VENEZUELA NEWS BULLETIN No. 1013

From Media War to Armed Struggle in Venezuela?

Thursday, Jun 17, 2004		Print format
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By: Aram Aharonian - Question

“The Andean region, from Colombia to Venezuela, is a very probable objective of a U.S. invasion, whose project needs new invasions.”

—Noam Chomsky

Beyond the latest pronouncements of Roger Noriega or Colin Powell and the “repair” just completed process, all indications are that the most radical sectors of Venezuela’s opposition intend to repeat a similar script to the one of April 2002. To organize a massacre and, with the support of the mass media, to accuse the Venezuelan armed forces—and in this way the commander in chief, Hugo Chavez—of genocide, so as to appeal for a foreign intervention.

These groups—encouraged by the fact that they were the ruling class in Venezuela for over forty years—have various problems. First, they have no concept of nation or sovereignty and a total lack of patriotism. Since they did not achieve a landing of U.S. marines (which more than one businessman called for via the private mass media), are now trying to incite such an action via Colombian assassins.

When on the last day of October 2002 President Chavez told the foreign press that he was aware of the fact that he would be governing for a long time in the midst of an inevitable low-intensity conflict, he recognized that the country was heading towards a “colombianization” of its domestic politics.

Permanent low-intensity conflicts, the installation of Colombian phenomena such as assassins (“sicarios”)—over 80 peasants and community leaders assassinated—and the paramilitary forces, along with appeals to terrorism as a political weapon—bombs placed in foreign representations, assassination attempts on the President, assassination of peasant leaders—confirms a climate that is rarefied and hardened by a private press that spreads as valid all test balloons of the Colombian military intelligence service, and the participation of Colombian businessmen (the same ones who for over five decades have profited from the violence in their country) in Venezuelan political life.

The political episodes of the country went from the coup of 2002, to the insubordination of a group of coup-plotting officers, to the oil industry strike-sabotage between December 2002 and January 2003, to the effort to spur urban violence via “guarimbas,”[1] to the capture of 130 Colombian paramilitary fighters in Venezuela, merely 20 kilometers from the center of Caracas. These phases confirm that Plan Colombia is gradually becoming involved, destabilizing Venezuela.

“To free Cuba, support the Venezuelan referendum,” indicated an article of Diego Arria, the former Ambassador of former President Carlos Andrés Perez to the United Nations. “The best way to remake democracy in Cuba is not by increasing the inefficient economic sanctions. Rather, it is by helping Venezuela recover its own democracy, which is being stolen, bit by bit, by Hugo Chavez, the increasingly more dictatorial President of Venezuela.”

The Paramilitaries

The capture of Colombian paramilitary forces in a hacienda, a mere 20 kilometers from Caracas—headed by three “comandantes” accustomed to crime, 40 reservists, around 20 professional soldiers who are active in the military, and a contingent of young unemployed novices, including nine minors who were turned over to Colombian authorities—proves that various factors such as Cuban exiles, narco-traffickers, the Colombian oligarchy, “hawks” from the United States, and the owners of the private mass media are making efforts to destabilize and militarily occupy Venezuela, one of the countries with the largest oil reserves in the western hemisphere.

But this time it is not just about oil: it’s that in Venezuela a democratic government—and using peaceful means—has dared to maintain a policy independent of Washington and to propose socio-economic policies that favor the large majority, who were marginalized for decades by a formal and bi-partisan democracy.

Venezuela’s opposition, which is incapable of unifying or of even having a common plan, knows that it will not be easy to get rid of Chavez via a vote. The most recent surveys, conducted by the opposition itself, confirm this. Therefore they appeal to the only resource they have, in order to once again enjoy the corrupt power of more than 40 years of formal democracy: violence and presidential assassination. The private mass media, the stimulators of violence, orchestrate and direct the publicity to justify a foreign intervention under the pre-text of dislodging a regime that does not follow the directive of Washington.

Ironically, the excuse to dislodge the president from power is precisely a belief system through which one aims to make the government appear as though the government is tied to terrorism and the drug mafia. This argument does not have the least bit of evidence behind it: if any administration has been hard on drug trafficking, then it has been the Chavez presidency. If any administration has been the victim of terrorism, then it is precisely this one. What calls one’s attention is the lack of definition within the opposition, that is, its complete disengagement from violence committed by foreigners on Venezuelan soil.

The Colombian legislator, for the Democratic Pole, indicated on February 25, 2003 that “the paramilitary tactic is to unify strength, to concentrate men and resources in the frontier. The will wait for two things: either an extreme and powerful opposition sector contracts them to make war within Venezuela, in the style of the Nicaraguan Contras, or that the U.S. government itself, once it gets out of Iraq, if it goes well, decides to support these paramilitary forces in order to intervene in Venezuela. The paramilitaries are waiting for this and this is why they control the frontier and are constantly concentrating more weapons and equipment there. This is a truth that Uribe does not take into account.”

The fall of the paramilitary forces is merely one more accident in the path of those who are preparing , for over two years now, a civil war, a massacre. Despite the minimization, the banalization, that the commercial press—Venezuelan as well as international—did of the facts, today war seems to knock on the door of all Venezuelans (please excuse the dramatic tone, but this is the truth). Importing Colombian narco-terrorists in order to assassinate the president and to sow chaos in Venezuela was, until now, the last play of the extreme right, powerful economic sectors, the United States, and of Bogotá’s oligarchy in order to interrupt the process of democratic social transformations that Hugo Chavez directs.

The main objectives of the paramilitary forces consisted of, plainly and simply, of assassinating Hugo Chavez, who was to have dinner on the night of Wednesday May 12 with a group of Bankers in the presidential residency La Casona, revealed the Colombian journalist Ernesto Carmona to Vice-President Rangel. Simultaneously, another group would attack the Mirflores presidential palace and the rest would attack at least two arms depositories of the National Guard and the airbase La Carlota. An active duty air force officer was going to take control over an airplane in order to drop some bombs on the city.

The most important arrest made in those days was of General Usón, Chavez’ finance minister during the coup attempt of April 11, 2002, who was captured this last May 22nd in Puerto Ordaz. The police is still looking for Nestor González González, another retired general who was involved in the logistics that allowed the narco-terrorists to cross the country without being detected.

Vice-president José Vicente Rangel made public the resume of the leaders of the group that was captured in the Daktari ranch, owned by Roberto Alonso, a Cuban emigrant and U.S. and Venezuelan citizen, who invented the “guarimba,” and brother of the former singer and Hollywood actress Maria Conchita Alonso.

The three captured paramilitary leaders are extremely criminal individuals, responsible for numerous assassinations against Colombian peasants, experts in the “tie cut”—a cut to the throat that slowly bleeds the victim to death—, the castration of men, and the cutting of women’s nipples.

The main leader was “Comandante Lucas,” José Ernesto Ayala Amado, who had proposed beheading Chavez while smoking a Havana cigar, according to the confessions obtained by interrogators. Lucas conducted some “exercises” during the training of his men: he murdered three who tried to desert. A photograph of an exhumed corpse, that had died 15 to 20 days earlier, exhibits the “tie cut” and the gut emptied, a paramilitary technique that slows down the decomposition of corpses.

Rangel affirmed, before international diplomats, with graphic documents in hand, that in Homestead, Florida is a training camp for paramilitaries who intend to act in Venezuela. He showed photographs of the field leader in full activity, the former captain of the National Guard, Luis Garcia, who acts with impunity in the face of the passivity of U.S. authorities. Eloquently, the vice-president asked the diplomats to take their hands off of Venezuela and to let the opposition act on its own.

The “repair” process

There is no doubt that the Venezuelan right is playing two games. The first appears legal and democratic and the other is illegal and subversive. But, despite being able to count on the private mass media—written, radio, and above all televised—that is committed to the most radical sectors, the opposition has not even managed to agree on a plan of action, on a proposal for the country, and even less so on a candidate to succeed Chavez. The U.S. and Spain are trying to impose the coup plotting businessman Gustavo Cisneros, as a possible Berlusconi for Venezuela.

For these sectors the only solution appears to be presidential assassination or coup d’état, which it proclaims deftly and sinisterly via a (not only) mediatic terrorism which has been going on for the past four years with complete impunity.

It is true that the opposition can count on several active duty officers of the Armed Forces, even though most of these do not command any troops and are watched very carefully by their subalterns.

Even though they can count on excellent scriptwriters, successful authors of coups, genocide, and assassinations along the length and breadth of Latin America, Venezuela’s more radical opposition seems to be tied to a single script: to generate deaths in order to generate intervention, foreign intervention.

The Colombian paramilitaries were contracted to wear uniforms of the Venezuelan army and to commit a massacre in some urbanization in the east of Caracas (perhaps the same day as the signature re-certification), duly documented by the private television channels, attributing the act to the armed forces and demand—with “a little help” from their foreign friends (Colombian businessmen, sectors of the U.S. government, Cuban exiles from Miami, U.S. and Spanish transnational companies, television channels that depend on the economic power of these friends)—foreign intervention in order to dislodge Chavez and his reforms from power.

This same script, which was written in part by the international community in April 2002 (until the excellent work of the filmmaker Angel Palacios showed who the real assassins of Puente Llaguno were and how the sinister montage of the TV channel Venevision was concocted, which even received a prize in Spain).[2] This same script, with the same sponsors, which is not being repeated, even though in this opportunity one is counting on foreign mercenaries, Colombian paramilitaries, who are internationally known not just for their genocides, but also for being among the bloodiest and most inhuman people on earth.

The self-esteem of the marginalized

But the Chavez government continues to develop its “missions” against illiteracy, incorporating thousands of students into new free universities, implementing programs so that all may complete high school, bringing health care to the poor barrios, and strengthening cooperatives, micro-enterprises, and small and medium industry, particularly in the agro-industrial sector. New subway lines are being constructed, sugar production restarted, two train lines, freeways and roads… but none of this is spread via the private mass media. The missions have achieved a fundamental objective for the future of the project: to elevate the self-esteem of the poor.

Perhaps for the first time in the history of the country Venezuela is sowing its oil.[3] The disaster that the opposition proclaims contradict the macro-economic figures: international reserves are beating all records, ($24.5 billion, enough to pay the entire foreign debt and to hold out for a while) and economic growth for the first quarter of 2004 29.8%. Venezuela’s policy of strengthening OPEC has resulted in high oil prices, whose dividends for the first time reach the most disadvantaged masses. The economic model that Chavez is promoting orients public expenditures towards projects that emphasize human development.

Planning Minister Jorge Giordani speaks of a transition, not of a revolution, because capitalism is in no danger here, but rather the neo-conservative model (the government strengthens small businesses and cooperatives). What is certain is the former masters of Venezuela do not tolerate so much change and even less so social transformation processes in favor of the poor in the region, even when promoted by governments that were elected by the most orthodox rules of “representative democracy.”

In a qualitative twist, Chavez openly proclaimed the anti-imperialist character of the process that he calls the “Bolivarian revolution and—merely interpreting the constitution—called for the creation of militias to defend it. Any who so desires, man or woman, may enroll themselves and receive military instruction. This is a new concept of “integral defense” that goes beyond the simple reincorporation of reservists. This is a concept that the dominant class does not like much, which had dreamt of see the Marines land in La Guaira.[4]

From a new coup to “iraqization”

The government of Hugo Chavez holds perhaps a record in attempted coups: more than a dozen in less than five years, almost all of them aborted by their own organizers, the most spectacular being the one of April 11, 2002, which brought the dictatorship of businessman Pedro Carmona to power for less than 47 hours, in a surgical operation supported and financed from outside the country.

This intelligence action of the Venezuelan security forces leave open the role of narco-traffickers and of Colombian paramilitaries as an essential element in the directives of Plan Colombia, the primary element in the campaign to discredit the Chavez government.

The owners of the private mass media are the spear tip in the mediatic offensive that is repeated throughout the length and breadth of the world.

The journalist Miguel Salazar accused that “a new coup attempt is being put into place again, if their organizers ever even took a break. This time around the coalition is much broader and committed, directly and indirectly. From business people to priests and union leaders, to even functionaries and political speakers of the government itself. None the less, the fundamental role of foreign intervention is one that the business sector of Colombia is playing for, which has been tremendously affected in its balance sheets after seeing its business deals with Venezuela go up in smoke. Also, this time, the biggest narco-traffickers of Latin America are conspiring against Chavez.”

Salazar indicates that after the coup the repression will be brutal against the components of the media that currently are delirious adversaries of the government, as well as against human rights organizations that now are part of the strategy of destabilization.

Salazar also affirms that the sedition penetrates the Bolivarian military ranks. “The seditious circle has been closing its tentacles from within the regime itself. Until now there is more than one functionary committed to a scenario similar to the one Grenada went through during the invasion by the Reagan administration.”

Recently the financial support for the coup network has been reappearing: bank accounts are being opened in the exterior, counting on the indifference of the different governments that are committed to the overthrow of Chavez. In diplomatic circles there is talk of a new commotion in the oil industry and of a transportation strike promoted and sustained by the Colombian business sector, in order to accelerate an implosion that would provide a foothold for calling for foreign intervention. The “final end would be to capture Hugo Chavez in order to put him into a jail in the United States while a trial is opened on the charge of terrorism and narco-trafficking,” according to Salazar.

What is definite is that Venezuela covers 15% of the U.S. demand for oil and by 2009 it would be in a position to triple this supply, without neglecting its obligations as provider for Latin America and its projects of integration and energy complementation via PetroAmerica.[5]

The risk is always there: this country is much closer than Iraq. And if two years ago we spoke of a colombianization of Venezuela, we now must fear an iraqization. And, once again, please excuse the drama.

Translated by Gregory Wilpert

This article originally appeared in the June 2004 issue of the Venezuelan monthly magazine Question.

[1] “Guarimba” is the name that opposition organizers gave to the street blockades and the clashes with state security forces.

[2] The video, “Keyes to a Massacre” by Angel Palacios will soon be released in English. It shows in great detail how most of the deaths on April 11 occurred and how the opposition tried to falsely blame these deaths on Chavez supporters and on Chavez himself.

[3] A reference to a slogan of the oil-boom years during the 1970’s, when Venezuela was supposed to “sow the oil”.

[4] La Guaira is the port near Caracas.

[5] PetroAmerica or PetroSur is the proposed unification of Latin American state-owned oil companies that Chavez has proposed.

Original source / relevant link:
Alia2/Question

I don't want to underestimate the role of religion in helping make people either 'defer gratification' until after death or, as my brother's old friend David Mitchell wrote, "think they know the big dark of the multiverse. When you do, it's not hard to justify your actions in the name of your creed."

Yet I wonder if religion is the main obstacle we face in understanding the world and acting collectively to change it.

The great Bill Watterson has a comic in which Calvin asks Hobbes "It says here 'Religion is the opiate of the masses.' What do you think that means?" The next panel pictures a television, with the thought balloon: "It means Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet."

I mean to say that "the media" is a more immediate enemy to truth than religion. I also want to add that both religion and media contain contradictions. Christianity in particular has always fascinated me (as an outsider, a Jew) in its central placement of a radical champion of the downtrodden-- and how this fact is ignored or explained away by establishment churches but still sometimes bursts forth to join the forces for social justice. Media technology, in turn, while presenting a powerful way for the powerful to put out their point of view and marginalize others, also presents the opportunity of helping with the critical task of communicating our understanding of the world, and our hopes and dreams and strategies for a more just society, among all 6 billion of us.

The contradictions in all that exist have to be used for all the advantage we can get.

In Venezuela several facts suggest to me that it is more crucial to attack and intellectually destroy or in practice transform the media than it is to do the same for religion. Venezuela has 24.2 million people and only 4.1 million televisions (and some 10 million radios), and its people are 96 percent "nominally Roman Catholic" (according to Phrasebase). The rich of course are extremely against Chavez and the Bolivarian revolution. The small middle class (more or less religious than the average, does anyone know?) is presumably the main consumers of demonstrated lies from the commercial media. Largely as a result of this (I believe), they have also become very anti-Chavez, despite the likelihood that many would benefit in the medium-term (5 to 10 years) from a successful move toward economic justice.

That's the first three-quarters of Lee's essay, which you can see I found very thought-provoking. The last quarter upset me considerably in its departure from what I think I know about the world.

I believe truth has an objective existence, and that we have a chance of getting near it. Certainly, some things can be proven, some disproven, and many other things are probable or improbable.

Much of the last part of Franz J. T. Lee's post, the part titled "After Centuries of Religious Indoctrination, How Little Do We Know About the Real World," falls into the categories of disprovable or improbable. Lee wants to bring to our attention the "real danger facing Venezuela, that a religious mind cannot fathom, cannot combat, that is, the electro-magnetic arms that the USA could use, should it intervene violently in Venezuela." I feel he is unfortunately trying to direct our attention toward imaginary threats, when there already is an electro-magnetic arm being used in Venezuela: the electronic media. This, therefore, is what we must combat first, with truth and national and international organizing to get the truth out and to act to overcome the forces behind the TV and and radio propaganda.

The electro-magnetic weapons Lee says the United States government currently has include "weatherwarfare," ELF-waves, and Scaler waves. As for the powers ascribed to the second, I'll believe electro-magnetic waves can cause cancer and perhaps tiredness, but certainly not AIDS, and I'd doubt they can target individuals from outer space. As for the first and third, it's no secret governments would like to control the weather and also people's thoughts, but weather systems and human beings are two of the most complex things on the planet and as such the hardest to control in the sense Lee is using. (Lee cites what he calls a scientific publication, which I don't happen to know, called "Raum & Zeit.")

I think I can outright disprove, from my laptop, Lee's assertion of "the high probability of space colonies on the Moon, Mars and elsewhere". A lot of people with way too much time on their hands have a strong interest in the space program. Indeed, they have their own unofficial guides for where to watch shuttles take off from and when the launches occur. How could a colony be built or populated without this independent community getting very, very excited about the activity, which they would not just expose but celebrate?

Lee closes: "Hence, comrades-in-arms, be well-prepared, in deed, word and victory!" —yes, but not for non-existent mind-control waves or weatherwarfare or whatever threat space colonies would pose, but for what we know any strong movement for social justice will face: propaganda, repression, and violent subversion which we must make known, analyze, and — most importantly — organize to defeat and overcome.

The US citizen members and supporters of the International Bolivarian Circles of the US (social groups that sympathize with the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez) would like to openly express our support for your candidacy, and assure you that we will go to the polls this November to welcome you into the Whitehouse.

As you stated so clearly in your May 27, 2004 statement on Venezuela “[the Bush administration’s] tacit support for the ill-conceived April 2002 military coup against Chavez” determined this long ago.

Our members will be voting for John Kerry. Those who have been following your statements on Venezuela may find this odd considering that you have made some pretty harsh accusations against President Chavez. Those who have read your May 27 statement may even find our support shocking given that you claimed “[Chavez] has undermined the constitution and used his Bolivarian Circles to repress peaceful dissent….” While we refute this statement, we understand that you have been ill informed about what is going on in Venezuela today, what the constitution includes, and what the Bolivarian Circles are and do.

We are aware that this is an election year and that there is a lot at stake! In Southern Florida our last Presidential election sadly departed from democracy and we recognize the perceived importance of this area to your campaign. In light of this, we do have confidence that once the election is over, your political advisors will take the time to learn the truth about the profound social movement that has swept across Venezuela and that is inspiring people around the world.

We would like to take this opportunity to: first, give you a glimpse at the goals and early achievements of Bolivarian Revolution; second, address two assertions made in your statement on Venezuela; and lastly, direct your attention to some informational materials that may help you understand the Bolivarian Process further.

Mr. Kerry, over the past 40 years a hand full of elites became extraordinarily rich while the majority of Venezuelans were left landless, malnourished and/or illiterate. President Chavez inherited a broken health care system, a rampant culture of violence and a political structure plagued with corruption.

President Chavez’ goal, and the goal of peaceful Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela is to invest the country’s oil wealth in the people of the nation. Already many social reforms and programs have produced impressive benefits to the great majority of the population, many of whom have lived in dire poverty for decades. For example since 1998, 3 million people have received access to potable water for the first time and another 1 million have received sewage service. The military has built or refurbished over 30 thousand homes, built 700 new schools and refurbished over 2 thousand--employing 36 thousand new teachers. Over the past year 8 hundred thousand illiterates have graduated from the second phase of a 3 phase literacy program, 28 thousand children have received free vaccinations, and 18 million patients have been seen by clinic doctors in areas that had no medical facilities just 2 years ago. Thanks to micro-credits and grassroots empowerment, there are over 10 thousand cooperatives with over 6.5 thousand members. Similarly, hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone into the hands of women-owned, small businesses and cooperatives through the Women’s Bank. Landless campesinos have received over 2.5 million acres of productive land and over 30 thousand titles have been given to urban squatters. The airwaves have been opened up to accommodate dozens of independent radio and TV broadcasters who provide much needed uncensored news. These are just some of the current national programs; there are also tens of thousands of state, local, and community projects in complement. Mr. Kerry, in the past a minority of elite controlled the oil revenues of Venezuela; now the wealth of Venezuela belongs to all Venezuelans.

On May 27 you stated, “When the referendum process presented a legitimate challenge to his leadership, President Chavez lost an opportunity to demonstrate the popular support he claims to enjoy, instead showing a troubling disregard for the rule of law.” First, we would like to ask if you know of any other country, including our own, that has provided a Presidential recall referendum measure in their Constitution? Let us point out that it was President Chavez himself who proposed that a referendum be included in the Constitution in 1999. Second we would ask you to read the rule of law. The text of the 1999 Constitution in English can be found at: http://cybercircle.org/english/constitution.html. It clearly spells out the steps for arriving at a referendum.

Chavez has followed these steps to the letter. Because this is a new Constitution and because the referendum process had never been tried before, there were many legal details that had to be worked out in court. These proceedings were absolutely necessary for defining the process and setting precedence for the future. Those advocating that Chavez “call for” a referendum vote were in effect advocating that he take a dictatorial stance over the judicial branch and diverge from the Constitution. This is the 26th Constitution of Venezuela. It is a fragile document that cannot afford to be undermined by political pressure. The Chavez government chose to stick by the Constitution and the rule of law instead of bowing to political pressure.

The signature drive for the recall came up short. Due to countless irregularities thousands of signatures were of undeterminable validity. Instead of throwing these out, the Chavez administration agreed to a repair process through which those whose signature was considered controversial, could verify their signature, thus allowing several thousands of suspect signatures to be included in the final count as well as tens of thousands of signatures to be proven fraudulent. The November 2000 elections in the US may have ended quite differently for us if a repair process had been invoked.

Finally reaching a referendum by strict Constitutional means has been a relief to all of us in the Chavez camp. This will give the President the chance to be elected legally and democratically for a 3rd time since 1998, but this time with the world watching, finally ending the daily attacks and sabotage of the opposition. To keep yourself informed and to learn more about Venezuela’s recent history we suggest you visit www.venezuelanalysis.com an English language news and analysis source directly from Venezuela. We also suggest you read “In the Shadow of the Liberator: Hugo Chavez and the Transformation of Venezuela”.

Regarding your May 27 mention of the Bolivarian Circles, it appears that your campaign advisors are getting their information only from the opposition run press. We invite you to an open dialogue with us. We welcome you to visit individual Circle websites such as http://www.angelfire.com/nb/17m/index.html and to read the Circle’s official literature found at www.circulosbolivarianos.org For your convenience we have attached here an English summary of what the Circles are and do taken directly from this literature followed by a list of links that you may want to pass on to your Presidential advisors at your discretion.

In closing, let us share with you Mr. Kerry that both President Chavez and the Bolivarian people of Venezuela have a profound respect for the people of the United States. For the past century Venezuela has supplied oil to the USA, and will continue to do so into this century. The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the government of President Chavez deeply respect the democratic process and the autonomy and sovereignty of nations world-wide and, honestly, expect the same respect in return.

Bolivarian Circles (CB’s) in Venezuela began appearing in 2000 as community groups studying the Constitution and working on very localized community improvement projects. Later, neighboring groups began addressing larger issues such as health and education. Eventually these groups expressed their desire to participate directly in the making of decisions that affect their communities. In 2001, President Chavez responded by calling for the creation of the CB’s as a mechanism for this participation.

There are now 2.2 million people registered as CB members. Each Circle consists of 7- 10 individuals whose members enjoy equal status. Each Circle’s immediate function is community involvement consistent with the needs of their specific location. This participation may manifest in diverse forms such as repairing neighborhood infrastructure, promoting cultural events, or participating in nationwide programs.

The CB’s have recently begun organizing themselves into Bolivarian Houses (Casas Bolivarianas). This new structure seeks to unify the efforts of the Circles, along with various other civil society associations, in order to tackle complex issues that are regional, national or even international in character. In the next two years 1078 Casas will be opened.

CB literature describes Bolivarian Houses as “community spaces for meetings, interchanges, articulation, unity and fortification of the organizations, movements, and institutions linked to the construction and consolidation of popular power and oriented in the defense, construction, and development of the proposed project of the country and the new society described by the Constitution.”

Participating civil associations are organizing themselves among 10 areas of activity according to their interests and abilities: planning and development; education; social economy and productive work; culture, and communications; food security; health and environment; safety and social services; infrastructure, urbanization and transport; tourism, recreation and sports; and Latin American integration, international solidarity, and sovereignty.

Circles get no funding as an entity. Circles are specifically instructed to seek funding through the local channels established by the government for all groups of organized citizens. This is in keeping with the Bolivarian imperative that the Revolution is of the people. They must create it themselves.

Members of the international community are adopting the Revolution’s fundamental principles and joining “the process” by taking it home with them. International Bolivarian Circles have emerged in over 60 countries including the USA, Canada, France, Italy, Argentina, Australia, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, and Chile.

International Circles not only to perform acts of solidarity with Venezuela, but they also work for the improvement and empowerment in their own communities. This is a very important departure from the usual patronizing stance of solidarity movements. While encouraging international solidarity, cultural and social enrichment, and grassroots connection of the human race, the International Circles go one step further and demonstrate a genuine recognition and emulation of the Bolivarian process.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1198

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Otto Reich, who took a hard line against presidents Fidel Castro (news - web sites) in Cuba and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, resigned as a top adviser to President Bush (news - web sites) on Latin America, officials said on Wednesday.

White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) said in a statement that she accepted the resignation of Reich "with regret" and praised his "service to our country and his commitment to a brighter future for the western hemisphere."

Reich said last month he planned to quit for "personal and financial reasons" and that he may join Bush's re-election campaign. Rice's statement did not say what Reich's plans were, but an aide said he planned to return to the private sector.

Reich, a veteran of the 1980s Iran-Contra controversy, was a favorite of the powerful Cuban-American lobby in Washington because of his tough anti-communist views.

But he sparked controversy elsewhere, including Venezuela, where he was accused of initially welcoming a short-lived ouster of leftist President Hugo Chavez. Venezuela's vice president responded by calling Reich a "clown."

Unable to secure Senate confirmation because of stiff opposition from Democrats, Reich was appointed by Bush to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, the top Latin American diplomatic posting for the U.S. government.

During the 1980s, Reich worked on the Reagan administration's controversial campaign against the leftist Sandinistas in Nicaragua.