English Edition Nº 44

The artillery of ideasENGLISH EDITIONTHURSDAY | December 23, 2010 | No. 44| Bs 1 | CARACAS

Pg. 7 | Analysis Pg. 8 | Opinion

PoliticsBankingin the public serviceA new law in Venezuela attempts to humanize banking.

A new and humane police forceThe National Bolivarian Police are waging the fight against crime and making Venezuela a safer place.

After heavy rains left tens of thousands homeless in Venezuela,the government is providing humane solutions

New homes were provided this week for hundreds of Venezuelans displaced by the rains last month,as constructions began nationwide to solve the country’s housing problems. New “socialist” restaurants

and shops were inaugurated also this week to ensure affordable and quality products for all, especially duringthe holiday season, in order to combat price hikes and speculation in the private sector.

Venezuela approves law to regulate foreign fundingLate Tuesday evening, the Ven-

ezuelan National Assembly approved a law to regulate and control the flow of foreign funding coming from international agen-cies and governments to finance political activities in the country. The Law in Defense of Political Sovereignty and National Self-Determination prohibits foreign funding to political parties, ac-tors and organizations seeking to influence domestic policies and internal affairs.

Most nations prohibit or strictly regulate foreign funding for po-

litical activities in order to protect national sovereignty and prevent foreign actors from intervening in internal affairs and policies. The US forbids foreign funding for political campaigns or parties, and highly regulates all foreign financing for other activities, in-cluding lobbying, public relations and NGOs or other groups that receive such funding and work in the interests of a foreign actor. The US Foreign Agent Registra-tion Act (FARA) goes so far as to classify all groups or individuals in the US receiving foreign fund-

ing who engage in certain politi-cal and public relations activities as “foreign agents”.

The Venezuelan law comes af-ter years of foreign intervention via funding that has propped up political groups and media out-lets seeking to oust the current government from power. Two US entities, USAID and the Na-tional Endowment for Democra-cy (NED) have been the principal channels for multimillion-dollar funding feeding anti-Chavez groups and coup attempts. Now, that funding will be prohibited.

PPggggggggg.. 88 ||| OOppppppppppiinniioonnMark Weisbrot on how Wikileaks discloses disastrousUS policy on Haiti

PPggggg. 7 | AAnnaallyyyyyyyyssiiss PPggggggggMadisUS

Documents published by Wikileaks evidencethe sloppy, biased reports issued by the US Embassy in Venezuela

2

Christmas joy despitetragedies in Venezuela

InternationalEx Colombian President Uribe’s abuses revealedFalsified data evidencing advances in security and calls to invade Venezuela by Alvaro Uribe have been exposed.

Live concerts of the inter-nationally acclaimed Ven-

ezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel, director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, will be broadcast in movie the-aters in the US and Canada, beginning January 2011.

The three live performanc-es, to be held in the Walt Dis-ney Concert Hall in Los An-geles, will include behind the scenes rehearsal footage and exclusive interviews with the charismatic Venezuelan mae-stro, guest soloists and musi-cians from the Philharmonic.

“Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic share the passion to enrich the world with classical music and expand access to the arts”, noted the Philharmon-ic. Audiences will be able to enjoy “up-close and dramatic views of Gustavo Dudamel and the orchestra in action, captured with multiple HD cameras and in thrilling 5.1 surround sound”.

The first of the live broad-casts will be on January 9 in LA, when the Venezuelan star will conduct pieces by John Adams, Leonard Bern-stein and Beethoven together with mezzo-soprano Kelly O’Connor.

Gustavo Dudamel is one of the most successful gradu-ates of Venezuela’s National System of Youth and Chil-dren Orchestras, a founda-tion financed by the Venezu-elan government.

Rift over US ambassador raises US-Venezuela tensionsThe US government threatened “consequences” against Venezuela this week after the Chavez administration reiteratedthe rejection of the US nominee for Ambassadorto the South American nation. Larry Palmer, Ambassador-designee of President Obama, violated diplomatic protocol and international norms after making harsh statements about Venezuelan democracy and military capacity, rendering him “ineligible”for the job.

ive concerts of the inter-

Dudamel inUS cinema

The artillery of ideas| 2 | Impact No Thursday, December 23, 2010

For the displaced residents of the poor neighborhood of Petare in the state of Miranda, there could not have been a better Christmas present than the one given to them by the Venezuelan government last Sunday - the gift of new homes

During his weekly television program, Alo Presidente, the

Venezuelan head of state, Hugo Chavez, officially delivered 120 new apartments to refugee fami-lies who had taken shelter in the William Lara Attention Center in Petare after torrential rains had forced them out of their homes.

“I don’t want you to return to shanties”, Chavez said to the eco-nomically disadvantaged families who had lost their homes or had been evacuated due to high risks caused by the rains. “I want you to go to your new homes as some of you have already done.”

The new apartments deliv-ered by the government contrast starkly with the precariously built shanties that fill the hillsides around major Venezuelan cities such as Caracas.

They are fully equipped with appliances including kitchen stoves, washing machines, and refrigerators.

The move comes as part of the government’s relief efforts for families affected by the torrential rains that have left more than 100 thousand people displaced.

Thirty-Five people have also been killed by the relentless downpours that have marked the worst rainy season that the coun-try has seen in forty years.

FUTURE CONSTRUCTIONSChavez reported on Sunday

that in addition to those already being delivered, 650 new apart-ments will soon be constructed on a 4.5 hectare plot of land in the area that had been previous-ly purchased by the Venezuelan Supreme Court.

Venezuelan government providesnew homes for displaced families

According to the Venezuelan President, the land had been bought to accommodate those working in the judiciary but had been underutilized.

“All of this land belonged to the Judicial Branch to create a ju-ridical complex”, Chavez related. “The President of the Supreme Court, Dr. Luisa Estela Morales, called me a few days ago and said: President, we don’t need this. The Judicial Branch bough it some years back and hasn’t done anything with it. We prefer to give it to the people”.

The Venezuelan President also called for the improvement of conditions inside shelters and asked for a reduction in the num-ber of families taking refuge in each attention center.

“We need to reduce the num-ber of families in the shelters. We have to humanize these shelters to the maximum”, he said.

The call was made so that those affected by the rains “can remain as families for a period of more or less a year while housing is constructed. We have to have an equal distribution of people in the different [attention] centers so that there is more comfort”, he stated.

Recently, the government has been ratcheting up its relief ef-forts for the victims of the rains, creating public shelters, distribut-

ing food and medical care, and organizing leisure and recreation activities for the refugees.

HOUSING A PRIORITYHousing has been the top prior-

ity as the government has worked to accelerate both short-term and long-term living solutions.

Apart from the projects taking place in Petare, President Chavez inaugurated a further 140 apart-ments in the state of Miranda via satelite on Sunday and an addi-tional 230 in the state of Vargas, one of the coastal states that had been hardest hit by the downpours.

According to Vargas Governor,

Jorge Carneiro, the first install-ment of 230 homes is part of a larger government plan to con-struct 500 new apartments.

The price of the housing for residents provided by the gov-ernment will vary depending on the situation of each new hom-eowner, Chavez explained.

“The families that lost their homes and their furnishings will not be charged one cent for the home. There will be other cases in which we subsidize a good part of the house and the families, based on their incomes, will pay off the rest little by little with a low interest rate to maintain the plan”, he said.

MULTINATIONAL COOPERATIONLast Saturday, Chavez toured

the military complex of Fort Tiu-na in Caracas where he expound-ed on plans to invest 400 million dollars in the construction of 10 thousand new homes, convert-ing the under-populated military zone into a residential area.

The project is slated to be com-pleted by January of next year and will be carried out in collaboration with the Chinese multinational, International Trust and Invest-ment Corporation (Citic) Group.

The government has also em-ployed the cooperation of the east-ern European nation of Belarus to construct an additional 2,500 apartments in the state of Aragua.

Accompanying Chavez during his tour of Fort Tiuna on Satur-day, the Belarusian Vice Minister for Architecture and Construc-tion, Anatoly Nichkzov, informed that his government is ready to install a new factory in Venezuela to aid housing construction.

“This socialist factory is part of twelve businesses that will de-velop products and materials for the construction of high quality homes”, the Vice Minister stated.

In a similar vein, Chavez an-nounced on Sunday the nation-alization of two paralyzed facto-ries deemed critical for housing construction.

“One of the factories is called Aluminios de Venezuela, Alven, and the other, [the toilet factory] Sanitarios Maracay. Both busi-nesses will allow us to strength-en, above all, our production ca-pacity for construction supplies”, he noted.

The Venezuelan head of state also announced during his pro-gram on Sunday the creation of a commission designed to negotiate cheap apartment rentals as a short-term solution for rain victims.

“There are a lot of people who rent homes, apartments”, Chavez said with reference to private firms and individuals. “If we have to rent 10 thousand houses and apartments in the interim, this can be another so-lution”, he said.

T/ Edward EllisP/ Presidential Press

The artillery of ideas No Thursday, December 23, 2010 International | 3 |

Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010)

confirmed the contents of a con-fidential US State Department confidential cable exposed by Wikileaks, according to which he contemplated sending troops across into Venezuelan territory to capture and arrest FARC guer-rilla leaders.

In his Twitter Uribe wrote: “Re-ply to Wikileaks: I proposed it and I did it: to protect Colombi-ans you must capture the terror-ists whereever they are”.

According to the cable, in early 2008 Uribe spoke of send-ing troops into neighboring

Venezuela to capture Colombi-an FARC leaders he suspected were hiding there.

Uribe, who left the presidency in August after two four-year terms, mounted a determined ef-fort to crush the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which has battled a suc-cession of Colombian govern-ments since the mid-1960s.

The January 18, 2008, cable tells of a meeting held the day before between Uribe, US Ambassa-dor William Brownfield, and the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen. Uribe said “he was prepared to autho-

rize Colombian forces to cross into Venezuela, arrest FARC lead-ers, and bring them to justice in Colombia”, Brownfield reported to the State Department.

The meeting took place less than two months before Uribe ordered an attack on a clan-destine FARC camp just inside neighboring Ecuador, which killed more than two dozen people, including Raul Reyes and several civilians. Two days later, Ecuador broke relations with Colombia and the rup-ture lasted until the end of last month, when Ecuadorian Presi-dent Rafael Correa and Uribe’s

successor, Juan Manuel Santos, agreed to fully reestablish bilat-eral ties.

According to another cable published by the Spanish daily El Pais, Uribe told visiting US lawmakers in 2007 that left-ist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was a “Hitler-like threat” to South America.

Uribe’s January 2008 con-versation with US officials also touched on Chavez, who has not undertaken any offensive mili-tary action since taking office 11 years ago. Uribe thinks “the best counter to Chavez ... remains ac-tion - including use of the mili-

Uribe confirms Wikileaks:he was prepared to cross into Venezuela territory

tary”, Ambassador Brownfield said in his cable to Washington.

During his second term, and especially during his last few months in office, Uribe repeated-ly complained that several FARC leaders were hiding in Venezuela and that the neighboring country was not cooperating with Colom-bia to capture them. Those un-founded accusations led Chavez to break relations with Colombia in July. Ties were reestablished in August at a meeting between the Venezuelan leader and Uribe’s successor, President Santos.

T/ MercoPress

The reported reduction in kid-nappings that have occurred

over the past ten years in the war-torn nation of Colombia has been hailed as one of the hall-mark achievements of the “tough on crime” government of former president Alvaro Uribe who left his countrymen with a legacy of law and order after serving eight years as the nation’s head of state, replaced this past Octo-ber by his Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos.

A new report released by a hu-man rights organization in the country, however, casts doubt over the assertions propagated by the Colombian government with respect to its manage-ment of kidnapping figures and questions the legitimacy of the Uribe administration’s claims to have effectively handled the social problem.

According to the organization Pais Libre (Free Country), the most recognized organization in the fight against kidnapping in the country, the Colombian gov-ernment has deliberately mas-saged numbers to give the im-pression that it has been winning the fight against the crime.

“The reductionist zeal of re-cent years has, through meth-

Colombia: report revealsUribe’s lies & rights abuses

odological changes, put pres-sure on information gathering systems to eliminate the num-ber of kidnappings”, the orga-nization claims.

Pais Libre accuses the Colom-bian government of “washing” the numbers to the point that, between 2009 and 2010, 664 people were to-tally erased from the kidnapping

registry – people whose where-abouts are still unknown today.

The organization further as-serts that the government has maintained a “policy of refusing access to databases regarding crimes against freedom”, in order to silence any questioning of offi-cial numbers released by the state agency Fondelibertad.

According to official figures released by Fondelibertad, an agency recently investigated on allegations of corruption, 21,476 kidnappings have taken place in Colombia from 1998 – 2010.

The NGO Pais Libre puts that number at 24,316.

The twisting of the definition of what represents a kidnap-

ping as well as the categories that define the crime, Pais Libre charges, have formed part of Fondelibertad’s manipulation of statistical data to give the im-pression that the government is successfully tackling the plague of kidnapping that has afflicted the country.

“The central problem with the crime data in this country is that they are egregiously asso-ciated with the administration of institutions”, said Jeronimo Castillo, a researcher working with the organization.

Another major problem is the fear on the part of family mem-bers to report kidnappings to authorities and the lack of sup-port that victims receive from the judicial system to prosecute alleged perpetrators.

“Impunity continues to be over 90 percent”, said Olga Gomez, Director of the organization.

“We have a horrible system of guarantees for the rights of citi-zens in the face of kidnappings. Few investigations are carried out and even fewer convictions are forthcoming while the attention to the victim is deficient”, she stated.

T/ Edward EllisP/ Agencies

The artillery of ideas| 4 | Politics No Thursday, December 23, 2010

The Venezuelan government officially reiterated on Mon-

day its refusal to accept Larry Palmer as the new US ambassador to the South American country af-ter inappropriate and incendiary comments made by the diplomat earlier this year disqualified him from assuming the post.

The statement came in the form of a protest letter issued by the Foreign Ministry as news of Palm-er’s imminent confirmation by the US Senate as ambassador reached the Venezuelan government.

“It’s well known that Palmer broke basic rules of respect towards the country that was to receive him with crude aggressions against fundamental Venezuelan institu-tions, making him ineligible to per-form the task with which he would be charged”, the letter stated.

Last August, Palmer criticized the Venezuelan armed forces claiming they had “low morale”. He also ex-pressed his “concerns” for alleged Cuban influence in Venezuela’s military affairs and has maintained the unproven allegation that links exist between the Chavez govern-ment and Colombian guerrillas.

Darnel Steuart, Charge D’Affairs of the US Embassy in Caracas, received the missive from the Foreign Ministry on Monday and read a statement to the press reaffirming President Barack Obama’s choice of Palmer to serve as the United States top diplomat to Venezuela.

“President Obama named Larry Palmer to be our Ambassador in

International solidarity reached Venezuela immediately as

soon as the reports on the eco-nomic damages and over 130,000 victims from the torrential rains that hit the country circled the world, said Foreign Minister Ni-colas Maduro.

In an interview for Prensa Latina, Venezuela’s top diplomat first praised the solidarity from member countries of the Bolivar-ian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).

“Thousands of Cuban medical workers multiplied their efforts in every corner of Venezuela, helping the poorest and there is a Cuban doctor working in every shelter”, stressed Maduro.

He described as awesome the consignments of relief supplies coming from Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, as well as from Ca-ribbean Islands like St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica, “all sister countries within ALBA” that even collected donations that already reached our people at the shelters.

FM Maduro also mentioned contributions from Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Syria, Iran, Be-larus, Russia, “the world is with Venezuela”, he exclaimed.

“During such difficult times, when we have to deal with these weather adversities with cour-

age, it is time to show the true sisterhood we have been weav-ing like a fishing net”.

He said that President Hugo Chavez has helped build a large international alliance for a new world that “we can feel manifest-ed through the love and solidarity reaching the people of Venezuela from around the globe”.

Heavy rains that hit 40 per-cent of the national territory over the past several weeks killed 35 people as rivers and dams overflowed, drenching vast zones, isolating dozens of communities and sweeping away bridges and roads, not to mention the billions of dollars in damages to the nation’s agri-cultural production.

Food, water, blankets, matress-es, medications, tents and child

clothing were among the aid flown to the Venezuelans who lost everything and are staying in 972 state-run shelters.

The victims now benefit from medical assistance, including od-ontology, and recreation to help ease their distress.

Housing is a top priority for President Chavez, who assured the victims that they will head from the shelters to their homes now under construction as part of an ambitious project to meet the national deficit -over two mil-lion houses- accumulated through many decades of neglect.

T/ Prensa LatinaP/ Agencies

The world is with Venezuela, says FM Maduro

US threatens venezuela over ambassador rift

Venezuela because he has a unique combination of experience, ability and wisdom to successfully repre-sent our country in Caracas. We are firm on this stance”, she said.

During her statements, Steuart “regretted” the Venezuelan gov-ernment’s decision stating that it “will have to take responsibility for such actions”.

STATE DEPARTMENT LASH OUTAs a follow-up, US State De-

partment spokesperson Philip Crowley directly threatened the Chavez administration for its re-

fusal to accept Palmer as US am-bassador to Venezuela.

“We make it clear to Venezuela that this type of action will have consequences”, he warned.

“We have been discussing this issue with Venezuelan authorities for months”, Crowley told report-ers on Monday. “We’ve warned them that if they reject [Palmer], there would be an impact in bilat-eral relations”.

According to officials in Cara-cas, these remarks coupled with Washington’s refusal to withdraw Palmer as ambassador despite

demonstrably inappropriate and undiplomatic behavior “ratify the [United States’] historic line of interventionism and aggression carried out against the Venezu-elan people, its institutions and its democracy”.

Indeed, the State Department’s insistence on Palmer and its ensu-ing threats against the Venezuelan government fit a pattern of prov-ocations towards the country.

Documents recently disclosed by the whistleblower website Wikileaks spell out Washing-ton’s antagonism towards Ca-

racas over the years in the form of its continued support for anti-Chavez groups and its attempt to sway public opinion against Venezuela in Latin America and around the world.

In November, the US Congress held a forum entitled “Danger in the Andes: Threats to Democracy, Human Rights and Inter-Ameri-can Security” where members of both the US and Latin American far-right attacked Venezuela and its allies for challenging neolib-eralism and Washington’s hege-mony in South America.

Whether the US will terminate the mandate of Venezuela’s Ambas-sador in Washington as a response to the Chavez administration’s re-jection of Palmer is not yet clear.

“When we decide what we’re going to do, we’ll let you know”, Crowley said on Monday.

Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which regulates foreign diplomacy be-tween nations, foreign nationals with diplomatic status are not al-lowed to intervene in or express opinions on the internal affairs of their host nations. Per the Con-vention, foreign nationals seek-ing to obtain diplomatic status in any member nation of the in-ternational community must ob-tain the express and unequivocal approval of the host nation, and such approval cannot be imposed by one nation upon another.

T/ Edward EllisP/ Agencies

The artillery of ideas No Thursday, December 23, 2010 Economy | 5 |

Last Friday, Venezuela’s Na-tional Assembly approved

new legislation that defines banking as an industry “of pub-lic service”, requiring banks in Venezuela to contribute more to social programs, housing construction efforts, and other social needs while making gov-ernment intervention easier when banks fail to comply with national priorities.

The Law of Banking Sector In-stitutions, as it is formally known, is one of a dozen pro-Revolution laws being passed by the current National Assembly before the in-coming assembly – and its grow-ing anti-Chavez minority – begins legislating early next year.

The new law protects bank customers’ assets in the event of irregularities on the part of owners, makes it illegal to ar-bitrarily change banking hours, and stipulates that the Superin-tendent of Banking Institutions take into account the best in-terest of bank customers – and not only stockholders, as was the case prior to the new law – when making any decisions that affect a bank’s operations.

The law also requires that banks prepare a factual overview of financial health at the end of each trimester, and mandates the Superintendent of Banking Institutions organize this infor-mation for dissemination to the general public through a regular publication to be printed and distributed nationwide.

RESPONSIBLE BANKINGAccording to Ricardo Sangui-

no, legislator from Venezuela’s United Socialist Party (PSUV), the law is born of “a necesity in Vene-zuela to consolidate a responsible financial sector”.

“With this law we are restricting unregulated speculation... [Now] there is absolutely no chance that a banking institution becomes in-volved in irregularities, as they have done in the recent past”, said Sanguino.

In an attempt to control specu-lation, the law limits the amount of credit that can be made avail-able to individuals or private enti-ties by making 20% the maximum amount of capital a bank can have

Cisco announced this week the results of a new

Cisco Broadband Barometer study, reporting a growth of 18% in the number of fixed broadband connections in Venezuela, which represents a penetration of 5.2 per 100 inhabitants, during the first six months of 2010.

According to the study, commissioned by Cisco and conducted by the independent research firm IDC, 223,927 new fixed broadband subscriptions were added in Venezuela dur-ing the first six months of 2010, reaching a total of 1,460,149 connections.

A third of the fixed broad-band connections are concen-trated in Caracas, and 67% are in the rest of the country.

Almost three-quarters (71%) of the fixed broadband connec-tions have speeds higher than 512 kilobits per second, and 11% of the connections exceed 1 megabit per second.

According to the analysis made by the Cisco Broadband Barometer, the deployment of more than 5,000 kilometers of fi-ber optic by CANTV in the south of Venezuela will be an impor-tant accelerator of the broadband penetration in the country.

During the first half of 2010, mobile broadband connections grew by 15.3%, reaching 719,790 connections. Mobile broadband growth in the areas outside Ca-racas was propelled by the in-vestments of mobile operators in order to meet the demand in the country’s interior. Almost half (46%) of the mobile broad-band connections are concen-trated in Caracas; 54% are in the rest of the country.

Referring to the growth of broadband access in Venezu-ela, Enrique Mareque, general manager, Cisco Venezuela, explained, “High-speed net-works offer a unique and prof-itable opportunity to increase enterprise productivity and facilitate the processes of re-gional integration. In addition, they help overcome physical and geographical restrictions to bringing education and health care to citizens”.

T/ Agencies

Broadband Connections in Venezuela Grew 18%

During First Half of 2010Venezuelan national assembly passes law

making banking a “public service”

out as credit. The law also limits the formation of financial groups and prohibits banks from having an interest in brokerage firms and insurance companies.

The law also stipulates that 5% of pre-tax profits of all banks be dedicated solely to projects elabo-rated by communal councils. Ten percent of a bank´s capital must also be put into a fund to pay for wages and pensions in case of bankruptcy.

According to 2009 figures pro-vided by Softline Consultores, 5% of pre-tax profits in Venezuela’s banking industry last year would have meant an additional 314 million bolivars, or $73.1 million dollars, for social programs to attend the needs of Venezuela’s poor majority.

OPPOSITION REACTIONSReuters on Friday described the

law as part of a “package of legis-lation the Venezuelan government is pushing through to entrench socialism in the South American OPEC member nation”.

According to opposition legis-lator Juan Jose Molina, the new banking law is an “attack on economic liberty, on the consti-

tutional right that citizens have to compete freely, to comercial incentives”. In statements made to the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA), Molina conclud-ed that the law was “the first step in the nationalization of banking” in Venezuela.

Opposition economist Alex-ander Guerrero called the law “a 50-year step backwards” be-cause it “takes away banks’ par-ticipation in the non-banking sector, such as stock exchanges, investment institutions, insur-ance companies, etc”.

NOT NATIONALIZATIONSIn contrast to Molina’s state-

ments, Juan Carlos Escotet, Presi-dent of the Venezuelan Associa-tion of Bankers, recently affirmed that he is, “in total disagreement with such affirmations” and that “in none of the law’s articles does it propose the nationalization of banking as such”.

PSUV legislator Rafic Souki explained that the new law “doesn’t mean that [banks] are going to be nationalized... But yes, if there is an irregular situ-ation, they are now a public utility and the state can proceed

to secure the assets to keep ser-vices functioning”.

While the Venezuelan govern-ment has nationalized hundreds of companies since first taking of-fice in 1998, private banks in Ven-ezuela still play a majority role in the country´s banking industry, managing roughly 70% of assets.

In 2009, the Venezuelan gov-ernment took over Banco de Venezuela and this year, Banco Federal. Along with other pub-licly owned banking institutions, these takeovers meant that 30% of the banking industry is now in government hands.

Last week, Venezuela’s outgo-ing National Assembly passed the banking law, media and internet regulations, as well as a People’s Power Law of Com-munes. The legislature also granted President Hugo Chavez decree powers allowing Chavez to legislate by decree for the next 18 months.

This week, a new university law, urban property legislation, and controls on internationally-financed NGOs were approved.

T/ Juan Reardonwww.venezuelanalysis.com

The artillery of ideas| 6 | Security No Thursday, December 23, 2010

The Venezuelan Government, through the Ministry of In-

terior Relations and Justice and the Experimental Security Uni-versity (UNES), will invest about 1.1 billion bolivares ($255 million dollars) in 2011 to develop a Plan of Expansion and Reinforcement of the Bolivarian National Police (PNB) in eight states throughout the country.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that given the positive results obtained in the neighborhood of Sucre in Caracas, the idea is to expand this new and humane security body to the states of Tachira, Carabobo, Zulia, Lara, Aragua, Miranda and Anzoategui, as well as throughout the remain-ing areas of Metropolitan Caracas.

In Sucre, one of the most popu-lated areas of Caracas, the PNB reduced the crime rate by 57% in under a year of operations. Mur-der rates came down by 44%; rob-beries by 66%; injuries by 62%; and gender violence by 64%.

To continue the growth of this new security force, 12,500 new officials are expected to graduate in 2011 from the UNES, a college that currently has a registration of about 3,000 students.

President Chavez explained that the expansion of the Bolivarian Na-tional Police throughout the coun-try is in direct correlation to research results on crime incidence in those states with a rate beyond 78%.

Similarly, he emphasized that three months after the PNB de-ployment in 47 subway stations in Caracas, 25 criminal groups have been dismantled and 523 people arrested who committed robberies in the subway system. In addition, 38% of crimes were solved this year by the PNB, com-pared to 15% in 2009.

President Chavez also high-lighted that one year after its cre-ation, the PNB counts on 4,222 officers. This figure represents an increase of 444% of officers com-pared to the 952 officers the force had at the beginning of its opera-tions in December last year.

“I dream of the day when the PNB is deployed all over the country, in every municipality and parish to guarantee security and calm to all citizens”, declared the Venezuelan leader.

Making Venezuela safer througha new national police force

POLICE ANNIVERSARYPresident Chavez announced

the police expansion during a graduation ceremony of 1,077 officers from the fourth group of the PNB training course, which took place at the headquarters of UNES in Caracas.

The activity was held to cel-ebrate the first anniversary of the Bolivarian National Police, cre-ated on December 20th 2009.

“The Bolivarian National Police is a police force of the social, legal and just state, and a mandate of the Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela”, the President said.

The group is subdivided into 567 patrol officials; 314 officers for transportation and patrolling; and 196 peace officers.

The deployment of the PNB has allowed the city to maintain a ra-tio of police groups of 3.5 officers per 1000 inhabitants, which pre-viously was only 1.5 officers pero 1000 residents.

“The National Police bases its work on humane and just treat-ment with respect to human rights, and encourages a different and pro-gressive use of force, depending on events. This new concept ends the image of a policeman oppressing people”, the President affirmed.

DECORATED POLICE OFFICERSDuring the activity, President

Chavez decorated a group of po-lice officers based on their col-laboration with rescue operations and safety of people at risk in the

neighborhood of Sucre, in Caracas, after heavy rains hit the nation in November and early December.

“It is an honor to grant you these decorations on behalf of our people, given your outstanding and heroic performance to save and take care of those displaced by the rains”, ex-claimed the Venezuelan President.

About 16,000 people were evac-uated by the PNB. The police force prevented casualties as a result of the heavy rains, which caused landslides, floods and damages to thousands of homes.

“Christmas has arrived with this special situation, in which the PNB has proved to be what we want it to be, a new police body, preventive and humanitarian”.

President Chavez announced as well that Venezuela’s National Electoral Council would donate 100 million bolivares to those displaced by the rains. These re-sources remained from the bud-get of 2010, as a consequence of the responsible management of the entity’s board of directors.

Chavez thanked CNE chair-woman Tibisay Lucena “for put-ting these remaining resources at the orders of people”.

DESTABILIZING OPPOSITIONPresident Chavez also reiter-

ated his warning regarding the destabilizing actions of the far right-wing in the country next

year, who aim to create chaos. Thus, he urged the people and state-run agencies to be alert and to prevent situations that could alter the constitutional order.

“They are provoking civil dis-obedience, trying to create an en-vironment for 2011, to take us to that chaos we lived in 2002 dur-ing the coup d’etat. In the midst of that chaos, they want to try and overthrow the government by any means”, the President stressed.

He urged opposition sectors as well to not fall into the trap of destabilization as they did in 2001 and 2002, when they car-ried out a coup d’état against Chavez’s government that lasted 48 hours and rocked the nation into a political crisis.

“The PNB is a humanist and social agency which abides by the Constitution. It aims at solv-ing conflicts without violence. But nobody should underesti-mate it because it is a body with legitimacy and training to make use of force when needed, to ensure the constitutional order be respected, the same as the Armed Forces and the Army”, he detailed.

Chavez added that opposi-tion sectors expect the Govern-ment to lower the flag of the socialist Revolution in reaction to their threats.

“We will not cease our Revo-lution and every single day we are advancing in the creation of a State which is not longer sub-ordinate to the bourgeoisie”, he affirmed defiantly.

The PNB was created on De-cember 20, 2009 after a lengthy research process carried out by the National Commission for Po-lice Reform that began in 2006. The Commission was in charge of cleaning up the operations and administration of the Metropolitan Police Force, which was riddled with corruption and heavy human rights abuses. Those officers from the previous force who met the values of respect for human dig-nity, complied with the academic training, civic conscience, and duty to protect the people were incorporated into the PNB.

T/ AVNP/ Presidential Press

The artillery of ideas No Thursday, December 23, 2010 Analysis | 7 |

Looking at how US officials have privately assessed press

freedom in Venezuela provides a good way to judge their ability to put ideology aside when they analyze Venezuela - and reality in general. It’s easy to judge the extent to which anti-government views can be expressed in Vene-zuela and - most crucially - reach a wide audience.

US officials in Caracas could, for example, simply read news-papers and watch television. Thanks to Wikileaks, we know that US officials have indeed car-ried out this rudimentary form of intelligence gathering.

For example, one US Embassy cable from 2009 entitled “Venezu-ela’s medical system in disarray as GBRV [Venezuela’s govern-ment] shifts resources to Barrio Adentro” says that:

“In recent months, newspapers across Venezuela have carried daily reports of a growing crisis in the public hospitals. On Novem-ber 30, for example, ‘Notitarde’ published reports of a vigil by patients and doctors to protest...the daily ‘El Universal’ reported that doctors in Merida had shut down the University Hospital of Los Andes (HULA) due to medi-cal supply shortages, pronounc-ing the hospital ‘dead.’”

In other words, according to the cable, it seems Venezuela’s private media is relentless in its criticism of the Chavez govern-ment. Protests against the gov-ernment not only take place but are highly provocative (“pro-tests have paralyzed hospitals across Venezuela” says the au-thor) and are given considerable media coverage.

However, another cable, also from 2009, takes it as given that Hugo Chavez has “fostered self-censorship in the media” and is facing “no checks on his power at home”. Another 2009 cable re-lates how leaders of Venezuela’s Jewish community met with US officials to complain that there is no freedom of expression in Venezuela - and therefore no freedom of religion they added. According to the cable, US offi-cials did not, even among them-selves, question the claims made by Jewish leaders.

Was the “crisis in public hospi-tals” reported “daily” for “months” in “newspapers across Venezuela” in 2009 some kind of aberration?

One cable makes a rare and weak effort to use data to support its negative assessment of press freedom in Venezuela:

“Chavez regularly requires all local television and radio networks to carry his speeches (‘cadenas’); he has wracked up over 1,200 such hours (50 days) on the air”.

The data comes from Chavez opponents and is supposedly the total time accumulated by “cadenas” over a ten-year pe-riod. It accounts for 1.4% of the private media’s programming hours over ten years. Apparent-ly, US analysts are not interested in checking their conclusions using arithmetic.

THE FACTSMark Weisbrot and Tara Rut-

tenberg, with the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), just put out a brief report about Venezuelan television. It shows that state-sponsored pub-

lic television has an audience share of only 5%. Contrary to the impression conveyed by the in-ternational press, the Venezuelan media remains dominated by pri-vate interests fiercely opposed to the Chavez government. Rarely do reporters describe the relent-less anti-government output of the Venezuelan media - as did the 2009 cable about the “hospi-tal crisis”.

Instead, reporters routinely write the way the UK Guardian’s Rory Carroll did in January of 2010. Carroll stated that Chavez has “expanded the state’s media empire and cowed private broad-casters. This year he shut dozens of radio stations and said Globo-vision, the last critical voice on television, would follow”.

Rory Carroll has been based in Caracas for several years and must have known very well that calling Globovision (which has not been closed) the “last criti-cal TV voice” is outrageously dishonest - as is labelling state media, with its audience share of 5%, an “empire”.

Presumably, Carroll is capa-ble of distinguishing between a “cowed” media that is no lon-ger “critical” and one that is no longer as openly subversive as it was during the 2002 coup and the oil industry shutdown oil industry shutdown of Decem-ber 2002 - February 2003. If US outlets had been as subversive as Venezuela’s then their owners and managers would have faced the death penalty. The reaction of the US political elite to Wikileaks (ranging from calls for extraju-dicial assassination to imprison-ment) should make this impos-sible to dispute. Wikileaks has embarrassed US government and corporate elites. That’s a far cry from playing a key role in a coup overthrowing a democrati-cally-elected government and in a major economic sabotage that shut down the nation’s primary industries and forceably halted food and beverage distribution for more than two months, caus-ing major economic damages.

But Rory Carroll is a corporate journalist writing for an audience

For US officials in Venezuela, ideologytrumps competent analysis

outside Venezuela. In contrast, the cables released by Wikileaks show how US officials talk among themselves. At least in private, shouldn’t they be capable of as-sessing facts?

Judging from the cables re-leased so far, it seems that the only fact that matters to them is that the Chavez administration is a threat to US influence in Latin America. The truth about other things, like the state of press free-dom in Venezuela or the state of its economy or its medical system, is not seriously investi-gated. Sources that should cast significant doubt on official as-sumptions, including some glar-ing contradictions within their own reports, are simply ignored. This creates potential problems for US imperialism.

On the other hand, the exam-ples of Philip Agee, Daniel Ells-berg, and Bradley Manning re-veal that too much attention to reality can be infinitely more problematic.

T/ Joe Emersberger

The artillery of ideasENGLISH EDITIONTHURSDAY | December 23, 2010 | No. 44| Bs 1 | CARACAS

A publication of the Fundacion Correo del Orinoco • Editor-in-Chief | Eva Golinger • Graphic Design | Alexander Uzcátegui, Jameson Jiménez • Press | Fundación Imprenta de la Cultura

OPINION

The polarization of the debate around Wikileaks is pretty sim-

ple, really. Of all the governments in the world, the United States gover-nment is the greatest threat to world peace and security today. This is obvious to anyone who looks at the facts with a modicum of objectivity. The Iraq war has claimed hundreds of thousands, and most likely more than a million lives. It was comple-tely unnecessary and unjustifiable, and based on lies. Now, Washing-ton is moving toward a military confrontation with Iran.

As Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, point-ed out in an interview recently, in the preparation for a war with Iran, we are at about the level of 1998 in the build-up to the Iraq war.

On this basis, even ignoring the tremendous harm that Washing-ton causes to developing countries in such areas as economic develop-ment (through such institutions as the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization), or climate change, it is clear that any information which sheds light on US “diplomacy” is more than useful. It has the potential to help save millions of human lives.

You either get this or you don’t. Brazil’s president Lula da Silva, who earned Washington’s displeasure last May when he tried to help defuse the confron-tation with Iran, gets it. That’s why he defended and declared his “solidarity” with embattled Wikileaks founder Julian As-sange, even though the leaked cables were not pleasant reading for his own government.

One area of US foreign policy that the Wikileaks cables help il-luminate, which the major media has predictably ignored, is the occupation of Haiti. In 2004 the country’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was overthrown for the second time, through an effort led by the United States government. Offi-cials of the constitutional govern-

Wikileaks Show Why WashingtonWon’t Allow Democracy in Haiti

ment were jailed and thousands of its supporters were killed.

The Haitian coup, besides being a repeat of Aristide’s overthrow in 1991, was also very similar to the at-tempted coup in Venezuela in 2002 – which also had Washington’s fingerprints all over it. Some of the same people in Washington were even involved in both efforts. But the Venezuelan coup failed – partly because Latin American govern-ments immediately and forcefully declared that they would not rec-ognize the coup government.

In the case of Haiti, Washington had learned from its mistakes in the Venezuelan coup and had gath-ered support for an illegitimate government in advance. A UN resolution was passed just days af-ter the coup, and UN forces, headed by Brazil, were sent to the country. The mission is still headed by Bra-zil, and has troops from a number of other Latin American governments that are left of center, including Bo-livia, Argentina and Uruguay. They are also joined by Chile, Peru and Guatemala from Latin America.

Would these governments have sent troops to occupy Venezuela if that coup had succeeded? Clearly they would not have considered such a move, yet the occupation of Haiti is no more justifiable. South America’s progressive governments have strongly chal-lenged US foreign policy in the region and the world, with some of them regularly using words like imperialism and empire as synonyms for Washington. They have built new institution such as UNASUR prevent these kinds of abuses from the north. Bolivia expelled the US ambassador in September of 2008 for interfering in its own internal affairs.

The participation of these gov-ernments in the occupation of Haiti is a serious political contra-diction for them, and it is getting worse. The Wikileaks cables illus-trate how important the control of Haiti is to the United States.

A long memo from the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince to the US Secretary of State answers detailed questions about Haitian president Rene Preval’s political, personal, and family life, includ-ing such vital national security questions as “How many drinks can Preval consume before he shows signs of inebriation?” It also expresses one of Washing-ton’s main concerns:

“His reflexive nationalism, and his disinterest in manag-ing bilateral relations in a broad diplomatic sense, will lead to pe-riodic frictions as we move for-ward our bilateral agenda. Case in point, we believe that in terms of foreign policy, Preval is most interested in gaining increased assistance from any available re-source. He is likely to be tempted to frame his relationship with Venezuela and Chavez-allies in the hemisphere in a way that he hopes will create a competitive atmosphere as far as who can provide the most to Haiti”.

This is why they got rid of Aris-tide – who was much to the left of Preval -- and won’t let him back in the country. This is why Wash-ington funded the recent “elec-tions” that excluded Haiti’s larg-est political party, the equivalent of shutting out the Democrats and Republicans in the United States. And this is why MINUSTAH is still occupying the country, more

than six years after the c o u p , without any apparent mission oth-er than replacing the hated Haitian army – which Aristide abolished – as a repressive force.

People who do not understand US foreign policy think that con-trol over Haiti does not matter to Washington, because it is so poor and has no strategic miner-als or resources. But that is not how Washington operates, as the Wikileaks cables repeatedly illustrate. For the State Depart-ment and its allies, it is all a ruth-less chess game, and the pawns matter. Left governments will be removed or prevented from tak-ing power where it is possible to do so; and the poorest countries – like Honduras last year – pres-ent the most opportune targets. A democratically elected govern-ment in Haiti, due to its history and the consciousness of the pop-ulation, will inevitably be a left government – and one that will not line up with Washington’s

foreign policy priorities for the region. Hence, de-mocracy is not allowed.

Thousands of Haitians have been protesting the sham elec-tions, as well as MINUSTAH’s role in causing the cholera epidemic, which has already taken more than 2,300 lives and can be expected to kill thousands more in the coming months and years. Judging from the rapid spread of the disease, there may have been gross criminal negligence on the part of MINUS-TAH – i.e. large-scale dumping of fecal waste into the Artibonite riv-er. This is another huge reason for them to leave Haiti.

This is a mission that costs over $500 million a year, when the UN can’t even raise a third of that to fight the epidemic that the mission caused, or to provide clean water for Haitians. And now the UN is asking for an increase to over $850 million for MINUSTAH.

T/ Mark Weisbrot