English Edition Nº 74

PoliticsVenezuela rejectsUS aggressionYet again, the Venezuelan government condemns hostility from Washington. | page 3

SecurityPrison reform a priorityA new government institution is aimed at humanizing prisons. | page 5

Venezuela: lowest percentage of social Inequality in Latin America

Venezuela has the lowest per-centage (0.38 percent) of so-

cial inequality in Latin America, according a report released by the United Nations Economic Com-mission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

The President of the National Institute of Statistics, Elias Eljuri, said on Monday that the ECLAC report shows that extreme pov-erty in Venezuela was reduced from 21 percent in 1999, when the Bolivarian Revolution began, to 6.9 percent, with a tendency to continue decreasing.

The report, which was recently presented by ECLAC Executive Sec-retary, Alicia Barcena, also confirms that Venezuela has been able to re-duce the gap of income distribution per capita by almost 15 percent.

The report’s data confirm fig-ures issued by the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV), showing a 4.5 percent increase of GDP dur-ing the first trimester of the year, thanks to the government’s boost to the public and private sectors.

Additionally, the ECLAC re-port highlights that the econ-omy in Latin America and the

Caribbean would increase by 4.7 percent this year.

During a radio interview, Eljuri also highlighted the increase of formal workers over the last 12 years, which stood at 46 percent and now reaches 57 percent.

Social policies of the Chavez gov-ernment have been largely respon-sible for the decrease in poverty and increase in overall social well being in the South American nation. Us-ing oil profits, the Venezuelan state has invested heavily in healthcare, education and infrastructure to im-prove quality of life for all.

Social JusticeBolivia’s Evo Morales fights for water rightsMorales spoke at the UN this week on why water is a human right. | page 6

Venezuela celebrates The LiberatorPerhaps the most well known Venezuelan, after President Hugo Chavez, is Independence hero Simon Bolivar, who led the fight to free Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia from Spanish colonial rule 200 years ago. Today, Bolivar is cherished and revered as a fighter for social justice, equality, Latin American dignity and integration. His dream of a unified Latin America is finally seeing fruit in the XXI century, through initiatives such as ALBA and Unasur. This week Venezuelans celebrated his 228th birthday. | page 4

Chavez will run forreelection in 2012

The artillery of ideasENGLISH EDITIONFRIDAY | July 29, 2011 | No. 74 | Bs 1 | CARACAS

Chavez turns 57

Happy Birthday Mr. Pres-ident! On Thursday, July 28, President Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias turned 57. Celebrations nationwide were held under the theme, “A song for the President”. Rodrigo Cabezas, rank-ing member of the United Socialist Party of Venezu-ela (PSUV), said at a news conference that the event would be held throughout the country. He said there is much to celebrate, “the joy of life, as traditionally celebrated by Venezuelan families, and now we have many more reasons”, refer-ring to Chavez’s recent re-covery from cancer.

“We welcome with joy the President’s birthday as a celebration of life and hope for the recovery of his health. We will all celebrate as a gesture of solidarity”.

Chavez also revealed he would lead a celebration with his people “as never seen before”. The event took place first in plazas throughout the country at the crack of dawn. In the late afternoon, thousands gathered at the presidential palace in Caracas for a con-cert and the big attraction, President Chavez’s birth-day speech.

Pg. 7 | Special Report Pg. 8 | Opiniongg pp ppActivist Jorge Rodriguez was assassinatedfor his political beliefs 35 years ago in Venezuela

The US debt crisisand the working class

President Chavez confirmed this week his candidacy for reelection in 2012. His cancer is gone for now. The Venezuelan President reiterated his candidacy for the 2012 presidential elections this week in an exclusive interview with Correo del Orinoco. He also revealed inside details of his cancer treatment and internal process of acceptance and struggle. Chavez underwent successful chemotherapy last week in Cuba and a series of tests

determined no cancer cells were lingering in his body. However, the Venezuelan leader vows to continue his strict medical treatment in order to “live and prevail”. | pages 2-3

The artillery of ideas| 2 | Impact No Friday, July 29, 2011

In an exclusive interview with Correo del Orinoco, President Hugo Chavez affirmed he hasn’t “thought of retiring from the presidency for a single instant” and called his cancer “a counterrevolution that has confirmed I must live”. “I am determined to have a moral, spiritual, personal and collective victory”

If the voice is reflective of well being in a person, then it’s suf-

ficient to hear President Hugo Chavez to confirm he’s doing better than ever. “I feel unbeat-able in spirit, in my state of mind, in my soul. And my body is responding extraordinarily in every sense”, affirmed the head of state this week during an ex-clusive telephone interview with Correo del Orinoco.

There are some details about his health and recent cancer that the Venezuelan President has reserved. They are part of his personal experi-ence, part of his life that only belongs to family. But when asked about his candidacy for the presidential elec-tions in 2012, about which there has been plenty of speculation and ru-mor, he doesn’t hesitate in confirm-ing his participation.

“I have medical, scientific, hu-man, love, and political reasons to maintain myself at the head of Government and my candidacy will proceed with more force than ever before”, he emphasized.

“Personally, I can tell you I haven’t thought for an instant of re-tiring from the presidency. If there were reasons, I would do it; above all if there were physical or mental reasons. I would be the first to do so, and in a responsible way”.

He underlined that he’s re-solved to have “full and absolute recovery. We are not dreaming in a vacuum. We are not dreaming of the impossible. Those are the desires of the macabre, the per-verse and the morbid, that belong

Chavez confirms candidacyfor 2012 presidential elections

to some opinion makers such as Roger Noriega. Noriega is a spokesman for the CIA”.

Chavez informed that he has finished the first stage of chemo-theraphy and “here I am”. The treatment, applied in Cuba, “is a strong attack against the possibil-ity of the cancer spreading else-where. That’s why it’s an attack with chemotheraphy: to prevent any kind of spread”.

He reiterated that everything he has told the nation is “the truth”.

In this stage of recovery, “I should follow a strict regime” of nutrition and permanent evaula-tion, “awaiting new stages of che-motherapy”. Despite this, “I will be at the front of my job, of gov-ernment, 24 hours a day, handling all my responsibilities”. One of them, “is my health and maintain-ing strict observance of the man-dates of scientific medicine”.

But this will not prevent him from celebrating his 57th birth-day. And he will do it in Venezu-ela. He also guarantees it will be a celebration “with my people as never before”.

FIDEL CASTRO’SSHORTEST SPEECH

Cuban leader Fidel Castro, a key player in the diagnosis and

treatment of the President’s cancer, “was very happy” last Saturday, before saying fare-well to Chavez in Havana. “He had joy on his face...It was very different from how he had been a month before”, confided the Venezuelan leader.

Chavez recalled that when he returned to Cuba to begin the chemotherapy, he lived through a “very intense” journey, and he was subjected to diagnostic pro-cedures with the most advanced equipment on the island, and in the world, in the area of imageol-ogy. The purpose was to find out if the cancer had spread through-out his body.

“The second operation lasted almost 7 hours. They checked me organ by organ, taking samples to see if there was metatasis, and they found nothing. The tumor was encapsulated”, he remem-bered. But this wasn’t enough.

The certain thing, he contin-ued, “is that upon arriving, they gave me a full imageology. It was hours and hours of the most ad-vanced scientific methodology that could be utilized”.

After such overwhelming sci-entific-medical work, Fidel Castro gave him the good news. “He told me that regarding what they were

looking for, nothing was found. I had never heard Fidel make such a short speech”, he joked. How-ever, immediately after, the Cu-ban leader clarified that this did not mean the problem was over.

“Later, chemotherapy began during the week: long, hard, put up with and assimilated by this body and this soul with a lot of help” from Cuba, he said appre-ciatively. “Everyday, Fidel visited me to talk, eat something, bring me juice, or some other detail. He is like a father”.

RESPECT THE BODYThe head of state changed radi-

cally with the diagnosis of cancer. “The body I mistreated so much I am now learning to respect and love”, he confessed. “The human body is the seat of the soul. How can one disrespect it?”

Chavez repeats, throughout the conversation, that he feels good and that his body has accepted the treatment. “This body, almost 57 years old, is responding well”.

One, adds the Venezuelan Pres-ident, “can feel good in his soul, but if he felt this or that in his body, or a process of degenera-tion, what do you do? I feel very good, and I’m set on that; on this battle, on victory, in every sense.

A moral, spiritual, personal and collective victory”.

The President recalls that when the April 11, 2002 coup d’etat took place, he remembered a phrase by Leon Trotsky, which said that ev-ery revolution needs the whip of the counterrevolution to correct its path. “Now I say: to Chavez, who was going around like a wild horse, without paying atten-tion to doctors, schedules, nutri-tion; without paying attention to life, that I needed the whip of a kind of organic counterrevolution that has now brought me a new consciousness that I need to live. I have to take care of this body to continue living and fighting, and contributing my grain of salt wherever I can”.

-You have refered to a process that is going on through 2030. What do you mean?

“This is not new in our strategic vision. Years ago, I used a phrase that stuck. At the start of the first decade of the century, I spoke of it as the bronze decade, which just ended when the first decade of the XXI century concluded. Now we are starting the silver decade: 2011-2020. And the golden de-cade will be from 2021-2030. This is in line with our bicentennial celebrations and the bicentennial of Simon Bolivar. I am resolved to make it to 2031”.

When asked what he meant when referring to the “syndrome of Santa Marta”, which relates to the death of Simon Bolivar and the divisions of the country in 1830; divided, with the oligarchy once again taking power. He an-swers immediately: “We have to defeat it. The challenge is during these coming years, to be able to tell Bolivar we did not err in the sea. We have to change that phrase to this: ‘We have changed this world; we did it’. And just like that, look ahead, because the challenge will remain for our chil-dren, for that splendid and loving youth that rises today. The whip of this sickness has provoked in me my strongest will to live, to fight and to prevail”.

T/ Vanessa Davies and Eva GolingerP/ Presidential Press

The artillery of ideas No Friday, July 29, 2011 Politics | 3 |

Looking visibly stronger and well-rested, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez returned to his native soil last Saturday after undergoing the second phase of cancer treatment in Cuba

Although Chavez’s return at 9:45pm on Saturday night

came as a surprise to some, the Ven-ezuelan President made clear before departing that his treatment would last only “a few days” and that he would soon be back to continue car-rying out the duties of his post.

Before leaving for treatment on July 16, exactly one week be-fore his return, Chavez delegated limited administrative powers to his Vice-President Elias Jaua and Planning Minister Jorge Giordani.

On Saturday, he thanked his cab-inet members and the Vice-Presi-dent for the diligent execution of their offices and assured the public that he has kept informed on all pertinent affairs in the country.

“I haven’t missed anything that has happened in Venezuela and I congratulate the Vice-President and the ministers for their work.

On Tuesday, the Venezuelan government condemned the

permanent aggressive policies promoted by ultra right-wing sec-tors in the United States against the South American nation. The statement was made by Foreign Affairs Minister, Nicolas Maduro, during a high-level executive cab-inet meeting.

At the conclusion of Tuesday’s Council of Ministers meeting, Ma-duro issued a formal condemnation of the attacks coming from ultra conservative groups in Washington for their interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs and for maintaining a constant plan of aggression and threat against Venezuela.

OBAMA’S THREATSMaduro also rejected recent

statements by the Obama ad-

ministration, accusing Venezu-ela of being a “permissive envi-ronment” for terrorism. A report issued on Monday titled “Strat-egy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime”, alleged that Venezuela “generates a permis-sive environment for drug traf-ficking and terrorist organiza-tions”. The report was published by President Obama’s anti-ter-rorism advisor John Brennan, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder.

“We have evaluated and cat-egorically rejected the new steps made by the far right-wing, dragging a wide proportion of the US Congress and govern-ment towards an absurd and extremist policy against Latin America and our nation, trying

to attack us and put obstacles in the path toward independence and sovereignty that our country is developing”, declared Foreign Minister Maduro.

Venezuela’s legislative body, the National Assembly, also issued an official statement rejecting the lat-est threats and accusations made by the US government against

the Caribbean nation. “We firmly reject these ongoing, unfounded accusations made by extremist sectors in the United States that at-tempt to justify aggressive policies towards Venezuela”, assembly members exclaimed on Tuesday.

The US government has been backing anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela for years, providing them with millions of US tax-pay-er dollars to support plans to un-dermine the Chavez government. In recent months, Washington has stepped up its hostile policies towards Venezuela, including im-posing sanctions against Venezu-ela’s state-owned oil company, Pdvsa, for selling two shipments of a gas component to Iran.

T/ COIP/ Presidential Press

Venezuela rejects continued US aggression

Chavez back in Venezuela aftersuccessful cancer treatment

My personal recognition and mor-al and political support to you”, he said to the group of ministers gathered to receive him at the in-ternational airport Simon Bolivar in the coastal city of Maiquetia.

As evidence of his ability to manage affairs while abroad, Chavez approved 1.5 billion bo-livars ($348 million) for the work of the nation’s grassroots commu-nity councils on Friday as well as $5 million for humanitarian aid to famine victims in Somalia.

The President’s trip to Cuba was the first time that he had returned to the island after a tumor was re-moved from his pelvic area there on June 20 during a diplomatic visit.

Since then, the socialist leader has been subjected to a strict re-covery regime that has limited his public appearances and kept him under the supervision of his Ven-ezuelan and Cuban medical team.

Fidel Castro has also partici-pated actively in the President’s convalescence, reporting and in-terpreting test results to his friend and political ally.

CANCER ELIMINATEDOn Saturday, the head of state

confirmed that after undergo-ing intense studies over the past week, medics have be unable to

detect the existence of any further cancerous cells in his body.

“They carried out rigorous ex-ams that lasted all day. There’s still a risk and that’s why I received che-motherapy throughout the week in various sessions. It’s difficult but my body withstood it”, he said.

While in Cuba, Chavez re-ceived visits from Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Ecua-dorian President Rafael Correa and former Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona.

“We met with President Chavez in a spectacular hospital in Ha-vana”, Correa said of his visit. “The

fact that [Chavez] looked good re-ally put us at ease”, he explained.

OIL POWERUpon his arrival home on Sat-

urday, the Venezuelan President congratulated members of the country’s Navy and commented on OPEC’s recent findings re-garding the nation’s oil reserves.

According to the international cartel, Venezuela now possesses the largest reserves of crude in the world, calculated at 296.5 bil-lion barrels.

The announcement confirms what the Chavez administration

had reported earlier regarding the nation’s holdings in the Orinoco belt and represents an increase of 339 percent in the country’s re-serves over the past five years.

“Only independence, only free-dom will allow us to develop and convert Venezuela into what it must be: a great republic, a great country, a great economy…a power in this part of the world and in a different kind of world. Not the world of bombs and ag-gressions but rather the free and multipolar world”, Chavez said of Venezuela’s social and eco-nomic potential.

On Sunday, the President made a brief appearance at the home of Simon Bolivar to celebrate the 288th anniversary of the Indepen-dence hero’s birth.

Despite the brevity of his visit, the President looked physically improved when compared with recent public appearances, singing a rendition of a famous Venezuelan folk song composed by the revolu-tionary musician Ali Primera.

“I’ve kept my word”, Chavez said upon his return on Satur-day. “I’ve come back better than when I left”.

T/ COIP/ Presidential Press

The artillery of ideas| 4 | Politics No Friday, July 29, 2011

A variety of commemorative acts held last Sunday in Venezuela and around the world marked the 228th anniversary of the birth of Simon Bolivar, Venezuela’s most revered political leader and one of Latin America’s most important historical figures

President Hugo Chavez ad-dressed the Venezuelan peo-

ple early Sunday morning via his Twitter account exalting Bolivar’s legacy and the importance of his ideas to modern day struggles for social justice.

“We will make sure that Bolivar lives everyday in us, in our ideas and in our behavior”, he wrote.

Born in Caracas on July 24, 1783, Bolivar became the most signifi-cant military and political leader of South America’s independence movement, claiming victory upon victory against colonial forces in nearly ten years of armed struggle.

The son of an aristocratic fam-ily with Basque roots, Bolivar committed his life to the cause of freedom from Spain, earning himself the title of “Liberator” for his decisive defeats of the royal-ist army in what is modern day Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.

INTEGRATION AND UNITYCentral to his drive for autono-

my was his firm belief in regional integration and his overall goal of unifying all of Latin America un-der a common political system.

“To try to unite all of the New World into a single nation with one link that binds all of its parts to the whole is a magnanimous idea. As the region has one ori-gin, one language, one religion and customs, it should therefore have one government confeder-ated by the different states to be formed”, he wrote in his famous Letter from Jamaica in 1815.

Bolivar called this immense confederation of states the “Great Colombia” and despite the fac-

Simon Bolivar celebrated:independence, freedom and equality

tionalism of regional strongmen, or caudillos, that eventually tore apart integration, the vision of a united Latin America lives on today in the policies of the conti-nent’s new leftist governments.

LEGACY OF THE LIBERATORThe influence of Bolivar on

Venezuelan society and culture is difficult to overstate.

With a status that has been el-evated to near mythical propor-tions, similar to what Lenin may have been for the Soviet Union, no single historical personality has had the impact that Bolivar has had on the collective con-sciousness of the nation.

Venezuela’s currency bears his name and countless towns, mu-nicipalities, streets, and schools have been christened in his honor.

Even the smallest of rural hamlets boasts a public square dedicated to the legacy of the Liberator.

Although the image of Bolivar has also played an important role in the country’s political discourse for decades, his promi-nence has been elevated in recent years owing to the revolutionary changes taking place in the South American nation.

The government of Hugo Chavez, reclaiming the heritage of the Liberator through its “Boli-varian Revolution”, has renewed Venezuela’s sense of nationalist pride with respect to it’s anti-co-lonial struggle.

Basing much of his political and economic program on Bolivar’s anti-imperialist stance as well as the integrationist dream of Great Co-lombia, Chavez and his supporters

have redefined the course of region-al politics over the past decade.

Such a redefinition has led to the formation of new power blocks like the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Boli-varian Alliance of the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA) which have arisen out of Latin America’s chal-lenge to Washington’s neo-colonial pretensions in the hemisphere.

The inauguration of yet another alliance, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) is set to take place later this year and will create an even greater union of countries and terri-tories in the Americas, leaving to the side the participation and influence of the United States and Canada.

COMMEMORATIVE ACTIVITIESThe international recognition

of Bolivar’s legacy last Sunday is testament to the importance of this present shift in Latin Ameri-can politics.

Bolivia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cuba, Portugal and Iran all held ceremonies to honor the Libera-tor with a series of activities in-cluding floral offerings, sporting events, and public speeches.

Venezuelan Naval Capitan Wil-liam Hernandez, stationed in Cuba, commented during an event in Havana that the progressive gov-ernments of today’s Latin America embody the spirit of Bolivar.

According to Hernandez, the freedom and peace once sought

by the revered leader “can only be achieved when all of us Amer-icans possess awareness of the homeland, when we are all con-vinced that we need to continue the struggle against any and all forms of foreign intervention”.

In Venezuela, the celebratory acts began at 6am with the rais-ing of the nation’s flag alongside those of the five nations liberated by the sword of Bolivar.

The event was coordinated by Defense Minister Carlos Figueroa, Communication Minister Andres Izarra, Education Minister Mary-ann Hanson, and a host of Ven-ezuelan youth expressing their pride in the principles of solidar-ity and equality as advocated by the independence hero.

In the afternoon, homage was paid at the Liberator’s birthplace in downtown Caracas where Pres-ident Chavez, recently returned from cancer treatment in Cuba, led a tour of the Liberator’s home.

During his visit, the Venezuelan head of state read fragments of Bolivar’s letters and spoke of his contemporary presence through-out the national territory.

“All corners of Venezuela have something of this heroic Cara-cas, this Bolivar who was born here on this day in the middle of winter of 1783 when Caracas and Latin America were on fire”, Chavez said of the beginning of the South American indepen-dence movement.

Referring to Latin America’s still pending “desire for indepen-dence” the socialist leader linked the struggle of the early 1800s to that of today, reminding the pub-lic of the massacre of indigenous peoples carried out by the Span-iards during colonization.

“It’s been calculated that there were close to 90 million inhabit-ants on the continent when the ships began to arrive. Two hun-dred years later, there were less than ten million inhabitants. This is genocide”, he said.

The commemorative activities closed on Sunday evening with a lowering of the Venezuelan flag carried out by members of the presidential cabinet.

T/ COIP/ Agencies

The artillery of ideas No Friday, July 29, 2011 Security | 5 |

An interagency committee is presently evaluating be-

nefit requests for inmates who have a serious illness. The com-mittee is operating according to a protocol designed to avoid irregular use of conditional parole and humanitarian mea-sures, explained Venezuela’s Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz on Tuesday.

“False expectations are rising among inmates”, said Ortega Diaz referring to the lists of inmates that her office has been asked to process. Benefits are only granted

The new state institution will be dedicated to working together with families and communities to humanize prisons and address the root causes that lead to imprisonment

Moving ahead with prison re-forms in the wake of recent

tumult, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez appointed con-gresswoman Iris Varela to head the newly created Ministry of Penitentiary Services.

The announcement was made last Tuesday morning during the broadcast of the program Todo Venezuela on state television.

The new ministry, Chavez in-formed via telephone, will be charged with guaranteeing the health and education of incarcer-ated populations as well as ensur-ing safe and appropriate condi-tions for inmates.

“It’s a very large debt that we have with the penitentiary sys-tem. I would say it’s a stain on our government”, Chavez de-clared during the program.

Recent inmate riots in the Rodeo prison outside of Caracas thrust the state of Venezuela’s penitentiary system into the national and in-ternational spotlight. Plagued by gang activity, drug trafficking and violence, many prisons in the coun-try have been overrun with the cor-ruption of a blighted system.

Negligence and apathy on the part of previous governments per-

New Ministry for Prison Reformto Change Ailing System

Committee evaluates irregular useof preventive measures for inmates

to inmates with serious or termi-nal illnesses, according to the pro-tocol, she reminded.

Convicted persons can only receive humanitarian measures, while those accused can obtain conditional freedom, in cases where they have a serious or terminal illness, Ortega Diaz made clear.

“If these policies are used irregu-larly, all the inmates will request a preventive measure”, the attorney general warned. As an example, Ortega Diaz commented that out of the 54 inmates evaluated last week, only two were eligible to re-ceive the humanitarian measure.

“We have to be very careful with recommendations”, she

said. As part of the proceedings, inmates are first evaluated by a forensic doctor certified by the Ministry of Interior and Jus-tice, who refers the patient to a specialist doctor so he/she can send the final medical report to a judge. According the inmate’s health condition, the judge de-termines whether he/she can

receive a preventive or humani-tarian measure, the attorney general explained.

Inmates with tuberculosis, HIV-Aids and terminal cancer are pri-orities, Ortega Diaz explained. The Ministry of Health will provide medical treatment to those who cannot afford it, she informed.

Until Monday, the commit-tee had received nine lists of ill inmates and its members will meet this week to continue the evaluations.

T/ AVN

mitted the culture to grow while the progressive values of the Chavez administration have attempted to humanize the penitentiaries.

Since coming to power 12 years ago, Chavez and his supporters have implemented social programs in prisons with music, sports, and educational activities never before available for inmates.

CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTSIn 1999, prisoners’ rights were

formally written into the na-tion’s constitution for the first time in Venezuela’s history and more recently, in April, the coun-try’s highest legislative body, the National Assembly, passed a law designed to revamp the country’s prisons.

The new law seeks to improve prisoner rehabilitation and guar-antee humane conditions for in-mates based on strict adherence to the principles of human rights as enshrined in the constitution.

President Chavez’s announce-ment on Tuesday morning contin-ues with this wave of reforms by creating a new cabinet position to deal directly with the problem of overcrowding, violence and in-ternal corruption.

According to the head of state, the nation’s prison system should function as training centers for the creation of “the new man”.

“Community work can be done. We need humanistic laws to create real humanism. We have to create just laws and abide by them instead of submitting to the blackmail of the bourgeoisie and the old culture that we carry inside ourselves”, Chavez said.

ALTERNATIVE PUNISHMENTThe new Minister of Penitentia-

ry Services, Iris Varela, said that she is ready to begin the task of devising changes and reconstruct-ing the nation’s penitentiaries.

“I’m a revolutionary who, very humbly, intends to carry out this work. I’m here to accept the com-mitment and you can be sure that I will not let you [the people] down”, she affirmed.

One of the objectives of the Ministry, Varela said, will be to identify crimes of lesser severity in order to promote alternative sentences and thereby lessen pres-sure on the prison population.

“Not all crimes necessarily require prison sentences. Depending on the nature of the crime, mechanisms can be created so that the person who commits some type of transgression does their time through supervised community work. All of these op-tions need to be evaluated and stud-ied”, she explained.

Part of this strategy requires re-viewing cases of current inmates who may have been unjustly in-carcerated due to administrative errors or who have already served their time but still find themselves among the incarcerated population.

Varela invited inmates and fam-ily members to organize them-

selves into action groups to bring cases to light which may result in the commutation of sentences.

“I’m sure that through an exhaus-tive review, a great percentage of people are going to be free because they are victims of a bureaucratic system”, the new minister said.

INTER-AGENCY EFFORTFormerly a congresswoman from

the Andean state of Tachira, Varela intends to meet immediately with the nation’s Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz as well as the President of Venezuela’s Supreme Court, Lu-isa Estella Morales, to determine a strategic plan for the ministry.

Both Diaz and Morales wel-comed the selection of Varela for the position and expressed their eagerness to work with the new minister to resolve the problems affecting the prison system.

“This is good news because we’ve been debating this topic of what measures need to be taken”, Morales told VTV, reminding viewers that over the past month the government had already be-gun establishing reforms.

“From June 21 to July 21, thirty-six initiatives have been imple-mented such as in cases where a youth commits a minor crime for which he/she should not be in prison”, explained the Supreme Court Justice.

Varela also met with Interior and Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami on Tuesday to discuss the new institution and propose a plan for the creation of reforms.

T/ COIP/ Agencies

The artillery of ideas| 6 | Social Justice No Friday, July 29, 2011

“Water is life. Water is humanity. How could it be part of the private business?” asked Bolivian President Evo Morales Wednesday, stressing the social and economic consequences of the growing trend of private ownership over water supply and delivery systems in many parts of the world

Morales, the first-ever indige-nous president of Bolivia and

an outspoken advocate of the rights of “Mother Earth”, also criticized capitalist countries of the North for failing to adopt a rights-based approach towards the problems of global warming and the rapid loss of plant and animal species.

“If we don’t respect the rights of Mother Earth, we cannot respect human rights”, he told a news conference at UN headquarters before heading to the UN General Assembly where he addressed a meeting on water and sanitation.

More than two billion people across the world have no access to sanitation facilities and clean water. Numerous UN studies have shown a strong link be-tween deadly diseases and the lack of access to clean water in many countries of the South.

Research shows that inadequate access to clean and safe drinking

On Wednesday, Venezuela shipped 50 tons of food to

Somalia, where at least 780,000 children are in danger of death due to a heavy drought that has caused a devastating famine.

Venezuelan military cargo air-crafts departed from the Simon Bolívar International Airport to this nation located in the Horn of Africa, Venezuela’s Minister of Interior and Justice, Tareck El Ais-saimi informed.

With this shipment, the Ven-ezuelan government responds to Unicef, which urged the inter-national community to develop needed efforts in order to fight the “worst food crisis” in Soma-lia, Kenya and Ethiopia.

Venezuela ships 50 tons of food to Somalia

Bolivian President denounces water privatizationwater remains a major obstacle for the success of international initia-tives on sustainable economic and social development in financially impoverished regions of the world.

The international community has pledged to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drink-ing water and basic sanitation by 2015, a target that is unlikely to be met on time.

“Progress is on track”, said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon about achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, but warned diplomats at the General Assembly gathering that the world “will miss the wa-ter and sanitation target”.

“It is not acceptable that poor slum-dwellers pay five or even 10 times as much for their water as wealthy residents of the same areas of the same cities”, he said. However, in the same breath, Ban added: “Let us be clear: a right to water and sanitation does not mean that water should be free”.

Morales’s stance on this issue reflected a completely different worldview.

“Without water, there can be no food, no life”, he said, challenging the notion that water management by private corporations will accel-erate the process of development. “Competition of any sort cannot resolve the issue of poverty”.

The first-ever indigenous president of Bolivia, who is well-known for his outspokenness and socialist views, said his govern-ment had already expelled some

multinational companies that were seeking privatization of wa-ter in his country.

“Water is a basic public need that must not be managed by pri-vate interests, and that it should be available to all the people”, he said, a view endorsed by a num-ber of diplomats from the devel-oping countries who spoke at the General Assembly meeting.

“Access to safe drinking water and sanitation is a pre-condition to eradicate poverty”, said Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, the Brazilian envoy to the UN. “The right to safe water and sanitation [is] intrinsi-cally connected to the right to life,

to physical integrity, to health, to food, and adequate housing”.

The US delegate also supported the view that access to water is a universal human right, but shied away from discussing the role of the private sector in the supply and dis-tribution of drinking water. “The US is committed to solving the world’s water problems”, he said.

According to Food and Water Watch, a non-governmental or-ganization- based in Washington, many women and children in ru-ral areas in developing countries spend hours each day walking kilometers to collect water from unprotected sources such as open

wells, muddy dugouts or streams. In urban areas, they collect it

from polluted waterways or pay high prices to buy it from vendors who obtain it from dubious sourc-es. The water is often dirty and un-safe, but they have no alternative.

Carrying the heavy water con-tainers back home is an exhaust-ing task, which takes up valuable time and energy, according to the group. It often prevents women from doing vital domestic or in-come-generating work and stops children from going to school.

“Water is a human right. We believe that corporations cannot provide better service to consum-ers”, said Kate Fried of the Water and Food Watch in support of Morales’s views. “Water service can be provided more effectively by public-public partnership”.

Water Aid, another non-profit organization, says the total global investments in water and sanita-tion would need to double for the Millennium Development Goals’ target of halving the proportion of people living without water and sanitation by 2015 to be met.

Asked if his views on the right to water are getting support from the richest countries, Morales said that Spain was the only country from the European Union that was in al-liance with Bolivia on this subject.

“There should be no one with-out access to water”, he quoted Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, as saying.

T/ Haider RizviP/ Agencies

According to Unicef, over 2.3 million malnourished children live in these three African nations.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced last Friday that his country will cooperate with a $5 million donation for Somalia, in addition to the ship-ment of humanitarian aid to al-leviate hunger.

On Sunday, as part of the Ven-ezuelan aid, President Chavez called on the 7,000,000 militants of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to contribute with one day of salary for this cause.

Rodrigo Cabezas, member of the PSUV national bureau, ex-plained that members of the po-

litical party will transfer funds to different accounts in state-run banks from August 1.

“The funds will be sent to the Af-rican country through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs”, Cabezas said.

“We urge all the militants of the PSUV, our friends, support-ers, any good-willing Venezu-elans, to contribute”.

Unicef officially declared famine in the southern Somali areas of Bakool and Lower Sha-belle, while requesting the gov-ernments of the world provide $300 million to save lives in those territories.

T/ AVNP/ Miguel Gutierrez

The artillery of ideas No Friday, July 29, 2011 Special Report | 7 |

This week Venezuelans com-memorated the life and leg-

acy of Jorge Antonio Rodriguez, the popular socialist leader bru-tally murdered on 25 July 1976 by forces loyal to then president Carlos Andres Perez (Democratic Action, or AD).

Thirty-five years after the founder of Venezuela’s Socialist League was kidnapped, tortured and murdered for his active role in the struggle for Venezuelan socialism, his family, friends and allies, including leaders of the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), joined to-gether to reaffirm their commit-ment to Rodriguez’s struggle for social justice.

On Monday, Jorge Rodriguez Gomez, son of the slain leader and PSUV mayor of Caracas’ Liberta-dor Municipality, told those gath-ered at the capital’s General Cem-etery of the South that his father’s death must not to be remembered with “sadness alone”.

Instead of “sadness and cer-emony”, he said, those who meet every year to mark the anniver-sary of the leader’s death must “ratify our commitment to life, to the Bolivarian Revolution, to the future, to loyalty and above all else, to our absolute and un-breakable decision to advance the Bolivarian Revolution, with Hugo Chavez, building the homeland that our children de-serve; that same homeland Jorge Rodriguez wanted for his chil-dren, grandchildren, and for all Venezuelans”.

According to Rodriguez, at the time of his father’s death the Ven-ezuelan right-wing already un-derstood “what we only sensed at that time; that this tomb (of Jorge Rodriguez) was becoming some-thing very dangerous for the oli-garchy and for the Fourth Repub-lic, that his grave was an example for the homeland that we are all building today, the homeland of the Revolution that we are build-ing each day alongside Chavez”.

“At that time we didn’t un-derstand that after all the suffer-ing and torture, all the physical torment, his life would begin to grow in the heart and soul of all those Venezuelans who want what is best for the people, who live with hope”, he concluded.

Remembering injustice: venezuelan activist JorgeRodriguez assassinated by government forces in 1976

FALLEN ACTIVISTSFormer Venezuelan Vice-Pres-

ident and award-winning inves-tigative journalist Jose Vicente Rangel asked those gathered at Monday’s ceremony to consider, “how much of what is real today, as part of Venezuela’s revolution-ary process, is not the result of the struggles of Jorge Rodriguez, Alberto Lovera, Fabricio Ojeda, and the many others?”

Alberto Lovera, Secretary General of the Venezuelan Com-munist Party (PCV) in 1965, was kidnapped on 17 October 1965. His body, mutilated by acts of torture, was found submerged off the Caribbean coast over a week later.

Fabricio Ojeda, leftist jour-nalist and guerrilla fighter, pre-sided over the Patriotic Council that helped oust former Dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez (1952-1958). In June 1966, after being picked up by state security forc-es, these same forces claimed Ojeda “committed suicide” in his Caracas prison cell.

According to Rangel, “without the extraordinary sowing” of rev-olutionary ideals by Venezuela’s socialist leaders of the past, the Bolivarian Revolution “would not have coalesced as it has”.

Rangel also said that remem-bering the legacy of those Ven-ezuelans who suffered state vio-lence “is one of the ways we can fight against impunity”.

Rangel made specific refer-ence to the Law Against Silence and Forgetting, elaborated by members of the PSUV in con-junction with victims of gov-ernment repression during the Fourth Republic (1958-1998), which seeks to establish greater clarity around the violence suf-fered by the Venezuelan people during that period.

“It’s not about hate”, said Rangel, “but about the struggle for justice”.

Rodrigo Cabezas, member of the PSUV’s National Directorate, said that the example of socialist leaders such as Jorge Rodriguez guides the “socialist militants, revolutionaries and Venezuelan patriots” of today. The socialists of today, he affirmed, “are mak-ing real part of the dreams for which he (Jorge Rodriguez) lived and struggled”.

JORGE ANTONIO RODRIGUEZ (1942 – 1976)

Jorge Antonio Rodriguez is considered one of Venezuela’s most important socialist mili-tants, leaders, and ideologues.

Born on 14 February 1942 in Carora, state of Lara, he first became involved in Venezuela’s political life as a student of edu-cation at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV).

While at the university, Ro-driguez led an increasingly radical student movement and, in 1973, helped establish the So-cialist League – a leftist alterna-tive to the political parties and structures formed during what is commonly referred to as the Fourth Republic. Rodriguez was Secretary General of Ven-ezuela’s Socialist League until, on 25 July 1976, members of the state’s security forces kid-napped and tortured him, leav-ing him to die from his injuries while in detention.

“We raise the red flag”, Rodri-guez once said, “because red is the color of Revolution”. And in the case of Venezuela, he af-firmed, this revolution is based on “courage, happiness, and a to-tal disposition to fight”.

Rodriguez also insisted on the ac-tive participation of women, youth and students, campesinos and oth-er excluded sectors of Venezuelan society, affirming that their par-ticipation is at the heart of “making and creating revolution”.

WOMEN’S ROLEWomen’s presence in the strug-

gle, for example, “has a profound revolutionary significance”, he ar-gued. “To rebel against a system of exploitation and oppression which attacks them with extreme forms subjugation, and then to embrace proletarian positions, is a level of capacity” that must be appreci-ated by all those who struggle for socialism in Venezuela.

“Without women”, he said, “a real mass revolutionary move-ment can not exist”.

An outspoken socialist, Rodri-guez was also highly critical of reformist tendencies within the Venezuelan left. He called re-formism “the enemy at home” and said that reformists “present a false package of what struggle and revolution look like, serving only to help consolidate the pow-er and domination of the bour-geoisie over the working class”. To combat reformism, Rodriguez said, the Venezuelan left should engage in a “fraternal ideologi-cal battle, a banner of shared ex-periences and dispositions”, that must be made reality without sac-rificing “revolutionary unity”.

“We must be consequential with our calls for struggle”, he affirmed. “Socialism is consoli-dated through social struggle and one must not rest for one minute in this fight; a fight that is limited only by total victory or death”.

SOCIALISM REVIVEDBefore his assassination, Rodri-

guez warned the governing Demo-cratic Action party that Venezuelan revolutionaries would “take the struggle for socialism to the ulti-mate consequences” and if they are “killed in combat” there will always be “other valuable comrades who will certainly continue the struggle” for Venezuelan socialism.

The Bolivarian Revolution, led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, is based on the progressive ideas established by the country’s constitutional assembly (Constitu-tion of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, 1999) as well as the Si-mon Bolivar National Project (2007-2013) – the country’s first five-year plan for socialist development.

T/ COIP/ Agencies

The artillery of ideasENGLISH EDITIONFRIDAY | July 29, 2011 | No. 74 Bs 1 | CA R A C A S

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 most remarkable thing about the de-bate over the debt ceiling crisis is not

what will result if the US government de-faults. Commentators from a wide spectrum of political and economic opinion cannot agree on what might take place on August 2 if the debt ceiling isn’t raised.

The startling thing is that here, in the heart of world capitalism, with a ruling class of unparalleled wealth and power, the political representatives of this system are stumbling along unable to fashion a solution.

Nothing more clearly shows how out of control the capitalist system is than this fact.

One would think that with capitalism still mired in economic recession, with more than 30 million counted as unemplo-yed or underemployed in the US, with the foreclosure crisis dragging on for years, that all sections of the ruling class would unite on an economic plan of action to avoid default. But they can’t. It is the class character of the United States that is ma-king a solution so difficult to achieve in this bourgeois democracy.

The Republican Party represents the highest ranks of the Wall Street bankers and corporations. But because this is a “democracy”, this billionaire class has had to cultivate a mass base in the middle class and even sections of the wor-king class. For decades they have appealed to racism, anti-union and anti-immigrant prejudices to bring under their wing groups like the Tea Party and reli-gious fundamentalist elements. Thus Con-gress is filled with a host of new, ignorant and rabidly right-wing politicians.

Many of these representatives are so uns-chooled they don’t even realize who their real bosses are. So they play with the fire of default on the debt in order to press for massive cuts to all social programs won by the working class over three-quarters of a century. Republicans with more sense and more connection to Wall Street understand this, but they have difficulty resolving this conflict between their masters’ economic stability and the need to maintain a mass electoral base.

MASS ACTION NEEDEDThe Democratic Party leadership, with

President Barack Obama leading the way, is willing to begin dismantling Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. All they are asking of the Republicans is that they agree to some paltry tax loopho-

USA: the debt crisis and the working classle closings. The Democrats could then tell their mass electoral base — of poor people, people of color and the unions — that the rich gave up something, too. The objection of a section of the Democratic Congress to any cuts to Social Security and other critical programs only shows their fear of losing their constituency’s support.

What is missing in all this drama is a real mass reaction in the streets. The union leader-ship, despite decades of losses, still clings to the Democratic Party as their only salvation. With all the attacks at local, sta-te and national levels, they are still mobilizing more for Obama’s reelection than for real mass struggle.

For example, the Service Employees union has spent millions of dollars and put hundreds of paid staff into the streets to or-ganize “Good Jobs Now” rallies in Detroit and other cities over the past few months. But their own speakers have expressed wo-rry that workers won’t come out to vote for Obama in 2012. They hope that by getting people into motion through rallies and pic-ket lines for jobs they can then direct them into the polling booth next year.

The Democratic Party dares not unleash a real mass movement for

fear it could not be con-trolled. Polls show that

the majority in the US want big tax increases

on the rich. But this is totally unacceptable to the capitalist ruling class, which wants to unload the entire crisis onto the backs of poor and working people.

While the majority of the people oppose the wars abroad, no serious proposal has been put forward to end the wars and redi-rect the trillion-dollar military budget to sol-ve the problem. Neither the politicians nor the capitalist-controlled mass media allow these logical solutions to get a hearing.

The working class doesn’t have the orga-nization or the influence as yet to intervene decisively in this debate over the debt cei-ling. It lacks consciousness to put forward a real class program that puts the blame and the solution entirely onto the backs of the banking and corporate bosses. Without the-se the working class remains a spectator to the show being put on in Washington.

‘DEMOCRACY’ FRAGILEThe inability of the capitalist “democracy”

to resolve this issue, so important to the sta-bility of finance capital, points to a hidden danger that every worker should be made aware of — the fragility of our “democra-cy” itself. Capitalism is an economic system that can exist under many different gover-ning forms. It has existed under monarchies, military dictatorships, fascist regimes and representative governments. Capitalists of-ten prefer operating under representative government (bourgeois democracy) as the best way to hide their real dictatorship and keep the masses deluded. But in times of cri-sis when the “democratic” system isn’t able to protect them or serve them, the capitalist class wastes no time in shifting its support to a naked dictatorship.

At the federal level we can see the decli-ne of the power of Congress in the refusal of the President, the head of the executive branch, to follow the War Powers Act when the US launched its assault on Libya. Even though this act and Article 1 of the Consti-tution itself give war-making powers only to Congress, that body caved in to the exe-cutive branch with barely a peep.

It isn’t impossible to imagine that a seve-re financial disaster could propel this coun-try further away from democratic forms of rule. Only the intervention of the vast working class and its allies can reverse the declining standard of living and end the hidden or open dictatorship of the capita-list ruling class.

- David Sole