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No. 444 Venezuela & Janus-Faced America:
That America That Still Matters
*************************** 17 Members of Congress speak
out
The Honorable George W. Bush President The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20500 Dear President George W. Bush, In light of the increasing political tension in Venezuela, and recognizing that part of the opposition leadership is determined to remove President Hugo Chavez by any means necessary, we, the undersigned organizations and individuals, call upon you to state unequivocally that the United States government opposes any attempt to remove the democratically elected government of Venezuela by a military coup or other unconstitutional means. Furthermore, the White House should affirm that the United States would not have normal diplomatic relations with a coup-installed government. We believe that the silence of the White House since the military coup of April 11, which the administration appeared to endorse, is widely interpreted as support for further coup attempts. We are concerned that this perception reduces the incentive for opposition leaders and the Chavez government to pursue dialogue or peaceful solution to the current crisis. We are also concerned that, while senior officials at the White House have maintained their silence, Otto Reich, currently the State Department's special envoy to the Western Hemisphere, recently singled out the Venezuelan government for criticism, stating that "an election is not sufficient to call a country a democracy." This was an unusual departure from diplomatic protocol, and in light of the April coup, has made Venezuelan government officials even more suspicious of Washington's motives. The role of the United States government in the coup of April 11 remains unclear. We know that top US officials met with leaders of the coup in the months before it happened. Opposition groups that were involved in the coup also received funding from the United States government. At the same time, the Bush Administration openly expressed its hostility to the government of President Chavez. According to the State Department Office of the Inspector General, one of the reasons for this friction was President Chavez's "involvement in the affairs of the Venezuelan oil company and the potential impact of that on oil prices." Furthermore, the State Department's Office of the Inspector General, after looking into the role of US officials before and after the April coup, concluded that US warnings against the coup "may not have gone far enough. Among the many accounts of such warnings, few went beyond the standard, ritualistic 'no undemocratic or unconstitutional change' formulation. Warnings of non-recognition of a coup-installed government, economic sanctions, and other concrete punitive actions were few and far between. This, too, has been recognized and lamented in retrospect by some senior U.S. officials." The State Department's OIG report further noted that "the very fact that the United States regularly and repeatedly met with those interested in ousting the Chavez government and heard them out may in and of itself have been seen as lending support to their efforts, notwithstanding our ritualistic denunciations of undemocratic and unconstitutional means." In light of these circumstances, the current White House silence on its opposition to a military coup or any other possible unconstitutional overthrow of Venezuela's democratically elected government is seen throughout Venezuela and elsewhere as support for such illegal actions. Opposition leaders who are determined to overthrow the government have little incentive to pursue dialogue or a peaceful solution, if they believe that the United States government will support them no matter what they do. The U.S. government should demonstrate its ongoing and active support for democratically elected governments. Only a strong statement of condemnation from the White House explaining that the U.S. opposes violent and unconstitutional actions, will not tolerate a coup government and will impose sanctions upon any coup- installed government, will send the right democratic message to Venezuelan political actors as well as other governments in Latin America. We therefore call upon the White House to make its position clear, before Venezuela slides closer to the brink of civil war. Sincerely,
MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich
ORGANIZATIONS: 50 Years Is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice Soren Ambrose, Policy Analyst Alliance for Justice: Medical
Mission Sisters
The Committee for Inter-American
Human Rights
Center for Economic and Policy
Research
Center for Economic Justice
Chicago Metropolitan Sanctuary
Alliance
Church of the Brethren General
Board
Colombia Human Rights Committee
Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) Cherrene Horazuk, Executive Director Interhemispheric Resource Center
(IRC)
Fellowship of Reconciliation Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean Philip McManus, Chair Food First/The Institute for
Food and Development Policy
Franciscan Washington Office
for Latin America
Global Exchange The Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA
Latin Ameirca/Caribbean Committee of the Loretto Community Annemary Vogelweid Marin Interfaith Task Force on
Central America
Maryknoll Center for Global Concern
Office Of Peace and Justice of Congregation of Sisters of Divine Providence of Kentucky Catherine M. Holtkamp, CDP Nicaragua Center for Community
Action
Nicaragua Network
Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) Sarah C. Aird, Executive Director The Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace, Olympia, Washington Branden Wilson Pax Christi Michigan
Pax Christi USA
Quixote Center/Quest for Peace
School of the Americas Watch
Sisters of the Holy Cross, Congregation Justice Committee of Notre Dame, Indiana Ann Oestreich IHM, Coordinator Toledo Area Committee on Central America (TACCA), Toledo, OH Chester Chambers United Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Rev. David A. Vargas, Executive for Latin America and the Caribbean United Methodist Church, General Board of Church and Society Mark Harrison, Program Director Voices on the Border
The Wisconsin Coordinating Council
on Nicaragua (WCCN)
http://www.voice4change.org/stories/showstory.asp?file=021217~cispes.
*********************************************************************************** CARE A DIME, A DAMN!
Bush Withdraws "Elections" Demand;
"Strike" is Over
By Al Giordano and correspondents
Friday's desperate maneuver by U.S. President George W. Bush - his cynical call for "early elections" in Venezuela, a country that has had six national elections in the past four years - has backfired after it was revealed as unconstitutional. White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, earlier today, withdrew that demand with some not-too-fancy semantic footwork: "Early elections, in the sense that of course, there is a referenda (sic) that can be held earlier that is a reflection of the manifestation of the will of the people and this is the process that is anticipated in the Venezuelan constitution," Fleischer told reporters earlier today. The White House backpedaling comes on the heels of major developments in Venezuela and our América. 1. The final and total collapse of efforts to close shops and lock out workers by businesses owners - dishonestly called a "strike" by commercial media for the past two weeks: By Monday morning, almost every store in the wealthy neighborhoods and suburbs of Eastern Caracas (the last holdouts in "The Strike That Wasn't") opened for business. 2. 90 percent of all contracted oil industry employees have returned to work, now that saboteur executives have been fired and removed from their offices. The remaining 10 percent will be fired if they do not immediately return to work. 3. Four tankers, carrying two million barrels of crude oil to the United States, are already en route. 4. A desperate effort this morning by "opposition leaders" to block highways leading into the capital City of Caracas, to physically turn back the millions of Venezuelan workers who commuted to their jobs today. The blockades - typically committed by four or five cars or trucks used to block each route - were confronted at nearly every location by angry citizens and were disbanded as a counterproductive tactic by 2 p.m. this afternoon. There were also violent clashes between police and blockaders at 10 locations. Although the simulating Associated Press refers to this as "spiraling. out of control. violence," there were no deaths before the blockade disbanded. Despite commercial media spin that the failed blockades were somehow an "escalation" of the "strike," the true intent was to mask the fact that almost every shop and store in Venezuela, including in the wealthy sectors, is now open for business. 5. The response of twice-elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez to the White House, saying that U.S. officials were "confused" because their "early elections" call would violate the Venezuelan Constitution. 6. Heated meetings in the Organization of American States that went for 13 hours Friday night into the wee hours of Saturday, in which U.S. delegate Roger Noriega - former foreign policy czar for U.S. Senator Jesse Helms (R-North Carolina) was rebuffed in his attempt to get the OAS to call for "early elections." 7. The joining by most Caribbean countries of Venezuela's own OAS resolution to back the democratically elected government of Venezuela. 8. The defection of OAS representatives from Canada, Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica and other nations from the U.S. interventionist position. 9. The continued free-fall of the credibility of OAS "mediator," former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria, now in his 15th day at the luxurious Melia Hotel in Caracas, and still no coup d'etat to show for his transparently anti-democracy efforts. 10. The sudden discovery of a backbone by some White House Press Correspondents who grilled Fleischer on his "early elections" call. According to White House transcripts
of a Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer on December 13th, in the James S.
Brady Briefing Room, he was asked:
Q. Ari, the statement you put out on Venezuela earlier today called for a constitutional solution to the crisis there. It then went on to call for early elections. Those two statements would appear to be at war with each other. There's nothing in the Venezuelan constitution that countenances early elections. Could you speak to that conflict? MR. FLEISCHER: I do not believe that -- the statement would have been crafted by experts who are versed in this field. This was a statement by the staff expressed through me representing the President's opinions, if it was not constitutional. So I think we have a difference about the Venezuelan constitution. Q. By endorsing early elections, you've effectively endorsed the main demand of the Venezuelan opposition, the opposition to President Chavez. Why should we not conclude that the administration has, in effect, come down on the side of opposition, against Chavez? MR. FLEISCHER: The President, as he said in the statement, is concerned about the deteriorating situation in Venezuela, and the President wants this to be resolved the way democracies resolve issues, which is through the peaceful exercise of the ballot box. And it sounds like you're giving on the issue of it is within the Constitution. Basically, if one party in Venezuela is calling for it, unless you're saying that the party is calling for something extraconstitutional, the statement reflects the view that democracy is the best way to settle any of these serious problems that are in Venezuela. Q. The Constitution calls for elections on a certain schedule. The opposition is calling to advance that schedule. MR. FLEISCHER: Unless you're
suggesting that the Venezuelan constitution prohibits it, I would think
you'd have no objection to democracy being pursued.
It took White House diplomatic and legal counsel four days to amend its "early elections" call to one for a non-binding referendum. And Fleischer continues to try and spin it dishonestly as "that's what we meant all along!" But Venezuelan opposition leaders are disheartened. Today's pro-coup daily newspapers used phrases like "backpedaled" or "took a step backwards" to describe the White House's latest position. The OAS - a group based in Washington that Che Guevara once observed had the job of "administering the colonies for the United States" - continues to be the locus of heated debate between governments in América. The anti-democracy faction in OAS (Bush's United States with Vicente Fox's Mexico, Alejandro Toledo's Peru, and Alvaro Uribe's Colombia, and a few other countries) is in a panicked hurry to try and force a "diplomatic junta" on Venezuela before January 1st, when Brazil inaugurates its new president Lula de la Silva, the popular Workers Party leader of Latin America's largest nation who will become the hemisphere's main interlocutor with the United States and the world. Ten days later, on January 10th, Ecuador will inaugurate Colonel Lucio Gutiérrez as president, further weakening the anti-democracy crowd's grip over the OAS. Two more key changes occur on January 1st that will have a high impact on the Venezuela situation: New laws will take effect. The land reform law (affecting not only rural farmlands but also landlords and vacant lots in the cities), and the Hydrocarbons Law, giving the elected government the final set of tools it needs to wrestle the state-owned oil company from the hands of a few corrupt oligarchs. Meanwhile, as reported by Canadian correspondent in Venezuela Oscar Heck of Vheadline.com, all holiday season flights from Caracas to Miami are booked solid (no "strike" for the wicked), indicating that the annual exodus of upper-class Venezuelans to Florida will go as it has in previous years, thus taking many of the coup-plotting leaders off the stage of their act of Strike Simulation Theater. The "Grinch-osition" - as Vheadline columnist Charles Hardy calls the Christmas season coup-plotters - is flailing around like a fish on a hook. Pro-coup and simulating daily newspapers El Nacional and El Universal, early today in Caracas, announced they would not publish tomorrow in solidarity with "the Strike That Wasn't." But later this afternoon both announced that, no, they will publish tomorrow. The waning ranks of the Grinch-osition have tried all morning to provoke violence as a last ditch effort to justify foreign intervention. The Venezuelan majority, and its morning commuters, showed immense patience and maturity. They were able to break up the highway blockades in an organized fashion. In 10 locations, there was violence between police and blockaders on both sides, but without any reported deaths. Hardy, an invited professor of the Narco News School of Authentic Journalism, and a former Catholic priest, aptly quoted Dr. Seuss' "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" in today's column penned from Venezuela, concluding: "Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas ... perhaps ... means a little bit more." No one is expecting the coup-plotters' hearts to grow three sizes, but they have, now, at least in their rush for xmas shopping proceeds, opened the doors to their stores. None of this will prevent professional simulators from AP, Reuters, CNN, and U.S. and British newspaper correspondents from repeating their daily Big Lie that the "strike" is somehow "growing" or "escalating" or "increasing the pressure on Chávez to resign." But after 15 days of their transparent simulation, every Who down in Whooville already knows the score. So, happy holidays to our readers - 120,000 hits a day this week, by citizens who wisely seek more honest sources than that of the Commercial Media - and to the valiant Venezuelan majority, from all of us at Narco News. We will remain here in the newsroom and on the street, closely monitoring the death throes of the Strike That Wasn't, until the door to the airplane toward Miami hits the coup-plotters in the ass. Before we rest and feast on roast beast, we'll serve up a special holiday dish: Rolled Heads of Simulators. We'll review for you the outrageous distortions of fact and truth committed this month by certain members of the Commercial Media. We will name the names of the para-mercenary journalists who have demonstrably lied to you in recent weeks about what has occurred in Venezuela, and document precisely how they knew the facts to be different from the words they reported. The simulating correspondents
have attempted - and continue to attempt - to create the conditions for
the single largest threat to press freedom in our América: a coup
d'etat. The good news, kind readers, more evident every minute and hour,
is that they are on the cusp of a humiliating defeat, and 2002 may soon
ring out with another victory for Authentic Democracy in our América.
Bring on 2003.
http://www.narconews.com/Issue26/article565.html *********************************************************************************** WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT? According to the New York Times: Venezuela's Oil: Wellspring
of Bad Blood
CARACAS, Venezuela, Dec. 16 — As planning manager for Venezuela's most vaunted company, Petróleos de Venezuela, Juan Fernández was known for caution and restraint as he plotted the state oil giant's financial future. Now, the unruffled American-educated
economist is plotting a different kind of future for the company: making
sure its taps stay shut long enough to force President Hugo Chávez
from power.
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have to shovel less this winter
Charging that Mr. Chávez's left-leaning government is leading Venezuela to ruin, Mr. Fernández, 47, and a vanguard of white-collar rebels have vowed to remain true to a two-week national strike that has paralyzed oil exports from the world's fifth-largest supplier, which provides 14 percent of the oil used in the United States. "I am not thinking of the risks," Mr. Fernández said in an interview at his home. Even as he vowed to stay off the job, the government said Mr. Fernández and four other leading Chávez opponents in the company had been dismissed. "This is my priority," he said. "This is what has become of my life." It is also a struggle for the life of Venezuela. When Mr. Chávez won power here in 1998, he pledged to use the oil revenues as his most powerful tool to remake a country with glaring disparities between a European-descended upper class and the vast majority of Venezuelans and Chávez supporters, who are poor and dark-skinned. "It cannot be seen as a state within a state," the president said of the oil company. Since then, Mr. Chávez's policies have divided Venezuelans as never before, and observers of the two-week political standoff now warn that whoever controls the $46 billion oil company will gain the upper hand and may well end up controlling the nation. "Oil is everything because that's how you control the money," said Roger Diwan, managing director at the Petroleum Finance Company, a Washington consulting company. "If the government succeeds in getting back the oil on line, they would have won. The question is, Is that possible at this stage?" Already the strike, now in its 15th day, has severely debilitated the oil industry. Production is down 70 percent, to about one million barrels a day, with losses for the government estimated at $350 million a week. Coupled with the threat of war in Iraq, the strike has driven up world oil prices to a two-month high. "It is the first time that Venezuela fails in its policy of being a secure and trustworthy supplier of petroleum," Roy Chaderton, Venezuela's foreign minister, said in an interview. "We consider that grave for Venezuela." After gaining the presidency, Mr. Chávez, a pugnacious former army paratrooper, quickly set about rewriting the Constitution and loading a new Congress and Supreme Court with his allies. While his policies have created a host of powerful enemies from the influential middle and upper classes, the most potent spring from the white-collar work force at Petróleos de Venezuela, known throughout the oil industry as Pdvsa, pronounced peh-deh-VEH-sah. To the government and its supporters, Mr. Chávez is simply trying to manage Petróleos de Venezuela for the good of a country that, despite its vast oil wealth, has been mired in poverty. But to the executives and office workers at Petróleos de Venezuela, whose management was once autonomous, Mr. Chávez's government has meddled in the company's top ranks and mismanaged its finances by appointing what they called "ideologues." Instead of increasing production, Chávez appointees sold oil at cut rates to Cuba and began funneling ever-growing sums of money into little-known social programs, said alienated former oil executives like Mr. Fernández. "The petroleum industry serves the government, not the Venezuelan state," Mr. Fernández said. "I cannot work in this company, or this country, the way it is." When he joined the company 18 years ago, Mr. Fernández said, workers rose through the ranks in a highly structured, merit-based process that graded them on their achievements. "You made your career," said Mr. Fernández, who started as a budget analyst. "It was up to you if you rose." But now, he and others said,
there is little respect for what executives here called "the meritocracy"
that had made Petróleos de Venezuela highly unusual among many state-run
companies.
************************************************************************* Tuesday, December 17, 2002 7.26 PM. URGENT! ALERT!! TO ALL OUR FRIENDS, NATIONALLY
AND INTERNATIONALLY, IN THE AMERICAS, EUROPE,
TO BE SO DESPERATE, SO SURE,
SO STUBBORN,
This so-called "Opposition",
in spite of the Declaration of the OAS, of the USA itself, is trying to
prepare a bloody
In Spanish, see below: Revelations of a police-man of Chacao, who refused to participate in such a massacre. FRANZ.
DESDE VENEZUELA PARA
AMERICA LATINA
UN FUNCIONARIO POLICIAL ADSCRITO A LA POLICIA DE CHACAO (CHACAO) HACE POCOS MOMENTOS DESDE LA SEDE DEL HOTEL MELIA EN CARACAS,LUGAR DONDE EL Dr. CESAR GAVIRIA SECRETARIO PERMANENTE DE LA OEA, EMITE SUS OPINIONES SOBRE EL ESTADO EN QUE SE ENCUENTRAN LAS NEGOCIACIONES,ENTRE EL GOBIERNO LEGITIMO DEL PRESIDENTE HUGO CHAVEZ Y EL FACTOR POLITICO QUE LE ADVERSA. EN EXCLUSIVA, ACABA DE SEÑALAR EN RUEDA DE PRENSA, QUE DESDE LA POLICIA DE DICHO MUNICIPIO UBICADO AL ESTE DE CARACAS OPERAN AGENTES EXTRAÑOS CON ARMAS DE ALTA POTENCIA, Y QUE PARA EL DIA VIERNES 20 DE DICIEMBRE ESTARIAN CONVOCANDO UNA MARCHA A COMO DE LUGAR PARA TRATAR DE LLEVARLA A MIRAFLORES, Y DE ESTA FORMA BUSCAR UNA CONFRONTACION CUYO OBJETIVO SERIA DEJAR MUERTOS Y HERIDOS. EN ESE SENTIDO EL FUNCIONARIO CITO QUE NO SE PRESTARIA ANTE SEMEJANTE ATENTADO A LA PAZ Y LA CONVIVENCIA CIUDADANA. MANIFESTO EL FUNCIONARIO QUE LA REUNION DONDE SE FILTRO Y PLANIFICO LA ACCION FUE EN EL HOTEL TAMANACO CON LA PRESENCIA DEL GOBERNADOR DEL ESTADO MIRANDA: ENRIQUE MENDOZA, QUIEN TOMARA POR ASALTO EL CANAL DEL ESTADO EL DIA 11 DE ABRIL PASADO FECHA EN QUE DIERAN EL GOLPE DE ESTADO, FINALMENTE EL DENUNCIANTE SEÑALO QUE EL COMISARIO HENRRY VIVAS PERTENECIENTE A LA POLICIA METROPOLITANA DESPACHA DESDE LAS INSTALACIONES DE LA POLICIA DE CHACAO ENCARGADO DE PLANIFICAR EL ASALTO A MIRAFLORES EL PROXIMO VIERNES. SABREMOS AGRADECERLE LA DIFUSION MEDIATA DE ESTA IMPORTTANTE NOTICIA L,O CUAL RATIFICA LO QUE HUGO CHAVEZ VIENE DENUNCIANDO DESDE HACE MUCHO TIEMPO CIERTO GOBERNADORES Y ALCALDES ESTAN INVOLUCRADO EN ACCIONES CONSPIRTATIVAS Y UTILIZAN LA MASCARA DE LA COORDINADORA DEMOCRATICA COMO PLAN DE DESGASTE TRATANDO DE GANAR TIEMPO PARA DAR OTRO ZARPAZO Y ABOLIR LA CONSTITUCION BOLIVARIANA DE VENEZUELA. Lic. René Colmenares
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