South America

HUMANITARIAN TRADE--CHAVEZ

Like Cuba, Venezuela’s aid is to improve the human condition HUMANITARIAN TRADE (NOT FREE TRADE) PRACTICED IN VENEZUELA CHAVEZ' COMMENTS: STRATEGY OR RAVINGS OF MADMAN? Greg Palast reporter for the Manchester Guardian at www.GregPalast.com September, 21, 2006

"I've known Hugo Chavez for years, let me tell you that man knows a diablo when he sees one." -- Greg PalastWatch my recent exclusive BBC interview with President Chavez

In the free trade system, the resources are in corporate hands, the profits flow to the owners of corporations, and the income from the national resources are dispersed accordingly. There is a trickle down benefit for the people of the nation. With a government ran economy committed to first serving the public weal, much more of the income is used for humane ends--jk.

Venezuela: Chavez speaks on the revolution's challenges

From Green Left Weekly, September 27, 2006. Visit the Green Left Weekly home page. VENEZUELA: Chavez speaks on the revolution’s challenges Stuart Munckton In an exclusive interview with the September 10 Spanish-language daily Diario Panorama, Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez spoke about the challenges facing the Bolivarian revolution — as the process of social transformation his government is leading is called.

In an exclusive interview with the September 10 Spanish-language daily Diario Panorama, Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez spoke about the challenges facing the Bolivarian revolution — as the process of social transformation his government is leading is called.

Many of the gains of the revolution are well-known, with a growing number of social missions redistributing the nation’s oil wealth and resulting in significant drops in poverty. Revolutionaries inside Venezuela are pointing to the dangers of a strongly entrenched state bureaucracy that remains largely unchanged from before Chavez was elected that works to sabotage the process of change — in particular the transfer of power to the poor, a key stated aim of the revolution. {This parallels the cause for the failure of the elected socialist government in Great Brittan and during the 1930s—jk.}

A number of this layer have joined the pro-Chavez camp for opportunist reasons. A number of self-proclaimed Chavistas in positions of power, referred to as “counter-revolutionaries in red berets”, are criticised by the popular movements for continuing the same bureaucratic and often corrupt practices as before the revolution. Chavez has been at the forefront of calling for moves to give more power to the poor, and has sacked a number of high-ranking public officials and ministers for failure to adequately tackle corruption.

Asked by Diario Panorama about the risks facing the revolution, Chavez stated: “The biggest threat is inside; there is a permanent, bureaucratic counterrevolution. I spend my time with a whip because all around me is the enemy of an old and new bureaucracy that is resisting change.” Chavez said that it was important to make sure policies are carried out and not “derailed or minimised by this bureaucratic counterrevolution that is inside the state”.

“The state has been transformed at a macro level”, Chavez explained, “but the micro levels remain intact. It is necessary to think about right now a new package of laws [to facilitate] the transformation of the political and judicial framework right down to the most micro levels of the state to overcome this resistance.

“The counterrevolution of corruption is the sister of the bureaucratic counterrevolution. This is another terrible threat, because it appears where you least expect it ... it is like a demon that has to be exorcised.” Chavez explained this is why, among the key strategic goals for the revolution to be fulfilled if Chavez, as is widely expected, is re-elected in December, is the development of a “socialist ethic”.

Brazil Election Unrest

Political update on Brazil Unrest in Brazil, people’s candidate co-opted by big business, from socialist worker online at http://www.socialistworker.org/2006-2/603/603_05_Brazil.shtml WHEN LULA won the presidential elections in late 2002, Brazil’s workers and poor looked forward to a new era. After a history of extreme social inequality, reinforced by long periods of military dictatorship in the 20th century, Brazil had elected as president a former metalworker and union leader raised in poverty, who became a leader on the left. But even during the campaign, Lula signaled his direction by choosing as his vice president José Alencar, a textile industry CEO from the right-wing Liberal Party. Once in office, Lula’s performance pleased Wall Street, Washington and Brazil’s world-class agribusiness interests. As Latin America expert and author James Petras noted, Lula’s early “achievements” included slashing pensions for public-sector workers by 30 percent, cutting spending for health and education by 5 percent, and pushing through legislation making it easier to fire workers. Social spending now runs at $8 billion annually--a threefold increase since Lula took office, but only a fraction of the amount his government has spent on repaying Brazil’s $150 billion in foreign debt, much of which was accumulated during the military dictatorships of the 1980s. One of the consequences is that Brazil’s Family Allowance cash subsidy for the poor has reached only about a quarter of the 40 million of Brazil’s population of 181 million who live below the poverty line. Meanwhile, high interest rates have engorged bankers’ profits. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - NEVERTHELESS, LULA did manage to boost the PT’s vote in the 2004 municipal elections from 12 million to 16 million, nearly doubling the number of mayoralities the party controls, from 187 to 300. Much of the gains came in the impoverished, rural Northeast, an area still shaped by the enslavement of, and racism against, Afro-Brazilians. These advances for the PT were not, however, the result of long-promised land reform. Despite Lula’s pledge that 100,000 families would receive land each year--a small enough number itself--the total has only been 25,000 annually, compared to the average of 48,000 families per year who got land under the previous neoliberal government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Rather the PT’s gains in the North came by using the Family Allowance program to promote clientalism and patronage, thereby outflanking some traditional parties of the big landowners, while making alliances with others. Nevertheless, João Pedro Stedile, leader of the Landless Workers Movement (MST), continues to support Lula as a “lesser evil.” At the same time, the PT’s traditional vote in the industrial heartlands around Sao Paolo dropped off. This disillusionment was caused not only by Lula’s conservative polices, but a series of scandals that have engulfed the heart of the PT apparatus. In the latest episode, two PT officials were arrested with currency worth $792,000, allegedly intended for payoffs. The PT was also found to have funneled money to right-wing legislators to buy their votes in the Brazilian Congress. Lula seems to have recovered from the scandal by distancing himself from the PT and remaining above the fray in the presidential campaign, refusing to participate in debates. Internationally, Lula is a reliable collaborator with the U.S. While he invokes populist slogans against the Free Trade Area of the Americas proposed by the U.S., this reflects the agenda of Brazil’s corporate agricultural exporters, who want an end to U.S. farm subsidies as the precondition for any deal. Tellingly, Brazil signed on to help lead the United Nations-authorized occupation of Haiti after the U.S.-backed coup ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. More recently, Lula has curbed the ambitions of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez to create an anti-U.S. economic bloc in South America. And Lula has pressured Bolivian President Evo Morales to moderate his plan to nationalize Bolivia’s hydrocarbon resources, in which Brazil’s Petrobras oil company has a substantial stake--with Brazil playing a “subimperialist” role for the U.S., as radical journalist Raúl Zibechi put it. As James Petras concludes, “The empirical data on all the key indicators demonstrate that Lula fits closer to the profile of a right-wing neoliberal politician rather than a ‘center-leftist’ president.” - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Unrest in Brazil, people’s candidate co-opted by big business, from socialist worker online at http://www.socialistworker.org/2006-2/603/603_05_Brazil.shtml

WHEN LULA won the presidential elections in late 2002, Brazil’s workers and poor looked forward to a new era. After a history of extreme social inequality, reinforced by long periods of military dictatorship in the 20th century, Brazil had elected as president a former metalworker and union leader raised in poverty, who became a leader on the left. But even during the campaign, Lula signaled his direction by choosing as his vice president José Alencar, a textile industry CEO from the right-wing Liberal Party. Once in office, Lula’s performance pleased Wall Street, Washington and Brazil’s world-class agribusiness interests. As Latin America expert and author James Petras noted, Lula’s early “achievements” included slashing pensions for public-sector workers by 30 percent, cutting spending for health and education by 5 percent, and pushing through legislation making it easier to fire workers. Social spending now runs at $8 billion annually--a threefold increase since Lula took office, but only a fraction of the amount his government has spent on repaying Brazil’s $150 billion in foreign debt, much of which was accumulated during the military dictatorships of the 1980s. One of the consequences is that Brazil’s Family Allowance cash subsidy for the poor has reached only about a quarter of the 40 million of Brazil’s population of 181 million who live below the poverty line. Meanwhile, high interest rates have engorged bankers’ profits. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - NEVERTHELESS, LULA did manage to boost the PT’s vote in the 2004 municipal elections from 12 million to 16 million, nearly doubling the number of mayoralities the party controls, from 187 to 300. Much of the gains came in the impoverished, rural Northeast, an area still shaped by the enslavement of, and racism against, Afro-Brazilians. These advances for the PT were not, however, the result of long-promised land reform. Despite Lula’s pledge that 100,000 families would receive land each year--a small enough number itself--the total has only been 25,000 annually, compared to the average of 48,000 families per year who got land under the previous neoliberal government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Rather the PT’s gains in the North came by using the Family Allowance program to promote clientalism and patronage, thereby outflanking some traditional parties of the big landowners, while making alliances with others. Nevertheless, João Pedro Stedile, leader of the Landless Workers Movement (MST), continues to support Lula as a “lesser evil.” At the same time, the PT’s traditional vote in the industrial heartlands around Sao Paolo dropped off. This disillusionment was caused not only by Lula’s conservative polices, but a series of scandals that have engulfed the heart of the PT apparatus. In the latest episode, two PT officials were arrested with currency worth $792,000, allegedly intended for payoffs. The PT was also found to have funneled money to right-wing legislators to buy their votes in the Brazilian Congress. Lula seems to have recovered from the scandal by distancing himself from the PT and remaining above the fray in the presidential campaign, refusing to participate in debates. Internationally, Lula is a reliable collaborator with the U.S. While he invokes populist slogans against the Free Trade Area of the Americas proposed by the U.S., this reflects the agenda of Brazil’s corporate agricultural exporters, who want an end to U.S. farm subsidies as the precondition for any deal. Tellingly, Brazil signed on to help lead the United Nations-authorized occupation of Haiti after the U.S.-backed coup ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. More recently, Lula has curbed the ambitions of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez to create an anti-U.S. economic bloc in South America. And Lula has pressured Bolivian President Evo Morales to moderate his plan to nationalize Bolivia’s hydrocarbon resources, in which Brazil’s Petrobras oil company has a substantial stake--with Brazil playing a “subimperialist” role for the U.S., as radical journalist Raúl Zibechi put it. As James Petras concludes, “The empirical data on all the key indicators demonstrate that Lula fits closer to the profile of a right-wing neoliberal politician rather than a ‘center-leftist’ president.” - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

But even during the campaign, Lula signaled his direction by choosing as his vice president José Alencar, a textile industry CEO from the right-wing Liberal Party.

Once in office, Lula’s performance pleased Wall Street, Washington and Brazil’s world-class agribusiness interests. As Latin America expert and author James Petras noted, Lula’s early “achievements” included slashing pensions for public-sector workers by 30 percent, cutting spending for health and education by 5 percent, and pushing through legislation making it easier to fire workers.

Social spending now runs at $8 billion annually--a threefold increase since Lula took office, but only a fraction of the amount his government has spent on repaying Brazil’s $150 billion in foreign debt, much of which was accumulated during the military dictatorships of the 1980s.

Brazil President's conservatism cause of unrest

Another president cooped and the people deceived—the dollar reality of most elections, and the despair of the masses. Another example of global politics and its political clout—jk. Monthly Review At www.monthlyreview.org ‘No Radical Change in the Model’ by John Bellamy Foster, February, 2007

In the 2006 presidential election campaign in Brazil, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (known as Lula), leader of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT or Workers’ Party), was interviewed at length on July 11, 2006, by the Financial Times (which also interviewed Lula’s main rightist challenger Geraldo Alckmin). The interview touched on many topics but mainly concentrated on Lula’s adherence in his first term of office to the global neoliberal policies of monopoly-finance capital, particularly repayment of debt and “fiscal responsibility.” At two points in the interview the Financial Times bluntly asked whether Lula was looking toward a “radical change in the model,” i.e., whether he and his Workers’ Party intended to break with financial capital and neoliberalism in his second term of office. Lula gave them the answer they wanted: “There is no radical change in the model....What we need now, in economics and in politics, is to strengthen Brazil’s internal and external security.”

Lula’s attempt here to reassure the financial community marks the dramatic shift that the Workers’ Party of Brazil has undergone over the years, and especially since winning the presidency in 2002. Although Lula was reelected in October 2006 with 60 percent of the vote, it was not simply as a candidate with a populist base, but one who was also broadly acceptable to global financial capital.

The PT arose in 1979 in the wake of a massive labor revolt by millions of industrial workers in the years 1978 and 1979. It was during this period of labor unrest that Lula—then president of the Metalworkers’ Union of São Bernardo do Campo and Diadema on the outskirts of São Paulo, Brazil’s most industrialized city—emerged as the new movement’s most charismatic leader, openly defying the military government. By 1989, when Brazil held its first free, democratic, presidential elections since 1960, the Workers’ Party had become such a mass, popular force that Lula came close to winning the presidency, losing in the end to his conservative opponent, Fernando Collor de Mello.

At the time of that defeat MR editors Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy (“Notes from the Editors,” February 1990) observed that Lula’s and the PT’s strengths lay in “stressing the need for land reform, suspension of payment on Brazil’s enormous foreign debt, and above all redistribution of income and wealth.”

Lula ran subsequently as the PT candidate in the 1994 and 1998 elections but was defeated both times by Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who as a former Brazilian finance minister and then as president played a leading role in the introduction of a monetary stabilization plan for the Brazilian currency (the real) in line with IMF requirements, marking the triumph of neoliberal policy in Brazil.

In 2002 Lula ran again. But this time the PT under his leadership indicated a greater willingness to accept the conditions imposed by neoliberalism, including full repayment of Brazil’s debt. Taking care of economic “fundamentals” was to be prioritized even at the expense of the PT’s broader social program. On that occasion his election campaign was successful. Lula’s first term consequently was characterized by its adherence to the main neoliberal agenda, including very stringent economic programs aimed at debt repayment and “fiscal responsibility.” This was coupled with a much less ambitious program than originally conceived on behalf of the poor. While passing out some benefits to its constituents the PT has also promoted neoliberal structural reforms that directly undermine the overall position of workers. This has then constituted a kind of Latin American social-democratic “third way” strategy in which neoliberal ends are hegemonic.

Free Popular Election in Cuba

Free, Popular elections—98% turn out—round 2 on 10/28/7 Second Round of Cuban Elections on Sunday From http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/2007/1026segundavuelta.htm Havana, Oct 25(acn) Nearly 3,000 districts all over Cuba, where no candidate reached the stipulated amount of votes, will go to a second round of elections this Sunday, October 28. In the province of La Habana, 152 districts in the 19 municipalities will open Sunday. In the first round, over 98 per cent of voters elected 968 delegates to the Popular Power's municipal assemblies, more than half of them re-elected.In the central province of Camaguey, 530 kilometers east of the capital Havana, 245 out of 1,010 districts will open for the second round on October 28.The technical support and the electoral commissions are ready for the next round. 95.4% of voters cast their ballots• 8,174,350 citizens go to the polls to elect their People’s Power delegates, according to preliminary information MORE than 8,174,350 Cubans exercised their right to vote on Sunday, October 21, choosing their delegates to the Municipal Assemblies of People’s Power, a figure that represents the equivalent of 95.44% of voters. In a press conference on Monday, María Esther Reus, president of the National Electoral Commission, said that those preliminary figures could become higher. She added that on Sunday the 28th, there would be a second round of voting in the 2,971 voting districts where none of the candidates received more than 50% of the vote. She added that in this election, 12,265 citizens were elected as delegates; 3,288 are women, which is 26.81%; 2,053 are young people, which is 16.74%; and 5,776 of acting delegates were re-elected, a figure of 47.09%. The likewise minister of justice described elections in Cuba as a mass event, given the active, enthusiastic and disciplined participation of the population. She also highlighted the level of preparation and security of the entire process. Even in the eastern provinces, she noted, where the heavy rainfall affected communications and access, the elections went smoothly thanks to the search for alternative ways of meeting those challenges. Reus explained that the final results of this first round would be provided soon, because they were yet to be reconciled against official, public and computerized voter information. In the name of the National Electoral Commission, she congratulated the entire people, the 190,000 people designated as electoral authorities and those who worked as auxiliary personnel at every level, and with their efforts guaranteed that once again, Cuba’s elections were held with transparency and democracy. Responding to questions from foreign reporters, María Esther Reus noted that one-third of the candidates nominated by the people were not members of the Communist Party of Cuba, and that party membership is not a requirement for being nominated. In response to another question, she explained that religious affiliation is also not recorded, because any Cuban man or woman, regardless of their religious beliefs, may be elected as a People’s Power delegate. She also noted that the date for electing delegates to the Provincial Assemblies of People’s Power and deputies to the National Assembly (Parliament) would be announced at the appropriate time. Translated by Granma International •

Havana, Oct 25(acn) Nearly 3,000 districts all over Cuba, where no candidate reached the stipulated amount of votes, will go to a second round of elections this Sunday, October 28.

In the province of La Habana, 152 districts in the 19 municipalities will open Sunday. In the first round, over 98 per cent of voters elected 968 delegates to the Popular Power's municipal assemblies, more than half of them re-elected.In the central province of Camaguey, 530 kilometers east of the capital Havana, 245 out of 1,010 districts will open for the second round on October 28.The technical support and the electoral commissions are ready for the next round.

95.4% of voters cast their ballots• 8,174,350 citizens go to the polls to elect their People’s Power delegates, according to preliminary information MORE than 8,174,350 Cubans exercised their right to vote on Sunday, October 21, choosing their delegates to the Municipal Assemblies of People’s Power, a figure that represents the equivalent of 95.44% of voters. In a press conference on Monday, María Esther Reus, president of the National Electoral Commission, said that those preliminary figures could become higher. She added that on Sunday the 28th, there would be a second round of voting in the 2,971 voting districts where none of the candidates received more than 50% of the vote. She added that in this election, 12,265 citizens were elected as delegates; 3,288 are women, which is 26.81%; 2,053 are young people, which is 16.74%; and 5,776 of acting delegates were re-elected, a figure of 47.09%. The likewise minister of justice described elections in Cuba as a mass event, given the active, enthusiastic and disciplined participation of the population. She also highlighted the level of preparation and security of the entire process. Even in the eastern provinces, she noted, where the heavy rainfall affected communications and access, the elections went smoothly thanks to the search for alternative ways of meeting those challenges. Reus explained that the final results of this first round would be provided soon, because they were yet to be reconciled against official, public and computerized voter information. In the name of the National Electoral Commission, she congratulated the entire people, the 190,000 people designated as electoral authorities and those who worked as auxiliary personnel at every level, and with their efforts guaranteed that once again, Cuba’s elections were held with transparency and democracy. Responding to questions from foreign reporters, María Esther Reus noted that one-third of the candidates nominated by the people were not members of the Communist Party of Cuba, and that party membership is not a requirement for being nominated. In response to another question, she explained that religious affiliation is also not recorded, because any Cuban man or woman, regardless of their religious beliefs, may be elected as a People’s Power delegate. She also noted that the date for electing delegates to the Provincial Assemblies of People’s Power and deputies to the National Assembly (Parliament) would be announced at the appropriate time. Translated by Granma International •

MORE than 8,174,350 Cubans exercised their right to vote on Sunday, October 21, choosing their delegates to the Municipal Assemblies of People’s Power, a figure that represents the equivalent of 95.44% of voters.

In a press conference on Monday, María Esther Reus, president of the National Electoral Commission, said that those preliminary figures could become higher. She added that on Sunday the 28th, there would be a second round of voting in the 2,971 voting districts where none of the candidates received more than 50% of the vote.

Peasant (Campesino) movemnt in Peru

Hugo Blanco Galdos is leader of the Campesino Confederation of Peru. In the early 1960s he led the Quechua peasant uprising in the Cuzco region. He was captured and sentenced to 25 years on El Fronton Island. Following an international solidarity campaign that included Che Guevara, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone De Beauvior, and Bertrand Russell, in 1976 he was released and expelled to Sweden. He returned to Peru in 1978, founded the Worker’s Revolutionary Party, and was elected to parliament. In 1992 he was forced to flee and was granted asylum in Mexico. Hugo Blanco: A triumphant advance in Ecuador - popular forces sweep constituent assembly elections

Hugo Blanco was leader of the Quechua peasant uprising in the Cuzco region of Peru in the early 1960s. He was captured by the military and sentenced to 25 years in El Fronton Island prison for his activities, but an international defence campaign won his freedom. He continues to play an active role in Peru’s indigenous, campesino, and environmental movements, and writes on Peruvian, indigenous, and Latin American issues.

He wrote this article for Socialist Voice on the eve of the sweeping victory of the Country Alliance Movement (Movimiento Alianza País) and President Rafael Correa’s anti-imperialist government in the September 30 elections for Ecuador’s new Constituent Assembly.

Mercopress reported October 2 that "Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa received a landslide support in the Sunday election for a Constitutional Assembly which will be tasked with reforming the country’s constitution and leading it towards what he has defined as XXI Century Socialism." Alianza Pais will end up with somewhere between 76 and 80 seats of the Assembly’s 130 members, enabling Correa "to work, in alliance with smaller groups with a comfortable majority."

Kintto Lucas, writing in Ecuador Rising, notes that "The victory in the Constituent Assembly is the result of years of agitation and struggle by Ecuador’s indigenous and social movements along with an unorganized, largely middle-class movement of people known as the forajidos, an Ecuadoran term meaning outlaws or bandits who rebel against the established system. In March when the Congress and the right wing political parties tried to sabotage the elections for the Assembly, tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Quito, blocking the entrances to Congress and backing the disbarment of the Congressional members who wanted to suppress the elections."

Today Ecuador is undergoing a triumphant advance. Of the three anti-imperialist governments in South America that are now pursuing a process of change, the regime in Ecuador has the broadest support.

Bolivia is advancing, but the Right, which holds office in four departments, has unfortunately been able to line up a sector of the middle class against change.

Ecuador President Correa--Palast Interview

Article by Greg Palast, sent via email 12/24/7. Other material by Greg at BBC Television Newsnight, now on-line via www.GregPalast.com - and Thursday's US broadcast of Democracy Now. Rafael Correa was elected President on September 30, 2007. He heads the PAIS Alliance (Proud and Sovereign Fatherland). Interview with President of Ecuador by Greg Palast

Quito Ecuador, I don't know what the hell seized me. In the middle of an hour-long interview with the President of Ecuador, I asked him about his father. I'm not Barbara Walters. It's not the kind of question I ask.

He paused. Then added, "He took a little drugs to the States... This is called in Spanish a mula [mule]. He passed four years in the states- in a jail.”

Apparently he hadn't. His staff stood stone silent, eyes widened. Correa's dad took that frightening chance in the 1960s, a time when his family, like almost all families in Ecuador, was destitute. Ecuador was the original "banana republic" - and the price of bananas had hit the floor. A million desperate Ecuadorans, probably a tenth of the entire adult population, fled to the USA anyway they could.

His father, released from prison, was deported back to Ecuador. Humiliated, poor, broken, his father, I learned later, committed suicide.

At the end of our formal interview, through a doorway surrounded by paintings of the pale plutocrats who once ruled this difficult land, he took me into his own Oval Office. I asked him about an odd-looking framed note he had on the wall. It was, he said, from his daughter and her grade school class at Christmas time. He translated for me.

"We are writing to remind you that in Ecuador there are a lot of very poor children in the streets and we ask you please to help these children who are cold almost every night.”

Populist reforms in Bolivia

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/499.php#continue The BULLET Socialist Project • E-Bulletin No. 499, May 9, 2011 This article defends the populist, capitalist government in Bolivia against the charge of failing to adopt socialist reforms, like in Cuba. It explains why reform are limited--jk. Progress in Bolivia: A Reply to Jeff Webber John Riddell

This article defends the populist, capitalist government in Bolivia against the charge of failing to adopt socialist reforms, like in Cuba. It explains why reform are limited--jk.

Six years after Bolivians elected their first Indigenous-led government, their ongoing struggle for national and social liberation remains a subject of debate and disagreement among socialists around the world.

The second view is argued by Canadian socialist Jeffrey Webber in a new book and a variety of recent articles, including an interview published March 15 in The Bullet.[1] While Webber says that activists in the North should defend Bolivia against “imperialist meddling,” his primary concern is to disabuse First World socialists of illusions in the country's government. Despite Morales's “nominal inclusion of revolutionary slogans,” his actions involve only “relatively superficial policy initiatives,” Webber says. (Except as indicated, all quotations are from the March 15 interview in The Bullet.)

President Evo Morales and army chief Gen. Antonio Cueto inspect Bolivia's army after it was declared “socialist, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist.”

Far from moving toward socialism, Webber says, the Morales government has served to close off a “possibility of a fundamental, transformative overhaul of social, economic, and political structures” and to consolidate a “reconstituted neoliberalism.”

Jeffrey Webber has won international recognition for his writings on the social struggles in Bolivia, so his analysis deserves respectful consideration. His argument rests on his view – in my opinion correct – that Bolivia remains capitalist, and that a socialist transformation is not under way.

Venezuela has more oil than the Arab nations

Greg Palast, 4/3/6 at his website at http://www.gregpalast.com/. Published are articles on oil and the war at oil plans for Iraq war, oil contributions to party politics, more on Iraq war, and a series of articles on the World Bank Greg is an award wining investigative reporter from LA who several years ago headed to the freer British Isles where he is a staff reporter for the Manchester Guardian. He has authored several top selling books including the Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Oil Reserves Venezuela (TRIPOD-LYCOS BUTCHERED THE LAYOUT OF THIS TEXT. i SPENT AN HOUR MAKING IT FIT ON THIS PAGE, AND IT STILL IS SCREWED UP!!!!)

Greg is an award wining investigative reporter from LA who several years ago headed to the freer British Isles where he is a staff reporter for the Manchester Guardian. He has authored several top selling books including the Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

(TRIPOD-LYCOS BUTCHERED THE LAYOUT OF THIS TEXT. i SPENT AN HOUR MAKING IT FIT ON THIS PAGE, AND IT STILL IS SCREWED UP!!!!)

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez is poised to launch a bid to transform the global politics of oil by seeking a deal with consumer countries which would lock in a price of $50 a barrel. A long-term agreement at that price could allow Venezuela to count its huge deposits of heavy crude as part of its official reserves, which Caracas says would give it more oil than Saudi Arabia.

"We have the largest oil reserves in the world, we have oil for 200 years." Mr Chávez told the BBC's Newsnight programme in an interview to be broadcast tonight. "$50 a barrel - that's a fair price, not a high price." The price proposed by Mr Chávez is about $15 a barrel below the current global level but a credible long-term agreement at about $50 a barrel could have huge implications for Venezuela's standing in the international oil community.

According to US sources, Venezuela holds 90% of the world's extra heavy crude oil - deposits which have to be turned into synthetic light crude before they can be refined and which only become economic to operate with the oil price at about $40 a barrel. Newsnight cites a report from the US Energy Information Administrator, Guy Caruso, suggesting Venezuela could have more than a trillion barrels of reserves. A $50-a-barrel lock-in would open the way for Venezuela, already the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, to demand a huge increase in its official oil reserves - allowing it to demand a big increase in its production allowance within Opec.

Venezuela's oil minister Raphael Ramirez told Newsnight in a separate interview that his country plans to ask Opec to formally recognise the uprating of its reserves to 312bn barrels (compared to Saudi Arabia's 262bn) when Mr Chávez hosts a gathering of Opec delegates in Caracas next month. Venezuela's ambitious strategy to boost its standing in the global pecking order of oil producers by increasing the extent of its officially recognised reserves is likely to face opposition. Some countries will oppose the idea of a fixed price for the global oil market at well below existing levels. Others are unlikely to be happy with any diminution of their influence over world oil prices in favour of Venezuela. Caracas's hopes for an increase in its standing would be a far cry from the days when Mr Chávez came to power after years of quota-busting during which Venezuela helped to keep oil prices down. "Seven years ago Venezuela was a US oil colony," said Mr Chávez.

Chavez and the people's revolt against foreign exploitation

From Che to Chavez: Latin America revolts against the empire Stuart Munckton From Green Left Weekly, February 22, 2006. Visit the Green Left Weekly home page. November, where the US failed to force through its key project for a Free Trade Area of the Americas, which would further expose the continent to domination and exploitation by US corporations. In the 1980s and ’90s, the US and international financial institutions forced severe neoliberal policies onto Latin America, impoverishing millions of people. The first signs of the regional revolt came in Venezuela in February 1989, when the poor spontaneously rose up against International Monetary Fund-imposed price rises on basic goods. Through the 1990s, movements against neo-liberalism grew. In Bolivia, a mass revolt stopped the attempt to privatise the nation’s water in 2000. In 2003 and 2005, mass revolts overthrew pro-US governments in Bolivia in battles that centred on the demand, supported by Morales, to nationalise Bolivia’s gas reserves. In most countries the mass movements, while putting governments on the back foot and forcing concessions, are yet to win power. But in Venezuela, the struggle has gone beyond periodic revolts and into an ongoing revolution to transform the nation. The government of socialist President Hugo Chavez, elected in 1998, has led the poor majority in a battle to take control of Venezuela’s resources and put them to use to overcome crippling poverty and underdevelopment. When Chavez began introducing reforms that benefited the poor over the rich, the local elite and multinationals — backed by the US government — responded with repeated attempts to overthrow the government. The resistance to any encroachment on their power by the capitalist elite has radicalised Venezuela’s poor, who have come to realise that it is impossible to achieve change simply by electing a government and getting it to enact reforms. The Venezuelan people have been forced to take the road of revolution and fight for popular power on the streets. In the process, many have drawn the conclusion that capitalism cannot be reformed. In Venezuela, the revolution has raised the banner of socialism again, well after it was declared dead and buried with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Venezuelan revolution is working to build a “new socialism of the 21st century”, based on principles of democracy and humanism. And it is working: poverty is decreasing (by 3 million people last year alone) and the poor are winning more and more power. Imperialism is yet to be defeated in Latin America, but it is being pushed onto the back foot. From Bolivia to Venezuela to Cuba, people are putting paid to the notion that the only spirit Che Guevara represents today is the vodka that the Smirnoff corporation uses his face to flog. The exact opposite is true: the revolutionary socialism that Che fought and died for is alive and well — and advancing. [Stuart Munckton is the national coordinator of the socialist youth organisation Resistance.]

November, where the US failed to force through its key project for a Free Trade Area of the Americas, which would further expose the continent to domination and exploitation by US corporations. In the 1980s and ’90s, the US and international financial institutions forced severe neoliberal policies onto Latin America, impoverishing millions of people. The first signs of the regional revolt came in Venezuela in February 1989, when the poor spontaneously rose up against International Monetary Fund-imposed price rises on basic goods. Through the 1990s, movements against neo-liberalism grew. In Bolivia, a mass revolt stopped the attempt to privatise the nation’s water in 2000. In 2003 and 2005, mass revolts overthrew pro-US governments in Bolivia in battles that centred on the demand, supported by Morales, to nationalise Bolivia’s gas reserves. In most countries the mass movements, while putting governments on the back foot and forcing concessions, are yet to win power. But in Venezuela, the struggle has gone beyond periodic revolts and into an ongoing revolution to transform the nation. The government of socialist President Hugo Chavez, elected in 1998, has led the poor majority in a battle to take control of Venezuela’s resources and put them to use to overcome crippling poverty and underdevelopment. When Chavez began introducing reforms that benefited the poor over the rich, the local elite and multinationals — backed by the US government — responded with repeated attempts to overthrow the government. The resistance to any encroachment on their power by the capitalist elite has radicalised Venezuela’s poor, who have come to realise that it is impossible to achieve change simply by electing a government and getting it to enact reforms. The Venezuelan people have been forced to take the road of revolution and fight for popular power on the streets. In the process, many have drawn the conclusion that capitalism cannot be reformed. In Venezuela, the revolution has raised the banner of socialism again, well after it was declared dead and buried with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Venezuelan revolution is working to build a “new socialism of the 21st century”, based on principles of democracy and humanism. And it is working: poverty is decreasing (by 3 million people last year alone) and the poor are winning more and more power. Imperialism is yet to be defeated in Latin America, but it is being pushed onto the back foot. From Bolivia to Venezuela to Cuba, people are putting paid to the notion that the only spirit Che Guevara represents today is the vodka that the Smirnoff corporation uses his face to flog. The exact opposite is true: the revolutionary socialism that Che fought and died for is alive and well — and advancing. [Stuart Munckton is the national coordinator of the socialist youth organisation Resistance.]

The first signs of the regional revolt came in Venezuela in February 1989, when the poor spontaneously rose up against International Monetary Fund-imposed price rises on basic goods. Through the 1990s, movements against neo-liberalism grew. In Bolivia, a mass revolt stopped the attempt to privatise the nation’s water in 2000. In 2003 and 2005, mass revolts overthrew pro-US governments in Bolivia in battles that centred on the demand, supported by Morales, to nationalise Bolivia’s gas reserves. In most countries the mass movements, while putting governments on the back foot and forcing concessions, are yet to win power. But in Venezuela, the struggle has gone beyond periodic revolts and into an ongoing revolution to transform the nation. The government of socialist President Hugo Chavez, elected in 1998, has led the poor majority in a battle to take control of Venezuela’s resources and put them to use to overcome crippling poverty and underdevelopment. When Chavez began introducing reforms that benefited the poor over the rich, the local elite and multinationals — backed by the US government — responded with repeated attempts to overthrow the government.

The resistance to any encroachment on their power by the capitalist elite has radicalised Venezuela’s poor, who have come to realise that it is impossible to achieve change simply by electing a government and getting it to enact reforms. The Venezuelan people have been forced to take the road of revolution and fight for popular power on the streets. In the process, many have drawn the conclusion that capitalism cannot be reformed. In Venezuela, the revolution has raised the banner of socialism again, well after it was declared dead and buried with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Venezuelan revolution is working to build a “new socialism of the 21st century”, based on principles of democracy and humanism. And it is working: poverty is decreasing (by 3 million people last year alone) and the poor are winning more and more power.

Imperialism is yet to be defeated in Latin America, but it is being pushed onto the back foot. From Bolivia to Venezuela to Cuba, people are putting paid to the notion that the only spirit Che Guevara represents today is the vodka that the Smirnoff corporation uses his face to flog. The exact opposite is true: the revolutionary socialism that Che fought and died for is alive and well — and advancing.

Exploitation often produces rebellion. It is the class warfare that Marx wrote of. link to political cartoons link to political cartoons For more articles of a similar flavor