ENGLISH EDITION/The artillery of ideas INTERNATIONALFriday, September 20, 2013 | Nº 176 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve Latin Americans shine at UNAs the 68th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York City got underway this week, the delegations from Latin American fired up the meeting by planting clear, strong, and unequivocal challenges to US hegemony and pushing for a democratic restructuration of the international body. In a unified fashion, Latin American leaders spoke out in favor of a peaceful resolution to the US-generate crisis in Syria, while condemning not just the use of chemical weapons there, but anywhere. page 5

Security

Venezuela makes arrests in Air France drug caseNearly a dozen officials were arrested in Venezuela after 1.3 tons of cocaine were found on an Air France flight. page 3

Integration

Venezuela signs UN accord to protectthe disabledThe Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was signedat the UN. page 4

Politics

More US-Venezuela tensionsVenezuelan President Maduro cancelled hisUN trip after visa and flight problems causedby the US. page 6

Analysis

US urged to curb militarizationin Latin America page 7

Opinion

Obama at the UN: A defenseof imperial aggression page 8

Venezuela and China forge“strategic alliance of the future”

US citizens laud Maduro’s peace initiatives

T/ MinciIn the context of Syria be-

ing the main topic on the agenda for the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly, US citizens have been laud-ing President Nicolás Ma-duro’s initiatives for peace.

Les Sumner trusts that the General Assembly will take important measures relat-ing to Syria, as well as reach a global consensus on what needs to be done to eliminate chemical weapons.

He lauded the calls for peace from President Ma-duro and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Any peaceful measure that can be taken to stop the massacre is valid. I want to see consensus in policies from the US, Europe and South America: Venezuela, Colombia … to reach an ac-cord to solve this peaceful-ly”, he said.

Another US citizen, Marcella Lowney, appre-ciates that Maduro fights for equality and the rights of the people not only at a national level, but interna-tionally as well.

Puerto Rican Daniel San-chez, who grew up in the US, noted that the most im-portant issue at hand for the UN was the situation be-tween Syria and the United States, and that he supports Venezuelan and Russian peace proposals.

He suggests that there is a chance that US President Barack Obama will stop an intervention in Syria and adopt the more peaceful stance shown by countries like Venezuela and Russia.

“Nobody wants war. The world wants to live in peace”, he said.

Fellow Puerto Rican Juan Camacho knows that the UN must address the Syrian Conflict. “We want peace. Why would we go to war when what we need is aid and food?” he questioned.

Venezuelan head of state Nicolas Maduro has strengthened his country’s strategic alli-ance with China, signing 27 agreements worth over $20 billion during a state visit to Bei-jing. “We’ve sealed the strategic alliance of the future, an alliance for economic develop-ment, prosperity, and the happiness of our peoples”, declared Maduro as he left China on Tuesday. The state visit, running from September 21 to 24, was Maduro’s first to the Asian nation as Venezuelan President. Pg. 2

India & Venezuelato grow energy relations

Citing the “increasing appetite” for crude at Indian refineries, India’s minister for petroleum and natural gas has requested long-term supplies from Vene-zuela. M. Veerappa Moily met with Rafael Ramirez, Venezuela’s minister of energy and mines, who led a delegation to India for a review of cooperation in the hydrocarbons sector.

Indian representatives cited difficulties related to pri-cing and signing of term contracts for importation of cru-de from Venezuela. Ramirez encouraged Indian compa-nies to increase participation and invited them to attend a meeting in Venezuela Oct. 7-9. Ramirez assured his audience that all issues would be discussed in detail to arrive at mutually acceptable solutions.

Both agreed to completing a comprehensive package that would also include participation by Indian companies in pro-viding expertise for infrastructure and technology, and for boosting trade in goods and services.

The artillery of ideas2 Impact | Friday, September 27, 2013

T/ Ewan RobertsonP/ Presidential Press

Venezuelan head of state Nicolas Maduro has strengthened his country’s

strategic alliance with China, signing 27 agreements worth over $20 billion during a state visit to Beijing.

“We’ve sealed the strate-gic alliance of the future, an alliance for economic devel-opment, prosperity, and the happiness of our peoples”, de-clared Maduro as he left Chi-na on Tuesday. The state visit, running from September 21 to 24, was Maduro’s first to the Asian nation as Venezuelan President.

On Sunday the XII meeting of the Venezuela – China High Level Mixed Commission took place, during which accords were signed representing over $20 billion of Chinese invest-ment in Venezuela.

In petroleum, state oil com-panies Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and China’s CNPC will develop a new project in the Junin 10 bloc of the Orino-co Belt worth $14 billion, which will produce 220,000 bpd. An agreement was also reached to form a mixed company be-tween PDVSA and SINOPEC to exploit the Junin 1 bloc.

Meanwhile the Chinese De-velopment Bank approved a new credit line of $5 billion for Venezuela, which will be administered by the Venezu-ela-China Joint Fund, estab-lished in 2007.

“With this credit we will fi-nance [projects in] housing, ag-riculture, transport, industry, highways, electricity, mining, healthcare, science and tech-nology”, Maduro announced through Twitter.

Another important invest-ment commitment from Chi-na is assistance and funding of $700 million for a project to map out mining sites in Ven-ezuela, and for the engineer-ing, study and feasibility for the mining of the Las Cristi-nas gold deposits, one of the biggest in the region.

In an agreement signed between Venezuela’s state petrochemical company Pequiven and the Chinese Export-Import Bank (Exim-bank), China will invest $391 million in the construction

of a maritime port at Moron, Carabobo state, for the ex-port of Venezuelan urea and ammonia.

In a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sun-day, Maduro highlighted Venezuela’s commitment to “ratify and widen the strategic alliance and joint development of mutual resources that our dear Comandante and eternal father Hugo Chavez knew how to construct”.

For his part, Xi Jinping welcomed the state visit as “a boost so that relations [with Venezuela] can ascend to a new level”.

Accords were also signed in the areas of education, agricul-ture, culture, technology, di-

saster response and diplomatic cooperation.

An agenda for cultural ex-change between the two govern-ments was agreed for 2014-2016, with Venezuela hoping to attract more Chinese tourists. In 2014 the two countries will mark the 40th anniversary since diplo-matic relations began.

During Maduro’s visit he also engaged in a range of other official engagements. On Monday the Venezuelan President addressed members of the Chinese Community Party on the topic of “the Con-struction of Bolivarian Social-ism”, where he described the current era as “the search for the socialist alternative of the 21st century, from the old and

decadent capitalist neoliberal formulas of the past”.

A GROWING ALLIANCEVenezuelan-Chinese relations

have greatly expanded over the previous decade. A “strategic relationship” was pursued with China from 2003 by former Pres-ident Hugo Chavez, who saw China as a partner for economic development and as part of a new “multi-polar world order” to counteract the hegemony of the United States.

China likewise has engaged with Venezuela as a source of oil to fuel its rapid industrialization and as an important partner in the South American region.

As a result, since 2003 China has provided Venezuela with $36 billion dollars in credit for domestic investment, $20 bil-lion of which has already been paid back in the form of oil shipments.

In return Venezuela has in-creased oil shipments to China as part of the diversification of its export markets, and is cur-rently committed to sending 640,000 barrels per day (bpd), 264,000 of which are used for credit repayment.

Meanwhile the signing of over 300 accords has seen co-operation deepen in all fields, with bilateral trade increasing from $350 million in 2000 to $23 billion last year.

Venezuelan President Maduro seals “strategic alliance” with China

Further, Venezuela’s Si-mon Bolivar and Francisco de Miranda satellites were both built and launched with Chi-nese assistance.

On Sunday President Ma-duro offered a speech in Beijing where he proposed that both governments form a special planning commission to map out the development of Venezu-ela’s alliance with China over the next ten years.

“Let’s visualize the next ten years in each area of coopera-tion under the principles we’ve constructed; of mutual benefit, shared gain, gradualism, per-fect planning and maximum ef-ficiency”, he said.

The Venezuelan President also predicted that by the end of the current decade Venezuela will have established a “21st cen-tury socialist” economic model. “Venezuela will be riding upon the longed-for dream of eco-nomic development, economic sustainability, [and] diversifica-tion, and I’m sure it will be rid-ing alongside it’s brother, the People’s Republic of China”.

Maduro argued that one of the main challenges for Ven-ezuela’s economic development is to overcome dependence on oil exports, and as such held that agreements signed with China were a “commitment and a challenge”.

“It’s with China, as Coman-dante Chavez visualized twenty years ago, that Venezuela will move through the 21st century as a century of development, opportunity and diversifica-tion”, he added.

“INSINCERE” OPPOSITION CRITICISM REJECTED

While Venezuela’s execu-tive train was in Beijing, the right-wing opposition at home criticized bilateral relations as “selling Venezuela” to the Chi-nese. One of the most prominent opposition figures making such comments was lawmaker Ma-ria Carina Machado, a hard line conservative who participated in the 2002 coup attempt against the Chavez government and held a private meeting with George W Bush in 2004.

Pro-government lawmaker Robert Serra responded to the comments on Monday, saying that the opposition had “lost all manner of sincerity”.

Speaking on public channel VTV, he added, “Just look at with whom they left the re-sponsibility to say we are sell-ing the country…the person [Maria Corina Machado] that went and knelt down before the most public murderer that the United States as ever seen, George Bush junior”.

The artillery of ideasFriday, September 27, 2013 | Security 3

T/ Ryan Mallett-Outtrim

Venezuelan authorities have ar-rested eight military personnel

in connection to 1.3 tons of cocaine found on an Air France flight from Venezuela.

On Saturday, French officials an-nounced that 31 suitcases filled with cocaine had been seized at Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris. French Inte-rior Minister Manuel Valls estimated that the haul’s street value was around 50 million euros, though some estimates by legal sources have been as high as 200 million euros.

The flight had arrived in Paris after departing on September 10 from Ca-racas. On Sunday, Venezuela’s public ministry announced that three arrests had been made.

The Bolivarian National Guard’s (GNB) sergeants Víctor Sanabria Ramírez and Nelson Rojas Rodríguez, along with Lieutenant Jose Gonzalez Ruiz appeared in court this week.

“These are the first arrests”, Jus-tice and Interior Minister Miguel Ro-driguez told state broadcaster VTV earlier this week.

Then on Tuesday, five more GNB troops were arrested including a lieutenant colonel, along with an air-port security guard and a baggage handler. Rodriguez stated that from China, President Nicolas Maduro called on authorities to “apply the maximum weight of the law to those responsible”.

“Our desire is fierce and strong, and we will bring the full weight of the law to any official ...responsible for this”, Rodriguez affirmed.

According to the minister, it is “al-most obvious” that airline or airport staff may have been complicit in the alleged smuggling operation. “We are investigating how the drugs came to Maiquetia (International Airport) and how they could get on the plane without being detected”, he said.

“How could a cocaine shipment reach France and get taken out with-out going through the normal con-trols?” He questioned.

This week, investigators began re-viewing footage from security camer-as at the Maiquetia airport. Already, however, over 20 people have been

questioned in relation to the incident, according to the minister.

In a press release, Air France stated that it was unaware of how the drugs were allegedly smuggled aboard the flight last week, but indicated that it has launched its own internal investigation.

“Pending the results of these inves-tigations, immediate measures have been taken to enhance our checks of baggage and goods on departure from certain sensitive destinations”, the statement read.

According to French police, the suitcases were registered under false names that didn’t match up with the flight’s passenger manifest.

Valls described the haul as “the big-gest seizure of cocaine ever made in mainland France”. The minister also stated on Monday that “several mem-bers of a criminal organization” had been arrested by French authorities. The arrests were made due to an inter-national effort by authorities in France, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom, Valls has said.

According to Rodriguez, the alleged smuggling operation was lead by a

European group who buy narcotics in South America.

VENEZUELA’S FIGHT AGAINST COCAINEUnited Nations monitors do not consid-

er Venezuela a cocaine producing coun-try. The coca leaf, from which the narcot-ic is derived, is mostly grown in countries like Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.

However, Venezuela’s geographic position makes it a convenient tran-sit route for cocaine bound for North American and European markets, ac-cording to some narcotics analysts.

Washington has become increasingly critical of Venezuelan counter-narcotics efforts, particularly since the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was removed from the country in 2005 under former President Hugo Chavez, following allegations that DEA agents had engaged in espionage.

However, according to President Ni-colas Maduro, since 2005 Venezuela has significantly improved its anti-drug efforts.

Last year, one of Colombia’s most infa-mous druglords Daniel “Crazy” Barrera was captured in Venezuela by local se-curity forces working alongside Colom-bian, US and British counterparts.

Along with Barrera, between 2006 and 2013 the heads of more than 100 narcotics organizations have been apprehended by Venezuelan authorities, according to the National Anti-Drug Office (ONA).

T/ Paul DobsonP/ Agencies

“There can’t be full exploitation of the potential of tourism without citizen security”, so declared Com-

mander of the Police Forces, and Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace, Rodri-guez Torres this week, speaking from the tourist destination of Falcon.

The Minister underlined the necessity of tackling crime levels to facilitate the opening of the numerous tourist destina-tions that Venezuela has, both to local and international tourists. Venezuela is con-sidered one of the most potential nations in Latin America for tourism, boasting Caribbean coastline, Amazon rainforest, Andean Mountains, desert, plains, some of the most diverse flora and fauna, and of course the highest waterfall in the world, Angel Falls. However worries about secu-rity have held international tourism back in recent years.

Falcon State, he explained as an exam-ple, is “that which counts with the high-est potential for the development of tour-ism in the country”, with its stunning Caribbean beaches and islets. However

Venezuela makes arrests after Frenchauthorities make record cocaine haul

Fight against crime will allow development of tourism explains Interior Minister

it has “a serious problem with crime” which is hindering its development.

“This is where we come in, the Plan Se-cure Nation”, explained the Police Chief. “It is our responsibility, the security forces, to safeguard the tourist destina-tions and guarantee tourists security”.

In recent weeks, numerous pilot pro-grams have got off the ground which will train police forces in tourism, teach-ing them, amongst other things, how to treat a tourist, how to safeguard a tour-ist hotspot, and what special problems tourism brings in the security field.

“The (training) program looks to promote the integral security of na-

tional and international tourists”, explained the Minister for Tourism, Andres Izarra.

Both the National Bolivarian Police Force (PNB) and the National Experi-mental University of Security (UNES) will be collaborating in this training drive, which forms part of the Great Mission ‘A Life to All Venezuela’ and its subprogram ‘Plan Secure Nation’ so launched by President Maduro.

The dean of UNES, Soraya El Ach-kar, explained that the principal training school for the police forces is committed to “developing programs of tourism which allow us to attend to

the security needs in the points with the highest flow of tourists”.

Furthermore, UNES is “thinking about offering a Higher University Diploma in Tourism Police, with the idea of strength-ening the tourism industry”.

The pilot training will start in the States of Nueva Esparta, Aragua, Fal-con, and Sucre along the Caribbean coastline, the Andean State of Táchira, and the Amazon. The course lasts six months and will eventually be deployed in all of the States, which have potential in tourism.

“This (past) Saturday, International Day of the Beaches, we start(ed) the train-ing in tourism of the PNB in Aragua”, tweeted Governor of the entity, and ex- In-terior Minister, Tareck El Aissami.

Izarra underlined that the training in tourism of the security forces is perfect-ly in line with international standards, and that he has achieved “the participa-tion of the World Tourism Organization to accompany us, which will allow us to impart this training according to inter-national standards”. Tourist Police are common in other Latin American holi-day destinations such as Buenos Aires and Bogota.

The artillery of ideas4 Integration | Friday, September 27, 2013

T/ Ryan Mallett-OuttrimP/ Agencies

South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Maite

Emily Nkoana-Mashabane has praised Venezuela’s efforts to eradicate poverty, following a meeting with Venezuelan For-eign Affairs Minister Elias Jaua last week.

“There are many lessons we can learn from [Venezuela]”, Nkoana-Mashabane stated last Thursday, according to AVN.

“We can eradicate poverty, we can share in the experience of how to benefit from mineral resources”, she said.

In particular, Nkoana-Mashabane highlighted Ven-ezuela’s efforts to reduce hun-ger. In June, Venezuela was awarded by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Orga-nization (FAO) for more than halving hunger. “People must have food security in order to defend themselves financially”, Nkoana-Mashabane stated.

Along with poverty allevia-tion, according to the South African Government News Agency, the “purpose of the visit [was] to strengthen bilat-eral relations and cooperation in the areas of energy, mining, agriculture, education, as well as arts and culture”.

The two ministers also re-portedly discussed a proposed Africa-South America Coop-eration Fund, aimed at boost-ing trade between the two continents. Another item on the agenda was discussion of ways to deepen ties between the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA and its South African counterpart, PetroSA.

Nkoana-Mashabane also met with Venezuelan Minister for Defense Carmen Melendez to discuss possible future bilater-al defense initiatives. In a press release, the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation de-scribed the trip as “successful”.

“The visit has gone a long way towards solidifying politi-cal, economic and cultural rela-tions between South Africa and Venezuela”, Nkoana-Masha-bane stated.

Following his meeting with the South African minister, Jaua spoke of the historic im-portance of Africa to Venezu-

T/ Venezuelan Mission tothe United NationsP/ Presidential Press

Venezuela signed the Con-vention on the Rights of

Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol Tues-day at the seat of the UN in New York.

Venezuela signed UN documentfor the protection of people with disabilities

The adoption of this UN in-strument began in 2006, and it came into force in 2008.

This convention reaffirms that all persons with disabili-ties must enjoy all human rights and fundamental liberties.

At the event, the Venezu-elan Permanent Representa-tive to the UN Samuel Mon-

cada said in his speech the following: “the signing of this document is a cornerstone in the social and revolutionary project that Venezuela is going through, in support and de-fence of the fundamental rights of the people with disabilities. Venezuela has created legal instruments which protect

people with disabilities, such as the People with Disability Act of 2006, which among other aspects states that people with disabilities must have access to free medical assistance; better access to public transport and adequate representation in the work place”.

Ambassador Moncada add-ed in his speech that, “in the past, many children could not attend school because the country did not have adequate infrastructure to take care of them, due to their disabilities. However, in recent years, the revolutionary Government of Venezuela has delivered 400 purpose-built public school classrooms designed to accom-modate the disabled. These classrooms have allowed more than 3,800 children with dis-abilities to attend school”.

In addition to the People with Disability Act, the Venezuelan Government set up Mission Jose Gregorio Hernandez in 2008, which on provides imme-diate care to the people with disabilities, and trains medi-cal doctors and physical thera-pists in the causes, prevention, treatment and social aspects of disabilities.

Venezuela and South Africa pledgeto deepen bilateral cooperation

ela. “The supreme Comandante Hugo Chavez vindicated our Af-rican origins and overturned a colonial discourse of the moth-er Spain to a mother which is Africa and to our indigenous peoples”, Jaua stated.

“From that recognition of our cultural roots, Chavez devel-oped a strategy of rapproche-

ment and cooperation with the peoples of Africa”, he said. Under former President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela pursued deeper trade and diplomatic ties with the African continent.

In 2005 Venezuela had 10 embassies in Africa, in 2008 it had 18. Today, there are 30 Ven-ezuelan embassies across the

continent. Chavez himself also traveled to a number of African states never previously visited by a Venezuelan President, in-cluding Algeria, Libya, Mozam-bique, Angola, Mali, Gambia and Benin.

Venezuela’s renewed inter-est in the continent came dur-ing a period of expanding in-

tercontinental trade between Africa and South America. In 2002 trade between the two continents was worth around US$7.2 billion; by 2011 that fig-ure had ballooned to roughly US$39.4 billion.

Today’s trade relationship between South Africa and Venezuela is based largely on raw materials. South Africa’s main export to Venezuela is Ferro-vanadium, while Ven-ezuela supplies South Africa with oil.

In 2008, the two countries signed a Framework Agree-ment on Cooperation aimed at boosting trade and diplomatic relations.

This week, Venezuela en-gaged in further talks with African leaders at a meeting of foreign ministers of the Af-rica-South America Coopera-tion Forum, which occurred on the sidelines of the 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

According to Nkoana Masha-bane, the two ministers intend to meet again in early 2014.

“There are a lot of common-alities between our two coun-tries as we are both developing countries. Our cooperation is guided by the principles of mu-tual interest, economic devel-opment and total eradication of poverty”, the South African minister said.

The artillery of ideasFriday, September 27, 2013 | International 5

T/ Paul DobsonP/ AFP

As the 68th General Assem-bly of the United Nations in New York City got under-

way this week, the delegations from Latin American fired up the meeting by planting clear, strong, and unequivocal chal-lenges to US hegemony and pushing for a democratic re-structuration of the interna-tional body.

Contributions from Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Co-lombia, Peru, and Uruguay were publicized live on Tele-sur, while Venezuelan Presi-dent Maduro was conspicu-ous by his absence, despite a planned visit which was can-celled at the last minute.

SYRIAIn a unified fashion, Latin

American leaders spoke out in favor of a peaceful resolution to the US-generate crisis in Syria, while condemning not just the use of chemical weapons there, but anywhere.

Argentine President Cristi-na Fernandez told the Assem-bly, “there are no just wars, the only justice is in peace”, and compared those pushing for war to those who activated the chemical weapons by ask-ing, “What difference is there between death by chemical arms or by bombing?”

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff asserted that, “we re-ject unilateral interventions… which only aggravate the po-litical instability in the regional and increase human suffering”.

The poetic contribution of the Uruguayan President Jose ‘Pepe’ Mujica stressed the role of humanity in its own devel-opment, and explained that the path to follow must be one of peace: “man, while he lives in a climate of War, lives in prehistoric times, pitting man against man”.

UN REFORM“We can’t live in a world

where everything depends on what just 1 or 2 people decide”, explained Kirchner, referring to the antidemocratic nature of the UN Security Council. We need “a genuinely demo-cratic world”.

“There is a necessity to re-form and amplify the Security Council”, Peruvian President Ollanta Humala added, so as to “much better reflect the reali-ties of the 21st century”.

Chilean President and US ally, Sebastian Piñera, backed also the calls: “At the end of the day, if we push for democ-racy, dialogue, and partici-pation when governing our countries, I don’t see any rea-son not to apply these same principles and values when adopting decisions which af-fect the entire world”.

The main candidate to be included as a permanent member of an extended Se-curity Council is Brazil, who told the Assembly, “The council should urgently look for independent and con-structive voices. Only if we increase the number of per-manent and non-permanent members and we include

those countries which are in a process of development will we be able to solve and over-come the lack of representa-tion and legitimacy”.

From Venezuela, President of the Latin American Parlia-ment, Rodrigo Cabezas agreed. “The General Assembly should be established as the maximum voice… and it should be based on the concept of 1 country, 1 vote, so that if the General As-sembly takes a decision, then the Security Council cannot come and modify it”.

RELOCATIONReferring to recurrent CIA

backed attempts on the lives of anti-imperialist Presi-dents, Bolivian President Mo-rales proposed a relocation of the UN away from US soil for security reasons. “Truly, here we don’t feel safe… I am seriously asking the Presi-dents to think about chang-ing the headquarters”.

Furthermore, the location encourages the US to behave like the boss of the UN, he explained. “As he is the head of the household, President Obama speaks as the police-man, as the boss, as the own-er of the world”.

US CYBER-SPYINGFollowing leaked evidence

of CIA spying on Brazilian oil firms last week, President Rousseff launched a scathing attack on the US. It is “a vio-lation of our Human Rights and a lack of respect for the sovereignty of our nation”, she declared.

UN General Assembly: Southern pacifists shine as Northern Nobel Peace Encourages war

“What we have in front of us is a grave case of the viola-tion of civil liberties, a case of invasion, of the collection of confidential and secretive in-formation related to business dealings”.

She went on to demand “explanations, apologies, and guarantees that this won’t happen again”. Barak Obama, speaking directly after her blasting speech, made no mention to the case, nor offered any apology or justification for his govern-ment’s actions.

Unanimously, the Latin American Presidents backed her criticisms and calls for ac-tion against the arrogant stance of the US.

President Fernandez de-scribed the US as being “off the lease”, and Morales af-firmed, “there is a lot of cyni-cism when Obama speaks of justice, of liberty, of peace, as if he were the owner of the planet. Here there are no owners of the planet, each country has its own sover-eignty and dignity”.

The Ecuadorian Foreign Min-ister Ricardo Patiño, speaking outside of the UN meeting, de-scribed Obama’s contribution as “more like thirty minutes of a world police report”.

CAPITALISM IS THE PROBLEMIn an eloquent contribu-

tion; Uruguay President Mujica injected a touch of humanism and environmen-talism to the meeting, criti-cizing capitalism for reduc-ing us to consumers, sewing

anti-values responsible for warmongering, and restrict-ing human and scientific de-velopment while destroying the environment.

“I am from the south, and I come from the south to this as-sembly… I bring with me the millions of poor countrymen in the cities of Latin America, which is the common nation we are making. With original cultures trampled over, the remains of colonialism, with useless blockades, with the consequences of electronical vigilance which doesn’t do any-thing else other than sew a lack of trust which envenoms us. I come with the giant social debt, the need to defend the Amazon, and of Colombia which will achieve its peace”, Mujica told the Assembly.

“We believe that the world is crying out for global rules… for a brutal cultural change… neither the great States, nor the transnationals, and definitely not the financial system should govern the human world”, he asserted.

“Combatting the dirty econo-my, the drug running, the rob-bery and fraud, the corruption, contemporary plagues stem-ming from these antivalues, this is what makes us happy, which enriches us”.

Other issues raised by the Latin American nations were the defense of the Palestinian demands for Statehood; the failure of Chevron to pay $19 billion to the Ecuadorian Gov-ernment for damages in the Amazon rainforest; and the drive for peace in Colombia.

The artillery of ideas6 Politics | Friday, September 27, 2013

T/ Ewan RobertsonP/ Agencies

Venezuela has rejected the United States’ version of events in the dispute over

President Nicolas Maduro’s passage through US airspace last Friday.

The diplomatic fallout reached media attention when Venezuelan foreign minister Elias Jaua told reporters that President Maduro had been de-nied permission to fly through US airspace.

According to Venezuelan of-ficials, the presidential flight was prohibited from passing over Puerto Rico, with President Maduro considering changing the flight path to reach Paris, France. However after hurried diplomatic talks permission was eventually granted for the flight to pass through US airspace.

The flight’s final destination is Beijing, China, where Ma-duro will conduct a state visit.

US STATEMENTIn a diplomatic statement

emitted Friday by the United States Embassy in Caracas, the US denied prohibiting the Venezuelan President’s pas-sage through its airspace, and blamed any delays in granting passage on the Venezuelan gov-ernment for not “properly sub-mitting” the flight request.

The statement said that Vene-zuela had only submitted the in-ternational flight request with one day’s notice, when three are required. Further, the US diplo-mats argued that approval was delayed because “the [presiden-tial] plane in question was not a state aircraft, which is required for diplomatic clearance”.

“We advised Venezuela on the correct way to get the clearance and notified their authorities last night that permission was granted”, the statement read.

RESPONSEVenezuela’s top diplomat

in Washington, Calixto Or-tega, rejected the US version of events, affirming in a call to state channel VTV that the US had indeed denied Maduro’s passage through its airspace.

“The permission was denied. I have the denial in writing. We had to have a series of conversa-tions [to gain clearance for the flight]”, he said.

Ortega also disagreed with the arguments put forward for the delay in granting permis-sion to enter US airspace, ex-plaining that the plane, route and flight request were exactly the same as in June when Ma-duro passed over Puerto Rico en route to Italy for a diplomatic tour of Europe.

“It’s the same plane, with the same crew, and exactly the same route made, [and in June] a permission request [was] im-mediately approved”, he ex-plained.

The Venezuelan diplomat argued that Venezuela would need to keep “very aware” of the possibility such moves by the US in the future, saying that “they took us by surprise”. He also criticized press in Europe for favoring the US version of events in the dispute.

In addition, Ortega voiced concerns that the US would repeat last night’s action dur-ing the following week, when Maduro had planned to travel to New York to attend the Unit-ed Nations General Assembly meeting.

Venezuela has further ac-cused the US of denying visas to members of its delegation to the UN gathering.

Samuel Moncada, Venezu-ela’s ambassador to the UN, sent a letter to UN General Secretary Ban Ki Moon re-

questing the UN ensure the US “strictly fulfill its interna-tional obligations”.

In the letter, Moncada ac-cused the US government of “deliberately delaying the ap-proval of entry permits” to members of Maduro’s diplo-matic team, and of trying to “create logistical barriers…to his [Maduro’s] visit”.

US State Department spokes-person Marie Harf denied the accusation, stating to journal-ists, “No visa has been denied to the Venezuelan delegation to the United Nations General As-sembly this year”.

INTERNATIONAL CONCERNThe apparent denial of Pres-

ident Maduro’s request to fly through US airspace has gen-

Venezuela rejects US version of Maduro airspace prohibition dispute

erated criticism from Venezu-ela’s regional allies.

Bolivian President Evo Mo-rales requested an “emergen-cy meeting” of the Commu-nity of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), saying that he would propose that all member states of the bloc withdraw their ambas-sadors from the US in protest. CELAC brings together every state in the Western Hemi-sphere with the exception of the US and Canada.

“If it’s with Maduro, it’s with everyone. The United States must know that if it messes with Maduro, it messes with the whole Latin American peo-ple…because this is about the unity and sovereignty of our peoples”, he said.

Meanwhile, Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez called US conduct “unjustifi-able, arbitrary and unfriendly, which offends the whole of Latin America and the Caribbean”.

Rodriguez said that CELAC member states were discuss-ing the issue, and would bring it up at the UN General Assem-bly meeting. Cuba is currently the pro tempore president of the CELAC.

The fallout comes after Evo Morales’ presidential plane was denied airspace access by four European countries in July, under supposed suspicions that the flight harboured ex-NSA intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.

Further, this week Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff can-celled her scheduled state visit to the US in October, apparent-ly due to concerns over the US spying activities toward Brazil revealed by Snowden’s leaks.

Venezuelan relations with the US have remained distant, and the two countries have not had an exchange of ambassadors since 2010. The brief attempt to improve relations follow-ing Maduro’s election in April was brought to a close by Ven-ezuela in July, after the US new ambassador to the UN made “unacceptable and unfounded” comments about the Venezu-elan government.

CANCELLED TRIPPresident Maduro abruptly

cancelled his trip to the UN General Assembly in New York due to a perceived un-safe situation with the United States. Though he was sched-uled to speak before the Gen-eral Assembly on Wednesday, his plane diverted in flight returning from a state visit to China, and instead of land-ing in New York, flew directly to Caracas. Maduro had nu-merous biltateral meetings planned at the UN as well as an anticipated gathering with local grassroots organizations and activists in the Bronx.

His cancellation raised con-cerns about whether or not United Nations headquarters should be moved to a more neutral country so as not to en-danger or place obstacles to the visits of delegations with un-friendly US relations.

The artillery of ideas Friday, September 27, 2013 | Analysis 7

T/ Jim Lobe -IPSP/ Agencies

The United States needs to phase down its drug war and tighten the reins

on its cooperation with local militaries and police in Latin America, according to a new report released Wednesday by three influential think tanks.

Of particular interest is the increase in training deploy-ments to Latin American and the Caribbean by the Special Operations Forces (SOF) – elite units like the Army’s Green Berets and Navy SEALS – due in part to the US withdrawal from Iraq and drawdown from Afghanistan.

Over the past decade, SOF ranks have more than dou-bled to about 65,000, and their commander, Admiral William McRaven, has been particu-larly aggressive in seeking new missions for his troops in new theatres, including Latin America and the Caribbean where they are training thou-sands of local counterparts.

“You can train a lot of people for the cost of one he-licopter”, Adam Isacson, an analyst with the Washing-ton Office on Latin America (WOLA), told IPS.

He noted that the increased investment in SOF was part of a much larger Pentagon strategy of maintaining a “light (military) footprint” in countries around the globe while bolstering its in-fluence with local military institutions.

The Pentagon, however, is much less transparent than the State Department, and its programs are often not subject to the same human-rights conditions and do not get the same degree of Con-gressional oversight.

Moreover, McRaven has sought the authority to de-ploy SOF teams to countries without consulting either US ambassadors there or even the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), making it even more difficult for civil society activists to track what they’re doing and whether they’re working with local units with poor human-rights records that would normally be denied US aid and training under the so-called Leahy Law.

Last summer, according to Isacson, McRaven’s com-mand even tried to work out an agreement with Colombia to set up a regional special operations coordination cen-ter there without consulting SOUTHCOM or the embassy.

US urged to curb militarizationin Latin America

“What these developments mean is that the military role in foreign policy-making is becom-ing ever greater, and military-to-military relations come to matter more than diplomatic re-lations”, he said. “What does that mean for civil-military relations not only in the region, but also here at home?”

The 32-page report, entitled “Time to Listen”, describes US policy as “on auto-pilot”, large-ly due to the powerful bureau-cratic interests in the Pentagon and the Drug Enforcement Ad-ministration and their regional counterparts that have built up over decades.

“The counter-drug bureau-cracies in the United States are remarkably resistant to change, unwilling to rethink and reas-sess strategies and goals”, said Lisa Haugaard, director of the Latin America Working Group Education Fund (LAWGEF) which released the report along with WOLA and the Center for International Policy (CIP).

The report also noted that new security technologies, includ-ing drones, whose use by the US and other countries is growing quickly throughout the region, and cyber-spying of the kind that prompted this week’s abrupt cancellation by Brazilian Presi-

dent Dilma Rousseff of her state visit here next month, pose ma-jor challenges to the security environment and civil liberties in the region.

Total US aid to Latin Ameri-ca hit its highest level in more than two decades in 2010 – nearly 4.5 billion dollars – due to the costs of the “Merida Initiative”, a multi-year pro-gramme for fighting drug-traf-ficking in Mexico and Central America, and a major inflow of assistance to help Haiti recov-er from that year’s devastating earthquake.

But aid fell sharply in 2011 – to just 2.5 billion dollars – and is expected to decline to just 2.2 billion dollars in fiscal 2014, which begins October 1.

Military and security assis-tance also reached its height in 2010, at 1.6 billion dollars, but has since declined to around 900 million dollars, largely as a result of the phase-out of Plan Colombia and the Merida Initiative. Central America is the only sub-region in which aid, including non-security assistance, is increasing sig-nificantly.

But Isacson says dollar amounts can be deceptive, and while “big ticket” aid packages are down, “other,

less transparent forms of mil-itary-to-military co-operation are on the rise”, in part due to the migration of many pro-grammes’ management from the State Department, which has more stringent reporting and human rights conditions, to the Pentagon.

A troubling trend, accord-ing to the report, is that some countries, especially Colombia, have begun training military and police forces in their neigh-bours, often with US funding and encouragement.

In that respect, these third-country trainers act as pri-vate contractors who are not subject to US human-rights laws and whose cost is a frac-tion of that of their US coun-terparts.

Despite their security forc-es’ own highly controversial human rights record, Colom-bian officers have been given major roles, for example, in Washington’s Central Amer-ica Regional Security Initia-tive (CARSI) and the Merida Initiative, as well as in Hon-duras’ police reform, accord-ing to the report.

“Bringing the military into the streets can result in grave human-rights violations”, ac-cording to Haugaard who

also noted US involvement in poorly designed and heavy-handed counter-drug opera-tions, such as one in Hondu-ras last year in which four passengers in a river taxi were killed by a joint Hondu-ran-DEA operation.

Washington’s record has not been all bad, according to the report, which praised the Obama administration’s inser-tion of human rights into its high-level bilateral dialogues with Mexico, Colombia, and Honduras and its emphasis on the importance of civilian tri-als for soldiers implicated in se-rious rights abuses in Colombia and Mexico.

The administration has also taken some steps to strengthen enforcement of the Leahy Law, which denies US aid and train-ing to foreign military units that are credibly accused of se-rious rights abuses, according to the report.

Still, Washington’s own hu-man rights record, including its failure to close the Guan-tanamo detention facility, its newly revealed extensive surveillance programmes, and a drone policy that justi-fies extra-judicial executions opens it to charges of double standard, the report noted.

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

INTERNATIONAL Friday, September 27, 2013 | Nº 177 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve

Opinion

T/ Bill Van Auken

US President Barack Obama delivered his 5th address to an opening ses-

sion of the United Nations Gen-eral Assembly Tuesday, mixing sanctimonious rhetoric about democracy and humanitarian-ism with naked threats of US military aggression.

While the media obsessed over whether the US president would stage a handshake with his Iranian counterpart, Has-san Rouhani—a meaningless gesture that the Iranians report-edly rejected—the real content of Obama’s 50-minute address was the elaboration of a foreign policy doctrine under which Washington arrogates to itself the right to militarily intervene in the Middle East as it sees fit to protect its “core interests”.

The speech made clear that the “turn to diplomacy” in rela-tion to both Syria and Iran rep-resents not some fundamental turn away from the predatory policy pursued by US imperial-ism in the region through the wars of the last decade, but rath-er a tactical shift imposed upon the Obama administration by the emergence of overwhelming and unanticipated popular hos-tility to yet another war of ag-gression in the Middle East.

This political reversal ac-counts for the decidedly defen-sive, at times self-pitying tone of Obama’s address, which was replete with complaints about Washington being maligned and misunderstood.

Before concentrating on the targets for imminent US aggres-sion—Syria and Iran—Obama claimed credit for creating a “more stable” world during his five years in the White House. He pointed to the withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq—forced upon Washington by Iraq’s refusal to sign an agreement granting US forces immunity for war crimes—and the impending end of the war in Afghanistan, where the Pentagon is planning to leave up to 20,000 troops and maintain permanent bases.

He boasted that his adminis-tration had “limited the use of

drones so they target only those who pose a continuing imminent threat” and to where “there’s a near-certainty of no civilian casualties”. This is nonsense. In Pakistan alone, it is estimated that more than 2,500 people have been killed in drone strikes, most of them civilians and the vast majority under Obama. The US president’s emergence as “assassin-in-chief”, ordering remote-control murders, is the starkest manifestation of US im-perialism’s global criminality.

The US president also took credit for “working diligently to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay,” which remains open near-

ly five years after he promised to close it, with detainees subjected to the torture of forced feeding and men the CIA tortured being placed on trial for their lives be-fore military tribunals.

In spite of these supposed conquests for peace and stabil-ity, Obama acknowledged that “dangers remain”, including Al Qaeda terror attacks, sectar-ian conflict and “the potential spread of weapons of mass de-struction”. All of these trends, he claimed, converged most powerfully in Syria.

No one would suspect from the US president’s remarks that Washington is employing and

arming Al Qaeda in Syria, as it did in Libya in 2011, as a proxy force in a war for regime change, or that it has deliberately stoked sectarianism, together with its

reactionary Arab allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar, for the same purpose.

The US president reit-erated his unsubstanti-

ated claims that the regime of Bashar al-Assad was respon-sible for the August 21 chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of Damascus and defended his “willingness to order a limited strike” on Syria, because of his determination that it was “in the national security interests of the United States”.

While claiming that evi-dence of the regime’s guilt in the August 21 incident was “overwhelming”, Obama of-fered no explanation of why Washington has refused to present its proof to the United Nations. Both the Syrian re-gime and Russia have charged that US-backed “rebels” staged the attack in order to blame it on the regime and provoke a US military intervention.

Chiding Russia for its opposi-tion to a unilateral and illegal US war on Syria, Obama stated: “We’re no longer in a cold war. There’s no great game to be won, nor does America have any in-terest in Syria beyond the well-being of its people”.

There is a long history of the US bombing people for their own “well-being”. That other interests underlie these interventions goes without saying. Obama’s reference to the “great game”—the term used to describe the rivalry between British imperial-ism and the Russian empire over dominance in Central Asia—is telling. Precisely such predatory aims are in-volved in Syria, where Wash-ington seeks to overthrow the Assad regime and replace it with a puppet government, as a means of isolating and weakening Iran, which it sees as a rival for hegemony in the energy-rich and strategically vital regions of the Persian Gulf and Central Asia.

Obama at the UN: A defenseof unilateral aggression

Obama insisted that the deal reached between Wash-ington and Moscow on the chemical disarmament of the Syrian regime be backed up with a “strong Security Coun-cil resolution” with “conse-quences” for Syria if it fails to meet the timetable set for de-stroying the weapons. Wash-ington and its allies are push-ing for a Chapter 7 resolution that would authorize military force. Russia has insisted it will veto any such measure.

“If we cannot agree even on this”, Obama said, “then it will show that the United Nations is incapable of enforcing the most basic of international laws”. This is pretense he intends to use for justifying a unilateral US military attack.

Much of the rest of Obama’s speech dealt with Iran and un-substantiated US allegations that it is developing nuclear weapons. Despite his state-ment that “the diplomatic path must be tested” in US-Iran re-lations, Obama’s remarks con-sisted largely of ultimatums to Tehran, the implicit threat of military force and no con-crete offer to lift the decades of US-driven sanctions that Rou-hani in his own speech to the General Assembly described as “violent—pure and simple,” adding, “It is the common people who are victimized by these sanctions”.

At the heart of Obama’s speech, and belying all its demo-cratic and humanitarian blath-er, was a blunt definition of “US policy toward the Middle East and North Africa”.

“The United States of America is prepared to use all elements of our power, including mili-tary force, to secure our core interests in the region”, he said. First and foremost among these interests was “the free flow of energy from the region”. He also listed terrorism and weapons of mass destruction—the phony pretexts for the US invasion of Iraq—adding that “wherever possible” Washington would “respect the sovereignty of na-tions”, and wherever not, “we will take direct action”.

That Washington’s milita-rist policy is stated so naked-ly before the United Nations is one more indication of the uncontrolled eruption of US imperialism and the grow-ing danger that US threats against Syria and Iran could turn into a regional war and even a global conflagration.