ENGLISH EDITION/The artillery of ideas INTERNATIONALFriday, August 9, 2013 | Nº 170 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve

Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets of the capital Caracas last Saturday in support of the Maduro Administration’s fight against corruption in both the nation’s public and private sectors. The slogan “Crackdown on corruption!” was one of the many phrases chanted as the march moved through the principal avenues of Caracas. Presi-dent Nicolas Maduro called for the weeding out of members of the socialist party who have violated the morals and principles of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution. Page 2

Venezuela & Colombia advancein securityVenezuela and Colombia took a further step towards improving relations last Friday when the foreign ministers of both countries met in Caracas to discuss border security, commerce, and ending the illegal movement of products between the neighboring nations. They signed a series of accords designed to curb the illicit trading of goods across the more than one thousand miles of shared border between the countries. page 3

Integration

Venezuela denouncesUS espionageForeign Minister Elias Jaua criticized US spying during meetings at the United Nations. page 3

Politics

Polls Favor MaduroRecent surveys show President Nicolas Maduro’s popularity rate is increasing.

Politics

Fresh facesfor upcoming electionsJournalist Ernesto Villegas will run for Metropolitan Mayor of Caracas. page 6

Analysis

Venezuela: extraction-ism,movements and Revolution page 7

Opinion

The courage of Bradley Manning will inspire others page 8

Venezuelans march against corruption, promise to crackdown in all sectors

Regional integration can help defeat violence

In a speech at the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, Venezuelan For-eign Minister Elias Jaua called for stronger regional integration as the only path to ending violent and fascist groups who aim to destabi-lize governments.

At a meeting of the Secu-rity Council presided over by Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, Jaua noted the role of organizations such as the Southern Common Mar-ket (Mercosur), the Commu-nity of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Ameri-cas (ALBA) in raising aware-ness about attempts to violate the democratic order.

Jaua reiterated Merco-sur’s commitment to sup-porting democracy, saying “we have stood watch to prevent coup attempts led by fascist currents”.

He said Mercosur has con-demned divisive forces in Bo-livia and an attempted coup against Ecuadorian Presi-dent Rafael Correa, and also warned of the arbitrary un-seating of Paraguay’s presi-dent Fernando Lugo.

“More recently, [we made] the timely pronouncement in the face of calls to violence by the defeated candidate in Venezuela after the presi-dential election on April 14”, Jaua noted.

Jaua said that the banner of peace should continue to be unfolded: “UNASUR, CELAC, ALBA, PetroCaribe and Mercosur are region-al integration initiatives that have made important achievements with regard to the preservation of peace in Latin America”.

“We can find joint mecha-nisms to achieve well-being for the people of Latin Amer-ic”, he said. “We are united to achieve equality and democ-racy for our peoples”.

Venezuela to repatriatestolen matisse

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua has orde-red the immediate return of a Henri Matisse painting that was stolen more than a decade ago from the Contemporary Art Museum of Caracas.

The painting is “Odalisque with red pants” by Ma-tisse and is currently in the United States after being recovered by the FBI in July last year.

The Venezuelan government decided to repatriate the painting after a Venezuelan commission certified on August 6th the authenticity of the painting stolen from the Caracas art museum in 2000.

The certification of the work was done by Wanda Guebriant, director of the Matisse archives in Paris.

The work, which dates from 1925 and is valued at about $3 million, was found in July 2012 when a couple tried to sell it to undercover FBI agents at a hotel in Miami Beach.

The artillery of ideas2 Impact | Friday, August 9, 2013

T/ COIP/ Presidentia l Press

Braving rain and inclem-ent weather, thousands of Venezuelans took to the

streets of the capital Caracas last Saturday in support of the Maduro Administration’s fight against corruption in both the nation’s public and private sectors.

The slogan “Crackdown on corruption!” was one of the many phrases chanted as the march moved through the principal avenues of Caracas and ended at Plaza Venezu-ela, just outside the nation’s congress.

Head of state Nicolas Ma-duro gave the keynote address at the rally, calling for the weeding out of members of the ruling socialist party who have violated the morals and principles of Venezuela’s Boli-varian Revolution.

“From Caracas, in the cradle of the Liberator Simon Boli-var, the people are in the street fighting against the corruption of the past and the corruption of the present”, the Venezuelan President said.

“We need to prepare our-selves to fight for a re-founding of Bolivarianism and Chris-tianity and for a new political ethic. We need to get rid of the hypocrites and imposters who put on a red beret in order to rob the people, who hide behind the image of Simon Bolivar to thieve”, he added.

Demonstrators at the event expressed their backing of government’s hardline stance against fraud and the looting of public funds via crooked politi-cians and businessmen.

“If we all unite and give our support, we will be able to achieve the proposal that President Maduro has made”, said resident Rosa Aristigueta at the march.

Others used the example of the late Hugo Chavez, former President of Venezuela, as in-spiration to defend the country against those who wish to rob its natural wealth through in-side dealings.

“Our Comandante [Chavez] taught us to defend what is ours. That’s why we’re here today”, affirmed Moraima Suarez.

Investigative journalist Jose Vicente Rangel also made

reference to the recently de-ceased Chavez, stating during the rally that “every time the people are in the streets, the presence of the supreme lead-er of the revolution becomes manifested”.

Rangel, a former Vice Presi-dent of the Chavez administra-tion, drew a parallel between corruption and fascism calling the two social afflictions “ex-actly the same thing”.

“We are here to defeat fas-cism and corruption once again and every time they raise their head, we’re going to put an end to them”, he exclaimed.

TAKING ON MISCONDUCT ‘WHEREVER IT IS’

Since taking office in April, President Maduro has made it a priority to fight violent crime and corruption in the OPEC member state through a range of programs and policies.

In his first months as Com-mander-in-Chief, the former union leader has overseen the arrest of a number of high ranking government members for embezzlement, including a regional head of the national

consumer protection agency INDEPABIS.

Last week, the country’s Na-tional Assembly stripped con-gressman Richard Mardo, an opposition leader accused of re-ceiving illicit funds, of his par-liamentary immunity thereby opening the door for criminal charges against the lawmaker.

The indictment caused a wave of protest from members of the Venezuelan right-wing whose leaders have alleged po-

Venezuelans march against corruption, revolutionary imposters

litical targeting of opposition members and a violation of the country’s constitution.

Maduro and his supporters have been undeterred by the conservative outcries and on Saturday, they re-asserted their intention to root out corruption wherever it may be found.

“I am going after corrup-tion wherever it is... The battle against corruption is the same battle against capitalism and it’s anti-values... We are going

to continue this fight no mat-ter who is indicted”, the Presi-dent said.

Venezuela’s Vice President Jorge Arreaza echoed this stance, articulating his com-mitment to stamp out malfea-sance at all levels of govern-ment, regardless of political affiliation.

“The National Executive sup-ports all the measures that need to be taken. If we need to strip immunities, if we need to arrest vice presidents or ministers, if we need to open investigations on whoever it may be, we will do it”, Arreaza declared.

NEW COMMUNICATION MINISTERLater on Saturday, at a con-

cert in homage to Hugo Chavez, President Maduro announced the designation of Communica-tion Minister Ernesto Villegas as the candidate of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) for Mayor of Metropoli-tan Caracas.

The revelation was made in preparation for the nation’s upcoming municipal elections slated to take place on Decem-ber 8th.

Villegas, a native of the capi-tal, has served as communica-tion minister since last October and referred to his designation as “an honor”.

During his address he em-phasized youth engagement and the creation of a more just and egalitarian future for Venezuela.

“Youth needs to be at the front to govern Venezuela and build a new homeland for our children and grandchildren as well as the children and grandchildren of those who oppose us. These chil-dren also deserve a homeland and with them we are going to build the society of the future”, the former minister said.

To replace Villegas, Maduro has appointed Delcy Rodriguez Gomez as the executive’s new spokesperson.

Rodriguez is the brother of the well-known socialist politi-cian Jorge Rodriguez who cur-rently serves as the Mayor of the municipality Libertador in the capital region.

She graduated with a law de-gree from the Central Universi-ty of Venezuela where she was a student leader and, subsequent-ly, a professor.

Rodriguez also served as Minister of the President’s Of-fice for Hugo Chavez in 2006.

“Delcy Rodriguez, extraor-dinary Venezuelan Minister of Communication and Infor-mation, welcome to the battle for the truth”, President Ma-duro said of the appointment on Saturday.

The artillery of ideasFriday, August 9, 2013 | Integration 3

T/ Agencies, with reporting from Tamara Pearson

On Monday the foreign ministers of Mercosur,

including Venezuela’s top diplomat Elias Jaua, met with the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, to express their re-jection of “global spying” by the United States.

The Mercosur ministers representing Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, and Uru-guay, as well as Bolivia as a special guest, were referring to information about the US government’s PRISM global spying program revealed by Edward Snowden in June.

The US government’s espio-nage “absolutely violates in-ternational law, countries’ sov-ereignty, and the fundamental human rights of the citizens

of the world”, Jaua denounced during the meeting.

He also told Ban Ki-moon that Mercosur countries were concerned about the “attempt to put pressure and conditions on countries who have offered asylum to Mr. Snowden”.

Brazilian foreign minister Antonio Patriota emphasized in the press conference after-wards that it was “very impor-tant” that the UN High Com-missioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, had spoken against such “spying practices”.

Pillay stated recently that UN human rights mecha-nisms “pointed to important rights and privacy issues at stake in connection with surveillance”. At the meet-ing, according to UN press, Ban Ki-moon “reiterated the need to safeguard these fun-damental rights”.

According to Jaua, the min-isters also talked about the blockade on Cuba, Argentina’s sovereign claim over the Malvi-nas Islands, Edward Snowden, and the aggression of some European countries towards Bolivian President Evo Mo-rales last month. Spain, Italy, France, and Portugal prohib-ited Morales’ flight from pass-ing through their territory after wrongly suspecting that Snowden was on his plane.

“That attitude violates the Vienna Convention and other international agreements”, Jaua stated. He was referring to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which enables diplomats to perform their functions without fear of coercion or harassment by the host country. At the meeting, Ban Ki-moon also reiterated that a head of state

and his or her aircraft enjoy immunity and inviolability.

Jaua explained that he hand-ed in a report about the “wave of violence generated by Ven-ezuelan opposition leaders on April 15th”, following the op-position’s defeat in the April 14th presidential elections, to the Secretary General.

On Tuesday the UN Security Council debated cooperation between the UN and regional and subregional organizations in the maintenance of interna-tional peace and security.

Venezuela’s Foreign Minis-ter, as well as a majority from Latin America, also spoke at the Security Council meet-ing, expressing similar con-cerns. Argentina assumed the presidency of the impor-tant UN council in the pres-ence of President Cristina Fernandez.

ASYLUM FOR SNOWDENAlso on Tuesday, Foreign

Minister Jaua reaffirmed his government’s offer of asylum to US intelligence leaker Edward

Snowden during an interview with television stated RT.

“Of course, President (Ni-colas) Maduro, in keeping with our right under interna-tional law ... decided to grant this asylum to a citizen who requested it, explaining that he felt persecuted politically by his government”, Jaua said, in an excerpt released by the foreign ministry.

Russia last week granted Snowden a year’s temporary asylum, allowing him to leave the Moscow airport where he had been stranded for five weeks in a cat-and-mouse game with Washington. The former US intelligence contractor is wanted by the United States for revealing the existence of se-cret US electronic surveillance programs that scoop up phone and Internet data on a global scale. Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia had said they would offer Snowden asylum, but the logistics of getting him to Latin America without US interfer-ence appeared to temporarily foreclose that option.

Venezuela reiterates asylum for Snowden, denounces US espionage at UN

T/ COIP/ Agencies

Venezuela and Colombia took a further step to-wards improving rela-

tions last Friday when the foreign ministers of both coun-tries met in Caracas to discuss border security, commerce, and ending the illegal move-ment of products between the neighboring nations.

“We have come here with the highest disposition to advance in the many areas that Colom-bia and Venezuela share so that there is a real change for the people of both our countries, es-pecially in border areas”, said Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Holguin.

Topping the agenda was the creation of a series of accords de-signed to curb the illicit trading of goods across the more than one thousand miles of shared border between the countries.

This includes measures drafted to cut down on the pro-liferation of stolen automobiles and the theft of cellular phones as well as the establishment of “a holistic intelligence plan to attack organized contraband

Colombia and Venezuela to clamp down on contraband, improve border security

gangs”, said Venezuelan Minis-ter Elias Jaua.

Venezuela has been hit par-ticularly hard by groups and individuals who, taking advan-tage of price regulated goods in the OPEC member state, trans-port commodities to Colombia where they are sold at many times their original price.

The unlawful activity has led to a scarcity of certain staple products in Venezuela and has bled a number of productive industries financed by the na-tional government.

“There are gangsters work-ing in the areas of gasoline, food products, lubricants, urea and fertilizers. With

this joint work of inspection and regulation, and with a holistic plan we’re going to begin to hit back very soon”, Jaua declared.

Minister Holguin referred to the fight against contraband as something that “should be an absolute reality”.

“We must identify the prod-ucts that have seen the high-est levels of contraband such as cement and scrap metal which are reaching alarm-ing levels. Contraband is af-fecting us enormously and the business community is beginning to take part in the clamor”, Colombia’s head dip-lomat stated.

Further topics discussed were the fight against drug trafficking, the supply of gaso-line to border areas, the nor-malization of commercial rela-tions, and Venezuela’s debt to Colombian exporters.

The credentials of Luis Ela-dio Perez, Colombia’s new Am-bassador to Venezuela were also presented to Jaua during the dialogue.

Perez, previously the Am-bassador of the government of Juan Manuel Santos to Peru,

was kidnapped by Colombia’s FARC rebels in 2001 and freed in 2008 following the interven-tion of former President Hugo Chavez in negotiations with the guerilla insurgency.

“I want to thank Foreign Min-ister Elias Jaua and [Venezue-lan] President Nicolas Maduro, who have given the authoriza-tion for the new ambassador on the same day that we have pre-sented it”, Hogluin said.

Friday’s meeting of minis-ters and the bilateral work commissions they head, marked the first such encoun-ter since relations between the two countries were reinitiated on July 22.

Both Jaua and Holguin agreed to a follow-up work session to take place in the Colombian cap-ital of Bogota in October.

“We are already carrying out the first decision of our presidents in this new phase of strengthening and deepen-ing of relations between two brother countries, between two friendly governments. We are pleased to be able to reactivate this relationship at the high-est level and with the greatest will”, Jaua affirmed.

The artillery of ideas4 Politics | Friday, August 9, 2013

T/ COIP/ Presidential Press

Venezuelan President Nico-las Maduro made a call for a new socialist ethic in pol-

itics and designated candidates for upcoming elections during a speech given last Sunday in commemoration of the 76th an-niversary of the South Ameri-can country’s National Guard.

In his address, the head of state urged his fellow country-men and women to emulate the values of independence hero Simon Bolivar and the recently deceased socialist leader Hugo Chavez.

“We want a new way of exer-cising power. A new Christian, Bolivarian, and Chavista ethic. in which we can construct a new republican and socialist ethic”, he declared.

Continuing with his anti-corruption stance, Maduro considered the government’s crackdown on immoral politi-cians as “a central theme for the construction of democracy” and a necessary for the building of a society based on values of equal-ity and prosperity for all.

The former bus driver and union leader also attacked as “craziness” recent suggestions made by opposition leader Hen-rique Capriles to redraft the na-tion’s constitution.

“The right-wing is making plans. They want to put an end

T/ Ryan Mallett-OuttrimP/ Presidential Press

A majority of Venezuelans want to see a continuation of

the policies of former President Hugo Chavez and back current President Nicolas Maduro, but would also like more dialogue between the government and op-position, according to the latest poll from the Venezuelan Insti-tute for Data Analysis (IVAD).

When asked if they would like to see Venezuela continue in the “direction it was taking” under Chavez, 52.3% of partici-pants in the survey responded positively, according to the re-sults released this week.

A similar figure- 52.4%, re-portedly expressed a positive view of the Maduro adminis-tration. Moreover, 41% of those surveyed told IVAD they intend to vote for a candidate of the United Socialist Party of Ven-ezuela (PSUV) in the upcoming municipal elections in Decem-ber. 36% of participants stated they would vote for an opposi-tion party, while 23% were un-certain, or didn’t answer.

The poll also indicates that 56% of Venezuelans believe Ma-duro’s ‘street government’ has generated significant benefits for the population. However, 42% view the street govern-ment as being of “little” or “no” significance.

Maduro’s trips abroad were less popular, with just 39% of participants expressing a posi-tive view of the President’s in-ternational efforts. Roughly half of those surveyed expressed a negative view of the trips.

Although the majority of par-ticipants indicated they support Maduro, 79% indicated that they want more cooperation be-tween the government and na-tional opposition. Around six out of 10 supporters of the gov-ernment indicated that more cooperation is needed. How-ever, the number of opposition voters hoping for more dialogue was higher, at 91%.

The IVAD survey was con-ducted last month, and the re-sults were first announced over the weekend. The findings fol-low the release of the results of another poll by Hinterlaces last

Polls show Venezuelans back Maduro

week, which likewise found that support for Maduro is up.

The Hinterlaces survey was also conducted last month, but recorded that 57% of partici-pants have a positive view of the Maduro administration- 4.6% higher than the IVAD poll. The same percentage of partici-pants in both surveys (56%) in-dicated that the street govern-ment is contributing positively to resolving public concerns.

Hinterlaces also found that 51% of Venezuelans perceive that the Maduro administration has already “improved” their eco-nomic situation. However, 70% of participants still expressed con-cern for the economy, and only 23% of respondents stated that they view themselves as regu-larly paying attention to politics.

During its survey of 1203 vot-ing age Venezuelans, Hinter-laces also recorded a 17% rise in unfavorable views of the op-position, and increase in PSUV support since its last survey in June. The firm estimates PSUV support is at 48%, while the op-position now has 31%.

Yet according to the head of pollster International Consult-ing Services (ICS) Lorenzo Mar-tinez, support for Maduro is now higher than both the IVAD and Hinterlaces polls indicate.

On Saturday, Martinez stated that a poll conducted by ICS between 26 May and 1 August estimated Maduro’s overall ap-proval rating at 65%. Maduro’s handling of the economy re-ceived 61% approval, according to Martinez.

“People perceive Maduro as an honest man, because he has undertaken strategies through Indepabis, and through the fight against corruption”, Mar-tinez stated on Saturday, ac-cording to AVN.

Along with the fight against corruption, Martinez also at-tributed the increased sup-port for Maduro to the street government.

“[Maduro] has made people believe that they [the govern-ment] are providing solutions to problems, and this is perceived positively”, Martinez stated.

The previous survey from ICS, released in early July, put Maduro’s support at 55.9%.

Maduro calls for ‘new ethic’ in politics, reveals mayoral candidates

to the constitution, the same constitution that they repealed [during the coup against Hugo Chavez] on April 11, 2002. They don’t understand and will never understand what constitutional power is, nor the power that the people have when they themselves convene a constitutional assembly”, Maduro said.

Venezuela’s current magna carta was ratified through pop-ular vote in 1999, following the election of the late President Hugo Chavez in 1998.

Capriles, the governor of Miranda state, was defeated by Chavez in 2012’s presidential elections and then again by Nicolas Maduro for the same office following Chavez’s death in March.

Since his most recent elector-al loss, Capriles has been lead-ing an international campaign to discredit the Venezuelan government and the nation’s electoral commission.

Notwithstanding, the conser-vative son of a major Venezue-lan media family has urged his followers to participate in the nation’s coming municipal elec-tions set for December 8th.

For his part, President Ma-duro divulged a list of candi-dates of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) who will stand in the approaching mayoral contests.

This includes aspirants to head the five different munici-palities that comprise the capi-tal of Caracas, the most popu-lous and politically important region of the country.

Four of the five metropolitan areas of Caracas are currently controlled by the Venezuelan op-position, with Jorge Rodriguez of the PSUV representing the exception in the capital district municipality of Libertador.

Former Communication Min-ister Ernesto Villegas has been nominated as the socialist can-didate for the Metropolitan May-or’s Office to challenge Antonio Ledezma of the opposition.

Many analysts see Decem-ber’s elections as a key indicator of Venezuela’s political future following the death of Chavez and Maduro’s slim margin of victory over Capriles in last April’s presidential race.

For this reason, both the opposition and the ruling so-cialists are giving added em-phasis to the contests on the national level.

“If the people want peace and good governance in their municipalities, they should guarantee that the candidates of the revolution, the best can-didates, win. They are women, men and youth who are trained professionally, morally, and politically”, President Maduro said on Sunday.

The artillery of ideasFriday, August 9, 2013 | Politics 5

T/ Paul DobsonP/ Presidential Press

In the mark of the interna-tionally renowned System of Youth and Infantile Or-

chestras of Venezuela, Presi-dent Maduro announced the creation of a National Move-ment of Youth and Infantile Theaters this week at his regular ‘Bolivarian Dialogue’ roundtable events.

“I have decided to create for our country a movement of the same dimensions as the Move-ment of Youth and Infantile Or-chestras ‘Simon Bolivar’, which in Salzburg has given life to the glory of Venezuela in the World Festival of Symphonic Orches-tras where the Venezuelan youth has reigned triumphant”.

The theater movement seeks to repeat the success of its mu-

T/ Paul DobsonP/ Presidential Press

The eleven political parties which constitute Venezu-

ela’s Council of Parties in the ample revolutionary alliance, the Great Patriotic Pole ‘Simon Bolivar’ (GPP), announced this week that they have success-fully achieved a unified bloc of candidates for the upcoming December 8th elections.

Speaking from the 8-D elec-toral command center, rep-resentatives Jorge Rodriguez (Socialist Unified Party), Oscar Figuera and Yul Jabour (Com-

GPP: “Perfect” revolutionaryunity for 8-D elections

munist Party), Rafael Uzcat-egui (PPT), Wilmer Nolasco (MEP), Humberto Berroteran (UPV), Juan Barreto (Redes), Jose Pinto (Tupamaro), Gerson Perez (Podemos), Erick Ramir-ez (New Revolutionary Road), Deyanira Vallenilla (PRT), and Ramses Reyes (CRV) presented a united front to the nation as the electoral authorities opened the postulation period for the 337 mayoral and 2455 coun-cilmember positions which will be contested in December.

“This is the unified platform of the GPP which will go forward united to the electoral event”, ex-

plained Rodriguez, who is also the candidate for the key Liber-tador municipality of Caracas, and head of the national elector-al campaign team.

In light of recent events and the closeness of the April elec-tions, the unity of the revolu-tionary forces has been consid-ered essential to ensuring the continuity of the Bolivarian Revolution in the absence of President Hugo Chavez, who passed away in March.

The discussions for unified candidates started in June when the GPP held a massive popular assembly, at which President Maduro emphasized the need for unity. Since then a series of intensive bilateral and multilateral meetings have been held which have resulted in the “perfect consensus”.

“We feel happy… we announce to the nation the unified, per-fect platform which will take us to an immense victory in the municipal elections”, affirmed Rodriguez.

“We have had a very enrich-ing process with the allied par-ties and the social movements… to choose the best women and men as candidates for the battle in this unified platform…We have the names of our 335 may-oral candidates already, and the vast majority of the more than 2000 councilmembers”.

President Nicolas Maduro congratulated the various par-

ties on fulfilling the last wishes of Hugo Chavez, who called for “unity, unity and more unity” in his last public message pre-vious to his physical passing.

“The GPP announces a uni-fied alliance for the December 8th elections. I congratulate them, compatriots, this is best homage to the Supreme Com-mander”, he wrote on his Twit-ter account.

Speaking on national TV, he went on to explain that “this is news of gigantic historic impact, which says a lot about, and good things about the consciousness of the leaders of all the movements and parties… it’s not about one party imposing itself on another, it’s not about one group impos-ing themselves on another, it’s about putting forward excellent compatriots to be good mayors and having a permanent renova-tion of the forces which we are exerting in all of the institutions of government”.

General Secretary of the Communist Party of Venezu-ela, Oscar Figuera, described the achievement as “a deepen-ing of the process of participa-tion and popular control”. He also verified that “we are ad-vancing on the correct path, of unity, of the integration of the real possibilities, of the inte-gration of a political, program-matic, and electoral proposal towards a national agreement of unified character”.

He did however share that there are still issues to be re-solved, however that they are minor and will not affect the general push towards unified candidates. “There are still states which merit more atten-tion”, he explained, and em-phasized that any differences which may exist in those states “doesn’t mean that there exists a rupture in the general agree-ment”, and that “in the allied forces there is the will to resolve things properly and in the inter-ests of the popular victory”.

On the same day that the revolutionary bloc announced its unified front, one of the op-position parties broke from the right wing electoral MUD bloc and declared that it will launch its own candidates on an inde-pendent platform.

Felipe Mujica, of the MAS party, stated that this deci-sion was caused by the fact that “the MUD has mistreat-ed the MAS and other sectors of civil society”.

Similarly, divisions between the parties that make up the opposition alliance have come to the public eye in the key sec-tors such as Chacao, Sucre, and Libertador municipalities in Caracas, and Maracaibo in Zulia State amongst others. Opposition candidates were elected by primary elections held nearly two years previous to the electoral date.

National movement of youththeaters to be launched

sical counterpart in encour-aging culture for young peo-ple, reaching out to the poor sectors of society, implanting values such as working as a team, listening, discipline, and giving them an outlet for emotional expression, all though contact with the arts.

“How many beautiful things are transmitted and learned through theater”, Maduro stat-ed rhetorically.

The movement will bear the name of the famous Venezue-lan painter, writer, journalist, and poet, Cesar Rengifo, who lived from 1915-1980. “Cesar Rengifo, the great dramatist and multiple artist of the 20th century, master of masters, the great reference point”, ex-plained Maduro.

He went on to elucidate that “in each junior school there

should be at least a workshop and a theater group, in each high school, each university, in each military unit, we are going to reproduce and multi-ply theater… we are going to incorporate thousands of chil-dren and youth as a gift to our Commander (Chavez) in this, the fifth month since his pass-ing… the theater of the future is going to take into account this movement which we are creating today”.

Maduro has marked the first months of his mandate with positive efforts to use culture as a means of combating crime and antisocial values. He has incorporated thousands of ath-letes, artists, musicians and entertainers as community organizers in the Great Move-ment for Peace and Life, which aims to encourage youth to

take up sports, music, theater or art instead of drugs, crime, or gangs.

The Movement of Infantile and Youth Theaters ‘Cesar Rengifo’ will form part of a wider strategy. “This is a key movement for the peace of the country, it’s something extraor-dinary, one of the most beauti-ful expressions”, emphasized the Venezuelan President.

Maduro announced that the movement would be under the

charge of leading Venezuelan actor, Pedro Lander, who will form a team of actors and di-rectors to condition the move-ment. He also ordered the Ministers for Youth, Hector Rodriguez, and Culture, Fi-del Barbarito, to incorporate themselves into the team.

“We will see this miracle made reality, the miracle of seeing thousands of children acting in the streets”, accentu-ated Maduro.

The artillery of ideas6 Politics | Friday, August 9, 2013

T/ COIP/ Agencies

Over the weekend, Vene-zuelan President Nicolas Maduro made public his

decision to run Minister of Communication and Informa-tion Ernesto Villegas as the socialist mayoral candidate for the Metropolitan District of Caracas. With 335 mayor-alties up for grabs later this year, Villegas is now at the forefront of pro-Chavez ef-forts to maintain or re-take a majority of city governments. A prized author, journalist, and key government spokes-man during the most difficult months of President Hugo Chavez’s failed bout with can-cer, Villegas faces incumbent opposition mayor Antonio Le-dezma (2009-2013). Originally scheduled for April 14th but postponed in the context of President Chavez’s untimely death, the nationwide munici-pal elections are now set for December 8th.

MINISTER OF THE MAJORITYSpeaking to thousands gath-

ered in a march against cor-ruption, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday announced that the country’s socialist majority – organized under the auspices of the United Socialist Party of Ven-ezuela (PSUV) and its Great

Patriotic Pole (GPP) coalition – have now chosen their can-didate for the Metropolitan District of Caracas: Minister of Communication and Infor-mation Ernesto Villegas.

With Villegas at his side, President Maduro affirmed that those who stand with the Bolivarian Revolution “are very pleased that Ernesto Vil-legas – a young, Caracas-born journalist of the new genera-tion – is going to be the next Mayor of Caracas”.

Though Caracas is actually split into five separate districts, each of which has its own elected mayor, a legal reform in 2000 cre-ated the office of the Metropoli-tan Mayor. Tasked with oversee-ing the overall administration of all five mayoralties, the seat was held by pro-Chavez mayors from 2000 to 2008. Having won with 68.8% (2000) and 60.3% (2004), pro-Chavez forces suffered a political setback in 2008 when right-wing figurehead Antonio Ledezma won the mayoralty with 52% of the vote.

Responding to the announce-ment that he would face Ledez-ma in the December 2013 may-oral election, Minister Villegas told the crowd that “it is an hon-or to accept this challenge given to me by President Maduro and the political leadership of the Revolution. It’s a great honor to represent the Revolution at this historical moment”.

Villegas will hand over the Ministry of Communication and Information to Delcy Ro-driguez Gomez, daughter of revolutionary leader Jorge Ro-driguez Sr.

“I accept the challenge”, Villegas affirmed, “and I call on all of Caracas to form a tremendous team, with the youth at the forefront govern-ing Venezuela, building a new homeland for our children and grandchildren, and for the children and grandchildren of those who oppose us!”

“We mustn’t return to that sinister past filled with corrup-tion and vice, that old system that pushed the poor into the slums”. Villegas added, “we must win with Chavez! Long live Nicolas Maduro! Long live December 8th!”

On December 8th, 2012, a re-cently-elected President Hugo Chavez announced his imme-diate need to continue cancer treatment in Cuba. Clearly aware that his health had great-ly deteriorated, the President asked the Venezuelan people to elect Nicolas Maduro if, for “any reason”, he himself could not carry out his 2013-2019 man-date. President Chavez passed away on March 5th, 2013.

ERNESTO VILLEGAS POLJAKBorn April 29th, 1970, Ernesto

Villegas Poljak is the son of two respected Venezuelan com-

munists. His father, Cruz Vil-legas, was an outspoken union organizer with the Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV) who served as both President of the United Venezuelan Workers’ Central (CUTV) and Vice Presi-dent of the World Federation of Unions (FSM). His mother, Maja Poljak de Villegas, was a renowned journalist and active leader in Venezuelan commu-nist politics.

Villegas followed his moth-er’s footsteps and studied jour-nalism at the Central Univer-sity of Venezuela (UCV). He has received numerous public rec-ognitions for his commitment to quality reporting, winning National Journalism Awards in 2002, 2006, and 2010. He won the 2010 award for his book, April: The Coup on the Inside, a detailed investigation into those behind the failed opposi-tion coup of 2002. At the time of the coup, Villegas worked at both state-run Venezolana de Television (VTV) and private-ly-owned El Universal, provid-ing him a unique understand-ing of how pro- and anti-Chavez forces battled for and against Venezuelan democracy.

In 2009, Villegas was named Director of CiudadCCS, a free Caracas daily that reaches some 150,000 readers in and around the nation’s capital. Villegas served as the pa-per’s Director until October

President Maduro Announces Candidatefor Metropolitan Mayor of Caracas

2012, when President Chavez named him Minister of Com-munication and Information. Serving as the principal gov-ernment voice tasked with reporting on Chavez’s health during the final months of his battle with cancer, Villegas was later ratified by President Nicolas Maduro.

OPPOSITION INCUMBENTAntonio Jose Ledezma Diaz is

nothing new to Venezuelan pol-itics. Born on May 1st, 1955, he began his political career in the midst of a corrupt and now dis-credited Fourth Republic (1958-1998). He was an active member of the opposition’s Democratic Action (AD) throughout the 80’s and 90’s, braking ranks only when Hugo Chavez and his so-cialist movement brought an end to the Fourth Republic and founded the Fifth (1999-pres-ent). Looking to save his politi-cal career, Ledezma left AD in 1999 and established the Fear-less Peoples’ Alliance (ABP), an opposition grouping he now presides over. With the support of right-wing allies in the anti-Chavez opposition, Ledezma was elected Metropolitan May-or of Caracas in late 2008.

Ledezma has spent most of the last four years victimizing himself, claiming the national government reduced his impor-tance as mayor by appointing pro-Chavez activist and politi-cian Jacqueline Faria to admin-ister the District Capital. Stipu-lated within Venezuela’s legal framework, the naming of Ca-racas’ “Head of Government” is the sole responsibility of the President of the Republic.

Largely absent from daily politics, Ledezma has instead used the Metropolitan Mayor’s office to promote himself and attack the national govern-ment. In one example, he held a brief hunger strike at the Caracas offices of the Orga-nization of American States (OAS) in protest to the Faria appointment. In a more recent example, he used a 2012 Inter-national Mayors Conference in Jerusalem to hold closed-door meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, promising to “re-establish relations with the State of Israel under a new gov-ernment presided by Henrique Capriles Radonski”. Earlier this year, after Nicolas Maduro won the April 2013 presidential election, Ledezma used another publicly-financed trip abroad to tell those gathered at a Florida conference that “the OAS must impose the Democratic Charter on Venezuela”.

The artillery of ideas Friday, August 9, 2013 | Analysis 7

T/ Raul Zibechi – La JornadaP/ Agencies

Some days ago a meeting was held in Caracas to de-bate the relationships be-

tween movements and states, and how autonomy and popular power can build alternatives to development that are depen-dent on the extraction [of oil and minerals] model. Members of thirty organizations and movements participated, from cooperatives grouped into Ce-cosesola and the National Net-work of Bartering Systems, to Amazon and Yukpa indigenous groups, youth, culture, afro de-scendents, feminist, and urban and rural collectives. There were also debates and meetings with the Tenants Movement.

It’s important to affirm the strength and determination of these movements, the profound-ness and truth of their analysis, the autonomous character of their reflections, the certainty that they face a decisive pe-riod of political life. If one had to summarize, something that is difficult when words circu-late around and around, there would be three central topics that were discussed: getting away from extraction-ism, deepening autonomy, and con-structing a new type of produc-tive model.

Exctraction-ism appeared in two ways. One was expected and customary, linked to the so-cial and environmental damag-es that mineral and petroleum mining cause, which threaten the life of indigenous and ru-ral communities. The killing of Yukpa chief Sabino Romero by rancher mafias on March 3rd in the Sierra de Perija in Zulia state is part of the offensive by the large landowners against those who struggle for the de-marcation of their ancestral territories in an area where mining is advancing.

Many non-indigenous groups, and even urban ones, fight against the consequences of the extraction model. The conse-quences generated over the last half century or more by a model based on extraction and expor-tation of petroleum are added now to the growing presence of mining and the construction of large infrastructure works.

The criticisms of the “rentier culture” which converts the movements into dependents of the state and which has a long tradition in Venezuela, was something unexpected. One of the big changes in this country has been the democratization of the petroleum income, pre-viously reserved for just a few people and now showered on the popular sectors. However

this democratization has rein-forced the rentier culture and installed the productive model as something immovable. In the heart of the movements, this culture goes against pro-ductivity, as some collectives that form part of the Caracas urban cultural center Tiuna el Fuerte stated.

The interesting thing about this view is that it places the problem below, not above. Ex-traction-ism is a fact of reality, just like the hegemony of rentier culture. But what they denomi-nate as lack of “productivity” is part of a cultural challenge that can be dealt with and won. That’s what the movements talk-

Venezuela: extraction-ism,movements, and Revolution

ed about and they are focusing their efforts on this task.

The producers grouped into Cecosesola (Central Coopera-tive of Social Services of the State of Lara) supply a quarter of the population of Barqui-simeto, capital of Lara, with food, with their three weekly markets that sell 450 tons of food. In their six health centers they attend to 190,000 people per year. Everything they do is self-managed.

The bartering network ex-changes what it produces, from food to handicrafts, but also knowledge and services. It uses communal money and it asks itself how to promote the con-

struction of popular power with-out being destroyed by inept civil servants or the power of money.

The Tenants Movement is occupying over three hundred buildings in Caracas, many of which were abandoned and are now self-managed. The urban movement groups together ten-ants who resist evictions, the ur-ban land committees that were born in 2002 when the regular-ization of self-constructed ur-ban settlements was approved, residential workers, and those who have lost their homes to floods. They are building four-teen groups of housing based on mutual help, they create ur-ban communities on the path to a profound urban revolution.

Tiuna el Fuerte is one of the most powerful urban youth ex-periences in the continent. It’s one of the few collectives that manages to work with poor youth who do illegal things, to build spaces with them for cultural and artistic creation through their participation in the Endogenous School of Hip Hop. The reflections about petroleum rentier-ism by the women of Latent Voices, who work with the collectives of Tiu-na el Fuerte, are notable; if we manage to change the rentier culture and inclusion through consumerism for a productive and self-management culture, we’re starting to leave the ex-traction model behind.

It could be said that in har-mony with certain structural-ism, while the productive mod-el isn’t changed, the behavior of the population won’t be, that culture depends on production, that culture can’t do it alone, that this way of doing politics has post modern repercussions. However, the class struggle, the struggle in general, isn’t a structural fact but rather a building of ethics by those from below. There aren’t determin-isms from the productive forces towards the rest of the society. We shouldn’t judge without knowing the intentions of those who are doing.

In Venezuela there are pow-erful movements, understood as collective practices capable of transforming parts of soci-ety, modifying the material and symbolic place of those who form part of them. On oc-casions this part of society has felt and feels supported by the state and by diverse govern-ments. On occasions, it hasn’t. The truth is that there are peo-ple in movements, doing things to change their lives and soci-ety. Whatever happens will happen in the next few years, they will be there, fighting for a better world.

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

INTERNATIONAL Friday, August 9, 2013 | Nº 170 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve

Opinion

T/ John Pilger

The critical moment in the po-litical trial of the century was on February 28th when Brad-

ley Manning stood and explained why he had risked his life to leak tens of thousands of official files. It was a statement of morality, conscience and truth: the very qualities that distinguish hu-man beings. This was not deemed mainstream news in the US; and were it not for Alexa O’Brien, an independent freelance journal-ist, Manning’s voice would have been silenced. Working through the night, she transcribed and re-leased his every word. It is a rare, revealing document.

Describing the attack by an Apache helicopter crew who filmed civilians as they mur-dered and wounded them in Baghdad in 2007, Manning said: “The most alarming aspect of the video to me was the seem-ingly delightful bloodlust they appeared to have. They seemed not to value human life by refer-ring to them as ‘dead bastards’ and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers. At one point in the vid-eo there is an individual on the ground attempting to crawl to safety [who] is seriously wound-ed... For me, this seems similar to a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass”. He hoped “the public would be as alarmed as me” about a crime which, as his subsequent leaks revealed, was not an aberration.

Bradley Manning is a prin-cipled whistleblower and truth-teller who has been vilified and tortured - and Amnesty Inter-national needs to explain to the world why it has not adopted him as a prisoner of conscience; or is Amnesty, unlike Manning, intimidated by criminal power?

“It is a funeral here at Fort Meade”, Alexa O’Brien told me. “The US government wants to bury Manning alive. He is a gen-uinely earnest young man with not an ounce of mendacity. The mainstream media finally came on the day of the verdict. They showed up for a gladiator match - to watch the gauntlet go down, thumbs pointed down”.

The criminal nature of the US military is beyond dispute. The decades of lawless bombing, the use of poisonous weapons on civilian populations, the ren-ditions and the torture at Abu Graib, Guantanamo and else-where, are all documented. As a young war reporter in Indochi-na, it dawned on me that the US exported its homicidal neuroses and called it war, even a noble cause. Like the Apache attack, the infamous 1968 massacre at My Lai was not untypical. In the same province, Quang Ngai, I gathered evidence of widespread slaughter: thousands of men, women and children, murdered arbitrarily and anonymously in “free fire zones”.

In Iraq, I filmed a shepherd whose brother and his entire family had been cut down by a US plane, in the open. This was sport. In Afghanistan, I filmed to a woman whose dirt-walled home, and family, had been obliterated by a 500lb bomb. There was no “enemy”. My film cans burst with such evidence.

In 2010, Private Manning did his duty to the rest of human-

ity and supplied proof from within the murder machine. This is his triumph; and his show trial merely expresses corrupt power’s abiding fear of people learning the truth. It also illuminates the parasitic industry around truth-tellers. Manning’s character has been dissected and abused by those who never knew him yet claim to support him.

The hyped film, We Steal Se-crets: the Story of WikiLeaks, mutates a heroic young soldier into an “alienated... lonely... very needy” psychiatric case with an “identity crisis” because “he was in the wrong body and wanted to become a woman”. So spoke Alex Gibney, the director, whose prurient psycho-babble found willing ears across a me-dia too compliant or lazy or stu-pid to challenge the hype and comprehend that the shadows falling across whistleblowers may reach even them. From its dishonest title, Gibney’s film performed a dutiful hatchet job on Manning, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. The message was familiar - serious dissent-

The courage of Bradley Manning will inspire others to seize their moment of truth

ers are freaks. Alexa O’Brien’s meticulous record of Manning’s moral and political courage de-molishes this smear.

In the Gibney film, US politi-cians and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff are lined up to repeat, unchallenged, that, in publishing Manning’s leaks, WikiLeaks and Assange placed the lives informants at risk and had “blood on his hands”. On Au-gust 1st, the Guardian reported: “No record of deaths caused by WikiLeaks revelations, court told”. The Pentagon general who led a 10-month investigation into the worldwide impact of the leaks reported that not a single death could be attributed to the disclosures.

Yet, in the film, the journalist Nick Davies describes a heart-less Assange who had no “harm minimization plan”. I asked the filmmaker Mark Davis about this. A respected broadcaster for SBS Australia, Davis was an eyewitness, accompanying As-sange during much of the prep-aration of the leaked files for publication in the Guardian and the New York Times. His footage

appears in the Gibney film. He told me, “Assange was the only one who worked day and night extracting 10,000 names of peo-ple who could be targeted by the revelations in the logs”.

While Manning faces life in prison, Gibney is said to be planning a Hollywood movie. A “biopic” of Assange is on the way, along with a Hollywood version of David Leigh’s and Luke Harding’s book of scuttle-butt on the “fall” of WikiLeaks. Profiting from the boldness, cleverness and suffering of those who refuse to be co-opted and tamed, they all will end up in history’s waste bin. For the inspiration of future truth-tellers belongs to Bradley Man-ning, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and the remarkable young people of WikiLeaks, whose achievements are un-paralleled. Snowden’s rescue is largely a WikiLeaks triumph: a thriller too good for Hollywood because its heroes are real.

In 2010, Private

Manning did his duty

to the rest of humanity

and supplied proof

from within the murder

machine. This is his

triumph; and his show

trial merely expresses

corrupt power’s

abiding fear of people

learning the truth.

It also illuminates

the parasitic industry

around truth-tellers.

Manning’s character

has been dissected

and abused by those

who never knew

him yet claim

to support him