Consolidating our long term revolution

By William Mora, Hands Off Venezuela
Monday, 16 February 2009

After a long flight to Venezuela, I was ready to be part of one of the major decisions in our modern times: The possibility of consolidating a long term revolution by peaceful and democratic means. I was awoken at 4am on Sunday 15th February by strong fireworks and trumpet sounds. Walking during a dark morning in Caracas and waiting for the opening of the underground service is not always a pleasant experience, but in this case it was well worth it. I arrived at the voting centre at around 6am, and an extended queue of around 500 people were already there, waiting for the referendum to officially begin.

Lees verder

Debunking the Lies: Venezuela Referendum

Here’s how the current constitutional article on presidential terms reads:

Article 230: The presidential term is six years. The President of the Republic may be re-elected, immediately and once only, to an additional term.

The underlined part is the language to be removed if the referendum passes. Can you legally rewrite just that part? It seems to depend on whether you think changing the underlined section alters the fundamental structure or not. You could definitely argue the fundamental structure remains intact with a term limit amendment. After all, the President’s term is still 6 years and he/she can still be reelected; the only thing being modified is how many times the reelection may happen. Even if a Venezuelan court were to reject that argument and say the underlined section is part of the article’s fundamental structure, the government or public could still propose a new reform in 2010 once the new Assembly term starts.

It’s a legal language dispute, and the legality of this new proposal may have to be decided in court to officially interpret the Constitutional provisions. Regardless of how this turns out, anyone who says this new proposal is clearly/blatantly/outrageously illegal is being dishonest. The only questionable legality behind the proposal is very technical, and there’s nothing in international law violated by the referendum process up to this point.

Lees verder bij The Activist

Laten we maar weer niet vermelden dat Chavez, naast onbeperkt herkozen, ook gewoon weggestemd kan worden na die grondwetswijziging. Dus het kan ook zo uitpakken dat de door  Washington, CIA en IMF gesteunde elites hun eigen president levenslang aan de macht zou kunnen houden. 

Maar goed, de Nederlandse pers is niet kritisch over het feit dat we hier het staatshoofd, of zelfs maar de premier, niet eens kunnen kiezen. Sterker nog, hier houden we geen referendum over een Verdrag van Lissabon. 

De ANP-berichtgeving is gewoon blind overnemen van stemmingmakerij.

More Than 100 Latin America Experts Question Human Rights Watch's Venezuela Report

December 17th 2008, by Various Authors

In an open letter to the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch, over 100 experts on Latin America criticized the organization's recent report on Venezuela, A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela, saying that it "does not meet even the most minimal standards of scholarship, impartiality, accuracy, or credibility." The signers include leading academic specialists from universities in the United States, including Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and a number of state universities, and academic institutions in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, México, the U.K., Venezuela and other countries.

Lees verder

Bolivarian Candidates Win Majority of States

The candidates of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) won in the states of Yaracuy, Delta Amacuro, Vargas, Apure, Aragua, Barinas, Bolivar, Cojedes, Falcon, Guarico, Lara, Merida, Monagas, Portuguesa, Trujillo, Sucre, Anzoategui and in the municipality of Libertador de Caracas.

Lees verder

US Meddling in Venezuela Elections

Caracas, Nov 13 (Prensa Latina) President Hugo Chavez' supporters are facing not only local opposition in November 23 regional elections, but also the interference of the United States.

According to US attorney and researcher Eva Golinger, five US institutions not authorized by Venezuela's Foreign Ministry are operating in the nation and supporting the opposition election campaign.

Lees verder

Betancourt

Question, was this a "rescue" in a Colombian military operations as claimed or was it another unilateral prisoner release by FARC, after FARC was called upon by Chávez to release prisoners and following a FARC's track record of unconditional prisoner releases earlier this year?. Perhaps.

President Bush will no doubt be claiming this prisoner release is an example of the success of Plan Colombia and a push for the Free Trade Agreement with Colombia, both of which are now stalled in Congress. CNN is at this moment opining that this "successful rescue operation ... will breath new life into Plan Colombia and the Free Trade Agreement.

Axis Of Logic

Ik ben blij voor die vrouw dat ze vrij is. Maar iets zegt me dat ze als pion gebruikt wordt in een smerig geopolitiek spelletje. We weten dat Chavez al flinke druk op de FARC uitoefende om haar en andere gijzelaars vrij te krijgen. Waarschijnlijk mag hij koste wat kost niet de credits daarvoor krijgen, en krijgen we hier een heldhaftig kulverhaal voorgeschoteld. Ongetwijfeld later in Hollywood-versie in de bioscopen.

Nog twee woorden. Plan Colombia.

Chavez accuses Colombian paramilitaries to attack Venezuela

CARACAS .- The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, said today that a group of Colombian paramilitaries called "Black Eagles" is trying to infiltrate the country in order to "harm" in dealing with the "support" of some Colombian institutions.

See complete google-translation to English

Venezuelan Minister: Oil Company Asset Freeze is “Judicial Terrorism”

Caracas, February 8, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com) - Venezuela's Energy Minister, Rafael Ramirez, characterised a series of court orders obtained by Exxon Mobil Corp. in Britain, the Netherlands, and the Dutch Antilles, freezing up to $12 billion in assets of Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA, as "judicial terrorism," in a statement today.

Read more

War vs Peace: Colombia, Venezuela and the FARC Hostage Saga

Within the space of one week, three high level US officials - Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy John Walters, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - visited Colombia, where they made a series of attacks on Venezuela.

The officials alleged that Venezuela had become a key transit route for Colombia's cocaine production, which accounts for 60% of world supplies. They also alleged that Venezuela is supplying material support and weapons to the FARC; that the FARC operate in Venezuelan territory and hold prisoners there, and that Venezuela constitutes a military threat to Colombia and has expansionist aims in the region.

However, no evidence has been provided to back up any of these claims, none of which stand up to scrutiny of the facts. The allegations are in reality aimed at generating a matrix of negative international opinion in order to isolate the Chavez government whose Bolivarian revolution is posing a serious challenge to U.S. imperialism in the region.

This media and diplomatic campaign has been combined with the launching of a general military offensive against the FARC guerillas which control around 30% of Colombian territory.

Orders were given on January 26 to encircle FARC camps where prisoners are held in order to carry out a military rescue (in direct contradiction to the wishes of the relatives of the prisoners) and to attempt to engage FARC guerrillas in combat. On the day of the so-called peace rally, Uribe called for the complete eradication of the FARC from Colombian soil.

Roots of the conflict

Colombia's guerrilla war dates back six decades, to La Violencia (The Violence) the 10-year civil war that began in the late 1940s between the Conservative and Liberal parties of the Colombian oligarchy that resulted in at least 200,000 deaths.

Many workers and peasants fled the violence, creating independent "peace communities" in the south of the country. When the government persecuted these communities, guerrilla organizations were formed as instruments of self-defense. Out of these groups, the FARC formed in 1964, and today, together with the National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia's second largest guerrilla group, control almost 40% of the country.

The FARC has previously attempted to reach a peace accord with the Colombian government in the 1980s. However, after they disarmed and established a civilian organization, 3,000 of their members were massacred by the military, forcing them back into armed struggle. The FARC were placed on the US's list of banned terrorist organizations after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US.

The campaign against the FARC and the Venezuelan government also seeks to distract attention from the growing "para-politics" scandal that has engulfed the Uribe government, with 40 pro-Uribe legislators under investigation for their connections to the paramilitary groups, including Uribe's brother and cousin.

Uribe is also seeking to use the conflict as an excuse to crackdown on internal dissent. The Colombia Solidarity Campaign statement reported that in the previous two weeks, dozens of activists have been arbitrarily arrested and detained. Senator Peidad Cordoba, who is now under investigation for "crimes against the homeland," has been the victim of numerous death threats and verbal assaults attacks publicly justified by Colombian Interior Minister, Carlos Holguin in Colombian daily El Tiempo on January 24 when he said, "when a person speaks against their country, as Senator Piedad Cordoba did, it is natural that people will react."

Leader of the center-left opposition party, Polo Democratico Alternativo, Carlos Gaviria, also received death threats for organizing a separate march on the same day as the pro-war demonstrations in order to call for a humanitarian accord. Gaviria described the political environment as "pre-fascist."

Full article Global Research

Operatie “Nijptang”: de volgende CIA-coup in Venezuela onthuld

Met een voorsprong van 57% van de Venezolaanse bevolking voor grondwetswijziging, zal het referendum met een overtuigend “Si“ worden beantwoord. Maar ongeveer 60% van de bevolking, zo redeneert de CIA, zal niet komen opdagen. Hiermee kan de uitslag in twijfel worden getrokken. Steere beveelt een aanvechting van het “ja“ aan gecombineerd met het compleet tegenwerken het referendum. Met als volgende speerpunten:

Zie zapruder.nl

Operation Pliers

Who killed him?

Last night CNN en Español aired the above image, which captions at the bottom "Who Killed him?" by "accident". The image of President Chavez with the caption about killing him below, which some could say subliminally incites to assassination, was a "production error" mistakenly made in the CNN en Español newsroom. The news anchor had been narrarating a story about the situation between Colombia and Venezuela and then switched to a story about an unsolved homicide but - oops - someone forgot to change the screen image and President Chavez was left with the killing statement below. Today they apologized and admitted it was a rather "unfortunate" and "regrettable" mistake. Yes, it was.

On a scarier note, an internal CIA memorandum has been obtained by Venezuelan counterintelligence from the US Embassy in Caracas that reveals a very sinister - almost fantastical, were it not true - plan to destabilize Venezuela during the coming days. The plan, titled "OPERATION PLIERS" was authored by CIA Officer Michael Middleton Steere and was addressed to CIA Director General Michael Hayden in Washington. Steere is stationed at the US Embassy in Caracas under the guise of a Regional Affairs Officer.

Full story: Postcards from the Revolution (must read!-Johnito)

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

History repeating

Venezuela: Second Annual Blogstock

Over the course of two days, the Venezuelan blogosphere [ES] gathered for the second year at a site far from the capital to celebrate with musical bands and alcohol. Blogstock is “the” party. There are no lectures or symposiums to define the digital world, nor some conclusion reached for the use by internet users. It was all about a celebration of a gathering of digital camaraderie and it was a party on full-blast [ES].

In its second consecutive year, Blogstock gathered dozens of bloggers, Twitter-users, Flickr-users and other forms of information citizens (infocitizens) for a night of concerts, drinks and food, Venezuelan-style.

Read more on Global Voices