ENGLISH EDITION/The artillery of ideas INTERNATIONALFriday, January 25, 2013 | Nº 143 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve

On Wednesday, Venezuelans mobilized to join marches celebrating democracy and com-memorating 55 years since the overthrow of Venezuela’s last dictatorship on January 23, 1958. The mobilizations also aimed to defend the national constitution of 1999, drafted with citizen involvement under the leadership of President Chavez, which today is the foundation of the system of participatory democracy that replaced the old representa-tive regime and ushered in a new phase of achievements for the majority. Page 3

Major poverty reductionRepresentatives from Venezuela’s National Institute of Statistics (INE) officially revealed some of the most important conclusions from the 14th National Census of Population and Housing to the Venezuelan public this week. The most potent conclusion drawn from the census, which was conducted during 2011, was that extreme poverty levels have significantly been reduced in the ten previous years. page 4

Integration

Colombia & Venezuela advance ties

Border & commercetopics in recent Bogota-Caracas talks. page 3

Politics

Anti-Cuba sentimentin opposition grows

Venezuela’s opposition attacks Cuba. page 5

International

US lawyers verify Venezuelan election

The National Lawyers Guild lauds Venezuela’s transparent system. page 6

Analysis

The truth behind Venezuela’s“non-violent” student movement page 7

Opinion

The return onCointelpro in the US? page 8

Jewish leaders express hopefor Chavez recovery

T/ AVN

Representatives of impor-tant Jewish groups in the hemisphere expressed well wishes for President Hugo Chavez during a meeting in Caracas Tuesday with top of-ficials of the Venezuelan gov-ernment.

Communications Minister Ernesto Villegas spoke in a press conference after a meet-ing of the Council of Minis-ters and was accompanied by Rabbi Isaac Cohen, who said a prayer for President Chavez’s health and called for him to return soon to resume his la-bor as head of state.

He mentioned the latest information about President Chavez’s health from Science and Technology Minister Jorge Arreaza, who said that the leader is “in a process of full recovery”.

Villegas said that the Latin American Jewish Council was meeting in Caracas this week, and conveyed its wish-es for a speedy recovery by Chavez to Vice President Ni-colas Maduro. “The Bolivar-ian government reiterated its respect for the Jewish com-munity and all religions that are present in our country and in the world”.

The meeting included the Venezuelan Jewish Congress and leaders of important groups in the hemisphere such as Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, and Jack Terpins, the President of the Latin American Jewish Congress in Brazil.

According to the news agency Prensa Judía, Terpins said that the meeting with Vice President Maduro was a chance “to offer thanks for the Venezuelan government’s adherence to its agreements and the words of President Chavez, who has said that no revolutionary can be anti-Se-mitic. The Jewish community in Venezuela is very calm”.

Venezuela celebrates55 years of democracy

Protecting biodiversityVenezuela’s National Director of Biological

Diversity, Jesus Manzanillo, said the coun-try’s strategic conservation plan is paying special attention to endangered species and threatened ecosystems.

“This plan is constructed on the basis of a very exhaustive analysis of what should be done in the country and in the world and it takes up precise elements of conservation”, he said.

During an interview, Manzanillo explained that an example of the implementation of this plan are the actions being carried out in the Cuare National Reserve, which is lo-cated south of Morrocoy National Park in Venezuela’s western state of Falcon.

Manzanillo pointed out that Venezuela was the first country to make a presentation be-fore the Convention on Biodiversity, a United Nations entity for environmental protection. Goal number 17 of the Convention states that countries should have an efficient and participatory national conservation strategy ready for implementation by 2015.

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The artillery of ideas2 Impact | Friday, January 25, 2013

Chavez cabinet steps up fightagainst hoarding, speculation

T/ COIP/ Presidential Press

Members of the Chavez ad-ministration’s executive cabinet met on Tuesday

to discuss strategies to guaran-tee food security in the midst of the recent hoarding and specu-lation that has afflicted the market of basic commodities in Venezuela.

The session took place in the Vice President’s residence in Western Caracas where the various Ministers of the Chavez government worked to develop a holistic plan to ensure that the nation’s staples are distributed without irregularity through-out the national territory.

Part of this proposal includes the elimination of weekend re-strictions for the commercial transport of food products as well as those related to con-struction materials.

Speaking to state television channel after the meeting, In-dustries Minister Ricardo Me-nendez informed the country on the different steps being taken to fight the withholding of prod-ucts in the private markets.

“We carried out an examina-tion with Vice President [Ni-colas Maduro] of the different food products in the country and we’ve looked at the logis-tics of the different distribution points...in order to guarantee the full supply of commodities which is a fundamental goal of

Food Minister Carlos Osorio assured that the government currently possesses enough basic food items such as sugar, corn, and rice to supply the market “for the next three months at least” and that fur-ther measures are being put in place against those produc-

this government”, Menendez declared.

The Industries Minister blamed recent shortages on political actors in the private sector who are using food as a weapon to seek a liberation of price controls and limitations on foreign exchange.

ers and distributors who are attempting to create panic through the withholding of products.

SUPPORT FROMTHE JEWISH COMMUNITY

During the session, members of the executive cabinet met

with the Venezuelan Jewish community and reaffirmed it’s respect for “all of the religions present in the country and in the world”, according to Com-munication Minister Ernesto Villegas.

Venezuela is a country “fo-cused on peace and a solution to the conflicts in the world, especially the protracted hos-tilities that have led to blood-shed in the Middle East”, Vil-legas said.

Following his participation in the meeting, Rabi Isaac Cohen offered prayers for the well being of President Chavez, asking God “to provide health and a quick recovery” to the country’s leader so that “he re-turns to Venezuela to take up his work for this great country and for his great ideals”.

According to Minister Vil-legas the socialist President is making important strides in his convalescence in Cuba.

The government spokesper-son said that recent news of Chavez’s positive health sta-tus disclosed by his son-in-law and Minister of Science and Technology Jorge Arreaza “has been very encouraging”, but “there is still no date set for his return.”

“We’re accompanying [Chavez] spiritually in this battle that he is in with our support from the furthest reaches of the county and the world”, Villegas said.

T/ Tamara Pearsonwww.venezuelanalysis.comP/ Presidential Press

Venezuela’s Vice Presi-dent and cabinet members

marched with up to a million people Wednesday to defend the Bolivarian Revolution on De-mocracy Day. The event com-memorated January 23, 1958, when a civic-military move-ment overthrew the Marcos Perez Jimenez dictatorship.

Vice President of the Social-ist Bolivarian Workers’ Central (CBST), Francisco Torrealba, said his organization mobilized 35,000 people for Wednesday’s march, to express their “com-mitment to the Bolivarian Rev-olution”.

Vice President Nicolas Ma-duro marched among the giant crowd from western Caracas, waving to people around him and those watching on from buildings. Other cabinet mem-bers and United Socialist Party

Huge march defends Venezuela’sdemocracy and revolution

last weekend the anti-Chavez opposition backtracked on those plans, and instead held a small rally Wednesday of around 6,000 people in the sports courts of Miranda Park, Caracas.

Speaking at the rally, the gen-eral secretary of the opposition coalition, Ramon Aveledo read a 12 point manifesto to “defend Venezuela in a time of uncertain-ty” and said that should there be new presidential elections, the opposition would choose its can-didate by “consensus”.

Legislator Alfonso Marquina also announced the re-launch-ing of the coalition, which he said would consist in “re-plan-ning and rationalizing” the or-ganization.

A public television journalist, Carlos Chacon, was beaten up at the rally by opposition thugs. He was taken to hospital with multiple injuries and in critical condition. Just before the vio-lence, Aveledo, who was giving his speech, said “these people were sent by the government”, signaling to the public media journalists and crew who had just entered the rally area.

of Venezuela (PSUV) leaders also took part in the march.

Hundreds of community ra-dios and other movements also participated in a “chain-mara-thon”, reporting on the march from all the main plazas of the different states of the country.

At around 1pm, when some of the marches had arrived at the final rallying point, a short con-cert was held before historian Chela Vargas, journalist Jose Vincent Rangel, and VP Maduro addressed the crowd. The people chanted continuously, “We are all Chavez!” (Todos somos Chavez).

In his speech, Journalist Jose Vincent Rangel declared, “We have to be clear that January 23 is a symbol of a people who don’t give up”.

“With Chavez and Maduro the people are secure”, people chanted when it was Maduro’s turn to speak.

Maduro emphasized the significance of a people who “woke-up” after being tired of

the “torture, disappearances, misery, lack of education, un-employment, and a subsequent state that was called ‘democrat-ic’, but only in name because exclusionary and repressive policies were maintained.

“This date [January 23] has two meanings; the end of a dic-tatorship, and also the betrayal of the right wing and the Pact of Punto Fijo”, said William Gu-dino, of the National Network of Communes.

Other marches took place around the country as well. For the Andean city of Merida, with a population of just 300,000, it was the second large march in

under a week. Around 4000 peo-ple marched on Friday to de-fend Cuba after opposition stu-dents burned a Cuban flag and an effigy of Fidel Castro, and a similar number also marched Wednesday.

For Hector Alejo Rodriguez, general secretary of the Com-munist Party (PCV) youth, the aim of Wednesday’s marches was to “remember the impor-tant role youth played in that battle 55 years ago to bring down the dictatorship”.

OPPOSITION RALLYDespite initially calling

for a march on January 23,

The artillery of ideasFriday, January 25, 2013 | Integration 3

T/ COIP/ Agencies

The foreign ministers of Venezuela and Colombia signed an agreement of

understanding last Friday that will initiate the planning of a new bridge designed to improve communication and commer-cial activity between the two neighboring countries.

The pact was inked during a visit to Venezuela by Colombian Minister Maria Holguin who expressed her “willingness to work to strengthen, through concrete actions, bonds with Venezuela in all areas of coop-eration”, according to an offi-cial statement released by the Venezuelan government.

Holguin was received by her counterpart Elias Jaua, whose participation in the discus-sions marked one of his first assignments since being named Foreign Minister by President Chavez last Tuesday.

STRENGTHENING THE BORDERThe proposed Tienditas

Bridge is part of a bilateral effort to increase border in-frastructure and boost trade between both countries by fa-cilitating greater access to the Colombian city of Cucuta, an important commercial hub for the neighboring Venezuelan state of Tachira.

Communication improve-ment to advance border securi-ty is another aim of the project, Jaua said after the talks.

“We have signed the much anticipated project to study the construction of Tienditas Bridge in Tachira that will re-ceive financing from the Latin American Development Bank (CAF) to encourage commu-nication between both coun-tries”, the Venezuelan Minis-ter stated.

Headquartered in Caracas, the CAF is a multilateral funding body that incorporates the pub-lic and private sector to provide financing for development proj-ects around Latin American.

According to it’s website, the institution provides more fund-ing for projects in the region than both the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank combined.

At the end of Friday’s encoun-ter, both Jaua and Holquin also agreed to meet again in late

February to further discuss the progress of existing trade pacts between the two nations.

“We have scheduled Febru-ary 27 and 28 to meet with the Commercial Trade Adminis-trative Commission here in Ca-racas where we will deal with a diversity of themes including border security, cultural and technological exchange, as well as the economic development of the border”, the Venezuelan Minister said.

SOLIDARITY ON BOTH SIDESDuring her visit, Holguin took

the opportunity to relate the Colombian government’s best wishes for Venezuelan Presi-dent Hugo Chavez as he recovers from cancer surgery performed in Cuba on December 11.

“We want to communicate our solidarity with the Venezuelan government and the Venezuelan people as we pray for the health of President Chavez. We hope that he recovers. We know that

things must happen as they must and we want to say that we are with you in this difficult time”, the Colombian Minister said.

For his part, Jaua gave Hol-guin a framed rendition of Vene-zuelan independence hero Simon Bolivar and reiterated his na-tion’s support for the peace talks currently taking place between the Colombian government and FARC guerrillas in Cuba.

“We hope that sooner rath-er than later, the Colombian

people can achieve the path to peace”, Jaua said.

CELAC TO ENGAGE THE EUAs Elias Jaua becomes accus-

tomed to his new role as Foreign Minister, Venezuela continues to strengthen its participation in multilateral organizations.

To this end, Jaua is scheduled to represent Venezuela at a sum-mit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) that will take place in Santiago, Chile this weekend.

The conference, which will see the attendance of representa-tives of more than 60 nations, is intended to boost economic coop-eration between Celac members and the European Union.

Alicia Barcena, Executive Secretary of the UN’s Econom-ic Commission for Latin Amer-ica and the Caribbean (Eclac), highlighted the importance of the summit for both sides of the Atlantic during a forum in Chile on Tuesday.

The conference, Barcena said, will represent “a very important step towards one of Eclac’s most cherished dreams, that of re-gional integration.”

After meeting with President Chavez in Cuba on Monday, For-eign Minister Jaua commented via his Twitter account that the Venezuelan head of state “made decisions about our participation in the Celac summit” and that he is “very pleased because the Bo-livarian dream [of continental unity] continues to advance”.

Border infrastructure and commerce topagenda in Venezuela-Colombia talks

T/ Paul DobsonP/ Presidential Press

One of the most successful projects of the government

of Hugo Chavez took another leap forward this week, with the announcement that Ven-ezuela is expected to produce 1,200,000 Canaima computers this year, after the installa-tion of a new production and assembly plant in the state of Miranda.

On an inspection of the as-sembly plant ‘La Carlota’, Minister for Education, Mary-ann Hanson, Minister for Sci-ence and Technology, Jorge Arreaza, and Vice President, Nicolas Maduro, divulged plans the government has for the program which gives free laptops of high quality and durability to school-aged chil-dren with the aim of eradicat-ing technological illiteracy.

Canaima computer projectprogresses to next stage

Minister Arreaza explained that the initial goal of the Ca-naima computers was to fa-cilitate laptops to children in primary education: “we are talking about more than 2,700,000 children studying pri-mary education in the public and free education system”.

Of this amount, he explained, already 2,350,000 children have their Canaimas in their hands, helping them with their home-work, and training them in technological skills needed in the 21st century.

The plant, which has found its employees mostly from the public employment mission Work and Knowledge, which educates, trains, and places into employment thousands of people, is due to produce 1.2 million more Canaimas this year, more than enough to cov-er the goals of the project for the near future.

Canaima computers first ap-peared in Venezuelan schools in 2008, following an agreement with Portugal who produced them and sold them to the Vene-zuelan government. The Chavez administration then provided the computers to children at no cost to the family, in what rap-idly became a flagship program that encapsulated the morals, goals, humanism, and aims of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Vice President Nicolas Ma-duro explained to workers at the plant how the project con-nects the economic progress of the country to the technologi-cal future of the children, and

how they both tie into the his-toric vision of socialism: “the determination of President Hugo Chavez, since he iden-tified this project, has been based in very precise goals which have been achieved. Here we see various factors combined: the education of our children, who learn from a young age to manage new technologies, the economic advancement of the country, with the development of an industrial and technological pole in Venezuela, and finally the important backing up of labor stability, with the cre-ation of quality jobs”.

The artillery of ideas4 Economy | Friday, January 25, 2013

T/ Paul DobsonP/ Agencies

Representatives from Vene-zuela’s National Institute of Statistics (INE) official-

ly revealed some of the most important conclusions from the 14th National Census of Population and Housing to the Venezuelan public this week.

The most potent conclusion drawn from the census, which was conducted during 2011, was that extreme poverty lev-els have significantly been reduced in the ten previous years.

In 2001, 11.36% of the popula-tion were measured to be suf-fering from extreme poverty, while President of the INE, Elias Eljuri, announced that the 2011 census showed that currently only 6.97% are in a similar situation, a reduction of nearly half in the past 10 years, and one which he de-scribed as “very significant”.

Other conclusions presented to the population include a rise in life expectancy, from 74.5 years to 79.5 years and a 16% rise in the general population numbers, from 24.8 million inhabitants to 28.9 million in 2011.

Furthermore, it was an-nounced that of those 28.9 million, 88.8% currently live in urban areas, while 11.2% live in rural areas, and that the percentage of the popu-lation classed as indigenous rose from 2.3% in 2001 to 2.8% in 2011, with 700,000 citizens currently being classed as indigenous.

Such figures reinforce the success of the social policies of the revolutionary government of Hugo Chavez, particularly in the health sector, as well as the infrastructure of basic necessities, but also the educa-tion and alimentary sectors.

The National Coordinator of the Census, Luis Geronimo, drew attention to the fact that despite the rise in the general population, the rate of growth is slowly decreasing, meaning that the population will con-tinue growing in the future, just at a slower pace. Further-more, he stated that there had been a reduction in births and a rise in deaths since 2001, showing that the population is gradually aging.

“For 2050 we expect to be about 40 million people, with a growth rate lower than 0.5%” he explained. “These are de-mographic changes which all of the countries in the world are demonstrating where there is a process of demographic transition”.

The average family size has also reduced, he explained. “Now we are at less than 3 children (per female), and for 2050 we expect to arrive at less than 2 children per fe-male. Also, we expect that less women have children, unless there are important migra-tory processes which change this tendency”. Such figures show the changes in equality achieved in the last 10 years, allowing women to have bet-ter access than ever before to secure jobs, and high level po-sitions, and not be condemned necessarily to simply the child bearer role in society.

Eljuri explained the methods used by the INE to measure the levels of poverty in the country, in order to preempt accusations from certain polit-ical sectors that the statistics have been modified for politi-cal ends.

Eljuri explained that the INE used the five basic necessities promoted by the Economic Commission for Latin America (Cepal) to evaluate the levels of poverty.

The five necessities which represent poverty are: (1) households with children be-tween 7 and 12 years old which don’t attend any school; (2) households which have more than 3 people living in a room; (3) households who live in a

house with inadequate con-struction; (4) households with-out access to drinkable water or sewerage; and (5) house-holds with more than 3 mem-bers where the head of house-hold has less than 3 grades of basic education.

Eljuri explained that this system is called the Unsatis-fied Basic Needs system (NBI), and is used to evaluate those households in poverty, ex-treme poverty, and outside of poverty.

“A household in poverty is that where at least 1 of these 5 factors are applicable; a house-hold in extreme poverty is that where 2 or more are applica-

“Very important” reductionin poverty in Venezuela

ble; and a household outside of poverty is that which has all 5 of the necessities resolved”.

Using this system, he showed figures that demon-strate that households outside of poverty have risen from 67% in 2001 to 75.43% in 2011, and that “the total of those in poverty have reduced from 21.64% to 17.6%”. “In all indi-cations examined”, he con-cluded, “there was an impor-tant reduction of poverty”.

He also highlighted that crit-ical overcrowding has reduced from 15.12% to 10.10%, while inadequate house construc-tion has reduced from 9.38% to 8.69%. Similarly, households

without basic water and sew-erage services have reduced from 14.79% to 8.88%

He also highlighted that the figures from the census are fully transparent and avail-able to the public on the INE website. Furthermore, impres-sive as they are, the figures, he explained, do not take into account certain changes seen during 2012 which, according to Eljuri, have had dramatic effects on the demographics of the nation, predominantly the housing Mission Vivienda which was launched towards the end of 2011.

The 346,000 houses and apartments built during the end of 2011 and 2012 were not taken into account in the cen-sus which was conducted dur-ing the first 8 months of 2011, and he expects that this mis-sion, amongst other factors, will mean that poverty levels are, today, in fact even lower than the figures shown in 2011.

There are estimations, he ex-plained, that combined poverty will have closed 2012 at around about 6.5%, down significantly from the 2011 figures, due to such changes in the housing of the population bought about by government policies. He fi-nally observed that Venezuela has seen the most significant decrease in poverty in the last 10 years in the continent, and that it continues having the lowest rate of inequality in the continent.

Despite complete clarity by the INE of their methods and results, certain self-pro-claimed ‘experts’ have al-ready appeared in the opposi-tion means of communication claiming that the results have been engineered for political gains, or suggesting that the methods used by the INE did not meet satisfactory levels of thoroughness.

Such ‘experts’ provided no proof or evidence for such claims, and merely claimed that there were certain vague “problems” with the census, while at the same time fail-ing to recognize the gains and successes the population has experienced under Chavez’s presidency.

Such statistics are to be used to further enable the strategic planning of the points of atten-tion of governmental policies which address housing, infra-structure, education, access to basic necessities, and especial-ly for the future of the public housing program, which plans to build 380,000 more high quality houses and apartment in 2013 alone.

The artillery of ideasFriday, January 25, 2013 | Politics 5

T/ COIP/ Agencies

In the context of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s post-operatory recovery in

Havana, anti-Chavez forces in Caracas have renewed their ef-forts to demonize Venezuela’s strong ties to Cuba. Frustrated by recent electoral losses and infuriated by a Supreme Court decision that allows the Venezu-elan President to fully recover before taking his oath of office, members of the Venezuelan right-wing recently called on the country’s Armed Forces to “put an end to Cuban domina-tion” while opposition students went as far as to demand that the Cuban government provide a “proof of life” for the “kid-napped” Venezuelan President.

Nothing new to Venezuelan politics, anti-Chavez spokesper-sons are again accusing Cuba of intervening in Venezuela’s internal affairs. Part of an anti-communist discourse the oppo-sition has maintained for over a decade, the Venezuelan right is now describing President Hugo Chavez’s surgical recovery in Havana as evidence of “Cuban tutelage”. In an online petition dated January 10 and signed by notorious members of the US-backed opposition, radical members of the Venezuelan

right released a “manifesto” di-rected at “civil society” and the “National Armed Forces”.

Signed by the typical list of opposition figureheads includ-ing Maria Corina Machado and Pablo Medina, both of whom participated in the failed 2002 coup against democratically-elected President Hugo Chavez, the online “manifesto” af-firmed that Chavez – recently re-elected in October 2012 – has “carried out an indignant sub-ordination to the Cuban Castro-communist regime”.

The “manifesto” described Venezuela under Chavez (1998 – present) as “the victim of an invasion by Cuba’s Castro-communist regime” and, in clear reference to recent elec-toral victories by the country’s socialist majority, went on to affirm that “in order to guaran-tee its (Cuba’s) control over Ven-ezuela, Castro-communism has designed an electoral system to its liking, thus allowing for the distortion of the voters’ will”.

Signatories to the “mani-festo” conveniently overlooked statements by international observers including former US President Jimmy Carter who recently described Venezuela’s electoral system as “the best in the world”. Such quality in the electoral system is embarrass-ing to an opposition who saw

Chavez sweep last year’s presi-dential contest – receiving 8.1 million votes (55%), a million and a half more than opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski – and regional elec-tions that resulted in socialist candidates winning 20 of the nation’s 23 governorships.

Focusing their attention on other matters, the opposi-tion “manifesto” also issued a sharp criticism of a January 14 meeting held in Havana during which Executive Vice President Nicolas Maduro and President of the National Assembly Di-osdado Cabello, among others, met with Cuban President Raul Castro and his brother, longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

“It is flagrant and publicly known”, the document read, “that the destiny of all Venezu-elans is no longer being decided upon by our own authorities. Instead, it is being blatantly de-fined in Havana with the open participation of the Castro brothers”.

In a radical call for armed action, the opposition’s “mani-festo” concluded that “during the coming days Venezuela will define if it is to continue to exist as a nation or convert itself, de-finitively, into a Cuban colony…We (the signatories) are con-vinced that our Armed Forces, backed by all sectors of civil

society, will take a step forward and impede the dissolution of the homeland”.

OPPOSITION INSISTSIn what analysts describe as

an attempt to regroup after last year’s embarrassing electoral defeats, opposition lawmakers such as Maria Corina Machado have made repeated claims that “no government exists” until President Hugo Chavez returns to Caracas and formally takes office. While the constitution does stipulate a swearing in ceremony be held on January 10 following a presidential elec-tion, it also clearly reads that said oath can be taken before the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) “if for any supervening reason the person elected Pres-ident of the Republic cannot be sworn in before the National Assembly”.

On January 9, the Venezu-elan Supreme Court ruled that President Chavez continues to be on “a medical leave of ab-sence granted to him unani-mously by the National Assem-bly” and that he can take the oath of office for the 2013-2019 period “when his health al-lows him to do so”. Meanwhile, the court decided that as a “re-elected President…no inter-ruption exists in the exercise of his authority”. In short, the

repeatedly-elected Venezuelan President continues to be the President and his cabinet, in-cluding Executive Vice Presi-dent Nicolas Maduro, continue to serve the President.

According to Maria Corina Machado, however, “while there is no President sworn into office, there is no President at all”.

“I will continue to maintain my firm stance”, she said, “that we must defend what the consti-tution says, strictly speaking”.

“As a result”, she insisted, “those who currently occupy the government (Chavez and his cab-inet) are doing so illegitimately”.

Right-wing politician Leopol-do Lopez, currently barred from holding office for acts of corrup-tion, backed Machado’s claims.

Referring to the aforemen-tioned meeting between mem-bers of the Chavez administra-tion and both Raul and Fidel Castro, Lopez affirmed that “the Venezuelan government has been relocated to Havana, not to meet with the President (Chavez), who obviously can’t participate in these meetings, but instead to sit with the Castro brothers”.

In response to what he de-scribed as “the changing of our capital from Caracas to Havana”, and in protest of the Supreme Court ruling, Lopez has called on opposition activists to “take the streets” later this month.

Pro- and anti-Chavez rallies are scheduled for January 23.

PROOF OF LIFE?In a rare twist to the perma-

nent offensive against President Chavez and the Cuban Revolu-tion, late last week right-wing students from the University of Carabobo demanded Rogelio Polanco, the Cuban Ambas-sador in Venezuela, provide a “proof of life” confirming Pres-ident Chavez is really recover-ing from surgery in Havana.

Though unsuccessful in their attempt to meet with the Cuban Ambassador, the right-wing students provided a copy of their request to the press. In it, they claimed that, “if Chavez dies in Cuba, your (the Cuban) government will be an accom-plice in this fatal outcome”.

“If the President is still alive”, it continued, “the Venezuelan people could consider the cur-rent situation an act of acces-sory to kidnapping”.

In stark contrast to the out-landish claims, Venezuelan Executive Vice President Nico-las Maduro told reporters last week that he spoke on behalf of the Venezuelan people in thanking Cuba for the “pains-taking attention” provided to President Chavez in his ongo-ing bout with cancer.

Venezuelan opposition attacks Cuba

The artillery of ideas6 International | Friday, January 25, 2013

T/ Ewan RobertsonP/ Agencies

A series of “violently insen-sitive” Twitter attacks against Venezuelan Presi-

dent Hugo Chavez by a US mu-sician has generated a wave of solidarity with the Venezuelan President.

As part of a diatribe against President Chavez and his sup-porters on January 16, New York-based singer and musician Wil-liam Colon commented through Twitter, “God bless Venezuela, which now has two presidents…one ripe and the other rotten”.

Colon, who is of Puerto Rican origin and active in US politics, was referring to Vice President Nicolas Maduro, with ‘maduro’ meaning ‘mature’ or ‘ripe’ in English. Meanwhile his use of the word ‘rotten’ was in refer-ence to President Chavez, who is currently in Cuba recovering from cancer surgery.

There have been over thirty official medical updates since Chavez’s operation last Decem-ber, with a recent message de-scribing the President’s recov-ery as “favorable”. Despite this, figures such as Colon and other opponents of the Chavez govern-ment have continued to speculate on Chavez’s state of health.

Colon’s January 16 tweet caused a storm of controversy on the social networking site. Nevertheless Colon continued his attacks, tweeting the next day that “all Chavistas should throw themselves into a ravine to see if Chavez resuscitates”.

The musician went further in an interview with CNN Espa-ñol last Friday, when he argued that “any independent organi-zation” should go directly to Cuba “to get proof that Chavez is still alive”, echoing the right-wing Venezuelan opposition’s line of argument to accuse the Venezuelan government of ly-ing. “I’ll go myself”, he added.

Colon also said that Chavez supporters had responded to his comments with a lack of cordiality, complaining that “although you say something to them in the nicest way, they an-swer you in a totally rude and denigrating fashion”.

WAVE OF SOLIDARITY The comments have been

strongly condemned by both Venezuelan and international

musicians, generating a wave of solidarity with Hugo Chavez and his government.

On Sunday Venezuelan or-chestras, salsa groups and other musical acts held an event at the Teresa Carreño Theatre in Cara-cas to repudiate the attacks.

At the event, called “A Dis-charge of Salsa So That They Have Respect”, the assorted musicians signed a document rejecting Colon’s comments, to be handed over to Vice Presi-dent Maduro and other gov-ernment figures in a show of solidarity.

The statement read, “We Ven-ezuelan music lovers repudiate the expressions of disrespect and ignorance in the state-ments made by Mr. Willie Colon against our President Chavez and the Venezuelan people”.

“These kinds of affronts not only wound the grassroots soul, but are an aggression against democratic and revolutionary ethics”, it continued.

Lil Rodriguez, a Venezuelan journalist and researcher of Latin American folk music, ex-plained at the event that, “Wil-lie Colon betrayed his status as a musician, because above all a musician is human and sen-sitive. The most undignified thing is insensitivity: he doesn’t know Venezuela”, she said.

Colon was also criti-cized by popular Puerto Rican singer Rene Perez, who fronts the group Calle 13. Addressing Colon through his own Twitter account last Sat-urday, Perez said, “It’s one thing to defend a po-litical ideal and another to make fun of a cancer

patient. Colon’s comments were violently insensitive”.

Colon may have stuck his foot in his mouth when on Sun-day he attempted to justify his stance by posting a link to the documentary “Llaguno Bridge: Keys to a Massacre”, and de-claring, “This is the Chavismo you all defend so much”.

However, the documentary is actually a detailed investiga-tion into how Chavez supporters were killed in the short-lived April 2002 coup instigated by the opposition against Chavez.

The documentary shows how events were framed by private media outlets to blame the violence on the Chavez government, in what has been termed as the world’s first “media coup”.

The posting was met with humorous observations that Colon had “switched sides” or “regretted” his earlier com-ments toward the Venezuelan President and his supporters.

Public TV station VTV wryly observed, “In any case, every-thing indicates that in the middle of his anti-communist craziness, Colon confused the argument of the documentary and turned himself into an excellent pro-moter of the political side that he opposes so radically”.

Twitter attack against Chavezgenerates wave of solidarity

T/ Nathan Tempey, NLG

A just-released National Lawyers Guild (NLG) re-

port finds that the 2012 presi-dential election which re-seated Venezuela President Hugo Chavez was conducted fairly and accountably.

NLG President Azadeh Shahshahani was a part of the delegation that moni-tored the October voting.

“What struck us most was the trust of the Venezuelan people in the integrity of the electoral system and the amount that the Venezuelan government has invested in keeping that trust”, Shah-shahani said. “If the United States wants a truly trans-parent democratic system, we have a lot to learn from Venezuela”.

Chavez won the election by an 11 percent margin. Del-egation members watched polls in Caracas and in sev-eral states around the coun-try. In the report they note that voter outreach drives by Venezuela’s National Elec-toral Council contributed to an 80.94 percent turnout rate for the election. By election time, 96.5 percent of all eli-gible voters were registered. In comparison, the 2012 U.S. presidential election drew 37.5 percent of eligible voters, of whom only 61.1 percent are registered to vote.

“The electoral system in Venezuela provides a stark

US lawyers reaffirmVenezuela election results

contrast to recent efforts to restrict and suppress the vote in the United States, such as voter ID laws”, said delegation member and past NLG International Commit-tee Co-Chair Susan Scott. “Those in the US press and government who are eager to paint Venezuela’s elections as corrupt would do well to apply the same level of scru-tiny at home”.

In early December 2012, Chavez underwent surgery for cancer and has experi-enced complications that have required him to re-main in Cuba for extended care. When it became appar-ent that he would be unable to attend the January 10 inauguration ceremony the Venezuelan National As-sembly approved his request to postpone the inaugura-tion, and the Venezuelan Supreme Court determined that Article 231 of the Boli-varian Constitution allows for the swearing-in to occur at a later date. The Secre-tary General of the Organi-zation of American States, Miguel Insulza, has since stated that his organization “fully respects” the court’s decision.

The National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the Unit-ed States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has members in every state.

The artillery of ideas Friday, January 25, 2013 | Analysis 7

The truth behind Venezuela’s“non-violent” student movementT/ COIP/ COI

President Hugo Chavez’s in-ability to attend his January 10 inauguration as a result

of cancer surgery performed in Cuba on December 11 has thrust Venezuela, yet again, into the in-ternational spotlight.

Chavez’s absence, while con-stitutionally sanctioned and ratified by the nation’s Supreme Court, has caused a stir follow-ing a string of important elector-al victories at the end of 2012, in-cluding the landslide re-election of Chavez himself and the win-ning of 20 out of 23 governorships by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

Yet, as the press focuses on the health of the South Ameri-can head of state and interna-tional analysts chomp at the bit to forecast impending political divisions in the ruling party without Chavez, what has been less discussed in the media is the disunity and desperation that continues to afflict the Venezuelan opposition.

Still feeling the sting of last year’s defeats and left without a solid argument regarding the constitutionality of the Presi-dent’s absence, the Venezuelan right-wing has become more and more isolated in recent weeks

as international allies including the US State Department have refused to openly support their claims that Chavez’ convales-cence in Cuba is illegal.

This isolation has led to a ten-sion inside the opposition camp which has created a space for a series of destabilizing actions by extremist elements that have at-tempted to capitalize on the envi-ronment of uncertainty existing in the country as a result of the President’s medical status.

Such acts, while still unsuc-cessful in provoking instability in the governing party, have, for the most part, taken the form of violent student demonstrations in the Andean states of Tachira and Merida.

In Merida, where the Universi-ty of the Andes (ULA) has served as a hotbed of opposition activity, students of the Venezuelan right shut down major city streets last week, using the university cam-pus as a base of operations to reap havoc in the capital city.

Masked students burned tires in one of the major thoroughfares of Merida and fired softball-sized rocks at civilians in approaching vehicles. In one case, the demon-strators attacked a taxi that had a girl of no more that 5 years old in-side. In a panic stricken attempt to avoid the assault, the driver of the taxi threw the car in reverse,

crashing into the median, blow-ing out a tire and threatening the safety of those inside the vehicle as well as pedestrians nearby.

Such violent assaults have be-come commonplace at the ULA where university authorities, working in collaboration with the political opposition, turn a blind eye to anti-government protests.

It was therefore was no sur-prise to hear opposition con-gressman, William Davila, ex-press his “total solidarity” with the student protests during a radio interview last Thursday.

THE DEFINITION OF SPINThe private media, for its part,

has been astute in its portrayal of the student movement at the ULA as the persecuted victims of a tyrannical regime.

The reality, however, is that law enforcement bodies have been completely ineffective in dealing with the violence of the student movement as the lat-ter uses the legal protection of “university autonomy” to im-pede the presence of state secu-rity agencies on campuses.

As a result of this security vacuum, various extremist ele-ments sympathetic to the Boli-varian Revolution have engaged in reprisal actions against the students.

Taking advantage of these actions, the press’ discourse has become that of the “paci-fist” students being attacked by government thugs in order to clamp down on dissent.

Of course, fringe elements that back President Chavez do indeed exist. But such elements have never been endorsed by the so-cialist party. The opposition, in contrast, continues to embrace the outright lawlessness of the student movement, providing it with the resources and guid-ance to continue with its assault against the population.

This is consistent with past student actions as well.

In 2006, students at the Uni-versity of the Andes armed with automatic weapons opened fire on the police while protesting against the Chavez government.

This occurrence, together in-numerable other similar acts, begs the question: What would happen in the United States if students with automatic weap-ons opened fire on police during a university demonstration?

If Brady Manning continues to languish in a military prison without trial for leaking govern-ment information, one could only imagine what would happen to a group of armed terrorist cells discovered on the campuses of the US’ major universities.

But what happened in Ven-ezuela? The leader of the stu-dent organization responsible for this violence in 2006, Nixon Moreno, was granted political asylum in the Vatican’s Embas-sy in Caracas before escaping to Peru. While in the embassy, he received his university diploma in absentia (after twelve years of undergraduate study). This last fact is especially ironic giv-en that Chavez’s absence from his inauguration was the os-tensible catalyst for last week’s protests.

But more ironic still is that this opposition student move-ment has been at the vanguard of the of the so-called “human rights” campaign in the coun-try, receiving the support of a myriad of NGOs, most notably Human Rights Watch, and de-crying at every opportunity the violation of free speech in the country.

The truth is that these political charlatans are the very example of the anti-democratic behavior that they purport to loathe and their actions can only be consid-ered as an insult to those activists who actually suffered repression at the hands of true dictatorships in Latin America.

In answer to last week’s vio-lence, more than a thousand ac-tivists from the state of Merida took to the streets to express a unified voice against such van-dals. That is how a mature and organized political movement must respond to extremism and violence. And that is why the PSUV continues to exercise dominance over the disarray and division of the country’s in-ept opposition.

deemed necessary” and per-haps needing to formulate a plan “to kill the leadership [of the protest groups] via sup-pressed sniper rifles”.

Furthermore, the documents reveal a close and intricate partnership between the feder-al government on one side and banks and private businesses on the other.

On August 19, 2011, the FBI met with representatives of the New York Stock Exchange in order to discuss OWS protests that wouldn’t happen for an-other four weeks. In September of that year, even before OWS got into full swing, the FBI was notifying local businesses that they might be affected by protests. It is not clear if, while on Wall Street, the FBI inves-tigated the criminal and irre-sponsible behavior engaged in by some of the largest banks on the planet, behavior which led directly to the financial crisis of 2008.

We are also introduced to a creature named the “Domestic

Security Alliance Council” which, according to the feder-al government, is “a strategic partnership between the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the private sec-tor”. A DSAC report tells us that any information shared between US intelligence agen-cies and their corporate part-ners should not be released to “the media, the general public or other personnel”.

In a curious coincidence, nine days after the PCJF’s embarrassing release of FBI documents, the New York Post ran a story about how a 27 year old woman and her “Harvard grad and Occupy Wall Street” boyfriend, Aaron Greene, were arrested by officers from the New York City Police De-partment (NYPD) after an al-leged cache of weapons and bomb making explosives were found in their Greenwich Vil-lage apartment.

And what exactly led the po-lice to this apartment? Was it credible actionable intelligence

the FBI was treating the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, from its inception, as a poten-tial criminal and domestic ter-rorist threat. This despite the FBI’s own acknowledgement that the OWS organizers them-selves planned on engaging in peaceful and popular protest and did not “condone the use of violence”.

The documents, while heav-ily redacted, give a clear pic-ture of how the FBI was using its offices and agents across the country as early as August 2011 to engage in a massive surveil-lance scheme against OWS. This was almost a month before any actual protests took place or encampments were set up.

The FBI’s documents show a government agency at its most paranoid. It considered all planned protests, and the indi-viduals involved, as potential threats. Most disturbing of all, there is talk of the govern-ment being ready to “engage in sniper attacks against pro-testers in Houston, Texas, if

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

INTERNATIONAL Friday, January 25, 2013 | Nº 143 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve

Time to target the real terrorists

The return of Cointelpro?

OpinionT/ Tom McNamara

For 15 years (1956-1971) the Federal Bureau of Inves-tigation (FBI) ran a broad

and highly coordinated domes-tic intelligence / counterintelli-gence program known as Coin-telpro (COunter INTELligence PROgrams). What was origi-nally deemed as a justifiable ef-fort to protect the US during the Cold War from Soviet and Com-munist threats and infiltration, soon devolved into a program for suppressing domestic dis-sent and spying on US citizens. Approximately 20,000 people were investigated by the FBI based only on their political views and beliefs. Most were never suspected of having com-mitted any crime.

The reasoning behind the program, as detailed in a 1976 Senate report, was that the FBI had “the duty to do whatever is necessary to combat perceived threats to the existing social and political order”. The fact that the “perceived threats” were usually US citizens en-gaging in constitutionally pro-tected behavior was apparently overlooked. The stated goal of Cointelpro was to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” any individual or group deemed to be subversive or a threat to the established power structure.

The FBI’s techniques were often extreme, with the agency being complicit in the murder and assassination of political dissidents, or having people sent away to prison for life. Some of the more “moder-ate” actions that were used were blackmail, spread-ing false rumors, intimi-dation and harassment. It has been argued that the US is unique in that it is the only Western in-dustrialized democracy to have engaged in such a wide spread and well organized domestic surveillance program. It finally came to an end in 1971 when it was threatened with public exposure.

OR DID IT?In a stunning revela-

tion from the Partner-ship for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF), it appears that Cointelpro is alive and well. Through a Freedom of Informa-tion Act (FOIA) request, PCJF was able to obtain documents showing how

gathered from the FBI’s mas-sive domestic surveillance pro-gram? Did some agent acquire this information by bravely infiltrating the potential do-mestic terrorist group known as OWS? Hardly. The NYPD was simply executing a routine search warrant related to a credit card-theft case.

But in a story about the exact same event that appeared in the New York Times, it was re-ported that “police said they did not believe that Mr. Greene was active in any political move-ments” and that no “evidence of a planned terrorist attack” had been found . Furthermore, po-lice hadn’t “made a connection to any known plot or any con-nection to any known terror-ists”. No mention was made of the suspect’s alleged ties to the OWS movement, an item that had been prominently reported in the New York Post’s version of events.

Oddly, a more recent New York Post story stated that Mr. Greene was now a “Nazi-loving Harvard grad” and a reported “Adolf Hitler-wannabe”. No mention was made of his sus-pected ties to OWS. This author made several attempts to con-tact the New York Post, and the writers of the 2 articles, in an effort to find out how they knew that Mr. Greene was an OWS member and activist. Attempts were also made to try to find out if the New York Post still be-lieved that Mr. Greene was an active OWS member, or if they now simply thought that he was just an “Adolf Hitler-wannabe”.

As of the writing of this article, no response has been received

from the New York Post.The FBI’s stated mission

regarding US security is to “develop a comprehen-sive understanding of the threats and penetrate na-tional and transnational networks that have a de-sire and capability to harm us”.

The US people would be far better served by their government if, in-stead of wasting millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours harassing peaceful protesters, it spent a fraction of that time and money inves-tigating, and bringing to justice, the people re-sponsible for the engi-neered destruction of the US economy, and by ex-tension, US society.

You know. The real ter-rorists.