September 17th., 2007

The Farc, Iran And Chavez

It is a necessity for me to speak with Marulanda, ratified Chavez in his Sunday Hello, President TV program.  The new Colombian Ambassador, Fernando Marin Valencia, invited to the program, was not able to disguise his surprise.  His government has been categorical regarding Chavez´ offer to mediate in the exchange of imprisoned guerrilla and the people kidnapped by the FARC, amongst which is the French-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt, ex Presidential candidate of the neigh boring country.  President Uribe stated and ratified that his government will not make a clearance of any of the country’s zones for dialogues between the guerrillas, and that the process may be taken on in Venezuelan territory.  It was his answer to Chavez televised message:  “I hereby make a formal request, in front of the whole world:  allow me to speak to Marulanda”.  The legendary Manual Marulanda, alias Tiro Fijo (sure shot), specified the jungles of Caguan, as the place for the meeting, as informed by Chavez, who added that Uribe himself could attend and even the President of France, since Sarkozy told him over the phone that he would be willing to accompany him.  “The issue of the humanitarian exchange, he affirmed, could rapidly be resolved in a conversation between the bosses”.  Uribe has denied arguing with his homologous in front of TV cameras.  “These issues are not to be discussed in public”.  That same Sunday afternoon, before Chavez concluded his 8 hour speech in Hello, President, Uribe, before journalists, stated the following:  “What has been said has no need of repetition”. 

In the Colombian newspapers, during the past two weeks, there appeared declarations and articles of important personalities that coincide that Chavez is trying to have the FARC be acknowledged as a belligerent force rather than a terrorist one, and that the military clearance requested by Marulanda is requested to stop the offensive operation underway by the Colombian armed forces. 

Two English journalists were not able to disguise their surprise as well, also invited to the program, when Chavez responded that it was stupid of them to ask him why the Major of London Major receives, free of charge, oil from Venezuela “wherein there are many poor people, while London is one of the richest cities in the world”.  With British spice, the journalist asked yet another question, this time regarding relations with Iran and the human rights situation in that country.  They obtained a firm response: “My friend, President Ahmadinejad is an extraordinary human being, respectful of international peace; his ideas are respectable…I do not accept him being signalled as a sign of danger and Iran as an aggressor country, the one being harmed is Iran”.  He announced furthermore that the Iranian President will come at the end of the month for the initiation of a bi national petrochemical project.

Hello, President was dedicated to the “gas Socialist revolution”, which, with an investment of US$ 18,000 Million, proposes to supply this fuel to the homes of the poor and convert same in the substitute for gasoline.  He reiterated his proposal for the southern gas pipe line and the need for others, to supply from Venezuela to Colombia and all the coastal region of the Pacific.  “This revolution and the building of socialism require time.  This is why I propose the Constitutional Reform to continue as the pilot of the ship for a longer time”.  Until when?, he asked himself.  Only God and the people know.  “In 2041 I will already be old, but apart from that, I will be every day more in love with the people”. 

LIGHTS FOR LATIN AMERICA

Chavez had a “banquet”, as stated, as he watched on TV the meeting of the National Assembly that approved the second discussion of the Constitutional Reform.  Several deputies, previous their loyalty ratification to the revolution, showed their disapproval of several articles.  Chavez qualified them as “traitors”, “against the revolution”.  He added that they were “playing pro Chavez without Chavez” and that they should be treated as “deserters”.  In his common radio and TV chains, he presented the inauguration events of health centers in slums near to Caracas, managed by Cuban medical doctors, one of which explained the services rendered.  Chavez affirmed that similar centers, supplied with the most advanced technology, where being simultaneously inaugurated in all of the country.  In the following chain he expressed that the school year would start with “Bolivarian” educational centers, remodelled and duly supplied to guarantee education to the poor.  He showed the premises recently built for a school.  The essence of the revolution, as he stated, is health and education for all, and the Constitutional Reform has the purpose of guaranteeing that such rights are irreversible.  In the Bolivarian schools, the school year started with a magisterial lesson of the President broadcasted on TV.  In such lesson they are explained of the contents of the Socialist education that will form the new Venezuelan.  It justifies the implantation of unique texts with the new educational curricula.  “The old curricula taught to admire Christopher Columbus and the European conquerors.  Now it is a design wherein the country is indigenous, afro American, mestizo and multicultural”.  “Venezuela is called to be a potency of lights for Latin America”.

 As same as it was done by Fidel Castro, health and education are key ideas in Chavez speech regarding the reform, presented with deliberate monotony in the programs of the seven TV government channels, in 44 “community” TV stations and in the vast web of government radio stations, headed by Radio Nacional, the one with more potency in the country.  In its broadcasts, they repeat, every now and then, fragments of Chavez speeches in diverse events.  Experts translate same into publicity commercials that are mandatory broadcasted by private TV and Radio, upon mandate of the Gag Law.  It is the material for shiny commercials in the written press, which expenses are paid by government offices.  “When the Reform is approved, the resources for the Community Councils will be of 20% of the budget”, offers Chavez.  The Minister of Finances estimated in US$ 70,000 Million the amount of income for the coming year.  The Medical Federation declared the public hospitals in an emergency state, “in total abandonment from the government”.  A newspaper publishes a survey:  Is the school of your child ready to start classes?  43% responded negatively.  According to the IVD (pro government survey) 38% states not to be informed regarding the content of the Constitutional Reform, 43% is in accordance, and 45% thinks that it will benefit the country.  Antonio Pasquali, ex officer of UNESCO, explains that such opinion scenery is an effect of the media hegemony, its intensive and threatening use, centred in a charismatic leader, holder of an unlimited check book that obtains support from the marginal sectors and with the complicity of medium and high sectors, by way of gifts and akin.

The independent surveys do not reveal the same results. They find that several of Chavez proposals, such as the ones regarding indefinite re election, private property and the militarization of the Venezuelan society show a rejection of a 60% up to an 80%.

A FAILED MODEL

According to Chavez, the most important point in the Constitutional Reform is the position to be granted to the Community Councils, which he has offered to assign US$ 14,000 Million to be invested in accordance with the national government strategic planning.  This is a copy of the Cuban Constitution (Articles 103 through 119) and the Reform conceives them as instruments to create a parallel administration to state Governors´ Offices and Municipal Majors´ Offices that must be elected next year.  This is one of the highlights being made by the Technical Commission of the Democratic Sectors comprised of Law makers and academics of acknowledged solvency that made their report regarding the reform public.  “Under the slogan that power is directly delivered to the people, as a reality, a system of assemblies appears, easily manipulated by national power, that organizes, finances and supervises the Councils.  They are trying to grant Constitutional status to the most absolute centralization of power”.  The Commission formulates 14 fundamental questions and reasons them making a call to the country to take conscience that they are being proposed to eliminate democracy as a political regime.  “It is pretended that sovereignty resides in a quality of deposit in the people, who will exercise same through popular power, but whose organs are not elected by suffrage… Indefinite re election, which prevents the renovation of government, exacerbated centralism, the elimination of the institutional character of the Armed Forces, the degradation of the right of property, the elimination of economic freedom and of the promotion of private initiative, the sequestering of popular sovereignty, the denial of the electoral character of the organs of the so called Popular Power, and finally, the elimination of pluralism and the imposition of a State ideology, sole and mandatory, are unacceptable proposals in a civilized society”.

 The report points out that reserving the economic activity to the State and to collective companies is the consecration of a historically failed model, and that the degradation of the right of individual property violates the norms of the international legal system included in treaties signed by the country.  It emphasizes on the consequences of eliminating the autonomy of the Central Bank and the principle of budgetary unity.  “The monetary, currency exchange and fiscal policies are turned to ideologies of a sole and personal will and any trace of transparency in the management of the public finances disappears… upon the loss of its autonomy, the Central Bank will have no authority to look over the stability of the prices and preserve the value of the currency, which is a specific function of such institutions, and the State will lack the means to confront inflation…without budgetary unity, corruption and inefficiency, both of which the President points out often as unresolved problems are uncontrollable”.  Regarding the reduction of the labor hours, as discussed by the Report, this does not require a Constitutional Reform, the President may do so by way of an Enabling Law and the Fund for social security for independent workers may have been created during the seven years of validity of the current Charter, since one of its provisions provides for it.  “To give ideological content to the Constitution, qualify it as Socialist and imposing a political model not compatible with our Republican tradition means that upon being excluding and biased, it is condemned to be in force for as long as the regime that imposes same exists”.

It is a judgment from the Technical Commission that for Venezuela Today has prophetic meaning.