting the entire $19 billion judgment”, Pablo Fajar-do, the lead lawyer for the com-munities, said on Tuesday, a day after the order was issued.

The battle between Chevron and the Ecuadorean plaintiffs has lasted for nearly two de-cades and is being fought in courts both inside and outside the Andean country.

Last week the US Supreme Court rejected an attempt by

Chevron to preemptively block enforcement efforts in the Unit-ed States. Earlier this year the plaintiffs filed lawsuits in Bra-zil and Canada in a bid to en-force the ruling.

The plaintiffs accuse Texaco of causing illnesses among locals by dumping drilling waste in unlined pits. Chev-ron denies the accusations and says Texaco properly cleaned up all the pits for which it was responsible.

The company claims that the judgment, imposed by an Ecua-dorean court in 2011, was fraud-ulent and unenforceable.

James Craig, a spokesman for Chevron, said the company intends to challenge the latest ruling, which was issued by a court in the Amazon town of Lago Agrio.

“Today’s order is not surpris-ing, since the plaintiffs have shown they are able to get any

order they wish granted by the Lago Agrio court. In the past the plaintiffs’ lawyers have been involved in ghost-writing orders for the court”, Craig said.

Chevron is pursuing a racketeering suit against a New York attorney, Steven Donziger, a group of Ecua-doreans and environmental groups that helped win the judgment, accusing them of intimidation and extortion.

It has also challenged the judgment before an interna-tional arbitration panel under a trade agreement between the United States and Ecua-dor. The panel is scheduled to begin hearing the dispute in November.

Oil companies are watch-ing the case closely because it may affect other cases accus-ing companies of polluting the areas where they operate.

an nuclear program, Valero drew a comparison with Israel, by highlighting that they continue to refuse to allow international nuclear inspectors into their nu-clear sites, yet reserve the right to criticize other countries.

Referring to the Middle East in a wider context, Valero con-

nected the expansionism of Israel in Palestine with the current struggle in Syria. He warned the delegates of the Se-curity Council that “in the re-gion of the Middle East, violence and volatility have increased in an alarming fashion, which is putting the peace of the whole world at risk”.

He went on to denounce the financing and arming of mer-cenary and terrorist groups in Syria without any thoughts or care to the loss of thousands of civilian lives in the conflict which has been instigated and supported by the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and France.

Reiterating the political line of the Venezuelan gov-ernment, which expelled the Israeli ambassador and diplomatic team for exactly such aggressive expansion-ist attacks against Palestine and Lebanon, the Venezuelan ambassador claimed those forces are creating a type of “good terrorism”, which, he defines, aims to take over and control territories and natu-ral resources and to throw out democratically elected leaders, and which will put in governments who are friendly to their interests and who will not resist the military-politi-cal elite of Israel.

The Venezuelan government led by President Chavez contin-ues to do all it can to help find a solution to the complex issue of peace in the Middle East while supporting the victimized peoples of Palestine and Syria through diplomatic measures and solidarity.

The artillery of ideas6 International | Friday, October 19, 2012

Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez playedrole in Colombia’s peace talks with FarcT/ Peter BeaumontP/ Agencies

The elderly former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, together

with Venezuela’s recent-ly re-elected leader Hugo Chavez, played a critical role in bringing the Co-lombian government and the Farc guerrilla group together for peace talks that could end one of Latin America’s longest-running civil wars.

According to sources closely involved in the peace process, which saw historic talks opening in Oslo on Wednesday, the key breakthrough after almost four years of back-channel talks between the two sides came during a visit ear-lier this year by Colom-bia’s President, Juan Manuel Santos, to Cuba, where he met both Cas-tro and Chavez, who was in Cuba being treated for cancer.

That meeting was the first of many in Havana between the two sides, facilitated primarily by Cuba and Norway with the backing of Venezuela, which saw agreement on the detailed agenda for the first round of talks this week. “Officially President Santos went to Cuba to discuss the Americas sum-mit”, said a source intimately involved in the peace negotia-tions. “But the purpose of that trip was to discuss the peace initiative”.

The meetings earlier this year followed the decision last year by Santos to take the step of recognizing that an “armed conflict” existed in his country, an initiative encouraged by Chavez since 2008. Those contacts also came in the same period that Farc announced it was ending kidnapping, one of five pre-conditions for talks that had been set down by Santos as a gesture of goodwill.

Farc and the government have been at war since 1964, with the group more recently accused of having taken a di-recting role in coca production

in areas it controls, an issue that will be on the agenda for the talks.

But in what is being billed as the best chance to bring about a negotiated end to the long-running conflict, the Colom-bian government delegation will sit down with Farc lead-ers whose Interpol arrest war-rants have been suspended to allow them to travel to Oslo without fear of arrest.

The government delega-tion, for the first time ever, will include retired generals with the trust of the country’s military and representatives of Colombia’s business elite, whose presence, it is hoped, will help sell any peace deal that emerges to those hostile to the process.

After the failure of the last round of peace negotiations, which foundered 12 years ago, top of the agenda will be the issues of land reform – Farc’s key demand – political par-ticipation, the disarmament of the guerrilla group and the

issue of paramilitaries who have in the past sought to tor-pedo any deal.

The disclosure of the key role of Cuba in organizing support for the peace process marked the culmination of a long pe-riod of back-channel talks first initiated by Santos’s predeces-sor as President, Alvaro Uribe, under whom Santos served as Minister of Defense.

During those four years contacts continued despite the death during an army opera-tion of Farc’s leader, Alfonso Cano, last year.

Others credited with hav-ing created the conditions for the talks in Norway are un-named former participants in the Northern Ireland peace process.

The talks are due to begin amid warnings from both sides, as well as observers, that a serious threat exists from those on both sides of Co-lombia’s political divide who might attempt to use violence to derail the process.

The attempt to reach a nego-tiated peace settlement foun-dered over a decade ago as both sides accused the other of stalling and rebuilding their forces, a period, observers say, that saw a doubling of anti-Farc paramilitaries.

A senior Colombian govern-ment source described the chances for talks as the best ever, adding that the Santos government had already en-acted a new law for land reform and victim restitution. “Presi-dent Santos is a pragmatist. He has already presented to con-gress a framework for an agree-ment. Colombia was already moving into a post-conflict phase, in some respects, even as the conflict continues. It is the right moment. Farc have a historic opportunity – prob-ably the last – to find a solution to this conflict with dignity. To go into history and say they fought for social justice. To say they fought for land reform. We want to see ‘Timochenko’ [Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri,

who took over command of Farc after Cano’s death in 2011] in Colom-bia’s congress just as we have seen Gerry Adams in the Northern Ireland assembly”.

The sense of a guarded new optimism is shared by outside observers, in-cluding Marc Chernick, a US academic who has followed the history of Colombian peace nego-tiations and written The Farc at the Negotiating Table. Speaking from Colombia on Friday, Chernick said: “I’ve ob-served all the previous negotiations and I have been optimistic before, but this time I believe there is a real serious-ness on both sides that has not been shown be-fore. In the past Farc has always asked for a de-militarized zone as a pre-condition and this time it has not pressed for that. Four years ago it started to release prisoners, first civilians then military, and then renounced kid-napping. Clearly they want to talk. And they

stayed at the table for the pre-negotiations even though three senior leaders were killed, in-cluding Alfonso Cano”.

“Santos is clear, too. He was former Minister of Defense under President Uribe. They pushed the war as hard as they could and killed leaders. Now he has recognized that it will go on indefinitely. So San-tos has come to the conclusion that only a negotiated solution is possible”.

Chernick – like the senior government source – warned of the risk of violence during the peace talks from those, particularly on the right, op-posed to peace with Farc, not least, he says, from paramili-taries who, although officially “disbanded”, are still active and supported by elite sectors of society.

“What is different this time”, added Chernick, “is that both sides have signed up to the idea that the intended end of the peace talks is the end of the conflict”.

The artillery of ideasFriday, October 19, 2012 | Analysis 7

In Spain, anti-Chavez propaganda continues

T/ Javier Adler, Rebelion.org

The corporate media in Spain can’t understand, don’t want to under-

stand, nor do they want their readers to understand, what just happened in Venezuela. It can be no other way, since Chavez is a leader who open-ly defies global capitalism, the ecological niche within which the private media feeds. Let us begin by ana-lyzing the example of Spain’s El Pais, looking at its edito-rial line, and then look on to other Spanish dailies.

EL PAISTitling its editorial “More

of Chavez”, Spanish daily El Pais recently affirmed that if Chavez governs through 2019 this will be “too many” years in office. Too many for who? It’s clearly not “too” many for Venezuelans, who just ratified him in office. For other interests, includ-ing those behind El Pais, it surely is. But in democracy, which opinion should pre-vail? The thoughts of media owners and foreign govern-ments, or the will of a people expressed through free and fair elections?

According to El Pais, Chavez has “used the pow-erful public media to stir up resentments”. Well yes, in the same way that the oppo-sition has stirred up its re-sentments through the even more powerful private me-dia. Or is it not the case that the means of communication in Venezuela continue to be mostly owned by private in-terests hostile to President Chavez? Or are we expected to keep believing the fable re-garding the “independence” of the private media? El Pais is a case in point.

In one example of an El Pais editorial filled with blatant disregard for the Venezuelan people, the pa-per writes, “it is not true that Capriles represents the comfortable classes. Instead, he is the candidate of a wide sector of society that rejects the way Chavez mistreats de-mocracy, manages the econ-omy terribly, worsens public safety, and aims to consoli-date his so-called Bolivarian Revolution”.

In other words, the ma-jority of Venezuelans, those who support Chavez, are either idiots or masochists. If not, how do they explain that this majority continues

to vote on behalf of someone who mistreats democracy, mismanages the economy, etc.? While it’s true that public safety worries most Venezu-elans, and that Chavez has not been able to resolve this grave problem, it is also true that the rise in violent crime began in the 1980’s, tripling before Chavez was first elected Presi-dent (1998). As a result, it is also highly unlikely that Ven-ezuelans trust a return of neo-liberalism would somehow fix the problem.

El Pais says more, making a comparison that can only seem viable to its most avid readers. On the one hand, it describes Chavez as “the ex coup mon-ger” – citing the failed coup of some 20 years ago (1992) – while it predicts the opposition’s Capriles would demonstrate “a greater respect for the rules of the democratic game”. Cer-tainly El Pais was referring to Capriles’ time as Mayor of Baruta, during the 2002 coup against Chavez, when the op-position candidate allowed a group of people to lay siege on the Cuban Embassy (located in

Baruta), destroying embassy vehicles and cutting its access to both water and electricity. When the Cuban Ambassador asked then Mayor Capriles for assistance, not only did he do nothing to stop the assault, but he forced his way into the em-bassy using a ladder over the wall and insisted on “inspect-ing” the premises for any Ven-ezuelans possibly hiding in fear of opposition violence. This is Capriles’ “respect” for “demo-cratic rules”, which through ideological affinity, El Pais must share.

And finally, let’s see what El Pais has to say about the Chavez government’s social programs. “The single greatest factor in his (Chavez’s) favor has been social programs, carried out with the invaluable support of oil income. This is not a policy that establishes solid bases for future wealth creation and dis-tribution, but it has reached many people – a captive elec-toral audience”.

Or, in other words, Chavez has bribed the majority of Ven-ezuelans with “his” social pro-grams. Oh, what fools! Fourteen

years and they haven’t realized the trick!

If we really want to discuss “solid bases”, then the entire aforementioned paragraph is clearly in short supply. This is something most critical readers already know – when it comes to Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, etc., the private me-dia can say anything they want, without limitations on inventiveness, without any restraints on the production of fantasies and lies. If they want to say that Chavez has plunged Venezuela into total misery, they do so, and that’s it. No problem. If they want to call Chavez a dictator, they go right ahead. No one stops them with a fact-based audit.

REALITY CHECKFacts, however, are a prob-

lem for the corporate press. If we look at redistribution, Ven-ezuela is the country in Latin America that has reduced in-equality the most during the last decade. In the words of Alicia Barcena, President of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Carib-

bean (CEPAL), “what is in-teresting is that Venezuela’s policy of redistribution has been sustained over time. I believe the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has made a clear commitment, definition, and orientation of policy aimed at reducing the income gap and achieving so-cial equality”.

Poverty reduction, for ex-ample, is a major success of the Chavez government. In 1998, 48% of Venezuelans lived in poverty while anoth-er 21% lived in extreme pov-erty. By 2010, these figures were reduced to 27% and 7%, respectively. But this doesn’t seem to matter to El Pais or to its evaluation of “solid bas-es for wealth creation”. What about university enroll-ment? This has tripled dur-ing Chavez’s time in office, placing Venezuela second in Latin America – after Cuba – with respect to percent of the populace enrolled in higher education. This is also ir-relevant for El Pais, which doesn’t bother to back any of its wildest assertions.

Other Spanish dailies in-cluding El Periodico, La Van-guardia, La Razon, and ABC differ very little from the El Pais editorial line. They cite oil as the only reason for Chavez’s success at the polls and repeatedly men-tion baseless “symptoms of fatigue” within the Venezu-elan populace.

In short, within Spain’s corporate media it is diffi-cult to find any sort of self-evaluation or rectification as it relates to Venezuela. For 14 years they’ve repeat-ed the same baseless dis-course that has lost all cred-ibility. How do they explain that after years and years of what they define “disas-trous governance”, support for Chavez continues to grow? Can that many people be fooled for that long? How long can the press ignore objective facts and still pre-tend to be objective media? How do they find peace be-tween their own perception of themselves as ‘democrats’ while publishing an open disregard for the people’s will? Perhaps the answer to these questions can be found in the words of a for-mer El Pais owner who, af-ter earning 11 million euros in 2011, fired 25% of the El Pais workforce in a letter stating, simply, “we cannot continue living this well”.

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

INTERNATIONAL Friday, October 19, 2012 | Nº 131 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve

Opinion

How Western press distorts VenezuelaT/ Aaron Benedek - Green Left Weekly

“Venezuela Elections ‘Free, But Not Fair’”, was Germany’s Spie-

gel Online headline on a piece about Venezuela’s Oc-tober 7 presidential elections, won by socialist President Hugo Chavez by more than 55% of the vote. “Chavismo wins, Venezuela loses”, was The Wall Street Journal’s take.

Compared with such headlines, the Sydney Morning Herald’s reprint of a New York Times ar-ticle “Socialist Chavez hangs onto Power in Ven-ezuela” by William Neu-man might seem a rea-sonably balanced report. It is not.

Note that politicians in Australia or the US get re-elected, but if you’re a so-cialist in Latin America you “hold onto power”.

Then there is the ar-ticle’s very first clause, where we learn that Chavez is a “fiery foe of Washington”. Although no doubt a badge of honor for many, this language still paints Chavez as impassioned rather than considered.

This, along with the ar-ticle’s other main Chavez descriptor of “polarizing”, conveys an image of him be-ing unreasonably confron-tational and divisive in a way that the also accurate “a democratic leader who has withstood Washington orchestrated violence and sabotage” does not.

And then there is the as-sumption that the first thing to mention in an article about a Venezuelan election is Washington. The pitfalls of your reportage coming from the New York Times perhaps.

The article does convey a sense of joy on the street follow-ing Chavez’s re-election, but it’s always “his ... revolution”, “his version of socialism”.

That a large section of the population feel some kind of ownership over the process

of social transformation in Venezuela is never acknowl-edged. The Venezuelan people have agency in Neuman’s writ-ing only if they’re part of the opposition.

Moreover, in selecting quotes and comments about Chavez “reigning forever”, “guns being fired into the air” and Chavez being a “former soldier”, some sense of violence and dicta-

torship is still conveyed. This comes straight after Chavez and his supporters once again peacefully won what in any other Western country would be referred to as a landslide electoral victory.

By contrast, we are informed of the opposition’s “democratic temperament” via the one full quote the re-elected president is afforded in the article.

What about a quote inter-preting the election result and the future for Venezuela? Well there is one, just not from Chavez. It’s from Henrique Capriles, the opposition can-didate who was resoundingly defeated.

After the election, we’re told Chavez is “ailing and politi-cally weakened”, despite being

re-elected for a third full presi-dential term by 11 percentage points and holding a majority in the National Assembly.

It is said the opposition “raised the possibility that an upset victory was within reach”. To what extent the opposition re-lied on reprints of biased NYT articles about Venezuela to raise this sense of “possibility” is difficult to quantify.

Chavez, we’re told, will now move forward “even more ag-gressively ... although his pledg-es were short on specifics”. For Neuman, the specifics detailed in the million or so copies of the 39-page plan for deepening pop-ular participation and human-centered development over the next six years that were dis-tributed for mass discussion, amendment and ratification by the Venezuelan National As-sembly early next year do not count.

And how specific was the opposition’s plan? Capriles’ pledge to maintain the Chavez government’s social programs the same ones the opposition have violently op-posed for a decade, but now pledge to improve.

We are informed, as always, that Chavez’s “health is a ques-tion mark”. Maybe he is going to die soon! And maybe the mainstream media will start showing some human decency and ease up on the celebrations when an elected leader gets cancer, but I would not hold my breath for either.

“Facing pressure from Mr Capriles”, Neuman says,

“[Chavez] pledged to ... pay more attention to the quality of government programs such as education”.

In reality, the popularity of the government’s social pro-grams is such that Capriles had to publicly say the opposition was in favor of them, but leaked opposition documents revealed his plan to dismantle them.

Capriles had to pitch himself as a leftist and the opposition was forced to accept the elec-tion results due to the pains-taking efforts to institute a transparent electoral system with unprecedented interna-tional supervision. But we are told it was Capriles who pres-sured Chavez.

And better still, the same opposition that denigrated the

literacy and other mass edu-cation campaigns of the past decade is said to have forced the government “to pay atten-tion to quality education”.

We are told Chavez spent much of the year insulting “Capriles and his followers” as “squalid good-for-nothings, little Yankees and fascists”. Left out is the opposition’s regular jibes about Chavez’s African facial features, his “common” way of speaking or his hilarious cancer-induced baldness.

And anyway, was it really the “Yankee and fascist” credentials of the opposition (that is, organizing a fascist

coup and getting funding from Washington) that “represented nearly half the electorate” as Neuman claimed? Or did those that voted for Capriles do so for a range of other rea-sons, not least among them that the private media sold him as a progressive left-wing candidate?

At any rate, Chavez’s insults, we’re told, “seemed to lose their sting” as the campaign went on (he can’t even insult effectively!) un-der the weight of the opposition’s growing “momentum”. The Chavez campaign fill-ing Caracas’s seven major avenues with almost certainly the largest demonstration in Venezuela’s history

three days before the vote clearly does not constitute momentum worth mention-ing for Neuman.

Through selection of evi-dence, bias language, omis-sion, and unsubstantiated claims, Neuman paints a false picture and this is an ar-ticle that, by comparison with other Western media cover-age, is relatively generous to-wards the Bolivarian process that has halved poverty in Venezuela.

Serious journalism re-garding Venezuela requires covering the significant social achievements of the revolution and an informed discussion of its many short-comings. Unfortunately, if Neuman’s article is anything to go by, the liberal corporate media will not provide you with either.

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