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Venezuela Among the Most Positive Countries, Gallup Says

Venezuelan Embassy to the U.S. / December 20, 2012

A new survey by the Washington, DC-based public opinion pollster Gallup finds that Latin Americans are the most positive people in the world, and Venezuela is tied for second place among all countries measured.

The survey asked citizens of various countries to answer questions including: “Did you feel well-rested yesterday?” “Were you treated with respect?” and “Did you smile or laugh a lot?”

In Venezuela, 84 percent of respondents answered “yes” to those questions, the same amount as in El Salvador, which tied with Venezuela for second place after Panama and Paraguay, which tied for first  with 85 percent.

According to Gallup, eight of the top ten most positive countries in the world are in Latin America, with Trinidad and Tobago coming in at number five (with 83 percent), followed by Thailand (83 percent), Guatemala (82 percent), Philippines (82 percent), Ecuador (81 percent), and Costa Rica (81 percent). At the low end, just 46 percent of respondents in Singapore answered “yes” to the questions.

The implications, according to the analysis, are that a country’s overall economic prosperity does not correspond with the amount of positivity felt by its citizens.

The report explains: “These data may surprise analysts and leaders who solely focus on traditional economic indicators. Residents of Panama, which ranks 90th in the world with respect to GDP per capita, are among the most likely to report positive emotions. Residents of Singapore, which ranks fifth in the world in terms of GDP per capita, are the least likely to report positive emotions.”

On average, 73 percent of adults around the world felt enjoyment a lot of the day, and 72 percent felt well-rested. A smaller proportion – 43 percent on average – said they were able to learn or do something interesting.

The report states that, on the whole, the data “reflects a relatively upbeat world.” It concludes that “Despite many global challenges, people worldwide are experiencing many positive emotions.”

Click here to see the full results.

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December 22, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

South – South trade may withstand global recession

Indian and Latin American cooperation

Claudia Fonseca Sosa | Granma | December 13, 2012

THIS year, India has shown a notable interest in increasing its economic relations with Latin American countries. Given the serious crisis in the Eurozone and the deceleration of the U.S. economy, nations south of the Rio Bravo are demonstrating greater macroeconomic stability and represent a major growing market.

For example, Brazil, the principal regional buyer of Indian products and the second-largest supplier to the country, increased imports from the Asian giant by 66.2% on the first seven months of 2012. Mexico, the second largest buyer and fourth Latin American exporter to India, raised its exports to the country by 72.1% in the first half of the year.

Other Latin American nations, essentially exporters of raw materials, also have a secure market in India at a time of financial instability. Indian business executives predict that, by 2014, bi-regional trade will be double that of 2011.

However, the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs believes that economic links with Latin America could be more developed, and thus exceed the current trade volume of $25 billion, an insufficient figure and equal to 10% of Chinese economic exchange with the region.

The Indian economy is historically based on manufactured goods and agriculture, being one of the principal world producers of sugar cane, cotton and jute. But in recent decades the country has diversified and developed into sectors such as space and aeronautics research, informatics, telecommunications, electronics, medicine, oil and natural gas.

In fact, India’s dynamic industrial development has caught the attention of companies worldwide, leading to the establishment of subsidiaries in the country, which possess a large qualified workforce.

As a member of the group of emerging economies, BRICS, together with Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa, India contributes half of global economic growth. In 2011, its Gross Domestic Product grew by over 8%.

In June 2012, a ministerial representation from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Community (CELAC) had a meeting in New Delhi with Indian government officials, during which both sides expressed a mutual interest in extending political relations and economic ones in particular. It was the first time that CELAC, comprising 33 countries in the region, had negotiated abroad as a bloc.

~

See also:

Iran, Brazil Trade Balance Hits $2.4bln

Sri Lanka proposes barter trade with Iran

Pakistan, Iran to open a new market near border

Belarus to Get $600 Mln in Loans from China

Chinese MP: Beijing Welcomes Expansion of All-out Ties with Tehran

Diplomat: Iran-Iraq Trade Ties to Surpass $12bln

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December 20, 2012 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Achievements of Hugo Chavez

By CHARLES MUNTANER, JOAN BENACH, MARIA PAEZ VICTOR | CounterPunch | December 14, 2012

While Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez is fighting for his life in Cuba, the liberal press of both sides of the Atlantic (e.g., El Pais ) has not stopped trashing his government. The significance of his victory (12 points ahead of his contender) has yet to be analyzed properly, with evidence. It is remarkable that Chávez would win, sick with cancer, outgunned by the local and international media (think of Syriza’s Greece election) and, rarely acknowledged, an electoral map extremely biased towards the middle and upper classes, with geographical barriers and difficult access to Ids for members of the working classes.

One of the main factors for the popularity of the Chávez Government and its landslide victory in the re-election results of October 2012, is the reduction of poverty, made possible because the government took back control of the national petroleum company PDVSA, and has used the abundant oil revenues, not for benefit of a small class of rentiers as previous governments had done, but to build needed infrastructure and invest in the social services that Venezuelans so sorely needed.  During the last ten years, the government has increased social spending by 60.6%, a total of $772 billion [i].

Poverty is not defined solely by lack of income nor is health defined as the lack of illness. Both are correlated and both are multi-factorial, that is, determined by a series of social processes. To make a more objective assessment of the real progress achieved by the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela during the last 13 years it is essential to review some of the key available data on the social determinants of health and poverty: education, inequality, jobs and income, health care, food security and social support and services.

With regard to these social determinants of health indicators, Venezuela is now the country in the region with the lowest inequality level (measured by the Gini Coefficient) having reduced inequality by 54%, poverty by 44%. Poverty has been reduced from 70.8% (1996) to 21% (2010). And extreme poverty reduced from 40% (1996) to a very low level of 7.3% (2010). About 20 million people have benefited from anti-poverty programs, called “Misiones” (Up to now, 2.1 million elderly people have received old-age pensions – that is 66% of the population while only 387,000 received pensions before the current government.

Education is a key determinant of both health and poverty and the Bolivarian government has placed a particular emphasis on education allotting it more than 6% of GDP. UNESCO has recognized that illiteracy been eliminated, furthermore, Venezuela is the 3rd most literate country in the region. There is tuition free education from daycare to university; 72% of children attend public daycare and 85% of school age children attend school. There are thousands of new or refurbished schools, including 10 new universities. The country places 2nd in Latin America and 5th in the world with the greatest proportions of university students. In fact, 1 out of every 3 Venezuelans are enrolled in some educational  program. [ii] . It is also a great achievement that Venezuela is now tied with Finland as the 5th happiest country in the world [iii] .

Before the Chavez government in 1998, 21% of the population was malnourished. Venezuela now has established a network of subsidized food distribution including grocery stores and supermarkets. While 90% of the food was imported in 1980, today this is less than 30%.  Misión Agro-Venezuela has given out 454,238 credits to rural producers and 39,000 rural producers have received credit in 2012 alone.  Five million Venezuelan receive free food, four million of them are children in schools and 6,000 food kitchens feed 900,000 people.  The agrarian reform and policies to help agricultural producers have increased domestic food supply. The results of all these food security measures is that  today  malnourishment  is only 5%, and child malnutrition  which was  7.7% in 1990 today is at 2.9%. This is an impressive health achievement by any standard.

Some of the most important available data on health care and public health are the following [iv], [v], [vi]:

*infant mortality dropped from 25 per 1000 (1990) to only 13/1000 (2010);

*An outstanding 96% of the population now has access to clean water (one of the goals of the revolution);

*In 1998, there were 18 doctors per 10,000 inhabitants, currently there are  58, and the public health system has about 95,000 physicians;

*It took four decades for previous governments to build 5,081 clinics, but in just 13 years the Bolivarian government built 13,721 (a 169.6% increase);

*Barrio Adentro (i.e., primary care program with the help of more than 8,300 Cuban doctors) has saved approximately 1.4 million lives in 7,000 clinics and has given 500 million consultations;

*In 2011 alone, 67,000 Venezuelans received free high cost medicines for 139 pathological conditions including cancer, hepatitis, osteoporosis, schizophrenia, and others; there are now 34 centers for addictions,

*In 6 years 19,840 homeless have been assisted through a special program; and there are practically no children living on the streets.

*Venezuela now has the largest intensive care unit in the region.

*A network of public drugstores sell subsidized medicines in  127 stores with savings of 34-40%.

*51,000 people have been treated in Cuba for specialized eye treatment and the eye care program “Mision Milagro”; has restored sight to 1.5 million Venezuelans.

An example of how the government has tried to respond in a timely fashion to the real needs of its people is the situation that occurred in 2011 when heavy tropical rains left 100,000 people homeless. They were immediately sheltered temporarily in all manner of public buildings and hotels and, in one and a half years, the government built 250,000 houses. The government has obviously not eradicated all social ills, but its people do recognize that, despite any shortcomings and mistakes, it is a government that is on their side, trying to use its resources to meet their needs. Part of this equation is the intense political participation that the Venezuelan democracy stands for, that includes 30,000 communal councils, which determine local social needs and oversee their satisfaction and allows the people to be protagonists of the changes they demand.[vii]

The Venezuelan economy has low debts, high petroleum reserves and high savings, yet Western economists that oppose President Chávez repeat ad nauseam that the Venezuelan economy is not “sustainable” and predict its demise when the oil revenues stop. Ironically they do not hurl these dire predictions to other oil economies such as Canada or Saudi Arabia. They conveniently ignore that Venezuela’s oil reserves of 500 billion barrels of oil is the largest in the world and consider the social investment of oil revenues a waste or futile endeavor. However, these past 13 years, the Bolivarian government has been building up an industrial and agricultural infrastructure that 40 years of previous governments had neglected and its economy continues to get stronger even in the face of a global financial crisis.

An indication of the increasing diversification of the economy is the fact that the State now obtains almost as much revenue from tax collection as from the sale of oil, since it strengthened its capacity for tax collection and wealth redistribution.

Economic milestones these last ten years include reduction in unemployment from 11.3% to 7.7%; doubling the number of people receiving social insurance benefits, and the flourishing of cooperatives has strengthened local endogenous economies.  In general, the Venezuelan economy has grown 47.4% in ten years, that is, 4.3% per annum. [viii].

Today many European countries would look jealously at these figures. Economists who studied the Venezuelan economy in detail for years indicate that, “The predictions of economic collapse, balance of payments or debt crises and other gloomy prognostications, as well as many economic forecasts along the way, have repeatedly proven wrong… Venezuela’s current economic growth is sustainable and could continue at the current pace or higher for many years.” [ix] .

According to Global Finance and the CIA World Factbook, the Venezuelan economy presents the following indicators [x]: unemployment rate of  8%; 45.5% government (public) debt as a percent of GDP (by contrast  the European Union debt/GDP is 82.5%); and a real GDP growth: GDP per capita is $13,070.

In 2011, the Venezuelan economy defied most forecasts by growing 4.2 percent, and was up 5.6 percent in the first half of 2012. It has a debt-to-GDP ratio comfortably below the U.S. and the UK, and stronger than European countries; an inflation rate,  an endemic  problem during many decades, that has fallen to a four-year low, or 13.7%, over the most recent 2012 quarter. Even The Wall Street Journal reports that Venezuela’s stock exchange is by far the best-performing stock market in the world, reaching an all-time high in October 2012, and Venezuela’s bonds are some of the best performers in emerging markets.

Hugo Chavez’s victory had an impact around the world as he is recognized as having spearheaded radical change not only in his own country but in all Latin America where progressive governments have also been elected, thereby reshaping the global order. The victory was even more significant considering the enormous financial and strategic help that the USA agencies and allies gave to the opposition parties and media.  Since 2002, Washington channeled $100 million to opposition groups in Venezuela and this election year alone, distributed US$ 40-50 million there. [xi]  But the Venezuelan people disregarded the barrage of propaganda unleashed against the president by the media that is 95% privately owned and anti-Chavez. [xii]. The tide of progressive change in the region has started to build the infrastructure for the first truly independent South America with political integration organizations such as Bank of the South, CELAC, ALBA, PETROSUR, PETROCARIBE, UNASUR, MERCOSUR, TELESUR and thus have demonstrated to the rest of the world that there are, after all, economic and social alternatives in the 21st century [xiii]. Following a different model of development from that of global capitalism in sharp contrast to Europe, debt levels across Latin America are low and falling.

The changes in Venezuela are not abstract. The government of President Chávez has significantly improved the living conditions of Venezuelans and engaged them in dynamic political participation to achieve it [xiv]. This new model of socialist development has had a phenomenal impact all over Latin America, including Colombia of late, and the progressive left of center governments that are now the majority in the region see in Venezuela the catalyst that that has brought more democracy, national sovereignty and economic and social progress to the region [xv]. No amount of neoliberal rhetoric can dispute these facts.  Dozens of opinionated experts can go on forever on whether the Bolivarian Revolution is or is not socialist, whether it is revolutionary or reformist (it is  likely to be both ), yet at the end  of the day these substantial achievements remain. This is what infuriates its opponents the most both inside Venezuela and most notably, from neocolonialist countries. The “objective” and “empiricist” The Economist will not publicize this data, preferring to predict once again the imminent collapse of the Venezuelan economy and El Pais, in Spain, would rather have one of the architects of the Caracazo (the slaughter of 3000 people in Caracas protesting the austerity measures of 1989), the minister of finance of the former government Moises Naim, go on with his anti-Chávez obsession. But none of them can dispute that the UN Human Development Index situates Venezuela in place #61 out of 176 countries having increased 7 places in 10 years.

And that is one more reason why Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution will survive Venezuela’s Socialist leader.

Carles Muntaner is Professor of Nursing, Public Health and Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. He has been working on the public health aspects of the Bolivarian Revolution for more than a decade including Muntaner C, Chung H, Mahmood Q and Armada F. “History Is Not Over. The Bolivarian Revolution, Barrio Adentro and Health Care in Venezuela.” In T Ponniah and J Eastwood The Revolution in Venezuela. Harvard: HUP, 2011

María Páez Victor is a Venezuelan sociologist, specializing in health and medicine.

Joan Benach is a professor of Public Health at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. He has collaborated in a number of studies on the public health policies of the Bolivarian Revolution.

~~~

[i] Páez Victor, Maria. “Why Do Venezuelan Women Vote for Chavez?” Counterpunch, 24 April 2012

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/24/why-do-venezuelan-women-vote-for-chavez/print

[ii] Venezuela en Noticias, Venezuela en Noticias <venezuelaennoticias@minci.gob.ve> Venezuela en Noticias, Venezuela en Noticias venezuelaennoticias@minci.gob.ve

[iii] Gallup Poll 2010

[iv] Muntaner C, Chung H, Mahmood Q and Armada F. “History Is Not Over. The Bolivarian Revolution, Barrio Adentro and Health Care in Venezuela.” In T Ponniah and J Eastwood The Revolution in Venezuela. Harvard: HUP, 2011 pp 225-256; see also 4, Muntaner et al 2011, 5, Armada et al 2009; 6, Zakrison et al 2012

[v] Armada, F., Muntaner, C., & Navarro, V. (2001). “Health and social security reforms in Latin America: The convergence of the world health organization, the world bank, and transnational corporations.” International Journal of Health Services, 31(4), 729-768.

[vi] Zakrison TL, Armada F, Rai N, Muntaner C. ”The politics of avoidable blindness in Latin America–surgery, solidarity, and solutions: the case of Misión Milagro.”Int J Health Serv. 2012;42(3):425-37.

[vii] Ismi, Asad. “The Bolivarian Revolution Gives Real Power to the People.” The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Monitor , December 2009/January.http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/latin-american-revolution-part-iv

[viii] Carmona, Adrián. “Algunos datos sobre Venezuela”, Rebelión, March 2012

[ix] Weisbrot, Mark and Johnston, Jake.  “Venezuela’s Economic Recovery: Is It Sustainable?”  Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington, D.C., September 2012.

[x] Hunziker , Robert. “Venezuela and the Wonders of Equality”.  October 15th, 2012

[xi] Golinger, Eva. “US$20 million for the Venezuelan Opposition in 2012”, http://www.chavezcode.com/2011/08/us-20-million-for-venezuelan-opposition.html

[xii] Páez Victor, Maria. “Chavez wins Over Powerful Foreign Conglomerate Against Him”, Periódico América Latina, 11 October, 2012

[xiii] Milne, Seumas.  “The Chávez Victory Will be Felt Far Beyond Latin America” , Associate Editor, The Guardian, October 9, 2012:

[xiv] Alvarado, Carlos, César Arismendi, Francisco Armada, Gustavo Bergonzoli, Radamés Borroto, Pedro Luis Castellanos, Arachu Castro, Pablo Feal, José Manuel García, Renato d´A. Gusmão, Silvino Hernández, María Esperanza Martínez, Edgar Medina, Wolfram Metzger, Carles Muntaner, Aldo Muñoz, Standard Núñez, Juan Carlos Pérez, and Sarai Vivas. 2006. “Mission Barrio Adentro: The Right to Health and Social Inclusion in Venezuela”. Caracas: PAHO/Venezuela.

[xv] Weisbrot, Mark.”Why Chávez Was Re-elected”. New York Times. Oct 10th 2012

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December 14, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Does Hugo Chavez Keep Fooling Venezuelans?

By Peter Hart – FAIR – December 13, 2012

The New York Times updates readers today (12/13/12) on the health status of left-wing Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, and the political implications for his country. But the paper starts out by suggesting that the people who keep electing him must have some kind of problem.

According to the Times’ William Neuman, life in Venezuela is pretty dismal. Christmas tree shipments were fouled up, a government ice cream factory closed down,  and “all of this happened while the economy was growing — before the slowdown many predict next year.”

He writes:

Such frustrations are typical in Venezuela, for rich and poor alike, and yet President Hugo Chávez has managed to stay in office for nearly 14 years, winning over a significant majority of the public with his outsize personality, his free-spending of state resources and his ability to convince Venezuelans that the Socialist revolution he envisions will make their lives better.

So people believe that, somewhere in the future, life will get better thanks to Chávez? But it’s already happened for the majority of Venezuelans. As Mark Weisbrot wrote (Guardian, 10/3/12):

Since 2004, when the government gained control over the oil industry and the economy had recovered from the devastating, extra-legal attempts to overthrow it (including the 2002 US-backed military coup and oil strike of 2002-2003), 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 enrolment has doubled, with free tuition for many students. Inequality has also been considerably reduced. By contrast, the two decades that preceded Chávez amount to one of the worst economic failures in Latin America, with real income per person actually falling by 14% between 1980 and 1998.

It’s not that Neuman is unaware of this. Deep in the piece– after saying that “Mr. Chávez’s own record is mixed”– he admits, in between all the hand-waving and caveats, that maybe there’s something that explains Chávez’s popularity:

He has used price controls to make food affordable for the poor, but that has contributed to shortages in basic goods. He created a popular program of neighborhood clinics often staffed by Cuban doctors, but hospitals frequently lack basic equipment.

There is no doubt that living conditions have improved for the poor under Mr. Chávez, and that is the greatest source of his popularity. But the improvements came at a time when high oil prices were pouring money into the country and fueling economic growth, which some analysts say would have led to similar improvements under many leaders, even some with more market-friendly policies.

So life is better for the vast majority of the country. That’s a far cry from the point he stressed at the beginning, that Chávez has somehow sold people on the questionable idea that the outlook would someday improve. The Times has to downplay that reality so you’ll take away the message:  things are bad there. Or, if they’re not, someone else with superior, “market-friendly policies” could have achieved the same results, if not better.

December 14, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Chavez Beats the Devil, Again

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford | October 10, 2012

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez won a resounding victory in last weekend’s elections. If you’ve been following U.S. corporate media coverage of the campaign, that may have come as a surprise to you. Chavez is routinely referred to as a “strongman” and other variations on “dictator” by the U.S. media when, in fact, he remains one of the most popular persons in all of Latin America. In the United States, his ten percent winning margin would be considered a landslide, but all the American media can talk about after Chavez’s latest victory at the polls is how much his lead has shrunk since the 2006 election, when he won by 25 percent.

Every time Chavez and his Bolivarian socialists win at the polls, the corporate media have to eat crow. One would think all that heartburn would force the U.S. press to finally admit that Chavez is the leader of oil rich Venezuela because large majorities of its citizens want him in the presidential palace, and are enjoying the fruits of his wealth distribution policies.

It is also impossible for American media, which are mouthpieces for their corporate owners and take their day-to-day cues from the State Department and the White House, to understand that most Venezuelans agree with Chavez when he denounces the imperialists in Washington. They knew what Chavez meant when he called President Bush “the devil” and said that he stank of sulfur, back in 2006. Venezuelans remembered how Bush backed a coup that almost toppled Chavez in 2002 – a coup that was reversed by a counter-rebellion of the people and loyal soldiers. They remember that the coup leaders’ first act was to abolish the Constitution and start drawing up lists of people to be thrown into prison, or worse. They remember the dark days when nearly all of Latin America was placed under the rule of generals allied with Washington, and the hands of the torturers and the death squads could reach into every family with impunity. They know who was the author of that nightmare: the United States.

That’s why Latin America is the corner of the world that has achieved the greatest success over the last 20 years in throwing off the dead weight of the North, by rejecting the so-called Washington Consensus. And that’s why, this time around, the Venezuelan opposition chose a candidate who pretended to be a leftist, himself. Challenger Henrique Capriles, a young state governor, styled himself as a protégé of former Brazilian president “Lula” da Silva, a more business-friendly type of leftwing politician. But Venezuela’s poor know who the opposition really are: affluent, mostly light-skinned people that live in swank neighborhoods and whose hearts dwell in Miami. The people who draw cartoons in opposition newspapers depicting Chavez as a monkey and openly sneer at his mixed race heritage – the heritage of most Venezuelans. They know what real democracy feels like, because they remember what living under the yoke of a rich white minority felt like. Democracy is having a government that’s not made up of those people whose hearts are in Miami. Democracy calls the top Yankee a devil, and the people cheer, and then the people vote.

Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

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October 10, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Venezuelan Elections: a Choice and Not an Echo

By James Petras :: 10.04.2012

Introduction

On October 7th, Venezuelan voters will decide whether to support incumbent President Hugo Chavez or opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski. The voters will choose between two polar opposite programs and social systems:

Chavez calls for the expansion of public ownership of the means of production and consumption, an increase in social spending for welfare programs, greater popular participation in local decision-making, an independent foreign policy based on greater Latin American integration, increases in progressive taxation, the defense of free public health and educational programs and the defense of public ownership of oil production. In contrast Capriles Radonski represents the parties and elite who support the privatization of public enterprises, oppose the existing public health and educational and social welfare programs and favor neo-liberal policies designed to subsidize and expand the role and control of foreign and local private capital. While Capriles Radonski claims to be in favor of what he dubs “the Brazilian model” of “free markets and social welfare”, his political and social backers, in the past and present, are strong advocates of free trade agreements with the US, restrictions on social spending and regressive taxation. Unlike the US, the Venezuelan voters have a choice and not an echo: two candidates representing distinct social classes, with divergent socio-political visions and international alignments. Chavez stands with Latin America, opposes US imperial intervention everywhere, is a staunch defender of self-determination and supporter of Latin American integration. Capriles Radonski is in favor of free trade agreements with the US, opposes regional integration, supports US intervention in the Middle East and is a diehard supporter of Israel. In the run-up to the elections, as was predictable the entire US mass media has been saturated with anti-Chavez and pro-Capriles propaganda, predicting a ‘victory’ or at least a close outcome for Washington’s protégé.

The media and pundit predictions and propaganda are based entirely on selective citation of dubious polls and campaign commentaries; and worst of all there is a total lack of any serious discussion of the historical legacy and structural features that form the essential framework for this historic election.

Historical Legacy

For nearly a quarter of a century prior to Chavez election in 1998, Venezuela’s economy and society was in a tailspin, rife with corruption, record inflation, declining growth, rising debt, crime, poverty and unemployment.

Mass protests in the late 1980’s early 1990’s led to the massacre of thousands of slum dwellers, a failed coup and mass disillusion with the dual bi-party political system. The petrol industry was privatized; oil wealth nurtured a business elite which shopped on ‘Fifth Avenue, invested in Miami condos, patronized private clinics for face-lifts and breast jobs, and sent their children to private elite schools to ensure inter-generational continuity of power and privilege. Venezuela was a bastion of US power projections toward the Caribbean, Central and South America. Venezuela was socially polarized but political power was monopolized by two or three parties who competed for the support of competing factions of the ruling elite and the US Embassy.

Economic pillage, social regression, political authoritarianism and corruption led to an electoral victory for Hugo Chavez in 1998 and a gradual change in public policy toward greater political accountability and institutional reforms which signaled a turn toward greater social equity.

The failed US backed military-business coup of April 2002 and the defeat of the oil executive lockout of December 2002 – February 2003 marked a decisive turning point in Venezuelan political and social history: the violent assault mobilized and radicalized millions of pro-democracy working class and slum dwellers, who in turn pressured Chavez “to turn left”. The defeat of the US-capitalist coup and lockout was the first of several popular victories which opened the door to vast social programs covering the housing, health, educational and food needs of millions of Venezuelans. The US and the Venezuelan elite suffered significant losses of strategic personnel in the military, trade union bureaucracy and oil industry as a result of their involvement in the illegal power grab.

Capriles was an active leader in the coup, heading a gang of thugs which assaulted the Cuban embassy, and an active collaborator in the petrol lockout which temporarily paralyzed the entire economy.

The coup and lockout were followed by a US funded referendum which attempted to impeach Chavez and was soundly trounced. The failures of the right strengthened the socialist tendencies in the government, weakened the elite opposition and sent the US in a mission to Colombia, ruled by narco-terrorist President Uribe, in search of a military ally to destabilize and overthrow the regime from outside. Border tensions increased, US bases multiplied to seven, and Colombian death squads crossed the border. But the entire Latin and Central American and Caribbean regions lined up against a US backed invasion out of principle, or because of fear of armed conflicts spilling beyond their borders.

This historical legacy of elite authoritarianism and Chavez successes is deeply embedded in the minds and consciousness of all Venezuelans preparing to vote in the election of October 7th. The legacy of profound elite hostility to democratic outcomes favoring popular majorities and mass defense of the ‘Socialist president’ is expressed in the profound political polarization of the electorate and the intense mutual dislike or ‘class hatred’ which percolates under the cover of the electoral campaign. For the masses the elections are about past abuses and contemporary advances, upward social mobility and material improvements in living standards; for the upper and affluent middle class there is intense resentment about a relative loss of power, privilege, prestige and private preferences. The right-wing elite’s relative losses have fueled a resentment with dangerous overtones for democracy in case of lost elections and revanchist policies if they win the elections.

Institutional Configuration

The right-wing elite may not control the government but they certainly are not without a strong institutional base of power. Eighty percent of the banking and finance sector is in private hands, as are most of the services manufacturing and a substantial proportion of retail and wholesale trade. Within the public bureaucracy, the National Guard and military the opposition has at least a minority actively or passively supportive of the rightwing political groups. The principle business, financial and landowners associations are the social nuclei of the right. The right-wing controls approximately one third of the mayors and governors and over forty percent of the national legislators. Major U.S. and EU petroleum multi-nationals have a substantial minority share in the oil sector.

The right-wing still monopolizes the print media and has a majority TV and radio audience despite government inroads. The government has gained influence via the nationalization of banks – a 20% share of that sector, a share of the mining and metal industry and a few food processing plants and a substantial base in agriculture via the agrarian reform beneficiaries.

The government has gained major influence among the public sector employees and workers in the oil industry, social services and the welfare and housing sector. The military and police appear to be strongly supportive and constitutionalist. The government has established mass media outlets and promoted a host of community based radio stations.

The majority of the trade unions and peasant associations back the government. But the real strength of the government is found in the quasi-institutional community based organizations rooted in the vast urban settlements linked to the ‘social missions’.

In terms of money power, the government draws on substantial oil earnings to finance popular long term and short term social impact programs, effectively countering the patronage programs of the private sector and the overt and clandestine “grass roots” funding by US foundations, NGOs and “aid” agencies. In other words despite suffering major political defeats and past decades of misrule and corruption, the right-wing retains powerful institutional bases to contest the powerful socio-economic advances of the Chavez government and to mount an aggressive electoral campaign.

Social Dynamics and the Presidential Campaign

The key to the success of the Chavez re-election is to keep the focus on socio-economic issues: the universal health and education programs, the vast public housing program underway, the state subsidized supermarkets, the improved public transport in densely populated areas. The sharper the national social polarization between the business elite and the masses, the less likely the right-wing can play on popular disaffection with corrupt and ineffective local officials. The greater the degree of social solidarity of wage, salaried and informal workers the less likely that the right can appeal to the status aspirations of the upwardly mobile workers and employees who have risen to middle class life styles, ironically during the Chavez induced prosperity.

The Chavez campaign plays to the promise of continued social prosperity, greater and continuing social mobility and opportunity, an appeal to a greater sense of social equality and fairness; and it has a bed rock 40% of the electorate ready to go to the barricades for the President. Capriles appeals to several contradictory groups: a solid core of 20% of the electorate, made up of the business, banking and especially agrarian elite and their employees, managers, and professionals who long for a return to the neo-liberal past, to a time when police, army and intelligence agencies kept the poor confined to their slums and the petrol treasury flowed into their coffers. The second group which Capriles appeals to are the professionals and the small business people who are fearful of the expansion of the public domain and the ‘socialist ideology’ and yet who have prospered via easy credits, increased clientele and public spending. The sons and daughters of affluent sectors of this class provide the “activists” who see in the downfall of the Chavez government an opportunity to regain power and prestige that they pretend to have had before the ‘revolt of the masses’. Capriles’ past open embrace of neo-liberalism and the military coup of 2002 and his close ties to the business elite, Washington and his right-wing counterparts in Colombia and Argentina assures the enraged middle class that his promise to retain Chavez social missions is pure electoral demagoguery for tactical electoral purposes.

The third group which Capriles does not have, but is vital if he is to make a respectable showing, is among the small towns, provincial lower middle class and urban poor. Here Capriles presents himself as a “progressive” supporter of Chavez social missions in order to attack the local administrators and officials for their inefficiencies and malfeasance and the lack of public security – Capriles, hyper-activity, his populist demagogy and his effort to exploit local discontent is effective in securing some lower class votes; but his upper class links and long history of aggressive support for right-wing authoritarianism has undermined any mass defection to his side.

Chavez on the other hand is highlighting his social accomplishments, a spectacular decade of high growth, the decline of inequalities (Venezuela has the lowest rate of inequalities in Latin America) and the high rates of popular satisfaction with governance. Chavez funding for social impact programs benefits from a year-long economic recovery from the world recession (5% growth for 2012), triple digit oil prices and a generally favorable regional political environment including a vast improvement in Colombian-Venezuelan relations.

The Correlation of Forces: International, Regional, National and Local

The Chavez government has benefited enormously from very favorable world prices for its main export-petroleum; it has also increased its revenues through timely expropriations and increases in royalty and tax payments, as well as new investment agreements from new foreign investors in the face of opposition from some US multinational corporations.

Washington, deeply involved in conflicts in oil rich Muslim countries, is in no position to organize any boycott against Venezuela one of its principle and reliable petrol providers; its last big effort at “regime change” in 2002-03, during the “lockout” by senior executives of the Venezuelan oil company backfired –it resulted in the firing of almost all US ‘assets’ and the radicalization of nationalist oil policy.

US efforts to ‘isolate’ the Chavez regime internationally have failed; Russia and China have increased their trade and investment, as have a dozen other European, Middle Eastern and Asian countries. The EU recession and the slowdown of the US and world economy has not been conducive to fostering any sympathy for any restrictions in economic ties with Venezuela.

Most significantly the rise of center-left regimes in Latin America, the Caribbean and Central America, has favored increasing diplomatic and economic ties with Venezuela and greater Latin American integration. In contrast Obama’s backing for the Honduran and Paraguayan coups and Washington-centered free trade agreements and neo-liberal policies have gone out of favor. In brief, the international and regional correlation of forces has been highly favorable to the Chavez government, while Washington’s dominant influence has waned.

One of the last Latin American bastions of US efforts to destabilize Chavez, Colombia, has sharply shifted policy toward Venezuela. With the change in regime from Uribe to Santos, Colombia has reached multi-billion dollar trade and investment agreements and joint diplomatic and military agreements with Venezuela, signaling a kind of ‘peaceful coexistence’. Despite a recent free trade agreement and the continuance of US military bases, Colombia has, at least in this conjuncture, ruled out joint participation in any US sponsored military or political intervention or destabilization campaign.

US political leverage in Venezuela is largely dependent on channeling financial resources and advisors toward its electoral clients. Given the decline in external regional allies, and given its loss of key assets in the Venezuelan military and among Colombian para-military forces, Washington has turned to its electoral clients. Via heavy financial flows it has successfully imposed the unification of all the disparate opposition groups, fashioned an ideology of moderate ‘centrist’ reform to camouflage the far right, neo-liberal ideology of the Capriles leadership and contracted hundreds of community agitators and ‘grass roots’ organizers to exploit the substantial gap between Chavez’s programatic promises and the incompetent and inefficient implementation of those policies by local officials.

The strategic weakness of the Chavez government is local, the incapacity of officials to keep the lights on and the water running. At the international, regional and national level the correlation of forces favors Chavez. Washington and Capriles try to compensate for Chavez regional strength by attacking his regional aid programs, claiming he is diverting resources abroad instead of tending to problems at home. Chavez has allocated enormous resources to social expenditures and infrastructure – the problem is not diversion abroad, it is mismanagement by local Chavista officials, many offspring of past clientele parties and personalities. The issue of rising crime and poor law enforcement would certainly cost Chavez more than a few lost votes if the same high crime rates were not also present in the state of Miranda where candidate Capriles has governed for the past four years

Electoral Outcome

Despite massive gains for the lower classes and solid support among the poor, the emerging middle class product of Chavez era prosperity, has rising expectations of greater consumption and less crime and insecurity; they look to distance themselves from the poor and to approach the affluent; their eyes look upward and not downward. The momentum of a dozen years in power is slowing, but mass fears of a neo-liberal reversion limits the possible electorate that Capriles can attract. Despite crime and official inefficiencies and corruption, the Chavez era has been a period extremely favorable for the lower class and sectors of business, commerce and finance. This year -2012- is no exception. According to the UN, Venezuela’s 5% growth rate exceeds that of Argentina (2%) Brazil (1.5%) and Mexico (4%). Private consumption has been the main driver of growth thanks to the growth of labor markets, increased credit and public investment. The vast majority of Venezuelans, including sectors of business will not vote against an incumbent government generating one of the fastest economic recoveries in the Hemisphere. Capriles’ radical rightist past and present covert agenda could provoke class conflict, political instability, economic decline and an unfavorable climate for international investors.

Washington is probably not in favor of a post-election coup or destabilization campaign if Capriles loses by a significant margin. The popularity of Chavez, the social welfare legislation and material gains and the dynamic growth this year ensures him of a victory margin of 10%. Chavez will receive 55% of the votes against Capriles 45%. Washington and their rightist clients are planning to consolidate their organization and prepare for the congressional elections in December. The idea is a “march through the institutions” to paralyze executive initiatives and frustrate Chavez’s efforts to move ahead with a socialized economy. The Achilles heel of the Chavez government is precisely at the local and state level: a high priority should be the replacement of incompetent and corrupt officials with efficient and democratically controlled local leaders who can implement Chavez’s immensely popular programs. And Chavez must devote greater attention to local politics and administration to match his foreign policy successes: the fact that the Right can turn out a half a million demonstraters in Caracas is not based on its ideological appeal to a ruinous, coup driven past, but in its success in exploiting chronic local grievances which have not been addressed – crime, corruption, blackouts and water shortages .

What is at stake in the October 2012 election is not only the welfare of the Venezuelan people but the future of Latin America’s integration and independence, and the prosperity of millions dependent on Venezuelan aid and solidarity.

A Chavez victory will provide a platform for rectification of a basically progressive social agenda and the continuation of an anti-imperialist foreign policy. A defeat will provide Obama or Romney with a trampoline to re-launch the reactionary neo-liberal and militarist policies of the pre-Chavez era – the infamous Clinton decade (of the 1990’s) of pillage, plunder, privatization and poverty.

October 4, 2012 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Chilean congress approves tax reform to provide funds for education

Relief for Piñera

MercoPress – September 5th 2012

Chile’s Congress approved on Tuesday major changes in tax laws aimed to provide funds for an overhaul of the nation’s protest-hit schools, handing unpopular President Sebastian Piñera a welcome victory a month from municipal elections.

The approval comes ahead of municipal elections in October The approval comes ahead of municipal elections in October

The tax overhaul driven by Piñera’s conservative coalition will increase state revenue by some 1 billion dollars per year – about 0.4% of GDP in the world’s biggest copper producer.

Businesses in Chile will face a higher tax rate of 20% and fewer loopholes to evade them, though the tax rate remains well below Latin America’s average rate of 25.06% in 2011, according to accountancy firm KPMG.

Hefty tax cuts planned for the wealthiest were removed from the bill after months of jostling in Congress. Tax rates for lower income earners drop on a sliding scale.

Billionaire Piñera, rated the most unpopular leader since the return of democracy in 1990, unveiled the proposed reform in April in response to massive student-led protests demanding free education and greater equality.

While Chile has long been held up as an economic model in Latin America, it was rated the most unequal country of the 34-member-state Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD.

The reform is not expected to calm student protests for free and improved education.

The approval of the tax lands right before local elections on Oct. 28, which will give an indication of how the right and the left – both struggling with low approval ratings – could fare in the 2013 presidential race.

The reform could give his conservative bloc a small boost in next year’s presidential election, when leftist former President Michelle Bachelet is widely expected to try to stage a comeback.

“This is undoubtedly going to help the right more than Michelle Bachelet,” said Ricardo Israel, professor of law and political science at the Universidad Autonoma de Chile. “The right is taking away a flagship part of Michelle Bachelet’s campaign … she’s going to have to move even more to the left.”

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September 5, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

U.S. Steps Up Militarization of Africa Through “Drug Wars”

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford | July 25, 2012

The United States wants to drag Africa into its drug wars – on top of Washington’s War on Terror. Since drugs always follow American “anti-narcotics” activity in the world, the inevitable result will be an explosion of drug networks in targeted African countries. “Liberia and Ghana will soon emerge as hubs of the African drug trade – just as happened in Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America.”

When a high U.S. government official says Africa is “the new frontier,” it’s time for everyone that cares about the continent to watch out, because something really dangerous is afoot. A top guy in the D.E.A. recently described Africa as the “new frontier” where Washington hopes to embed commando-style teams of specially vetted police for an American-run war on drugs, similar to U.S. operations in El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, and the Dominican Republic. And we all know how those U.S. so-called anti-drug operations turned out. We should add to the list Colombia and Afghanistan, the world capitals of cocaine and heroin, respectively.

According to mythology, everything King Midas touched turned to gold. It appears the United States has the Narcotics Touch; everything the Americans touch turns to dope. American allies in the developing world quickly become narco-states.

The pattern has not changed in 60 years, since the Italian and French mafias were rewarded with international drug franchises in return for their assistance against socialists and communists. Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle became the center of the global heroin trade during the Vietnam War – a project of the CIA. When the U.S. shifted its focus to suppressing leftist movements in Latin America, cocaine became the region’s biggest export. The United States has never waged war against drugs – quite the opposite. Washington rewards its political friends with drug franchises and monopolies, in return for service to American corporate interests. That’s why most of America’s friends in the developing world are criminal regimes.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is most proud of its work in Honduras, where a U.S.-backed coup overthrew a mildly leftist government during President Obama’s first year in office. The Americans now roam the country like they own it, in joint operations with the same soldiers and national police that continue to kill and brutalize peasant, student and worker organizations. The joint drug operations, which have succeeded in killing at least four innocent Mosquito Indians, including two pregnant women, will undoubtedly result in a march larger drug trade under the tight control of the military, police and wealthy landowners allied with the Americans. That’s how the American Narco Touch works. The endless phony War on Drugs is a tool of U.S. policy, designed to subvert foreign governments and societies. The drug trade never gets smaller.

Now it’s Africa’s turn. Washington has its eyes on Liberia and Ghana, where it plans to train elite police units after first “vetting” their personnel – a euphemism for making sure that the commandos are willing to act as de facto U.S. operatives. You can be sure that Liberia and Ghana will soon emerge as hubs of the African drug trade – just as happened in Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America. With Washington’s “vetted” operatives in charge of the African drug networks, the U.S. will vastly increase its ability to buy influence among the greedy classes all across the continent, both in and out of uniform. Just as in Colombia and Honduras and Panama and Guatemala, the Drug Wars become indistinguishable from the War on Terror, which used to be called the War on Communism. It’s really a war against the poor.

Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

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July 25, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Our Perverse War on Drugs

By FIRMIN DeBRABANDER | CounterPunch | July 17, 2012

Perhaps the most humiliating legacy of our nation-building venture in Afghanistan is the stubborn narco-state flourishing under our noses. The opium crop in Afghanistan has doubled since US forces deposed the Taliban, and the drug trade threatens to dominate the country as never before when our forces leave in 2014. How did this happen?

By and large, it seems US forces followed a policy of turning a blind eye to the opium crop, on the premise that poor farmers are not our main enemies in Afghanistan, and attacking their livelihood would turn them to the Taliban. To combat opium production, our principal initiatives included helping farmers cultivate alternate crops, and setting up an independent court system to try traffickers. While these have shown some promise, progress has been slow, and funding for these programs is drying up. Crop eradication was on our minds, too, but we charged the Afghan forces with that task. Their efforts, however, have been undermined by political corruption on the ground.

Underscoring the futility of our drug war in Afghanistan is the impact of the current blight on opium poppies in the country. At first glance, this might sound like a God-send: crop eradication at its best. However, something happened that we American capitalists should have anticipated. With opium supply suddenly scarce, the price of the crop soared. This has in turn enriched –and entrenched—the big dealers, inspired farmers to double down on next year’s crop to make up for current losses, and likely attracted more people to the drug trade in a very poor country. The result of this blight illuminates the main problem of crop eradication: it drives up prices, providing more incentives surrounding the drug trade.

In Latin America, our anti-narcotic efforts have largely featured interdiction, eradication, and assaulting the drug gangs. Our tactics on this front were recently highlighted by reports of a bloody incident in Honduras where local forces, with US financing and support, have been intercepting drug traffickers from South America in the remote Honduran jungle. The Honduran forces mistakenly killed unarmed civilians while intercepting a drug shipment. Notable in our efforts in Honduras is the extensive involvement of the US military. The Honduran forces who conducted this raid flew out of one of the three bases the US military operates in that country. The forces were tipped off by our military’s Southern Command in Miami, carried to the location by State Department helicopters, and accompanied by DEA agents. For all intents and purposes, the US seems to be waging war in Latin America.

So far it seems the most obvious result of our aggressive approach in Latin America is increasingly grotesque violence. Since Mexico started its crack down on the drug cartels, thanks to US prodding and support, the country has suffered 50,000 deaths. Mexican cartels have exploded, resorting to mass killings, beheadings, mutilation—body parts found in bags in public squares—assassinations of government officials. Savage violence surrounding the drug trade is spreading through the countries of Central America as we ramp up interdiction efforts there. The brazen and pervasive violence is testimony to what’s at stake, namely, the incredibly lucrative US drug market. The sum total of our efforts in Latin America compounds the problem.

As the New York Times Magazine explained in a recent expose on the Mexican drug cartels (“The Snow Kings of Mexico”, 6/17/12), the cost of drugs on the street is largely determined by the amount of risk assumed in getting the product to market. So: make the risk greater and the prices rise; more dealers get involved, and jockey (or kill) for a piece of the action.

This is why, our former ambassador to Colombia has argued, we must pair our negative policies with economic development in Latin America. If we build schools and hospitals, and help develop businesses in the region, we can reduce incentives to enter the drug trade. And yet, as long as the drug trade remains so lucrative, it’s reasonable to suppose, incentives to enter it will always be powerful.

What strikes me in the many prongs of our current war on drugs is how we seem to focus on everything but ourselves—and go to great efforts in so doing. We monitor the nations our drugs come from, and toil to frustrate traffickers thousands of miles from our borders. We work to change the economic conditions on the ground in very poor nations—no small task—while poor neighborhoods at home beg for attention. We enlist our military, the largest in the world, to stem the flow of drugs northward. And none of it works. These efforts have the opposite effect of what we intend, for they drive up prices and stoke the drug trade. The traffickers will do anything to get the product to market as a result: Colombian gangs have built submarines for this purpose; the Mexican cartels use catapults to launch drugs over our multi-million dollar border fences.

We’d rather do anything but zero in on demand here, but it’s so clear this would be the cheapest, most direct, most effective, most humane solution. It makes you wonder if we want to win the war on drugs at all.

Firmin DeBrabander is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

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July 17, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ecuador Will Cease Participation In School Of The Americas

School of the Americas Watch Statement on Ecuadoran Decision to Cease Participation in SOA/WHINSEC | June 28, 2012

This Wednesday, June 27, Ecuadoran President Rafaeal Correa, after hearing from a delegation of SOA Watch, has taken the decision to cease sending Ecuadoran soldiers to the School of the Americas.

We wish to express our happiness for this decision by the Ecuadoran government, convinced that the School of the Americas – now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation –indeed trained and trains Latin American soldiers under the doctrine of National Security, based on fighting the internal enemy. This doctrine has borne human rights violations throughout Latin America.

In 2010, in the Truth Commission Report that investigated human rights violations in Ecuador, the training that Ecuadoran soldiers had received at the School of the Americas was called to attention, and the report recommended that the State cease sending troops to the military school. Today that recommendation has been taken into account and we are happy.

The thousands of victims of human rights violations in Ecuador and all of Latin America have the right to know those responsible for the killings, forced disappearances and torture, and that they are brought to justice to pay for their crimes. At the same time, nations must give guarantees to society and survivors that this will not happen again. One concrete way to do this is to end military training at the SOA, that has caused so much damage and suffering to our people.

Ecuador joins Venezuela, Uruguay, Argentina and Bolivia, who have pulled out of the SOA. As a result, we call on the other countries of Latin America to stop sending their troops to the School of the Americas as soon as possible.

We congratulate President Rafael Correa for this sovereign decision and to finally protect the Ecuadoran people from being subject to future human rights violations.

In solidarity,

School of the Americas Watch

June 29, 2012 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Samuel Zemurray: The Banana King Who Helped Create Israel (and f***ed up the lives of a lot of people)

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | June 11, 2012

For those familiar with the writings of Noam Chomsky and the anti-imperialist Left, United Fruit epitomizes the crimes of corporate-sponsored U.S. imperialism in Latin America. Much less well-known, however, is the infamous American corporation’s intimate ties to the state of Israel. In a review of Rich Cohen’s biography of Samuel Zemurray, The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King, The Jewish Week notes the crucial behind-the-scenes role the longtime president of the United Fruit Company played in the creation of Israel:

And when the initial vote to create the Jewish state failed at the United Nations in 1948 — but was close enough to allow for a re-vote within 72 hours — Zemurray went to work.

From his mansion in New Orleans (later donated to Tulane, and now the university president’s house), he called several Latin American leaders and got enough of them to switch their votes. “Knowing about the work of Zemurray,” Cohen writes in his book, “certain yes votes that might otherwise seem mysterious — Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ecuador, Panama — suddenly makes perfect sense. Behind them, behind the creation of the Jewish state, was the Gringo pushing his cart piled high with stinking bananas.”

By comparison with the 750,000 Palestinians who lost their homes as a result of Zemurray’s work for Israel, many of the indigenous people of Latin America were even less fortunate:

He financed the coup of the Honduran government in 1910, and got the U.S. government to help overthrow the Guatemalan government in 1954 — both of which had disastrous consequences for each country. The Guatemalan coup alone resulted in three-decades-long civil war that resulted in 200,000 deaths.

In his defense, Cohen, an author with a soft spot for “Tough Jews,” says:

“You can’t exercise power without f***ing up the lives of a lot of people.”

June 11, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Colombia and Guatemala Again Ranked 1st and 2nd in Murders of Trade Unionists

USLeap | June 6, 2012

In its 2012 Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights released June 6, 2012, the International Trade Union Confederation found that Latin America remains the most dangerous region of the world for trade unionists, with Colombia again leading the world, followed by Guatemala.

The ITUC says 29 trade unionists were reported murdered in Colombia in 2011, with 10 more in Guatemala, together accounting for a bit over half of the 76 trade unionists reported murdered in 2011.  Colombia’s share of total murders dropped significantly, however, reflecting a decreased in 2010 murders of 51, representing 55% of the 92 trade unionists murdered in 2010.

Ironically, Colombia and Guatemala are also the two countries in Latin America that have been at the heart of U.S. policy on worker rights and Free Trade Agreements, with the Obama Administration pushing forward with implementation of the Colombia FTA in mid-May despite insufficient progress on worker rights while continuing to deal with a CAFTA (Central America Free Trade Agreement) labor complaint on Guatemala filed over four years ago that has yielded little progress even as violence against Guatemala unionists has escalated.

In a welcome and some say historic development, the conservative Guatemalan agribusiness sector has called on its own government to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the violence that has been directed at the country’s largest union, Sitrabi, which represents Del Monte banana workers and is a filer of the CAFTA labor complaint.  Sitrabi reports that seven members of its union members have been murdered since April 2011.  The Camara del Agro released its remarkable letter [ English translation here] in late May; no response from the government has been reported as yet.

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June 8, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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