Hugo Chavez

Paul Craig Roberts
March 12, 2013
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/03/12/hugo-chavez-paul-craig-roberts-4

On March 5, 2013, Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela and world leader against imperialism, died. Washington imperialists and their media and think tank whores expressed gleeful sighs of relief as did the brainwashed US population. An “enemy of America” was gone.

Chavez was not an enemy of America. He was an enemy of Washington’s hegemony over other countries, an enemy of Washington’s alliance with elite ruling cliques who steal from the people they grind down and deny sustenance. He was an enemy of Washington’s injustice, of Washington’s foreign policy based on lies and military aggression, bombs and invasions.

Washington is not America. Washington is Satan’s home town.

Chavez was a friend of truth and justice, and this made him unpopular throughout the Western World where every political leader regards truth and justice as dire threats.

Chavez was a world leader. Unlike US politicians, Chavez was respected throughout the non-western world. He was awarded honorary doctorates from China, Russia, Brazil, and other countries, but not from Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, and Oxford.

Chavez was a miracle. He was a miracle, because he did not sell out to the United States and the Venezuelan elites. Had he sold out, Chavez would have become very rich from oil revenues, like the Saudi Royal Family, and he would have been honored by the United States in the way that Washington honors all its puppets: with visits to the White House. He could have become a dictator for life as long as he served Washington.

Each of Washington’s puppets, from Asia to Europe and the Middle East, anxiously awaits the invitation that demonstrates Washington’s appreciation of his or her servitude to the global imperialist power that still occupies Japan and Germany 68 years after World War II and South Korea 60 years after the end of the Korean War and has placed troops and military bases in a large number of other “sovereign” countries.

It would have been politically easy for Chavez to sell out. All he had to do was to continue populist rhetoric, promote his allies in the army, throw more benefits to the underclass than its members had ever previously experienced, and divide the rest of the oil revenues with the corrupt Venezuelan elites.

But Chavez was a real person, like Rafael Correa, the three-term elected president of Ecuador, who stood up to the United States and granted political asylum to the persecuted Julian Assange, and Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia since the Spanish conquest. The majority of Venezuelans understood that Chavez was a real person. They elected him to four terms as president and would have continued electing him as long as he lived. What Washington hates most is a real person who cannot be bought.

The more the corrupt western politicians and media whores demonized Chavez, the more Venezuelans loved him. They understood completely that anyone damned by Washington was God’s gift to the world.

It is costly to stand up to Washington. All who are bold enough to do so are demonized. They risk assassination and being overthrown in a CIA-organized coup, as Chavez was in 2002. When CIA-instructed Venezuelan elites sprung their coup and kidnapped Chavez, the coup was overthrown by the Venezuelan people who took to the streets and by elements of the military before Chavez could be murdered by the CIA-controlled Venezuelan elites, who escaped with their own venal lives only because, unlike them, Chavez was humanitarian. The Venezuelan people rose in instantaneous and massive public defense of Chavez and put the lie to the Bush White House claim that Chavez was a dictator.

Showing its sordid corruption, the New York Times took the side of the undemocratic coup by a handful of elitists against the democratically elected Chavez, and declared that Chavez’s removal by a small group of rich elites and CIA operatives meant that “Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator.”

The lies and demonization continue with Chavez’s death. He will never be forgiven for standing up for justice. Neither will Correa and Morales, both of whom are no doubt on assassination lists.

CounterPunch, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, and other commentators have collected examples of the venom-spewing obituaries that the western presstitutes have written for Chavez, essentially celebrations that death has silenced the bravest voice on earth:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/08/obituaries-for-hugo-chavez/
http://fair.org/take-action/media-advisories/in-death-as-in-life-chavez-target-of-media-scorn/

Perhaps the most absurd of all was Associated Press business reporter Pamela Sampson’s judgment that Chavez wasted Venezuela’s oil wealth on “social programs including state-run food markets, cash benefits for poor families, free health clinics and education programs,” a poor use of money that could have been used to build sky scrappers such as “the world’s tallest building in Dubai and branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums in Abu Dhabi.”

http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/03/06/ap-chavez-wasted-his-money-on-healthcare-when-he-could-have-built-gigantic-skyscrapers/

Among the tens of millions of Washington’s victims in the world–the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Mali, with Iran, Russia, China, and South America waiting in the wings for sanctions, destabilization, conquest or reconquest, Chavez’s September 20, 2006 speech at the UN General Assembly during the George W. Bush regime will stand forever as the greatest speech of the early 21st century.

Chavez beards the lion, or rather Satan, in his own den:

“Yesterday, the devil himself stood right here, at this podium, speaking as if he owned the world. You can still smell the sulfur.”

“We should call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday’s statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world. An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: ‘the Devil’s Recipe.’”

The UN General Assembly had never heard such words, not even in the days when the militarily powerful Soviet Union was present. Faces broke out in smiles of approval, but no one dared to clap. Too much US money for the home country was at stake. [A reader pointed out that although Chavez's speech was not interrupted with clapping, he received a healthy round of applause at the end.]

The US and UK delegations fled the scene, like vampires confronted with garlic and the Cross or werewolves confronted with silver bullets.

Chavez spoke about the false democracy of elites that is imposed by force and on others by “weapons and bombs.” Chavez asked, “What type of democracy do you impose with Marines and bombs?”

Wherever George W. Bush looks, Chavez said, “he sees extremists. And you, my brother–he looks at your color, and he says, oh, there’s an extremist. Evo Morales, the worthy president of Bolivia, looks like an extremist to him. The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It is not that we are extremists. It is that the world is waking up. It is waking up all over and people are standing up.”

In two short sentences totaling 20 words, Chavez defined for all times early 21st century Washington: “The imperium is afraid of truth, is afraid of independent voices. It calls us extremists, but they are the extremists.”

Throughout South America and the non-western world, Chavez’s death is being blamed on Washington. South Americans are aware of the US congressional hearings in the 1970s when the Church Committee brought to light the various CIA schemes to poison Fidel Castro.

The official document presented to President John F. Kennedy by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, known as the Northwoods Project, is known to the world and is available online. The Northwoods project consisted of a false flag attack on American citizens in order to blame Cuba and create public and world acceptance for US-imposed regime change in Cuba. President Kennedy rejected the proposal as inconsistent with morality and accountable government:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

The belief has already hardened in South America that Washington with its hideous technologies of death infected Chavez with cancer in order to remove him as an obstacle to Washington’s hegemony over South America.

This belief will never die: Chavez, the greatest South American since Simon Bolivar, was murdered by Washington. True or false, the belief is set in stone. As Washington and globalism destroy more countries, the lives of elites become more precarious.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood that security for the rich required economic security for the underclasses. Roosevelt established in the US a weak form of social democracy that European politicians had already understood was necessary for social cohesion and political and economic stability.

The Clinton, Bush, and Obama regimes set about undermining the stability that Roosevelt provided, as Thatcher, Major, Blair, and the current prime minister of the UK undermined the social agreement between classes in the UK. Politicians in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand also made the mistake of handing power over to private elites at the expense of social and economic stability.

Gerald Celente predicts that the elites will not survive the hatred and anger that they are bringing upon themselves. I suspect that he is correct. The American middle class is being destroyed. The working class has become a proletariat, and the social welfare system is being destroyed in order to reduce the budget deficit caused by the loss of tax revenues to jobs offshoring and the expense of wars, overseas military bases, and financial bailouts. The American people are being compelled to suffer in order that elites can continue with their agendas.

The US elites know what is coming. That is why they created a Nazi-style Ministry of the Interior known as Homeland Security, armed with enough ammunition to kill every American five times and with tanks to neutralize the Second Amendment rights of Americans:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34259.htm
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2013/03/11/1-6-billion-rounds-of-ammo-for-homeland-security-its-time-for-a-national-conversation/

Pistols and rifles are useless against tanks, as the Branch Davidians found out in Waco, Texas. The protection of a small handful of elites from the Americans they are oppressing is also the reason the police are being militarized, brought under Washington’s control and armed with drones that can assassinate the real leaders of the American people who will be, not in the legislative, executive, or judicial chambers, but in the streets:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-militarization-of-law-enforcement-in-america-use-of-military-technology-and-tactics-by-local-level-police/5326303

Internment camps in the US appear to be real and not a conspiracy theory:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfkZ1yri26s
http://info.publicintelligence.net/USArmy-InternmentResettlement.pdf

The threat that the US government poses to its own citizens was recognized on March 7, 2013, by two US Senators, Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rand Paul (R-KY), who introduced a bill to prevent the US government from murdering its own citizens: “The Federal Government may not use a drone to kill a citizen of the United States who is located in the United States” unless the person “poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to another individual. Nothing in this section shall be construed to suggest that the Constitution would otherwise allow the killing of a citizen of the United States in the United States without due process of law.”

http://www.cruz.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=339952

The “indispensable people” with their presidents Bush and Obama have begun the 21st century with death and violence. That is their only legacy.

The death and violence that Washington has unleashed will come back to Washington and to the corrupt political elites everywhere. As Gerald Celente says, the first great war of the 21st century has begun.

About Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is now available.

Is This the End of ALBA?

W. Alejandro Sanchez, Council on Hemispheric Affairs
http://truth-out.org/news/item/14979-venezuelas-foreign-policy-without-chavez-is-this-the-end-of-alba

Hugo Chávez Frias, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, passed away on March 5, 2013, due to severe health complications. For at least the past year and half, the Venezuelan head of state had been battling cancer that continued to appear in spite of several surgeries. He traveled to Cuba for a new round of treatment this past December 2012, naming his vice president, Nicolas Maduro, as his successor, should the worst happen.

Now, the question is whether Maduro will respect the country’s constitution and call for new presidential elections within the constitutional period of 30 days. The Venezuelan opposition has not yet elected a candidate, though all eyes are on Henrique Capriles Radonski, who ran for and lost to Chávez the presidency in the October 7, 2012 elections. He was reelected as governor of the state of Miranda in the recent December 16 regional elections.

Venezuela has had the same president since 1999, with Chávez creating a very particular foreign policy. A critical question will be how the post-Chávez Venezuelan government will organize its relations and initiatives with other states, and how vastly will they differ from Chávez’s vision.

ALBA

Regarding foreign policy, a critical question is what will become of Chávez’s pet project, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA). This bloc is made up of nations, whose presidents were friendly to Chávez, such as Ecuador’s Rafael Correa and Bolivia’s Evo Morales. President Correa recently said that the revolution was larger than one man and would continue even in the event of Chavez’s death. Nevertheless, it is debatable whether any of ALBA’s heads of state, including Maduro, are charismatic enough and have the same interest in the alliance to keep it afloat. Correa was reelected last month, and Morales is scheduled to run for a new presidential term in 2014. It remains to be seen whether anyone will be able to carry out Chavez’s vision.

Oil and Petrocaribe

Chávez used oil recourses to not only improve the quality of life of poor Venezuelans, but also as an integral part of his foreign policy. After coming to power, he expelled Western oil companies operating in the country and replaced them with Chinese and Russian based companies. In addition, Venezuela donated millions of barrels of oil to needy Caribbean states, particularly Cuba, but also countries like Trinidad and Tobago.

Without Chávez, it is questionable how Venezuela’s oil will be extracted. Should elections be called for and Capriles Radonski comes to power, would he accept, once again, Western oil companies? Furthermore, even if Maduro continues to govern, will Venezuela continue to provide such high quantities of oil, essentially as gifts, to Cuba and other regional states?

The United States

Finally, an important consideration will be the Caracas-Washington relationship in the coming years, having been shaped mainly around the personalities of their leadership in the past decade. For example, U.S.-Venezuela relations were fairly strained, while Chávez and George W. Bush were in power. Chávez went as far as memorably calling Bush “the devil” during a United Nations conference in New York. When Barack Obama was elected president, there was a general feeling that relations would improve. Indeed, Obama and Chávez met during a Summit of the Americas, with both leaders shaking hands and Chávez giving the U.S. head of state a book as a gift. While relations during Chávez and Obama’s first presidential term did not worsen, neither did they improve as desired. One complicated factor was the U.S. maintenance of the Cuban embargo. Chávez regarded Fidel Castro as his mentor. The U.S. also prevented Cuba from attending the April 2012 Summit of the Americas in Colombia, with Cuba’s allies protesting the decision.

Without Chávez, how will Washington-Caracas relations be affected? Obviously, much will have to do with whether Maduro remains in power or Capriles enters the presidency. Maduro may end up not being as hardlined as Chávez, while Capriles may seek improved relations with Washington for economic reasons.

Conclusions

While Venezuela in the post Chávez era will certainly look different than when he was alive, the question is how different. Will Maduro, who rose up the ranks from bus driver to become foreign minister and vice president, remain faithful to his mentor’s socialist vision? Or will Capriles, or another opposition candidate, win the presidency and take the country in a different direction, potentially making it resemble Venezuela’s pre Chávez era?

A critical aspect of Venezuela’s post Chávez government is how its foreign policy will be structured. During his tenure, Chávez determined much of Venezuela’s foreign policies in accordance with his ideologies. It will be of interest to see whether the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its diplomatic corps will have more impact on future policies.

Chavez's death is a body blow for the poor

Hugo Chavez's death is a body blow for the poor and oppressed throughout Latin America
GEORGE GALLOWAY
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/hugo-chavezs-death-is-a-body-blow-for-the-poor-and-oppressed-throughout-latin-america-8521834.html

Under Chavez's revolution quality social housing became the norm and more than 90 per cent of Venezuelans ate three meals a day for the first time in the country's history.

The death of Hugo Chavez at just 58 is a body blow for the poor and the oppressed, throughout Latin America and the wider world. The most elected leader in the modern era, Chavez transformed Venezuela by the force of his will and a popular revolution which encompassed the marginal, the ethnic minorities, the workers, and key sections of the progressive intelligencia who saw in him a veritable Spartacus.

He rallied an army of not slaves, but those despised by the oligarchy as hewers of wood and drawers of the oil which previously made only the rich richer. Under Chavez' revolution the oil wealth was distributed in ever rising wages and above all in ambitious social engineering. He built the fifth largest student body in the world, creating scores of new universities. More than 90 per cent of Venezuelans ate three meals a day for the first time in the country's history. Quality social housing for the masses became the norm with the pledge that by the end of the presidential term, now cut short, all Venezuelans would live in a dignified house.

Chavez' ambitions were not limited to Venezuela alone. He fostered Latin American unity promoting democratic and socialist movements throughout the continent. He founded a Bank of the South, a University of the South, even a television station of the South - Tele Sur. And further afield he championed the Palestinian cause, giving citizenship to stateless Palestinian refugees. When Israel invaded Lebanon, from where I write, in 2006 he expelled the Israeli ambassador from Caracas - relations which remain severed. He stood up to North American hegemony and with the victims of imperial domination everywhere.

I knew him as a warm gregarious bear of a man, a force of nature.

My wife and I spent almost two weeks working in his presidential campaign late last year. It is heartbreaking to be writing what amounts to his obituary so soon after yet another of his great political triumphs. He will be remembered as a man who lived and died for his people, as a paratrooper, a tank commander, a president. Hasta siempre Comandante. Presente.

CHAVEZ: THE GLOBAL POVERTY CONSPIRACY

HUGO CHAVEZ AND THE GLOBAL POVERTY CONSPIRACY
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/hugo-chavez-and-the-global-poverty-conspiracy

Greg Palast is a New York Times bestselling author and fearless investigative journalist whose reports appear on BBC Television Newsnight and in The Guardian. Palast eats the rich and spits them out. Catch his reports and films at www.GregPalast.com, where you can also securely send him your documents marked, "confidential".

London, February 2002. A tiny, dark and intense woman waited at the end of a lecture until I was alone, brought her face strangely close to mine and whispered, “President Chavez needs you. Right now. To Caracas. Right now. You must come to see him.”

President Who? All I knew about this Hugo Chavez guy was that he was an Latin-American jefe, led a bungled coup and was filled with a lot of populist bullshit and a lot of oil.

And I also knew that no one at BBC Newsnight was going to blow the budget for me to fly to South America to talk about a nation that 92 percent of our viewers couldn’t find on a map and wouldn’t want to.

“Send me an email.”

“There will be a coup. March 15.”

“The Ides of March. I like that. Aren’t there always coups down there?”

“They’ll kill him, undo everything. He needs you to stop it, he wants to explain it to you because he knows you understand.”

Actually, you’d be surprised at the amount I don’t understand at all. “So talk.”

She did – for four hours – and wore me down into submission. But back at Newsnight I looked like an idiot when March 15 came and went with just a little gunfire in Caracas.

Three weeks later, the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, was kidnapped and held hostage by the head of Venezuela’s Chamber of Commerce. Suddenly the BBC had to get me on a plane.

When I got to the Presidential Palace, Chavez was already back at his desk, though the bullet holes in the palace’s walls weren’t yet filled in.

Chavez told me that he'd agreed to be taken hostage by gunmen on the condition that his staff and their trapped children would be allowed to escape. He was bundled into a helicopter, and when it swerved out to sea he assumed he would be pushed out: “I was calm. I was ready.”

So who was behind it?

Chavez gave me information on US military attachés who had met with the plotters. While I couldn’t verify any specific US directive to seize him, I didn’t have to: I had grinning photos of George W Bush’s new US Ambassador, Charles Shapiro, congratulating Chavez’ kidnappers.

The question was, why? Why the need to eliminate Chavez, by coup, by bullet, by propaganda, embargo, or, as we later discovered, by screwing with Venezuela’s vote count?

No doubt that for Bush’s oil-o-crats, Chavez’ doubling the royalties paid by Exxon and Chevron was worth the price of a bullet; but it was no more than the amount that Sarah Palin would seize from the oil companies when she ruled Alaska. So what was it?

The answer was in the movie Network.

“AM I GETTING THROUGH TO YOU, MR. BEALE? The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now THEY MUST GIVE IT BACK!

“It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. You are an old man who thinks in terms of national and peoples. THERE ARE NO NATIONS. There are no peoples. There is only ONE HOLISTIC SYSTEM OF SYSTEM, one vast and immense, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars. Electro-dollars. Multi-dollars. IT IS THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF CURRENCY which determines the totality of life on this planet. Am I getting through to you?”


Chavez had defied gravity, overpowered the tide. Venezuela earned billions in petro-dollars from the USA – but then, Chavez refused to “give it back”.

Third World nations are not supposed to keep the dollars paid to suck out their oil and mineral blood. For every dollar US consumers pay the Saudis for their oil, about $1.24 is given back as Saudis return the funds by purchasing US Treasury debt or hunks of US banks, CitiCorp for one.

In 2005, the US spent $227 billion in Latin America, sapping its properties and resources. But the money turned right around and, added to the funds sent to Miami by Latin America’s elite, immediately became a $379 million loan to the US Treasury and financiers.

Argentina leant the US at 4 percent interest, then had to borrow its own money back at 16 percent – the whirring wheel, this grinder, left school teachers in Buenos Aires hunting in garbage cans for food. Riots followed and – in Peru, Ecuador, Argentina and elsewhere – this led to tanks in the street, currency collapse, crisis and the “rescue” by the IMF.  Rescue meant forcing the mass sell-off of state industries, from oil to water systems, to the crushing of labour unions and to swallowing the whole bottle of poisons kept by the elite of the Northern Hemisphere for just such occasions.

And that was the plan. Literally. I've held the proof in my hands, about five thousand pages of financial agreements, all labelled “confidential” and “not to be distributed except by authorised persons”, which bore benign titles like “World Bank Poverty Reduction Strategy, Argentina.”

Why would the IMF, World Bank and the bankers not want to make their wonderful plans for reducing poverty public? It was for the same reason the finance ministers who signed the documents didn’t even tell their own presidents: they were in fact “reduce-to-poverty” plans, complete resource surrender.

For these deliberately bankrupted nations, it was sign or starve. Until Hugo Chavez came along. Early on, Chavez withdrew $20 billion of Venezuela’s money leant to the US Federal Reserve, to create a giant micro-lending programme for his citizens. Then he went a step too far, establishing what the Wall Street Journal called, “a tropical IMF”.

In 2000 and after, when the IMF and banks moved to financially strangle these nations by making their debts unsalable, Hugo Chavez would roll up in his oil-gilded chariot. He effectively underwrote Argentina’s debt, providing 250million dollars worth of loans, and assistance to Ecuador. After Enron seized Argentina’s water system and Occidental seized Ecuador’s oil fields, Argentina’s President Nestor Kirchner, followed by Ecuador’s Correa, told US banks to go fuck themselves. And the IMF, too.

Then there was the big one: Brazil. The World Bank/IMF “Poverty Reduction Strategy” for Brazil required the nation to close its publicly-owned banks, to sell off its vast oil properties, to give away its power industry and, to please the new foreign owners, slash wages and pensions. But with Chavez prepared to back up its new President, Lula Ignacio de Silva, the mighty little man from the Socialist Workers Party could tell the IMF to stick it where the free market don’t shine.

For the first time in contemporary history, resource states refused to give back the money received for their resource. At Chavez’ funeral, Lula, former President Ignacio de Silva of Brazil, praised this as Chavez’ most revolutionary act.

Now, instead of billions flowing North, Latin American capital was staying in Latin America. It is delicious irony that the European and American financiers, fleeing from the economic conflagration they’d ignited in their home countries, are loading their loot onto planes for Brazil. And that Venezuela’s central bank made a mint on its intra-continental loans.

And so, a coup was called for.

In 2002, Chavez’ oil company chief, Ali Rodriguez, told me: “America can’t let us stay in power. We are the exception to the New Globalisation Order. If we succeed, we are an example to all the Americas.”

That you were, Hugo Chavez. That you are, Venezuela. And all the Americas are ready.

Follow Greg on Twitter: @Greg_Palast

As a purgative for the crappola fed to Americans about Chavez, my foundation, The Palast Investigative Fund, is offering the film, The Assassination of Hugo Chavez, as a FREE download. Based on Palast's several meetings with Chavez, his kidnappers and his would-be assassins, filmed for BBC Television. DVDs also available.

Chavez: Another CIA assassination victim?

Dr. Kevin Barrett
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/03/06/292131/was-hugo-chavez-murdered-by-the-cia

The Venezuelan president himself, before he died yesterday, wondered aloud whether the US government - or the banksters who own it - gave him, and its other leading Latin American enemies, cancer.

A little over a year ago, Chavez went on Venezuelan national radio and said: “I don’t know but… it is very odd that we have seen Lugo affected by cancer, Dilma when she was a candidate, me, going into an election year, not long ago Lula and now Cristina… It is very hard to explain, even with the law of probabilities, what has been happening to some leaders in Latin America. It’s at the very least strange, very strange.”

Strange indeed… so strange that if you think Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Paraguayan Fernando Lugo, and former Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva - Latin America’s top anti-US empire leaders - all just happened to contract cancer around the same time by sheer chance, you must be some kind of crazy coincidence theorist.

Am I 100% certain that the CIA killed Hugo Chavez? Absolutely not.

It could have been non-governmental assassins working for the bankers.

But any way you slice it, the masters of the US empire are undoubtedly responsible for giving Chavez and other Latin American leaders cancer. How do we know that? Just examine the Empire’s track record.

Fidel Castro’s bodyguard, Fabian Escalante, estimates that the CIA attempted to kill the Cuban president an astonishing 638 times. The CIA’s methods included exploding cigars, biological warfare agents painted on Castro’s diving suit, deadly pills, toxic bacteria in coffee, an exploding speaker’s podium, snipers, poison-wielding female friends, and explosive underwater sea shells.

The CIA’s assassination attempts against Castro were like a Tom and Jerry cartoon, with the CIA as the murderously inept cat, and the Cuban president as a clever and very lucky mouse. Some might even argue that Castro’s survival, in the face of 638 assassination attempts by the world’s greatest power, is evidence that El Presidente’s communist atheism was incorrect, and that God, or at least a guardian angel, must have been watching over “Infidel Castro” all along.

Theology aside, the CIA’s endless attempts on Castro’s life provide ample evidence that US authorities will stop at nothing in their efforts to murder their Latin American enemies.

John Perkins, in his bestselling book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, supplies more evidence that the bankers that own the US government routinely murder heads of state, using private assassins as well as CIA killers.

Perkins, during his career as an “economic hit man,” gained first-hand knowledge about how the big international bankers maintain their empire in Latin America and elsewhere. Perkins’ job was to visit leaders of foreign countries and convince them to accept loans that could never be paid back. Why? The bankers want to force these nations into debt slavery. When the country goes bankrupt, the bankers seize the nation’s natural resources and establish complete control over its government and economy.

Perkins would meet with a targeted nation’s leader and say: “I have a fist-full of hundred dollar bills in one hand, and a bullet in the other. Which do you want?” If the leader accepted the loans, thereby enslaving his country, he got the payoff. If he angrily chased Perkins out of his office, the bankers would call in the “asteroids” to assassinate the uncooperative head of state.

The “asteroids” are the world’s most expensive and accomplished professional killers. They work on contract - sometimes to the CIA, sometimes to the bankers, and sometimes to wealthy private individuals. And though their specialty is causing plane crashes, they are capable of killing people, including heads of state, in any number of ways.

This isn’t just speculation. John Perkins actually knows some of these CIA-linked professional killers personally. And he has testified about their murders of Latin American leaders. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is dedicated to Perkins’ murdered friends Gen. Torrijos of Panama and President Jaime Roldos of Ecuador. Both were killed by CIA-linked “asteroids” in engineered plane crashes.

Do CIA-linked killers sometimes induce cancer in their victims? Apparently they do. One notable victim: Jack Ruby (née Jack Rubenstein), a mobster who was himself a professional killer, and whose last hit was the choreographed murder of JFK-assassination patsy Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of the Dallas Police Department. Ruby begged to be taken to Washington to tell the real story of the JFK murder, but instead died in prison, of a sudden and mysterious cancer, before he could reveal what he knew.

Have the CIA-bankster “asteroids” ever tried to kill Latin American leaders with cancer? The answer is an unequivocal “yes.”

Edward Haslam’s book Dr. Mary’s Monkey proves what JFK assassination prosecutor Jim Garrison had earlier alleged: Child-molesting CIA agent David Ferrie, one of President Kennedy’s killers, had experimented extensively with cancer-causing viruses for the CIA in his huge home laboratory. The purpose: To give Fidel Castro and other Latin American leaders cancer. (Ferrie himself was killed by the CIA shortly before he was scheduled to testify in court about his role in the JFK assassination.)

To summarize: We know that the bankers who own the US government routinely try to kill any Latin American leader who refuses to be their puppet. We know that they have mounted thousands of assassination attempts against Latin American leaders, including more than 600 against Castro alone. We know that they have been experimenting with cancer viruses, and killing people with cancer, since the 1960s.

So if you think Hugo Chavez died a natural death, I am afraid that you are terminally naïve.

Chavez's cancer was an 'attack' by his enemies

Full Article:
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/05/17196733-venezuela-vp-chavezs-cancer-was-an-attack-by-his-enemies

Hours before Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez died, his second-in-command accused enemies of giving him cancer and announced the expulsion of two U.S. diplomats for an alleged plot to destabilize the government.

"There's no doubt that Commandante Chavez's health came under attack by the enemy," Vice President Nicolas Maduro said in an address to the nation from the presidential palace.

"The old enemies of our fatherland looked for a way to harm his health,'' according to Maduro, drawing a parallel to the illness and 2004 death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, which some supporters blamed on poisoning by Israeli agents.

He said a special commission would investigate how Chavez, 58, ended up with the unspecified cancer that months of chemotherapy and radiation and four surgeries failed to tame.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in a statement it was "absurd" to suggest that the U.S. was somehow involved in Chavez's illness.

The allegation was made against a backdrop of diplomatic tension, with Caracas announcing that two American Air Force attachés had been given 24 hours to leave the country.

Maduro accused one of them, David Delmonaco, of spying and meeting with Venezuelan military officials for nefarious purposes. The expulsion of the second, Devlin Kostal, was announced soon after.

Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale said Delmonaco would be leaving Caracas and that Kostal was already in the U.S. and denied the allegations against them.

"We completely reject the Venezuelan government's claim that the United States is involved in any type of conspiracy to destabilize Venezuela government," he said.

Ventrell also dismissed the accusations.

"Notwithstanding the significant differences between our governments, we continue to believe it important to seek a functional and more productive relationship with Venezuela based on issues of mutual interest," he said.

"This fallacious assertion of inappropriate U.S. action leads us to conclude that, unfortunately, the current Venezuelan government is not interested in an improved relationship."

Venezuela's relations with the U.S. have been strained for years, and Chavez saw conspiracies everywhere.

In 2008, he expelled the American ambassador, claiming the U.S. was orchestrating a military coup. He had repeatedly claimed to be the target of assassination plots from domestic and international opponents.

Scoundrels Pillory Chavez Before He's Buried

Media Scoundrels Pillory Chavez Before He's Buried
By Stephen Lendman

His passing made no difference. Media scoundrels don't quit. They spent 14 years vilifying him. They did it unfairly. They haven't stopped.

They're called scoundrels for good reason. They violate fundamental journalistic ethics. They lie for power. They turn truth on its head.

They substitute managed news misinformation. They support wealth, power, privilege and dominance. They're in bed with wrong over right.

They spurn rule of law principles and democratic values. They're well paid to do so. They betray readers and viewers. They do so unconscionably. They don't give a damn, and it shows.

Why anyone follows them they'll have to explain. Tune them out. Ignore their publications. Choose reliable alternative sources.

Get informed. Stay that way. Why settle for manipulated rubbish. Real news, information and analysis is readily available. Use it daily. Know what matters most.

On March 5, Chavez passed. An era went with him. Venezuelans owe him much. They won't forget.

He transformed an oligarch-run nation into a model participatory democracy. America's sham one pales by comparison. Venezuelans get the real thing and much more.

They deplore what used to be. They won't tolerate going back. Chavismo lives! Bolivarianism is policy. Venezuelans won't let it die. It's too important to preserve. Not according to media scoundrels.

On March 5, The New York Times claimed Venezuela today is "bitterly divided." It's "in the grip of a political crisis." It grew "more acute" in recent weeks.

Times writer William Neuman lied. He's paid to do so. Venezuelans overwhelmingly support Chavismo. His death changes nothing.

Dallas Morning News editor Sharon Grigs headlined "Chavez's death: Now Venezuela can reclaim its lost democracy." She wouldn't recognize the real thing if it bit her on the rump.

The Washington Post did no better. It called Chavez "polarizing." An "institutional crisis" exists.

Other media scoundrels piled on. They pillory what deserves praise. Chavez institutionalized what won't change. Venezuelans won't tolerate their ugly past. They'll challenge dark forces to prevent it.

The Washington Times said "Chavistas' mourn dictator." White House/Capitol Hill reaction ranged from "cautious optimism" to "good riddance."

Obama vilified Chavez often. He scorned him unconscionably. He lied repeatedly. He's a serial liar.

He now says America "reaffirms its support for the Venezuelan people and its interests in developing a constructive relationship with the Venezuelan government."

He doesn't give a damn about ordinary Venezuelans. He never did and doesn't now.

Washington tolerates no independent leaders. Chavez was marked for removal. CIA rogues likely killed him. Perhaps he was poisoned or exposed to cancer causing elements.

Israel used polonium to murder Arafat. Perhaps something similar caused Chavez's death. It wouldn't be the first time America assassinated a foreign leader. It won't be the last. Its rap sheet includes many.

BBC said "Iconic Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez dies." He leaves behind an "economic muddle."

He achieved impressive economic growth and prosperity. Britain's government pales by comparison. It's lawless, corrupt, dysfunctional, and hugely unequal. BBC's its propaganda mouthpiece. Don't expect it to explain.

Media scoundrels attacked Chavez. They did so before he's buried. His state funeral is Friday. Have they no shame? They don't now and never did.

Murdoch's the worst of a bad bunch. His world reflects demagoguery, propaganda, predatory capitalism, warmongering and sleaze.

Journalist Mike Royko's (1932 - 1997) assessment bears repeating. "(N)o self-respecting fish would (want to) be wrapped in a Murdoch paper."

"His goal (isn't) journalism." It's bottom line priorities. It's "vast power, political power." He wields it unscrupulously. He's a world class predator.

He uses deception, intimidation, and bullying. He does so to get his way. He hires likeminded scoundrels. Do it his way or work elsewhere.

No middle ground is permissible. No independent journalists get hired. Truth tellers need not apply. No honest brokers wanted. No telling it like it is.

On March 5, Murdoch's Wall Street Journal headlined "Hugo Chavez: The lesson is to beware the rule of charismatic demagogues."

In December 1998, Venezuelans elected him. A dark era ended. Chavez made things "worse," said the Journal. It lied saying so.

"By 1998, the the Soviet Union was a memory, Latin American countries from Mexico to Chile were successfully adopting free-market policies, and Chavez's friend and role model - Cuba's Fidel Castro - was a discredited dinosaur."

Castro's a model leader. He transformed Cuba responsibly. He did so from police state harshness/casino/brothel corruption into an equitable socialist state.

He was Chavez's mentor and friend. Chavez called him his father and role model. They bonded. They stayed close until until his death.

Not according to WSJThink. "Chavez showed that it's possible to run against the tides of history, at least for a while, and at least if you happen to get lucky with an oil revenue bonanza."

Chavez used Venezuela's oil wealth "to purchase political support of Venezuela's poor, the army and a loyal nouveau riche."

"It also allowed him to become a classic petro-dictator."

"In 1999 he revised the Venezuelan constitution to give him expanded powers."

"He used a constitutional assembly under his control to appoint a chavista Supreme Court."

"He stripped independent TV and radio stations of their licenses and intimidated reporters with draconian libel laws."

Fact check

Murdoch lies need challenging. They're over-the-top and unconscionable.

Chavez used Venezuela's oil wealth responsibly. Everyone benefitted. Populism replaced neoliberal harshness.

Bolivarianism prioritizes vital needs. Living standards improved remarkably. Disadvantaged Venezuelans benefitted most.

Child mortality fell from 20 per 1,000 to 13. Unemployment dropped from 14.5% to 6.4%.

Income inequality is Latin America's lowest. Poverty was cut in half. Extreme poverty fell over 70%. Economic growth in 2011 was 4.8%. In 2012, it was 5.6%. Forecasts estimate 6% in 2013.

Hundreds of thousands of new homes were built. Commerce grew 9.2%. Communications advanced 7.2%. Manufacturing increased 2.1%. Oil sector production increased.

Growth created jobs. Millions got free healthcare and education. They did so for the first time. Pension eligibility tripled.

Pre-Chavez years were disastrous." From 1980 - 1998, per capita income fell. Chavez turned disaster into success. Venezuela's future looks promising. Give Chavez the credit he deserves.

Corporate owners dominate Venezuela's media. Censorship doesn't exist. Short of advocating sedition or treason, they're free to publish or air what they wish. They take full advantage. They vilify populist reform. They pilloried Chavez for institutionalizing it.

"Though elections were held on schedule, (Chavez) made sure to tilt the playing field….Public workers risked being fired if they voted against him. It was the sort of election only Jimmy Carter could bless."

Fact check

Carter Center representatives monitor Venezuelan elections. Jimmy Carter calls its process "the best in the world." He does for good reason. It's open, free and fair.

It shames America's sham process. Duopoly power runs things. Republicans and Democrats replicate each other. They're two sides of the same coin.

They're beholden to monied interests. They sold their souls for power.

People have no say. Voters get the best democracy money can buy. Neoliberal harshness, permanent wars, and police state repression follow.

Venezuelan democracy is genuine. Voters need no persuasion. Chavez instituted the real thing. Venezuelans want it no other way.

Expect what he began to continue. It's hardwired to stay. It's part of Venezuelan culture. It won't fade and die.

The Journal claims life for Venezuela's "bec(ame) worse." It lied saying so. It's never been better in generations.

"Chavez made his mark on the world stage by forging alliances with Bashar Assad in Syria and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran, giving sanctuary to Colombia's narco-terrorist FARC movement, providing the Castro regime with free oil, and inveighing loudly against the United States."

"He succeeded in spawning political imitators in Ecuador and Bolivia."

Chavez governed responsibly. He allied with other independent leaders. He prioritized right over wrong. Journal editors can't tolerate his success. He represented the threat of a good example.

Venezuelans "have to fight to reclaim the democracy they once enjoyed….Let's hope Venezuelans seize the chance to bury the tragic legacy of Chavismo alongside its author's corpse."

Chavismo lives. Bolivarianism delivered democracy. Venezuelans got what they never had. They mourn their great loss.

They want Chavez buried alongside Bolivar. He's in Venezuela’s Panteon Nacional (Temple of all the Gods). It lies on Caracas' northern edge.

Its central nave is dedicated to Bolivar. It's adorned with his bronze sarcophagus and paintings reflecting his life. In 1883, an impressive crystal chandelier was installed. It was done on the centennial of his birth.

Expect Chavez be interned there. He belongs nowhere else. Both leaders stood tall. They supported what's right. Venezuelans won't ever forget.

America never had anyone like them. Its deplorable government reflects it. Today it's worse than ever.

It's corporatist, soulless, lawless, belligerent, and repressive. It's a hair's breath from tyranny. Don't explain media scoundrels to explain.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

http://www.dailycensored.com/media-scoundrels-pillory-chavez-before-hes-buried/

Chavez Re-Election

Chavez Re-Election Shows How Media Does Not Like It When Washington Consensus Loses
Kevin Gosztola
Monday October 8, 2012
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/10/08/chavez-re-election-shows-how-media-does-not-like-it-when-washington-consensus-loses/

Hugo Chavez was elected to a fourth term on October 7. The victory immediately set off a flurry of United States media reports noting alleged inequities in Venezuelan elections that permit Chavez to continue to hold power. Through coded or overt language, the US media reported how the poor in Venezuela support Chavez but listed off what right wing free market conservatives or neoliberal centrists in think tanks in America consider to be the most dire issues facing Venezuelan society today. The impetus was, even if the elections were actually by some stretch free and fair, the poor do not realize they are voting for a socialist revolution that will plunge the country deeper into ruin.

The Carter Center, an organization founded by former US president Jimmy Carter, monitors elections in countries to help “enhance freedom and democracy.” The AFP reported on October 6, according to the Center, “Venezuelans have no reason to fear the secrecy of their ballots will be compromised by a new electronic voting system when they vote in presidential elections.” The Center “noted that many Venezuelans are concerned that the new electronic system might alert authorities as to how they voted, exposing them to retaliation if they vote against Chavez.” But there was “no basis” for the concern because the “software of the voting machines” were fully capable of guaranteeing “the secrecy of the vote.”

Carter stated before the election in Venezuela, “As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.” Indeed, there have been a dozen elections while he has been the leader of Venezuela. One of the elections in 2004 was a referendum, an effort by the opposition to remove him from power that he survived.

Chavez won around 54% of the vote to defeat his challenger, Henrique Capriles Radonski, who won about 45% of the vote. Yet much of the coverage puts emphasis on the opposition with an eye toward investors in the richest one percent of America.

The Los Angeles Times report on the victory is indicative of the type of coverage so far:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez apparently won reelection by a convincing margin Sunday, with allegiance among poor voters to his socialist revolution trumping dissatisfaction with a stunted economy, rising crime and the increasing polarization of society.


First, it strikes a snooty tone with the word “apparently” inserted in the first line, as if the LA Times doubts that he actually won. The LA Times also lists off reasons for why there is opposition in Venezuela to Chavez and appears to suggest poor people put their loyalty to one man before the good of the whole society.

A blog post at the  Financial Times suggests there may be a mass exodus of people leaving the country before the economy experiences more “negative implications.” Matthew Hulbert for Forbes laments the re-election as a setback to the future of free trade in oil markets. And, the AP story uses the word “nevertheless” twice to make it seem like the population is just plain ignorant of political realities.

An opinion editorial in the Wall Street Journal, “Democracy, Chavez-Style,” is far more ideological in its smugness and rejection of Chavez. It comes from Mary O’Grady, a WSJ editor who mostly writes on Latin America and uses the newspaper to promote her free market views:

Thanks to Hugo Chávez, the legacy of Chile’s Augusto Pinochet as the only Latin American military dictator in modern times to voluntarily give up power through the ballot box is preserved this morning. Pinochet looks like more of a hero than ever.

Mr. Chávez “won” the Venezuelan presidential election Sunday by collecting 54% of the vote to 45% for challenger Henrique Capriles Radonski. But he did it with control of all of Venezuela’s government institutions and, more important, near total ownership of the Venezuelan economy. This gave the Venezuelan state the power to directly manipulate voter rolls and ballots and an open checkbook to influence—some would say “buy”—the vote. Mr. Capriles was never engaged in a fair fight.


The editorial is at first glance astounding because it simultaneously lauds the military rule of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet while contemptuously swiping at Chavez. Yet, if one knows world history, this is not surprising. Hero to free market ideologues, Milton Friedman, helped push Pinochet to carry out one of the first instances of economic shock treatment on a people for the benefit businesses and corporations.

Why Free Market Ideologues Celebrate a War Criminal

A group of Chilean economists that came to be known as the Chicago Boys trained under Friedman at the University of Chicago, as part of an initiative to influence the economic future in Chile so the country would not adopt socialist economic policies.

Journalist and author of The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein, wrote in 2010:

After the coup and the death of [Salvador] Allende, Pinochet and his Chicago Boys [including Friedman] did their best to dismantle Chile’s public sphere, auctioning off state enterprises and slashing financial and trade regulations. Enormous wealth was created in this period but at a terrible cost: by the early 80s, Pinochet’s Friedman-prescribed policies had caused rapid de-industrialisation, a tenfold increase in unemployment and an explosion of distinctly unstable shantytowns. They also led to a crisis of corruption and debt so severe that, in 1982, Pinochet was forced to fire his key Chicago Boy advisers and nationalize several of the large deregulated financial institutions.


Chavez is a “dictator” to O’Grady and other journalists because he promotes policies that guard against any US effort to shock the country and turn it into an economic disaster zone. It is this governance by Chavez that induces people like O’Grady to write such preposterous things like, “Dictators don’t walk away from power. They hold it until they die. Pinochet was an exception. Mr. Chávez proves the rule.” Their zealous belief in liberal free markets is why they downplay torture or war crimes carried out by Pinochet.

Omitting the US-Backed Military Coup in Venezuela from Chavez’s Political History

It is important to note, although the reports recount much of Chavez’s history as leader of Venezuela, most of the reports gloss over or entirely omit the fact that the United States was likely behind a failed coup against Chavez in 2002.

The Washington Post’s coverage is one example:

After coming to prominence in the 1990s after a failed attempt to seize power, Chavez, a former army paratrooper, won a series of elections: referendums that led to a new constitution and ended term limits and a vote that turned back a recall referendum in 2004...


In 2002, The Observer reported, “The failed coup in Venezuela was closely tied to senior officials in the US government, The Observer has established. They have long histories in the ‘dirty wars’ of the 1980s, and links to death squads working in Central America at that time.” Declassified documents, reported on in 2004, indicated the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “knew dissident military officers were planning a coup in 2002 against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.” The US government did not inform Venezuela there was a planned coup and sanctioned the plan by dissident military officers.

The New York Times, in the midst of the failed coup, celebrated this attempt to remove him from power:

With yesterday’s resignation of President Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator. Mr. Chávez, a ruinous demagogue, stepped down after the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader, Pedro Carmona. But democracy has not yet been restored, and won’t be until a new president is elected. That vote has been scheduled for next spring, with new Congressional elections to be held by this December. The prompt announcement of a timetable is welcome, but a year seems rather long to wait for a legitimately elected president.


Such is symptomatic of the Washington Consensus, the market fundamentalism that leaders in Washington believe should be implemented or prescribed for any country, especially countries in Latin America with popular leftist movements in power.

It is worth noting that a decade later Washington still engages in “democracy promotion” and, as Mark Weisbrot pointed out ahead of the election, was doing so during this election, as it spent “millions of dollars within the country in addition to unknown covert funds to undermine, delegitimize, and destabilize democracy in Venezuela.”

Washington has turned to this tactic because violence and economic warfare have failed. As Noam Chomsky outlined in his book, Hopes and Prospects, the recent history of interfering in elections in the country:

After a popular uprising restored the elected government, Washington immediately turned to funding groups of its choice within Venezuela while refusing to identify recipients: $26 million by 2006 for the new program after the failed coup attempt, all under the guise of supporting democracy. When the facts were reported by wire services, law professor Bill Monning at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, “We would scream bloody murder if any outside force were interfering in our internal political system.”


Venezuelans Much More Satisfied with Their Democracy Than Americans

Finally, Venezuelans are satisfied with their democracy—a reality that must deeply irritate those whose ideology leads them to oppose policies instituted by Chavez to help the poorest people in Venezuela. From a 2007 poll done by Latinobarometro:

When asked whether they were satisfied with their democratic system, 59 percent of Venezuelans said yes – second only to Uruguay and above the regional average of 37 percent.

On equality between the sexes, equality of opportunity, protection of private property, solidarity with the poor, equal distribution of wealth, and employment opportunities, Venezuela ranked first in the region.

When asked how they would describe the state of their country’s economy, 52 percent of Venezuelans described it as “very good” or “good,” the highest number in the region.

When asked how they predicted the economy would do over the next 12 months, 60 percent of Venezuelans claimed it would do “much better” or “a bit better,” the highest number in the region.

66 percent of Venezuelans expressed confidence in the government, the highest number in the region. The regional average was 39 percent.


Compared to Americans’ satisfaction with their “democratic system,” Venezuelans’ approval is likely much higher than Americans’ approval. Only four in ten, in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll in 2010, said they were “satisfied” with how “democracy was working” in the US. Three in ten, as of September 2012, were “satisfied” with the direction of the country, according to a Gallup poll.

Venezuelans appear to demand more of their government. They turnout to vote in far greater numbers than Americans (80% of Venezuelans voted in this election). In 2008, even with Barack Obama seeking to make history by becoming the first African-American president, only around 66% of Americans turned out to vote.

The country did not re-elect Chavez because poor people are waging a class war led by a leader intent to further decimate Venezuelan society. They re-elected him because, as Weisbrot has noted, “Poverty has been cut in half and extreme poverty by 70%. And this measures only cash income. Millions have access to healthcare for the first time, and college enrollment has doubled, with free tuition for many students. Inequality has also been considerably reduced.”

Neoliberal and/or free market policies have been soundly rejected. Those at the bottom are doing better. Americans should begin to ask whether Chavez and his movement have been doing something right.

Chavez wins re-election

Chavez wins re-election according to electoral council
SUNDAY, OCT 7, 2012
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/08/chavez_wins_re_election_according_to_electoral_council

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Hugo Chavez won re-election on Sunday, defeating challenger Henrique Capriles, Venezuela’s electoral council said.

With most votes counted, Chavez had more than 54 percent of the vote, and Capriles had 45 percent, National Electoral Council president Tibisay Lucena said. She said 81 percent of the nearly 19 million registered voters cast ballots.

It was Chavez’s third re-election victory in nearly 14 years in office. The victory gives Chavez another six-year term to cement his legacy and press more forcefully for a transition to socialism in the country with the world’s largest proven oil reserves.

Fireworks exploded in downtown Caracas, and Chavez’s supporters celebrated waving flags and jumping for joy outside the presidential palace.

Chavez won more than 7.4 million votes, beating Capriles by more than 1.2 million votes, Lucena said.

Venezuela Wins Against Exxon Mobil Frivolous Lawsuit

From LATimes.com:
Venezuela to pay Exxon Mobil only $255 million of ruling
State oil company Petroleos de Venezuela says debts and court action reduce an award of nearly $908 million by the International Chamber of Commerce.
Associated Press
January 2, 2012
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-exxon-20120102,0,5269113.story

Venezuela said Monday that it has successfully defended itself in an international arbitration case brought by Exxon Mobil Corp. and will need to pay only $255 million of nearly $908 million awarded to the company.

State oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA, said in a statement that debts and court action reduce what it owes under the ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce.

PDVSA said Exxon Mobil had previously used international courts to freeze about $300 million in Venezuela's U.S. accounts and that the company also has a debt of about $191 million related to the financing of an oil project in the country, as well as $160 million that the arbitration tribunal said was owed to PDVSA.

PDVSA called it a "successful defense" and said Exxon Mobil had initially demanded about $12 billion in compensation.

There was no immediate response from the Irving, Texas, oil company. It confirmed the international chamber's decision Sunday, saying the arbitration body found that PDVSA "does have a contractual liability to Exxon Mobil."

Exxon Mobil sought arbitration after President Hugo Chavez's government nationalized an oil project in the country in 2007.

PDVSA said that Exxon Mobil's compensation demands had been "completely exaggerated."

"After four years of arbitration, the real amount determined by the ICC tribunal indeed represents less than the exorbitant sum initially demanded," PDVSA said in the statement.

Exxon Mobil still has another arbitration case pending against Venezuela before the World Bank-affiliated International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes.

PDVSA said that Venezuela "will take all necessary steps to defend itself" in that case as well.

More than a dozen other arbitration cases involving Venezuela are pending as companies have sought billions of dollars in compensation in response to nationalizations by Chavez's leftist government.

Adam Smith Murdered Mars

From Reuters:
Capitalism may be to blame for the lack of life on the planet Mars, Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday.

"I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet," Chavez said in speech to mark World Water Day.

Chavez, who also holds capitalism responsible for many of the world's problems, warned that water supplies on Earth were drying up.

"Careful! Here on planet Earth where hundreds of years ago or less there were great forests, now there are deserts. Where there were rivers, there are deserts," Chavez said, sipping from a glass of water.

He added that the West's attacks on Libya were about water and oil reserves...

Chavez says capitalism may have ended life on Mars
Eyanir Chinea
Tue Mar 22, 2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/22/us-venezuela-chavez-mars-idUSTRE72L61D20110322

Chavez "communes" stoke Venezuela democracy debate

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66E7E420100715
Chavez "communes" stoke Venezuela democracy debate
Pascal Fletcher
CARACAS | Thu Jul 15, 2010

(Reuters) - Tucked into forested hills in southwest Caracas, a red-brick housing complex for the poor is a testing ground for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's latest step to build socialism in the Latin American oil producer.

The phalanx of simple five-storey apartment blocks, some still being built, anchors the "Cacique Tiuna Commune". This is one of a network of "socialist communes" that Chavez and his supporters want to extend across the nation in a political and legislative offensive to dismantle "bourgeois" capitalism.

Not surprisingly in a country whose politics is as flammable as gasoline, the project enshrined in a package of "power to the people" laws is stoking a political firestorm.

Fueling the political debate is the proximity of legislative elections on September 26.

The government says the communes will help end poverty. But furious opponents, who already denounce Chavez as a repressive autocrat, say the initiative heralds outright communism in Venezuela and so violates its pluralist constitution.

"A barrier is being crossed ... we're passing from Chavez's tropical socialism to open and glaring communism," says Emilio Grateron, mayor of Chacao, an opposition stronghold entrenched in a more wealthy eastern neighborhood of Caracas.

Displaying colorful murals of Venezuela's 19th century independence hero Simon Bolivar, and one of Argentine guerrilla legend Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the 2,220-inhabitant Cacique Tiuna Commune is conceived as a showcase "socialist" community among the dirt-poor hilltop slums that hem in the capital.

Chavez and the laws' promoters deny the communes project is a bid to railroad the country into Soviet- or Cuban-style Marxism. They say the legislation is compatible with the 1999 Constitution and follows socialist goals of ending decades of inequality in Venezuela and giving more say to the poor in the running of their own lives and that of the country.

"We're headed for socialism here, I haven't deceived anyone," the combative Venezuelan leader told his ruling PSUV party in a meeting this week. He blasted local Roman Catholic bishops who have criticized the communes program, calling them "troglodytes" and "fascists".

Chavez says the bishops and business "oligarchs", media tycoons and foreign "imperialists" who populate his full pantheon of ideological foes are misrepresenting the communes project as a pretext to destabilize his government.

The former soldier survived a brief coup in 2002. Opponents say he is conjuring up fake threats to throw a smokescreen over his failure to turn around the deteriorating economy and put a brake on rampant violent crime.

In the upcoming elections, opponents are expected to dent the National Assembly majority of Chavez's PSUV, which has been shaken by a scandal over the discovery of thousands of tonnes of rotten government-managed foodstuffs and polls showing weak public backing for more socialism and expropriations.

Chavez is still popular in his 11th year of rule, but his support is under strain as the economy slumps. It contracted 5.8 percent in the first quarter of this year and inflation is persistently high at an annualized rate of 31 percent in June.

FRESH ASSAULT ON PRIVATE PROPERTY?

Chavez's searing leftist rhetoric and his investor-scalding track record of strategic oil, industry and mining nationalizations have made him an anti-capitalist and anti-U.S. standard bearer in Latin America and the world.

The largely pro-Chavez National Assembly has initially approved the communes bill and some related laws. A second final approval is pending, and supporters say they hope this can happen before the elections.

"We're talking about government by the people," said Ulises Daal, a pro-Chavez parliament deputy and one of the main promoters of the project. He says the legislative plan to set up self-sustaining, self-governing "socialist communes" builds on the existence of some 36,000 Chavez-inspired "communal councils" that already dot the country.

Daal said 214 communes were already "under construction". Some have introduced barter markets and their own currencies.

Grateron and other opposition mayors have launched a noisy counter-offensive. They say Chavez is trying to force through by law a shift to all-out socialism he failed to introduce in a 2007 constitutional referendum that he narrowly lost, the only nationwide ballot he has not won.

Opponents single out the Communes Law's repeated references to "social" and "collective" ownership.

"It's a clear orientation toward the reduction and disappearance of private property," said Noel Alvarez, president of the Fedecamaras private business group.

However, the Communes Law text does say Venezuelans can "possess, use and enjoy individual and family property and patrimony", and Daal insisted that private property remained unaffected by the legislation and was guaranteed.

IDEOLOGY, OR APATHY

Neither ideological nor productive fervor were much visible at the Cacique Tiuna Commune, which boasts a plastics plant, a vegetable garden, a "socialist" carpentry shop and a plant nursery.

During a visit last week, the plastics plant was idled, the irrigated garden was awaiting "refinancing" to start and at the carpentry shop only a handful of laborers worked under the stern gaze of a mural depicting the historic Indian chief Tiuna after which the commune is named.

"The Comandante (Chavez) wants this to be a showcase community," said Yamilet Ramirez, the Commune's spokesperson. "The idea is that it should be self-supporting."

But the Cacique Tiuna commune seemed some way off its intended goal as a self-sustaining, self-governing community.

"People don't seem enthusiastic, they don't want to participate, I don't know why, since it's for them," said the head of the carpentry shop, Alexis Valdiviezo.

He himself did not have an apartment in the commune but was brought in six months ago by the Basic Industry Ministry to oversee the creation of a "socialist" carpentry network.

"I'm living in a hotel," said Valdiviezo, who said he had been promised an apartment in the commune by Chavez.

But for many of the commune inhabitants, the apartments, built with a primary school, a state MERCAL grocery and a soon-to-be opened high school, represent a huge improvement on their previous slum accommodation in hilltop shanties.

"We like it, of course ... this benefits all the people," said Ines Herrera, who works as a cleaner at the primary school. "There is a bit of apathy, but that's normal".

"No one here is shouting about Marx or Lenin," said Ramirez.

"FRONTIER OF CHAOS"

In the same way that Venezuela's oil income has bankrolled Chavez's socio-political projects over the last few years, a host of government ministries and their budgets are clearly heavily engaged in supporting the emerging communes.

A clause of the Communes Law stipulates that existing state governorships and municipal mayorships should make funds available to finance projects for the communes. This has led to worries by opposition mayors that the new structures will monopolize funds, accompanied by political discrimination.

The Commune Ministry's own information sheet on the Cacique Tiuna community notes among its weaknesses: "There were commune members who hold an ideology opposed to the government".

The legislation foresees each commune having its own parliament, elected in open assemblies, and a five-member council to ensure the execution of decisions taken. A Communal Bank, and communal justice system will also be created.

Critics say the creation of these parallel systems alongside existing state and local structures will generate confusion. "It's the frontier of chaos," Grateron said.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Rondon; Editing by Kieran Murray)

Venezuela slum takes socialism beyond Chavez

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N04171136.htm

Venezuela slum takes socialism beyond Chavez
06 Jul 2010
Esteban Israel

* Caracas slum a lab for Chavez's socialist project

* Radical groups are key part of president's support

* Opposition sees militants as Chavez's personal army

CARACAS, July 6 (Reuters) - While President Hugo Chavez struggles to revive the battered bolivar, in a hillside slum overlooking his palace, die-hard supporters are talking about getting rid of the Venezuelan currency altogether.

Welcome to the 23 de Enero barrio, home to about 100,000 people and something of a laboratory for Chavez's nationwide socialist experiment. Here you find dogs named "Comrade Mao", and even a "revolutionary car wash."

"We are creating a popular bank and are going to issue a communal currency: little pieces of cardboard," says Salvador Rooselt, a soft-spoken 24-year-old law student and community leader who often quotes Lenin and Marx.

Some 20 militant groups sometimes described as Chavez's "storm troopers" run this urban jungle in western Caracas, where hulking concrete buildings daubed with colorful murals -- one depicting Jesus Christ brandishing an AK-47 rifle -- show off the neighborhood's radical tradition.

"We are giving capitalism a punch in its social metabolism," said Rooselt, of the Alexis Vive group, wearing its trademark bandana with the image of guerrilla icon Ernesto Che Guevara around his neck.

A deeply-rooted socialist ideology, absolute territorial control and financing from the government have allowed Alexis Vive to put into practice some of the ideas Chavez is struggling to implement in the rest of Venezuela.

Socialist stores sell milk and meat from recently nationalized producers at about a 50 percent discount. Residents do voluntary work, kids are encouraged to steer clear of drugs, and some youths have even joined a pioneer organization modeled on similar groups in Communist Cuba.

"I'm sure President Chavez supports our initiatives and seeks to implement them at a national level," Rooselt said.

Alexis Vive spreads its message via Radio Arsenal, an underground FM station Rooselt says was inspired by Vladimir Lenin's experience with a political newspaper a century ago.

They are also turning their hands to urban agriculture and fish farming to feed locals, and say that the future communal bank will extend micro-credit to foster economic independence.

"TENSE ALLIANCE"

Despite being a stronghold of the "chavista" movement with a massive electoral muscle that has helped the president win votes for more than a decade, 23 de Enero's radicalism has often proved a political liability for Venezuela's leader.

A series of attacks targeting opposition symbols such as the Globovision television station, and even the Roman Catholic Archdiocese, have led Chavez to publicly distance himself from these groups in the past -- although some neighbors think they still take direct orders from "Comandante Presidente."

George Ciccariello-Maher, a social scientist with a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley who has studied Venezuela's radical movements, calls it a "tense alliance" between the president and the barrios.

"Chavez depends on the radical sectors for support, but neither side truly trusts one another ... If he were to destroy them, he would be destroying his own base as well," he said.

Gone are the days when local groups proudly displayed their automatic weapons in front of visiting reporters. Militants from Alexis Vive say their armed struggle is over.

"Ever since the revolutionary process started there haven't been any weapons. We joined the Bolivarian militias," said Rooselt, referring to a 35,000-strong armed force recently launched by Chavez to defend his socialist revolution.

But other more belligerent groups within 23 de Enero appear to be still armed to the teeth.

In January, one of the groups released a video to the media showing its members dressed in military attire and brandishing automatic weapons and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

They called on Chavez to clean his government of corrupt "false socialists."

Security in 23 de Enero remains tight. Rooselt's told Reuters he received a call by cell phone the moment two reporters were spotted in the neighborhood.

That might explain why crime rates here have dropped by 95 percent, according to the militants, who say they have turned it into one of the safest places in crime-ridden Caracas.

"SPEARHEAD OF THE REVOLUTION"

Known in the past as "Little Vietnam," 23 de Enero has a long history of left-wing radicalism. The neighborhood's name refers to January 23, 1958, the date on which military dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez was toppled.

The community, mostly made up of rural workers attracted to the capital by Venezuela's oil boom, played a key role in the 1989 riots known as the "Caracazo," which claimed scores of lives when the army shelled buildings in the area for days.

Alexis Vive, for instance, honors community leader Alexis Gonzalez, who was killed by the police in 2002.

Berkeley's Ciccariello-Maher calls 23 de Enero an example of "alternative sovereignty" beyond the control of the state.

"The neighborhood and movements it nurtures represent both the laboratory and spearhead of the Bolivarian Revolution ... It is in 23 de Enero that the most radical forces are located, forces which drive the process forward," he said.

The government is finding new ways of supporting 23 de Enero. In a plot behind a local market, neighbors in Che Guevara bandanas are building a state-funded brick factory equipped with Iranian-technology.

Not far from there, a group of former paratroopers who joined a failed coup d'etat by Chavez in 1992 have set up a "revolutionary car wash" next to a wall displaying a huge picture of the late Colombian guerrilla commander Marulanda.

"Here in 23 de Enero we are committed to take this process to the very end," said cooperative member Martin Campos, a 38-year-old retired soldier sporting a yellow baseball cap with a red star. "We are chavistas. Red, very red." (Editing by Daniel Wallis and Anthony Boadle)

The buffoonization of Hugo Chavez

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6031.shtml

The buffoonization of Hugo Chavez
Sean Fenley
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jun 23, 2010

“We were always cautious about the triumph of President Obama. Early on, we began to take note of the truth, that the empire is here, alive and more threatening than ever.” --Hugo Chavez Frias

It is said when you can’t beat ’em, that you might as well make common cause with them, but in the case of President Hugo Chavez and the government of Venezuela this doesn’t seem to be the logical choice of the U.S. State Department, and the corporate ‘mainstream’ media at all.

Since, the Obama State Department and its auxiliaries are incapable of debunking the unequivocal success of the Bolivarian revolution, and since the CIA’s forays into the Bolivarian Republic have been far from a success, the corporate MSM seems to be employing the strategy, that if you can’t beat ’em, then you might as well throw a whole bunch of mud in their eye.

Craven, and seemingly incapable of a fair fight, the corporate ‘mainstream’ media egregiously goes for the low blow, each and every time. The propaganda and half-truths, levied against the sitting Venezuelan president, at times veers into the realm of classifying Chavez as a dictatorial strongman -- which has never stopped the U.S. government before -- but I think the lion’s share of the effort to impugn and delegitimize Chavez, is to make him out to be playing with something far short of a full deck.

Perhaps most recognizably, we have seen the baseness of the coverage of President Chavez in colorful remarks that he has made about George W. Bush being the devil, or in his referring to Sarah Palin as a confused beauty pageant contestant. These comments have been made out to be the zenith of President Chavez’s intellectual powers. And although the Venezuela leader, may -- at times -- make these sort of flip, off the cuff remarks and comments, his raising of serious and incisive points about the United States empire and belligerent ‘hegemonic’ power generally go unnoticed by a media seemingly looking to do nothing other than lampoon and skewer the Bolivarian president.

Presumably, anyone who opposes -- and has a coherent critique -- of U.S. neocolonialism and imperialism is some kind of a buffoon or imbecile. History, of course, ended long ago, and anyone opposing the straitjacket that the wealthiest countries want to affix upon the rest of humanity must be hopelessly misinformed and/or wildly out of touch. Never do the so-called mainstream media’s ‘reliable sources,’ focus on figures like a drop in poverty from 71 percent in 1996 to 23 percent in 2010, or that Venezuela, long ago, met its UN Millennium Development targets. Instead, slander, invective, and a generalized muddying of the waters are the tools of the ‘diligent reporting’ of the ‘venerable’ corporatist press.

Time Magazine, for example, in an article in 2007, referred to Chavez as a budding movie mogul for funding a project on Toussaint L’Ouverture with the veteran American actor and activist Danny Glover. Time opined, in that piece of incomparable ‘journalism,’ that this would probably be just the beginning, of Chavez’s forays into socialist propaganda films. One would think that the apropos question for Time’s reportage, would be why would such a seasoned and respected actor of Hollywood need to go outside of the U.S. to fund this kind of project of such an important figure of Haitian history and even the history of the world? And one can only imagine the coverage of L’Ouverture, by the Western media of his day; he was probably the Hugo Chavez of his era, and almost undoubtedly accused of being something like an inciter of riots for realizing that people born in chains might want some modicum of freedom.

The Los Angeles Times devoted critical resources recently to informing their audience that Hugo Chavez had opened a Twitter account. The Times -- in a testament to their abilities of ‘objective’ news-making -- said they were glued to Chavez’s tweets, because of the man’s “sometimes unpredictable actions.” Moreover, they erroneously reported that Chavez had a tight grip on the media in his country; when the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of Venezuelan media is rabidly anti-Chavez and firmly in the hands of the Venezuelan elite.

Progressive commentator Mark Weisbrot, has even likened the Venezuelan private media’s coverage of Chavez to Fox News’ coverage of Barack Obama in the United States. Though Weisbrot went even further, saying that the Venezuelan private media is more politicized, more prone to hyperbole, and less rooted in facts compared to Rupert Murdoch’s virulent propaganda operation in the U. S. In concluding the LA Times article, unequivocally a Pulitzer level, erudite piece, the Times talked to U.S. State Department spokesmen Philip Crowley. Crowley, soberly told the Times reporter he spoke with that he simply couldn’t resist being a Twitter follower of President Hugo Chavez’s numerous tweets.

The corporate media are, of course, replete with this kind of shoddy, trivialized, and half-baked ‘journalism.’ And apparently one needs to be a highly celebrated and Academy Award winning filmmaker to get any kind of substantive, reasonably fair coverage of Venezuela in the U.S. corporatist fourth estate. A recent piece on Oliver Stone’s newest documentary, in the New York Daily News, actually raised some sober-minded points about Venezuela -- things that are regularly redacted from most of the mainstream accounts. Things like that the ‘bad guys’ in this narrative are really the U.S., the International Monetary Fund, and colonial powers, such as Britain and Spain. And also that there is widespread popular support for Hugo Chavez in his home country; he’s not just some clownish Svengali who has a nation by the horns.

The article also quotes Stone’s accurate contention that there’s been virtually no change whatsoever emanating from the administration of Barack Obama. Reading this sort of information in the American mainstream media is almost not to be believed, because it is just the kind of thing that is perennially missing from the one side of the issue that the ‘mainstream’ choose to support. And as George Orwell famously noted in his seminal work of fiction, 1984, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” It’s no wonder Venezuela could surely be just another potential territory ripe for invasion, and the spreading of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ and ‘nation-building’ one day on the not all too distant horizon. Especially, when considering a media that succeed in redefining up as down, and rewriting history according to the worldview that it is self-referentially operating from.

One would think, if s/he puts any stock in the MSM’s egregious, slanderous actions, that a dictatorial, oafish, president controls the state of Venezuela. The truth of the matter is, undeniably, that making progress there -- on the fronts where President Hugo Chavez has been successful -- would, of course, be impossible if Venezuela were being shepherded by just another one of the stewards of U.S. imperial mandates. And it would, irrefutably, be nothing more than a vassal, wholly-owned subsidiary of the United States.

Sean Fenley is an independent progressive, who would like to see some sanity brought to the creation and implementation of current and future, U.S. military, economic, foreign and domestic policies. He has been published by a number of websites, and publications throughout the alternative media.

Chavez threatens to nationalize Venezuelan banks

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091129/wl_nm/us_venezuela_banks_chavez

Chavez threatens to nationalize Venezuelan banks
Walker Simon Walker Simon
Sun Nov 29, 2009

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday he could nationalize private banks unless they comply with the law, adding he had "no problem with that because the banks don't want to extend credit to the poor."

In a broadcast from nationalized farmland in central Venezuela, he said: "To all the country's private bankers ... (I'm saying) he who slips up loses; I'll take over the bank, whatever its size."

"You want me to nationalize the banks?" he said during the broadcast of his weekly TV show "Alo Presidente."

"I have no problem with that because the banks don't want to extend credit to the poor, they don't comply, they don't want to comply with the bank's purpose for existence, and that is the law."

Chavez said the purpose of banks was not to enrich a small group of people but "should be to collect funds and savings to help aid the country's development by making loans, extending credits for housing."

In power for a decade, Chavez has nationalized broad swathes of the economy.

His banking nationalization threats on Sunday appeared to be broader in scope than his well-publicized warnings in recent years to nationalize Spanish-owned banks in Venezuela.

He repeatedly threatened to seize Spanish bank subsidiaries in Venezuela unless Spain's king apologized for telling him to "shut up" in November 2007 at a regional summit where Chavez branded a recent ex-Spanish prime minister a fascist.

But the only major private bank, foreign or Venezuelan, to fall into state hands under Chavez's rule was Spain's Banco Santander unit Banco de Venezuela, sold to Venezuela in July for $1.05 billion.

The government's last banking takeover was on November 20, when it seized four small banks, accounting for about 6 percent of Venezuela's deposits.

Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez then said the move stemmed from concerns about credit portfolios, problems explaining the source of funds and failure to comply with some obligations.

BANKERS NOT IN COMPLIANCE - CHAVEZ

Chavez spoke Sunday from the countryside behind a table strewn with a jumble of books, maps and documents, against the background of farmland growing black beans.

Addressing the banking theme, he said unnamed bankers "are not complying, they do not want to comply with the function for which a bank should exist (such as) that is in the law.

"This is occurring right now with a group of private banks, that's a demonstration that those private banking sectors don't want to learn, they don't want to accept that there is a constitution ... and that there are laws."

Venezuela's banking sector is dominated by 10 banks that control 70 percent of the total funds.

Chavez said he ordered the nation's chief prosecutor to investigate why a state bank, Banfoandes, deposited "a giant amount of resources in private banks."

"How is it that state resources, which belong to the people ... end up being placed in private banks?" he asked in his broadcast. "This is counterrevolutionary."

The four banks seized on November 20 were Banco Confederado, Banco Canarias, Banco Provivienda and bolivar Banco.

On Friday, a court acting on prosecutors' request banned travel abroad of 16 executives -- eight from Confederado, six from Provivienda and two from bolivar Banco.

Chavez said if it were up to him, he would have jailed the 16 executives due to flight risk. "They have (their own) light aircraft and private airports and (can) leave."

Chavez also criticized what he termed as excessive spending by state entities in the private medical sector.

"We have made a gift of millions and millions of bolivares this year to the bourgeoisie, which owns the private clinics, the great insurance companies," he said. "Enough already."

He said those funds should go directly to "the people."

(Reporting by Walker Simon, additional reporting by Fabian Cambero, editing by Matthew Lewis)

Colombian hitman: 2,500 paramilitary in Venezuela

http://rawstory.com/2009/09/colombian-hitman-2500-paramilitary-in-venezuela-with-goal-of-taking-down-chavez/

Colombian hitman: 2,500 paramilitary in Venezuela with goal of ‘taking down’ Chavez
By Stephen C. Webster
Saturday, September 26th, 2009

A Colombian hitman recently disclosed to the Venezuelan government that over 2,500 paramilitary fighters are in the country, each chasing a $25 million bounty on the life of Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, according to Arab news network Al Jazeera.

The man, who is reportedly in the custody of Venezuelan officials, said the bounty was offered by Manuel Rosales, Chavez’s most prominent political foe, during a secret meeting 10 years ago.

Rosales allegedly said “that he would give $25 million to kill [Chavez], but that he himself would not give the money directly,” the man said, as translated by Al Jazeera.

Rosales fled into Peru in April after a warrant was issued for his arrest. He protested in the media, calling the corruption charges a political lynching.

“Right now, there are two thousand, five hundred paramilitaries from Colombia inside Venezuela with one objective: with the objective of taking down Chavez, with the objective of destabilizing him” a translator says on the video.

The network was unable to obtain comment from Rosales, and the Venezuela attorney general’s office would not confirm nor deny the veracity of the man’s claims.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, speaking to a South American newspaper recently, claimed the United States may have been involved in an attempted overthrow of Chavez’s regime.

“I think there is no doubt that in 2002, the United States had at the very least full knowledge about the coup, and could even have been directly involved,” he told El Tiempo last week.

Carter told El Tiempo that he believed Chavez was elected in a “fair” vote in 1999, had carried out necessary reforms for Venezuela and ensured that “those who are traditionally excluded are able to get a larger share of the national wealth.”

But he also said he was worried by the Venezuelan leader’s drift towards “authoritarianism.”

In August, Colombian officials announced a deal with the United States that will allow U.S. troops to be stationed at Colombian military bases, which will serve as a hub for remote surveillance in the region. Their mission will allegedly use advanced Predator drone technology to aid in fighting the drug trade and to combat terrorism, according to published reports in August.

In Venezuela, officials bristled at the news. Chavez warned: “The winds of war [are] beginning to blow.”

Chavez has already accused Colombian troops of making an incursion over the border and regional tensions are running high.

Chávez, the New Oprah, Makes Another Bestseller

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/chavez-the-new-oprah-makes-another-bestseller/

April 20, 2009
Chávez, the New Oprah, Makes Another Bestseller
By Robert Mackey

Demonstrating a heretofore unknown capacity for speed-reading, Americans rushed to Amazon.com over the weekend to post new reviews of the 317-page book — Eduardo Galeano’s “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent” — President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela gave to President Obama at the Summit of the Americas on Saturday. As one of the readers engaged in the discussion of what is now the second most popular book on Amazon’s Web site noted:

Who would have believed that so many people could order the book, get it delivered, and read it overnight! Who says Americans have become a nation of illiterates?!?

Then again, as some other reviewers of the reviewers on Amazon have suggested, it just might be that some of the people flooding Amazon with negative evaluations of the book saved time by not actually reading it before speed-writing their responses to it. There is no doubt that people have been ordering the book from Amazon — the BBC reports on Monday that it was Amazon’s 54,295th most popular title on Friday but had shot up to number two on the company’s bestseller list by Monday morning — but, given that the online bookseller estimates that it takes one to three weeks after an order is placed for this book to be shipped, it seems unlikely that any of the newest reviews were based on careful evaluations of the arguments put forth by the Uruguayan author.

The book’s new popularity has even spawned a separate discussion thread on Amazon headlined: “What’s With All The New Reviews? Did A Bunch Of People Read It In The Past Couple Of Days??” One of the book’s haters responded there by arguing that it was unnecessary to read the book to form an opinion about it:

Basically, it sounds like another ‘All evil comes from European-descendant white people’ and Latin America would be a paradise if we’d never arrived (never mind the human sacrifices going on at the time of the Spanish arrival and the massive corruption that is currently ongoing in utopias like Venezuala). I haven’t read it, though; why read Karl Marx through another ethnic lens when I have the original source on the bookshelf, along with a few other filtered versions?

On the other side of the argument, a reader identified as one of Amazon’s top 500 reviewers wrote on Sunday that while he thinks “Chavez is a boor and a buffoon, and it could be taken as a gesture of supreme condescension that he gave the well-educated American president one of the standard texts of Latin American studies,” he still hopes that Mr. Obama will read an English translation of the book since “Even English readers who will dismiss his analysis as ‘economic determinism’ should be ready to meet Galeano, on his own terms, as a vivid example of the Latin American world-view.”

President Hugo Chavez showed a book by John Kenneth Galbraith to Venezuelan business leaders in Caracas in June, 2008.This is not the first time that an endorsement from Mr. Chávez has had this sort of effect on a book’s fortunes. In 2006, as Motoko Rich reported in The Times, days after Mr. Chávez held up a Spanish translation of Noam Chomsky’s “Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance,” during a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, the English version “hit No. 1 on Amazon’s best-seller list” in the United States.

North American readers may be less aware of the fact that Mr. Chávez apparently likes giving and getting books from other world leaders, and has also been photographed exchanging reading material with the presidents of Yemen, Russia, Cuba and Colombia in recent years.

While “The Open Veins of Latin America” itself is not available to read online, Isabel Allende’s introduction, which accompanies the English translation and was written in the 1990s, is on the Web, and that may give a better sense of what the book means to its proponents is about beyond the simple “anti-capitalist” handle that has been attached to it in the last few days.

You can also see and hear the Uruguayan writer speak for himself in a long interview with Mr. Galeano conducted by Amy Goodman and Juan Golnzalez in 2006, which is available in both video and audio versions on the Web site of the program “Democracy Now.”

Not having read it myself, I am unable to offer readers any better review of this work by Eduardo Galeano — although his book about the game that dominates many lives in Latin America, “Soccer in Sun and Shadow,” is a great read. Samples of that book’s English translation are available online, in Google Book Search. One version of a chapter of that book published in an academic journal gives a sense of how Mr. Galeano writes, and sees the world:

The history of soccer is a sad voyage from beauty to duty. When the sport became an industry, the beauty that blossoms from the joy of play got torn out by its very roots. In this fin-de-siecle world, professional soccer condemns all that is useless, and useless means not profitable. Nobody earns a thing from that crazy feeling that for a moment turns a man into a child playing with a balloon, like a cat with a ball of yarn, a ballet dancer who romps with a ball as light as a balloon or a ball of yarn, playing without even knowing he’s playing, with no purpose or clock or referee.

Play has become spectacle, with few protagonists and many spectators, soccer for watching. And that spectacle has become one of the most profitable businesses in the world, organized not for play but rather to impede it. The technocracy of professional sport has managed to impose a soccer of lightning speed and brute strength, a soccer that negates joy, kills fantasy and outlaws daring.

Luckily, on the field you can still see, even if only once in a long while, some insolent rascal who sets aside the script and commits the blunder of dribbling past the entire opposing side, the referee and the crowd in the stands, all for the carnal delight of embracing the forbidden adventure of freedom.