ENGLISH EDITION/The artillery of ideas INTERNATIONALFriday, November 29, 2013 | Nº 185 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve

With aims of democratizing technology and promoting access to information for youth in the country, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced his government’s plan to distribute free tablet computers to students pursuing higher education. The devices will be made available thanks to an accord signed between the Venezuelan government and the Korean firm Samsung that will see the construction of an electronics assembly plant on Venezuelan soil. In addition to the tablets, free wireless Internet service will also be available to students in every higher education classroom in the country. Page 2

Transforming communities

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro introduced Monday the next phase of a plan to transform the country’s poorer neighborhoods and improve their inhabitants’ quality of life. The program, called Mission Barrio Nuevo, Barrio Tricolor, seeks to renovate and beautify Venezuela’s barrios: the name givento urban communities made up of informal housing which traditionally lacked adequate publicservices. Pg. 4

Economy

Deals made with Dutch MonarchyThe King and Queen of Holland visited Venezuela this week to strengthen relations. P.3

Politics

A revolutionary oil policyVenezuela should use its oil and status to fight against US imperialism, says oil minister. P.5

Politics

Communes ratified nationwideCommunity groupsare building socialism through inter-linked councils and grassroots organizations. P.6

Opinion

Violence plaguesHonduran Elections page 8

Analysis

Low turnout in opposition protest against economic measures page 7

Scholarships and Resourcesfor Students a priority in Venezuela

Venezuela: 2nd highest university enrollment in Latin America

T/ AVN

The President of Venezu-ela, Nicolas Maduro, high-lighted the growth in univer-sity enrollment throughout the country, which has been achieved through Bolivarian government policies.

“Venezuela is second in Lat-in America and the Caribbean in terms of university enroll-ment. This wasn’t the case ten years ago. Today, we have 2.6 million youths studying in universities. First is Cuba, and following [Venezuela] are Ecuador, Bolivia and Uru-guay”, he announced on Mon-day in a graduation ceremony for students from the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Caracas.

Maduro indicated that the country currently has 17,790 students enrolled in com-prehensive communitar-ian medicine programs in institutions throughout the country.

The Bolivarian University of Venezuela has 3,670 stu-dents in its medical school; the National Experimental University of the Armed Forces (Unefa) has 2,242 people studying medicine; 2,552 study in Francisco de Miranda University; 3,800 in Ezequiel Zamora University; 3,250 in Romulo Gallegos University and 2,276 in Rafa-el Maria Baralt University.

GROWING ELAMPresident Maduro also en-

couraged the training of doc-tors through ELAM, a Latin American project that came about through an agreement with the Cuban government.

“It is not just about con-tinuing one project. A true revolution is measured by its capacity to multiply a project, to improve it. We have to multiply the num-ber of students in the Latin American School of Medi-cine by a factor of thou-sands”, he urged.

Reducing gender violence

According to Andreina Tarazon, Minister for Women and Gender Equality, Venezuela has conside-rably reduced violence against women thanks to Bolivarian laws. She made this declaration in ob-servance of International Day to End Violence against Women.

“In these 14 years of Bolivarian Revolution, we have progressed with new legal tools and new pu-blic policies that not only punish violence against women, but they also help prevent it”, she highlighted.

After the Law for the Right of Women to Live Free from Vio-lence was passed in 2006, “Ve-nezuela experienced a qualitative jump in reducing statistics re-lated to violence. In comparing

2012 to 2013, there is a subs-tantial reduction in the rates and complaints”, she said.

“Gender violence is a complex topic. Not all victims file com-plaints because of cultural pres-sures… Venezuela is not among the countries with the highest

rates of violence against wo-men, like Spain or Mexico, whe-re the statistics are alarming”, she indicated.

Venezuela counts on 108 spe-cial prosecutors and 50 courts that handle cases of violence against women.

The artillery of ideas2 Impact | Friday, November 29, 2013

T/ COIP/ Presi dential Press

With aims of democratiz-ing technology and pro-moting access to infor-

mation for youth in the country, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced last Thurs-day his government’s plan to distribute free tablet comput-ers to students pursuing higher education.

The revelation was made during a rally held outside the Presidential Palace of Mira-flores in celebration of Ven-ezuela’s National University Student Day.

“We are ready to begin deliv-ering personal tablets to uni-versity students for their stud-ies. This is an investment that we’re going to make in order to continue strengthening access to the most advanced technol-ogy of the era”, the head of state said to the crowd gathered out-side the presidential palace.

The devices will be made available thanks to an accord signed between the Venezuelan government and the Korean firm Samsung last Wednesday that will see the construction of an electronics assembly plant on Venezuelan soil.

The factory will operate as part of a mixed company in which the Venezuelan state will maintain a 51 percent share of the enterprise.

“We’re going to develop the technology here in Venezuela [as part of our] national produc-tion”, Maduro explained.

In addition to the tablets, the former union leader announced his administration’s intent to make wireless Internet service available to students in every higher education classroom in the country.

Vice President of Social Af-fairs, Hector Rodriguez, along with the Minister of Univer-sity Education, Pedro Calza-dilla, and Education Minister Maryann Hansson have been charged with making the proj-ect a reality.

“Now with the tablets that we are going to give to our university students, we need to strengthen all of our inter-communication for study and research”, Maduro said.

Similar educational programs aimed at expanding technology for students have been launched

in the past by Venezuela’s social-ist government.

The Canaima initiative, started by President Hugo Chavez, has provided hun-dreds of thousands of mini-laptop computers to grade school students and has been hailed by the United Nations as an educational example for countries around the world.

Millions of free textbooks have also been published for grade-schoolers in recent years and numerous other programs have been created to provide educational opportunities to residents who would otherwise be unable to earn a high school or college degree.

The massive spending has converted Venezuela into the country with the highest public investment in education in Lat-in America as a full seven per-cent of the OPEC nation’s GDP is dedicated to the social area.

MORE SCHOLARSHIPSWhile Venezuela’s constitu-

tion, ratified in 1999, codifies access to a free public educa-tion as a human right, the current government has been attentive to the tertiary costs of studying.

It has thus created a num-ber of scholarship schemes to provide recourses to students

from underprivileged popula-tions and has pledged to main-tain this trend through the coming year.

“From 1998 to 2013, we’ve increased scholarships by 275 percent. And this will contin-ue. Nobody is going to stop us”, President Maduro remarked after informing supporters of a further expansion of univer-sity grants on Thursday.

The head of state declared that the overall number of scholarships will rise from 164,000 to 200,000 in the com-ing year and will include a

boost in the number of financ-ing opportunities for those studying abroad.

Through the government’s Field General of Ayacucho program, named after inde-pendence hero Antonio Jose de Sucre, postgraduate students studying for advanced degrees outside Venezuela will be pro-vided with ten thousand new funding prospects.

“We are going to train stu-dents in careers that are fun-damental for the development of the country and that are strategic for the needs of the

Venezuelan government grants tablets, more scholarships to university students

homeland”, the Venezuelan President assured.

A BREAK WITH THE PASTDuring Thursday’s rally, Ma-

duro drew a contrast between the university policies of previ-ous governments and the range of programs being offered through the socialist platform.

“This year, 2.6 million stu-dents are attending univer-sity. During the final 10 years of neoliberalism [in the 1980s and 1990s] the opposite was the case. University matriculation was disappearing to the point that public education had al-most disappeared”, he remind-ed the crowd.

According to the head of state, Venezuela has increased university enrollment by 216 percent since the socialists first came to power in 1998.

The 51 year-old also recom-mended that today’s students review the history of repres-sion that the youth confronted during the twentieth century, a time when activists where per-secuted, imprisoned, and even murdered by the governments of the day.

“It has been calculate that more than three thousand university and high school students were captured and disappeared. There was fierce repression unleashed against youth who wanted true revolu-tionary changes, who dreamed of a real popular democracy in which the right to study was guaranteed, in which control over the nation’s oil was recov-ered”, Maduro said.

“The only way to inoculate youth and the future from any kind of fascist pretension is for youth of today to know about the massacres of the 1950s, 60s and 70s”, he added.

The student struggles of the past have been vindicated, the head of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela asserted, by the educational reforms started by the late Hugo Chavez and which continue to form one of the pillars of the current gov-ernment’s social policy.

“I want young people to un-derstand with certainty that only in socialism is it possible to guarantee access to public education. Do you think these rights could be guaranteed in capitalism? Never. Only in so-cialism”, affirmed Maduro.

The artillery of ideasFriday, November 29, 2013 | Economy 3

T/ COIP/ Presidential Press

Thousands of small and medi-um-sized Venezuelan busi-

nesses heeded the national government’s call last weekend to enroll in a new registry de-signed to protect local produc-ers and retailers from usury and price gouging.

The initiative is part of Presi-dent Nicolas Maduro’s offensive against importers, distributors and wholesalers who have been raising prices exponentially and speculating against the na-tional currency, the bolivar.

Referring to the usury and destabilization as a compo-nent of an economic war be-ing waged against the socialist government in Venezuela, the head of state expressed his con-tentment for the progress of the registry on Sunday evening.

“I have received reports that the Commercial Registry has gotten off to a great start. Thou-sands have enrolled in the shop-ping malls and public squares of the country. We keep mov-ing forward”, Maduro wrote via his twitter account.

The enrollment points have been set up to compile a record of firms that will help aid the government in identifying sup-pliers and retail outlets who are taking advantage of the nation’s preferential exchange rate to overcharge consumers and small businesses.

According to Brut Linares, President of the state-run rural development foundation, Ciara, the registry will be an important tool in the government’s efforts to protect the purchasing power of the Venezuelan population.

“We’re going to have a data-base of businesses and we’re

going to be able to trace, with much more detail, what the steps in the production chain are and what the real costs of production and distribu-tion of certain a product is in order to make sure prof-its don’t exceed 30 percent”, Linares said.

Venezuelan Vice President, Jorge Arreaza, commented on Sunday that the inscrip-tions are happening “at a good pace” and that the measure is intended to bolster commerce at the local level.

“It’s to protect you (small and medium-sized business-es) from the big firms, from the speculation that comes from the commerce chain, from imports, from the sup-pliers and wholesalers... This registry is going to primarily protect you but we are also working as a team in order to provide financing”, Arreaza informed.

The database initiative has been accompanied by inspec-tions across the country that have led to a lowering of pric-es for many products includ-

ing appliances, shoes, and automotive parts.

In many cases, retailers have voluntarily reduced costs without the need for state intervention.

The head of the nation’s Fair Price and Cost Commission, Karlin Granadillo, praised those establishments for their compliance, but noted that the problem of speculation is wide-

Maduro: Venezuelan business registry off to great start

spread and will require con-stant vigilance on the part of the government and the popu-lation to combat.

“This is a very positive ef-fect. However, we must re-main on top of all the estab-lishments and the complaints that have been made by the public in order to put in place the necessary measures”, Granadillo said.

T/ COIP/ Presidential Press

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores received Dutch King

Willem Alexander and Queen Maxima last Saturday for an of-ficial visit that saw the strength-ening of bilateral relations be-tween the two countries.

“We welcome this visit which we value very highly and we are grateful to be able to reactivate our different areas of coopera-tion and friendship”, President Maduro said upon greeting the king and queen.

Saturday’s meeting follows the signing in June of a Mem-orandum of Understanding between Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua and his Dutch counterpart Frans Tim-mermas, outlining the political will to foster greater relations.

Mike Eman, Prime Minister of Aruba, and Daniel Hodge, Prime Minster of Curacao, were also party to the accord which seeks to advance mutual assistance in energy, agricul-ture and tourism.

“Certainly we are pleased to anticipate the possibility

of positive cooperation, espe-cially regarding the memo-randum that has already been signed”, King Willem-Alexan-der said during his visit.

“One of the examples of this cooperation is that which al-ready exists between the coast guards of our countries”, the monarch added.

According to President Maduro, Saturday’s talks addressed the fight against drug trafficking and the pro-motion of commercial ties by

linking the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR) trade bloc with the Europe-an Union.

Venezuela currently occupies the pro tempore presidency of the MERCOSUR alliance, which additionally consists of Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay.

Maduro described the area that the alliance encompasses as “a peaceful zone of good neighbors and permanent col-laboration”.

The head of state extended this spirit of solidarity to Wil-lem Alexander and Maxima upon their arrival.

“We hope that they feel at home in our country and that they see this land as their land also”, Maduro said.

The king and queen were welcomed with a concert per-formed by Venezuela’s youth orchestra at the Presidential Palace of Miraflores.

The program included a ren-dition of the Dutch national an-

Dutch monarchs visit Venezuela to promote cooperation in energy, commerce

them, Wilhelmus, recognized as the oldest in the world.

The Dutch king expressed his gratitude for the performance and praised the exceptional tal-ent of Venezuela’s orchestra.

“I would like to thank you for this magnificent and impres-sive reception that we have had today. It’s very difficult to perform the national anthem of our country and it has been truly excellent the manner in which you have interpreted it”, he commented.

For his part, President Ma-duro also thanked the orches-tra, which he asserted “has transmitted such force and power that could only come from the heart”.

“We want to thank you for having brought us so much love in the form of music. It has been a great gift”, the so-cialist leader said.

Willem Alexander became the monarch of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which includes Cu-racao, Aruba, and Sint Maarten, in April upon the abdication of his mother Beatrix.

Saturday’s royal visit was part of a regional tour realized by Willem Alexander and Maxima that included stops in the Neth-erlands’ Caribbean territories.

“Since I have become king, I have dedicated myself to vis-iting allied countries, among them Venezuela. We will con-tinue to strengthen our co-operation”, the king affirmed last weekend.

The artillery of ideas4 Social Justice | Friday, November 29, 2013

T/ Paul DobsonP/ Presidential Press

The first batch of doctors to graduate from the Latin

American Medical School ‘Sal-vador Allende’ (ELAM), located on the outskirts of Caracas, re-ceived their degree certificates directly from President Maduro this week, following the culmi-nation of their six-year course.

The graduating students are the first to complete the rigor-ous program after the Univer-sity was established in 2007, in-cluding four years of classroom, and two of work placement.

The ELAM receives students from previously excluded sec-tors of the Venezuelan society, but has become famous for fulfilling the internationalist medical model of Che Guevara- receiving students from across the globe, training them, and returning them to their home nations to practice what they have learned. It was built by

the ALBA alliance following the success of its predecessor in Havana, Cuba.

In this first graduation cer-emony, 108 students from Boliv-ia graduated, 41 from Brazil, 29 from Peru, 24 from Colombia, 17 from Paraguay, 15 from Nicara-gua, 14 from Ecuador, 12 from Chile, 6 from el Salvador, 3 from Surinam, 1 from Uruguay and 1 from Argentina. There are cur-rently students enrolled from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, including an important presence of Palestinians.

“Now you must return to your lands, to your people… because now you form part of a power-ful army of dignity, of peace, an example of that it is possible to construct an alternative world”, underlined Maduro at the graduation ceremony.

The ELAM also has a signifi-cant representation of indig-enous students, allowing for-merly excluded groups to break through the social boundaries

which previously inhibited them from such professions.

Maduro expressed his plea-sure in graduating the first Chilean Mapuche doctor from the University: “to the first Mapuche Indian to graduate in Comprehensive Medicine, a shaman of the Mapuche Indi-ans, hunted for centuries. She graduated dressed in toga and mortarboard, she looks beauti-ful, congratulations”.

The President reminded the newly qualified doctors that the first graduation from the ELAM was a dream of Hugo Chavez he didn’t live to see in person. “When I gave in your deserved certificate to each of you, I felt a great emotion, be-cause in each of these actions I feel the fulfillment of the an oath which we took. In each of these acts, I feel the presence of the strength of Chavez alive in you, in your looks, your eyes, your smiles, in your tears”.

60,000 DOCTORS BY 2019At the event, the President ex-

plained that by 2019, Venezuela should have 60,000 graduated, qualified doctors to attend to the needs of its people, thanks to the

First Latin American Medical School Doctors Graduate

efforts of both the ELAM and the other public sector universities in the country which are train-ing Venezuelan as doctors.

There are currently 47,000 medical students in the public universities, 18,000 of which are studying ‘Comprehensive Com-munity Medicine’.

Comprehensive Community Medicine is “a humanist medi-cine at the service of the social human being”, which looks to “form doctors from a Latin American, internationalist, Bolivarian, Chavista vision…

medicine which is preventa-tive, community based, which goes out into the communities”, explained Maduro.

Comprehensive Community Medicine includes traditional medical practices, but also takes into account social, per-sonal, and mental factors when diagnosing and treating, some-thing which has been harshly criticized by the traditional schools of medicine. 14,500 doc-tors have already been certified as Comprehensive Community Doctors in Venezuela.

T/ Ewan RobertsonP/ Presidential Press

Venezuelan President Ni-colas Maduro introduced Monday the next phase of

a plan to transform the coun-try’s poorer neighborhoods and improve their inhabitants’ quality of life.

The program, called Mission Barrio Nuevo, Barrio Tricolor, seeks to renovate and beautify Venezuela’s barrios: the name given to urban communities made up of informal housing which traditionally lacked ad-equate public services.

The administration of Hugo Chavez (1999 – 2013) brought great changes and improve-ments to the barrios, and the government of Nicolas Maduro is aiming to build upon those changes with the Mission Bar-rio Nuevo initiative.

Launched last month, the program focuses on specific points in order to develop the barrios. These including renovating dilapidated hous-ing, installing and improv-ing basic services, promoting a “culture of peace” to com-

bat insecurity, and boosting “productive communities” through schemes like urban agriculture.

The Mission Barrio Nuevo (New Barrio Mission) also promotes greater political or-ganization in the barrios, ar-guing that organized commu-nities must help implement the mission’s projects.

On Monday, President Ma-duro argued that the Mission Barrio Nuevo was part of the strategy to create a participa-

tory “communal democracy” of “socialism of the 21st century”.

“We need to consolidate the project of communal democracy, of the new communal govern-ment. Street government and communal government: they are two elements of the new de-mocracy”, he said to community activists in Caracas.

At the event, the Venezuelan President announced the expan-sion of the Mission Barrio Nuevo to five new “corridors”, or zones, in the capital’s barrios. The mis-

sion was first launched in three zones of Caracas last month.

According to Jorge Rodri-guez, mayor of Caracas, these five zones will cover 141 neigh-borhoods, attending to the needs of 128,000 families. The mission aims to benefit one mil-lion families by the end of 2014.

President Maduro also con-firmed that the program would be expanded to the regional states of Lara, Monagas and Bo-livar, among others.

Further, authorities reported on the progress of the Mission Barrio Nuevo in the first three zones in which the plan was implemented last month. May-or Rodriguez told activists that technical planning centers had been established which were analyzing community needs such as housing in need of reno-vation, recreational needs, risk mitigation, and others.

As such, Nicolas Maduro ap-proved 272,965,000 bolivars (US $43.3 million) for projects in these three zones: Ali Primera, Catia Sur and Catia Central. The president called upon com-munity councils, communes, and other social organizations

Venezuelan government expands planto transform communities

to incorporate themselves into the mission and present their projects for the development of their local communities.

“These resources are to begin the plan of key public works so that you [organized communi-ties] erect everything, from the structure and engineering of the communities”, Maduro said.

Officials also reported that last Sunday a further 169 com-munes were voted into existence by local residents, bringing the total number of the participato-ry neighborhood organizations in Venezuela to over 450. Com-munes are larger than commu-nity councils, and can take on larger scale public projects.

Along with creating a “com-munal democracy”, Maduro re-iterated his vision for the Mis-sion Barrio Nuevo to aid the creation of a “communal econo-my”, with organized communi-ties increasing local production and depending less on foreign imports and large companies. The President invited commu-nities to focus on the produc-tion of food, shoes and clothing.

“I want to develop the com-munal economy to its maxi-mum level…the country’s new productive economy has one of its supports in the communal economy”, he said.

Mission Barrio Nuevo, Barrio Tricolor is based on a program launched by Hugo Chavez in 2009 of the same name.

The artillery of ideasFriday, November 29, 2013 | Politics 5

T/ Paul DobsonP/ Presidential Press

One of the most important Venezuelan trade unions

overwhelmingly voted in favor of the revolutionary presidency of Edison Alvarado this week, as the Caracas Metro Workers Union (Sitrameca) elected its leadership. President Maduro congratulated Alvarado by re-ceiving him and his team after the victory.

Metro workers vote for revolutionary union leadership

Alvarado has 14 years of ex-perience in the Metro, and was re-elected by 76.3% of the votes, achieving 12 of the 13 positions and defeating the right wing tendencies within the labor movement.

In his previous term as presi-dent of the union, he has suc-cessfully overseen a new col-lective contract for the 8,100 workers, as well as impressive expansion and modernizing of the network.

Alvarado made the con-nection between his victory and that of the national ex-ecutive, in favor of social-ism: “now more so than ever there is political conscious-ness in the workers of the Metro”, claimed the re-elect-ed labor leader.

“The government has done everything possible to im-prove the conditions and adapt the Metro to the needs of the people”, he explained, mentioning the new lines in-cluded into the Metro, such as the cable cars of San Agustin and Mariche, the Cable-Train of Petare, the new Line 5 of the Metro, the connection of the Caracas and Los Teques Metro networks, the Bus Ca-racas network, and the Cara-cas Metro-Bus lines.

Making reference to the “al-most 99% subsidiary”, by the government in fares, Alvarado explained that “we are an in-clusive company”. The Metro has seen usage rocket from 7,000 users in 1998 to more than 2 million today.

The union will, under the leadership of Alvarado, con-tinue “in defense of the great

banners which our President Chavez left us”. Alongside the oil workers union, it is widely recognized as one of the most organized, committed, and mil-itantly revolutionary unions in the country.

President Maduro, speaking with Alvarado in Miraflores Palace, reinforced the working class nature of government, so evidenced by his own class roots as a bus driver.

“We have never seen trade union freedom like there is to-day in Venezuela”, stated the President. “It is impossible to construct socialism without a conscious and constructive working class”.

“I believe in the working class as the great transform-ing force of history, it is the great class which should as-sume its responsibility”, he went on to declare.

As an ex-union leader him-self, Maduro offered some words of advice to Alvarado. Sitrameca should “struggle for the truth, for its redemp-tion. A socialist trade union doesn’t put particular inter-ests above those of the collec-tive”, he offered.

T/ Ryan Mallett-Outtrim

Venezuela should use its sta-tus as a major oil produc-ing nation to counter the

interests of Western nations that run contrary to the inter-ests of the Venezuelan people, oil and mining minister Rafael Ramirez said this week.

“Because of its resources, Venezuela is among the few countries in the world that is able to play an active and lead-ing role in global oil issues”, Ramirez stated on Tuesday.

As well as advocating for the continued use of oil revenue to fund social programs, Ramirez also argued that Venezuela’s “position” as an oil producer means it plays an influential role in the international econo-my, and can work against West-ern interests that threaten the Venezuelan people.

He stated that Venezuela’s “national, popular and revolu-tionary politics” can have “a major impact on the interna-tional economy” and developed capitalist nations, “which are energy consumers”, he said.

Venezuela has been an oil exporter since the early 20th Century.

“Venezuela was the leading oil exporter in the 1970s and then remained among the top five countries worldwide in oil matters”, Ramirez stated.

Under former President Hugo Chavez and his successor, Ni-colas Maduro, the Venezuelan government has increasingly used oil income to fund social programs ranging from free housing to subsidized food. So-cial spending is set to increase even more in 2014 under the government’s national budget proposed by finance minister Nelson Merentes in October. 62% of the 551 billion bolivars budget will be used to fund so-cial services; up from 37.7% un-der the 2013 budget.

However, over 90% of Venezu-ela’s foreign currency earnings are through oil sales, and some analysts have warned that a re-cent dip in the price of Venezu-elan crude oil on international markets could affect govern-ment expenditure in 2014.

When Merentes announced the budget, Venezuela’s oil basket had been fetching an average of around US$102.64 per barrel since the start of the year. Since then, the price of Venezuela’s crude hit a 16 month low in October, and ended last week at US$93.98.

However, the 2014 budget is based on oil prices of US$60 a barrel, though Merentes stated that he expected oil revenues to increase next year.

CONFRONTING DEVELOPED NATIONS

Ramirez’s comments came just days after 133 developing na-tions including Venezuela staged a mass walkout during the Unit-ed Nations climate conference in Warsaw, Poland last week.

Venezuela’s lead climate nego-tiator Claudia Salerno accused developed countries of trying to shut down discussions over compensation for poor nations disproportionately affected by climate change.

“When you see developed countries being so bold to tell you that they are not even considering reducing their emissions, but they are not even considering paying for the costs that those inac-

tions have in the life of oth-ers, that is really rude and hard to handle it politically, that we are heading to a point in which countries are not ready to take responsibility for their acts”, Salerno told US based alternative news Democracy Now.

Prior to the walkout, Europe-an Union, US, and Australian representatives called for com-pensation to only be discussed after 2015.

The behavior of the Austra-lian delegation in particular was slammed by numerous NGOs and developing nations.

“The Australians were be-having like high school boys in class, their behavior was rude and disrespectful”, Harjeet Singh from ActionAid Interna-tional told the press.

“While weather tragedies are worsening and multiply-ing the lack of commitment from the developed countries to the fight against climate change is overwhelming”, Salerno said during her ad-dress to the conference last week. Despite the actions of Western countries, Salerno stated that Venezuela re-mains committed to address-ing climate change.

“The [Venezuelan] govern-ment has a strong commitment to the execution of the legacy of President Hugo Chavez, who before departing from us left as part of his program for govern-ment 2013-2019, the task of de-veloping an ambitious national adaptation and mitigation plan for the fight against climate change, and the expressed mandate of our country to con-tribute to saving the planet”, she stated.

Fight imperialism with oil: Venezuelan oil minister says

The artillery of ideas6 Politics | Friday, November 29, 2013

T/ COIP/ Presidential Press

In another important step in Venezuela’s struggle to build socialism, over 150,000

people participated in week-end elections to ratify recent-ly-constructed communes. These communes, which bring together three or more com-munal councils, are part of ongoing efforts by communi-ties, grassroots organizations, and the national government to build the missing link in what late Venezuelan Presi-dent Hugo Chavez called “So-cialism of the 21st Century”. Part of his final government platform, and now the respon-sibility of President Nicolas Maduro, Chavez proposed the consolidation of some 3,000 communes by 2019.

THE MOVEMENTWith the technical support of

the country’s National Electoral Council (CNE), Venezuela’s com-munal movement held elections this weekend ratifying 169 com-munes nationwide. The weekend election, in which 166,000 voters took part, increased the number of communes now legally regis-tered with the national govern-ment to 452.

Voting took place in 22 of the country’s 23 states and involved 2,245 communal councils.

According to Minister Rein-aldo Iturriza, head of the Min-istry of People’s Power for Com-

Venezuelan communes ratified nationwide

munes and Social Movements (MppCMS), “reports coming out of the communes indicate that the weekend election went just as expected, with voting booths where they needed to be and with people actively par-ticipating”.

“The smell of victory is in the air as we wrap up an extraor-dinarily successful process of ratification”, he affirmed. “Communal democracy is be-ing fortified”.

“Only in the state of Vargas did we not hold a communal election this weekend”, Iturriza explained, “but we expect to do so in the coming week”.

In the state of Aragua, for example, a total of 12 com-munes were ratified in 10 of the state’s 18 municipalities. According to Betzy Camacho, Coordinator of the MppCMS in Aragua, “these elections demonstrate the enormous amount of effort being made to transfer power to the people”.

“It is essential that communes come together”, she said, “and that they be socialist communes that integrate communities with shared histories, communities that recognize each other as one and the same within the territo-ries they occupy”.

Though elections took place in 179 communes, 10 failed to meet the voting criteria neces-sary for ratification. With 452 communes now ratified, Minis-ter Iturriza proudly told report-ers that he is “convinced” the

movement to build communes will achieve the larger objec-tive of 3,000 communes by 2019.

A communal census carried out in August by the MppCMS found that 1,401 communes are currently “under construc-tion”. Though they have yet to carry out the ratification process, these communes can be expected to do so sometime next year.

RATIFYING THE COMMUNESVenezuela’s communes are

a grassroots entity made up of three (or more) communal councils –community–based organizations made up of lo-cal residents and their elect-ed spokespersons. Based on needs identified by the com-munities themselves, commu-nal councils develop concrete proposals and seek support from local, regional, and the national government. Once approved, public funding is made available so that orga-nized communities can ad-minister project development.

There are currently some 44,000 communal councils registered with the national government.

Communes take things one step further by voluntarily grouping communal councils together. Because they engage more people, and involve more territory, Venezuela’s com-munes are designed to take on larger efforts including the development of “communal-

owned” banks, properties and industries, all aimed at consoli-dating socialism in the Latin American nation.

President Maduro recently described the communes as “the building blocks in Venezu-ela’s experiment with participa-tory democracy”.

In an article published by Caracas daily Ciudad CCS, Ti-bisay Perez detailed the steps that must be taken in order to ratify a commune.

“The first step is comprised of each communal council holding an assembly to elect their rep-resentatives for the commune”, she explained.

“Then they will choose their development and democ-racy committees so that they can draft up the Foundation-al Act which should contain the geographical limits of the commune, its geographi-cal environment, the name of the commune, the declara-tion of its principles, a census of its population when it was initially formed, an analysis of its principal problems and the needs of its population, an inventory of its economic, so-cial, cultural, environmental potential and options for its development, a strategic and communal political program, an outline of the general action lines for initiatives to be taken in the short, medium and long term in order to overcome the community’s problems and needs. The Foundational Act

must then be submitted to a popular vote”.

“Once the commune is estab-lished, it then gives way to the creation of the communal state, which is a form of socio-polit-ical organization established in the Republic’s Constitution whereby power is directly ex-ercised by the people through self-governing communities”.

“That is what it’s all about”, she concluded.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, National Director of the Communal Registry Otto Flores explained that, “by law, for a commune to be legally ratified, a minimum 15% of its inhabitants must participate in the vote”. As long as a majority –50% plus 1– of those 15% (or more) vote in favor of the com-mune, it is formally ratified.

Minister Iturriza, who joined communal activists as they voted in the state of Miranda, described the successful ratifi-cation of the Alicia Benitez So-cialist Commune.

“Of the 10,829 inhabitants with the right to ratify the Ali-cia Benitez commune, 3,745 came out to vote”.

“34.6% of residents voted, and of those who did, 3,459 voted in favor of the commune that’s a yes vote from 92.4% of participants!”

THE THREAT OF DEMOCRACYThe Venezuelan opposition,

and their allies in the corpo-rate media, described the com-munes as a “threat to democra-cy”. In the context of municipal elections set for December 8th, Minister Iturriza explained, “all mayors are expected to col-laborate and work alongside the people’s communes”.

“Any mayor that is in agree-ment with the progressive em-powerment of the people will naturally welcome communes in his or her neighborhoods, communities, and overall mu-nicipality,” he said.

As Dario Azzellini wrote in June of this year, “the partic-ular character of what Hugo Chavez called the Bolivarian process lies in the understand-ing that social transformation can be constructed from two directions, from above and from below”.

“Although not free of con-tradictions and conflicts”, he wrote, “this two-track ap-proach has been able to uphold and deepen the process of social transformation in Venezuela”.

The artillery of ideas Friday, November 29, 2013 | Analysis 7

T/ C OIP/ AFP

In a telling sign of fading support for the opposition platform in Venezuela, few

participated in weekend ral-lies called by the right’s self-proclaimed “leader” Hen-rique Capriles. Supposedly held in protest of provisional lawmaking authority granted to President Nicolas Maduro by the country’s National As-sembly, demonstrations were marred by low turnout and a plot to blame the country’s socialist majority for pre-fab-ricated violence.

UNPOPULAR PLATFORMCalled in the context of Pres-

ident Maduro’s popular new offensive against corruption and economic sabotage, oppo-sition rallies held on Saturday proved largely embarrassing in number. Demanding their supporters protest against the democratically-elected presi-dent and his efforts to bring stability to the Venezuelan economy, opposition spokes-men failed in their attempt to hold mass protests nationwide. Instead, small rallies were held in about a dozen cities.

According to Jorge Rodri-guez, Mayor of Libertador, Caracas’ most populated mu-nicipality with some two mil-lion inhabitants, the reason so few showed up to Saturday’s rallies is that “the demonstra-tions are being held in defense of speculation and hoarding”.

“The only explanation for calling such protests”, he said, “is that the opposition thought they could starve our people, limit their access to basic goods, and that this would somehow result in the fall of the revolutionary gov-ernment”.

“With the lawmaking pow-ers now granted to President Maduro”, he affirmed, “the Revolution is going to advance even further”.

In early October, Maduro requested legislative author-ity in order to “streamline the struggle against corruption and economic warfare being waged against the Venezuelan people for political purposes”.

Though a minority of op-position lawmakers tried to prevent the law from passing, three-fifths of the National Assembly approved the law early last week.

President Maduro promised to the use his new powers to “protect the Venezuelan peo-ple against economic sabotage

Low turnout, violent plot,mark opposition rally

being orchestrated by the op-position”. In response, opposi-tion lawmakers as well as self-proclaimed leaders Henrique Capriles Radonski and Leopol-do Lopez called on supporters to “take to the streets”.

In Caracas, the nation’s capi-tal, estimates place the number of protestors at under 5,000.

In the words of Diosdado Cabello, President of the Na-tional Assembly and First Vice President of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), the real aim of ongo-ing opposition protests are “to get the December 8th election postponed”.

“They know we (the PSUV) are going to sweep the elec-tions”, he said, “and they want to push them back”.

“Even if we have to hold them by candlelight”, he af-firmed, “the elections are go-ing to be held”.

Cabello’s reference to can-dlelight comes just weeks after investigative journalist Eva Golinger unveiled opposition plans to provoke power out-ages and the hoarding of basic goods, among other strategies, to influence the results of the December election. Though successful in creating discon-tent among voters, these strat-egies have been largely de-feated by President Maduro’s recent offensive.

On Sunday, Mayor Rodriguez reiterated Cabello’s assertions,

telling investigative journalist Jose Vicente Rangel that, “the opposition isn’t interested in winning mayoral elections”.

“What the opposition wants is to conspire against the gov-ernment”.

MADE IN MIAMI While weekend rallies failed

to get out a significant numbers of supporters, a plot foiled by Venezuelan authorities sug-gests the U.S.-backed opposition is growing increasingly desper-ate. Speaking on national tele-vision late Friday, President Maduro announced that his government detected plans by “political operatives” to “shed blood” during Saturday’s pro-tests.

According to Maduro, opposi-tion strategists based in south-ern Florida decided on Thurs-day that “someone must die on November 23rd”.

“Preventative measures were taken”, he explained, “after two political operatives – one from Primero Justicia and the other from Voluntad Popular – were detected trying to hire motor-cyclists to dress up as pro-gov-ernment supporters and attack the demonstrations”.

Primero Justicia (PJ) and Voluntad Popular (VP) are two of the opposition’s most right-wing parties. The for-mer, controlled by opposition “leader” Henrique Capriles, suffered a series of recent set backs after socialist members of the National Assembly ex-posed several PJ lawmakers for blatant acts of corruption. VP, meanwhile, is led by Leo-poldo Lopez. A right-wing spokesman, Lopez is known to have spoken to paramilitaries training in southern Florida earlier this month.

Detailing the foiled plot, Maduro affirmed that, “op-eratives” planned “to create a spectacle – get people pushing and shoving, throwing rocks, spitting in the faces of police officers or members of the Na-tional Guard”.

“They wanted to get head-lines reporting on civil society coming under attack”, he said, “and they had plans to attack their own”.

“In this country”, he con-cluded, “the political, civic, and electoral rights of all peo-ple are respected. Those who want to protest, even if it’s on behalf of speculation and price gauging, are free to do so”.

“Thanks to our decision to act, Saturday’s protests occurred peacefully – as they should”.

CRYING FOULThough details are still

pending, opposition hopeful Henrique Capriles Radonski claims a close confidant was one of the men targeted for questioning before the pro-tests. According to the oppo-sition spokesman, early Sat-urday morning authorities detained Alejandro Silva, his national tours coordinator, “at gunpoint”.

“Silva was forcibly taken from a Caracas hotel room by military intelligence agents”, Capriles said in a Twitter message, and “I hold Maduro personally responsible for whatever happens to him”.

Though Silva was released several hours later, Primero Justicia’s National Coordina-tor Julio Borges promised to take Silva’s detention to “the European parliament”.

Delsa Solorzano, the law-yer who spoke with Silva during his detention, told re-porters that “he is fine” and “in good health”.

Speaking to the press, Silva himself affirmed that authorities treated him “re-spectfully”.

“ In the words of

Diosdado Cabello,

President of the National

Assembly and First Vice

President of the ruling

United Socialist Party

of Venezuela (PSUV),

the real aim of ongoing

opposition protests are

“to get the December

8th election postponed...

They know we (the

PSUV) are going to

sweep the elections”, he

said, “and they want to

push them back”

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

INTERNATIONAL Friday, November 29, 2013 | Nº 185 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve

Opinion

T/ By Sarah Blaskey and Jesse Chapman, Truthout

“What we want is to de-fend our rights and that they be respected.

And the only way that our rights will be respected is to perform our duty, and our duty is to be here [protesting]”, said one young man, eyes still streaming from the clouds of teargas that engulfed his school.

Jose is a student of the Autono-mous University in Tegucigalpa. He and a few thousand of his fel-low students were tear-gassed and beaten November 26, 2013, when they peacefully demonstrated, alleging fraud in the presidential election that took place two days earlier in Honduras.

Most of the protesters support-ed the newly formed, left-leaning Party of Liberty and Refounda-tion (LIBRE) in the elections. They say their presidential can-didate, Xiomara Castro de Ze-laya, wife of deposed president Manuel “Mel” Zelaya, was the true winner. Their assertions of fraud are based on exit polls and numbers that were called in by table observers at all of the vot-ing centers that projected Cas-tro would win by a margin of up to 5 percent.

However, with 68 percent of the total votes counted at this point, the Honduran Supreme Elec-toral Tribunal (TSE), charged with overseeing the elections, declared an irreversible lead for the hyper-conservative Na-tionalist Party, which currently runs the country.

Students began what they say will be a series of protests against the fraudulent election results. Their protests took place in de-fiance of the cautionary words that Zelaya used at the LIBRE press conference Monday when he said that LIBRE supporters should take the streets only “if it is necessary”.

The demonstration began out-side of the university around noon, when several hundred students blocked the streets. Not long after it began, national police in riot gear arrived and forcefully pushed the students back inside the campus, using military-grade tear gas and gi-

Violence against demonstrators follows contested result in Honduras elections

ant batons made out of long thick pieces of hardwood. Students be-gan throwing rocks in defense.

Human-rights observer Franklin David Dercir said that the violence was started by the police.

“We asked [the police] to let the students express themselves freely. But before we knew it, they came from the front and from behind”, Dercir said. “They surrounded us and start-ed throwing teargas bombs. The boys obviously had to defend themselves”.

Once the students were pushed inside the university gates, the police continued to assault them with tear gas and weapons. Many minor injuries were reported, and one young man was sent to the hospital with a broken leg. A dozen pro-testers were taken to jail after the violence subsided.

This violent repression of politi-cal protest came as no surprise to the protesters. The police force is corrupt and completely under the command of the ruling oligarchy, 12 families with absolute power in Honduras.

Lorena Espinal, a student pro-tester said, “[The police] don’t go to the neighborhoods where the real delinquency is. Here in the university, where we have the knowledge, they come here and attack us. They don’t mess with the delinquents, because they protect the delinquents of power - the oligarchy that has dominated us”.

The election took place in an atmosphere of intimidation and militarization. The TSE controlled 14,000 troops and sent them to monitor the poll-ing stations and transport the ballots. These troops are some of the same forces that carried out the military coup against Zelaya in 2009.

Many of the generals that orchestrated the coup, includ-ing the leader Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, were trained at the School of the Americas. The US military also has had a role in training the Hondu-ran military and police force and is responsible for massive arms exports to Honduras. In 2012, the United States export-ed $1 billion of arms to Hon-

duras, although the specifics of what was exported are still unknown.

Contrary to popular narra-tive, the military exports the United States sends to Honduras are not being used solely against drug traffickers and cartels. They are being used widely to repress Honduran citizens all across the country. From Bajo Aguan, where campesi-nos are driven off their land to make room for corporate Af-rican palm plantations, to Rio Blanco, where the Lenca people are struggling to protect one of their sources of water against a dam that is being installed, the Honduran military and police use their weapons and training to clear the way for the ruling elite’s interests.

The United States is not just complicit in the violent repres-sion of Hondurans. It formally has endorsed an illegitimate coup-government, until now, run by the National Party’s Porfirio Lobo. Now, the United States is on track to endorse the current elections wrought with fraud and intimidation.

According to the US State Department’s press release on the elections:

“Honduran and international observers, including those from the US Embassy in Honduras, re-ported that the process was gen-erally transparent, with strong voter turnout and broad par-ticipation by political parties. … The United States supports the democratic process and remains committed to continuing our co-operation with the Government and people of Honduras”.

On Tuesday morning, a press conference was held at the of-fice of COFADEH, Committee of the Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras, where many del-egations of election observers presented their findings. All ex-pressed deep concern over the electoral process and the results.

Azadeh Shahshahani, presi-dent of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) said, “We have se-rious concerns and questions regarding the validity of TSE preliminary election results. We are deeply concerned about the United States government’s characterization of the electoral process as transparent. The US government should refrain from assessing the validity of the elections at this early stage but should insist on the protection of Honduran civil society”.

All of the groups present at the press conference denounced the elections as fraudulent. Observ-ers documented many irregu-larities ranging from already-marked ballots, to dead people whose names were on the lists to vote. Others documented cas-es of intimidation, ranging from frequent pat-downs at the doors of voting centers, to whole del-egations of LIBRE Party table observers detained by paramili-tary forces.

The groups also expressed concern over the worsening of human rights violations under the rule of the National Party.

Marta Flores, a speaker at the press conference, concluded, “Here a military dictatorship is continuing to deepen. Here the population is being criminal-ized. We cannot stop denounc-ing this and we publicly ask that this continue to be denounced”.