October 16th., 2007

Caribbean Republics Confederation

Chavez´ seventh trip to Cuba since Castro became sick, has been a source of news with wise repercussion and speculation.  He spent four hours with Fidel.  He encouraged him to address the Cubans directly, an event that did not take place for more than 15 months, upon his telephone intervention in Hello, President, transmitted from the Che Guevara’s mausoleum in Santa Clara.  “Carlos Lage stated in Caracas that Cuba has two presidents and I responded that Venezuela also has two presidents, because deep down we are one sole government and we are in the path towards the Confederation of Caribbean republics”.  This was an expression that Chavez repeated within the development of the visit.  El País, from Madrid, questions if in fact a confederation between Venezuela and Cuba will happen, with the island as the pillar of a regional alliance with Chavez´ oil Dollars as the bait flag.  The Venezuelan oil reserves to the service of the Cuban revolution, even after Fidel and Raul?  According to the Spanish newspaper, all of that and more is at stake, if the dreams and purposes of the Venezuelan ruler come true, upon the re inauguration of the Cienfuegos refinery.  The first stage required an investment of US$ 136 Million; it will start to function in December and will be able to refine 60.000 oil barrels daily. 

Chavez declared, that to elevate the capacity to 108.000 barrels, a second stage would be in order, with a budget that surpasses US$ 1.300 Million, and added:  “The Cuban and Venezuelan revolution go together; these two countries in one, will give example on how to build a regional potency…many nations see how their oil reserves languish, Venezuela has reserves for 200 years and the Cubans may count with them”.  Currently, Cuba receives some 100.000 daily barrels, at preferential prices, which are paid with medical, educational and sport services.  Chavez and Raúl Castro signed 14 new agreements.  The Venezuelan Ambassador at Havana informed that the commercial exchange would amount to US$ 3.000 Million.

Hello, President was dedicated to the praise of Che Guevara, to his stubbornness in extending the revolutionary struggle, with “one, two, three Vietnams”.  Chavez stated that Bolivia would be the Vietnam that Guevara intended, if the oligarchy is able to overthrow or assassinate Evo Morales.  My government will not sit back with arms crossed, and it would not the Vietnam of the ideas, of the Constitutional Convention, it would be the Vietnam of the machine guns, of the war”.  In Bolivia, the warning to restore a “Vietnam of machine guns” triggered protests and accusations of both the government and of the opposition.  A spokesperson for the government declared that they valued Chavez financial aid to Bolivia, but that those opinions “generated problems in the country”.  Analysts consider that what Chavez is looking for, with such declarations is, “to distract international public opinion and domestic one, due to the problems existing in Venezuela”.  Ex president Jorge Quiroga declared that Chavez is the “most dangerous politician in the history of Latin America due to his “totalitarian and hegemonic” wishes.  For Quiroga, “Chavez interference has been clear and marked in Peru, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and the tutelage of the Venezuelan government to President Morales is already “embarrassing”.

IS THE VENECUBA THAT CHAVEZ DREAMS OF SERIOUS?

The National Assembly, (NA) declared itself in permanent session to approve the proposals for the reform of the Constitution, adding articles not proposed by Chavez.  Amongst other novelties, during the states of exception, the rights to information, due process, presumption of innocence, and to be processed by naturals judges based on existing laws have all been suspended.  The legal expert Alberto Arteaga declared that it was “a trampling to what is left of the rule of law”, and that the modification violates the American Human Rights Convention, of which, article 8 forbids the suspension of judicial guarantees during states of exception.  The President of the NA, attested, as the will of the legislator, that for sovereignty reasons and since this is dealing with a provision that protects the Constitution, the Presidential decree need not comply with the demands of international treaties.  Professor Elsa Cardozo maintains that numerous articles ignore or infringe the Interamerican Democratic Chamber and calls to attention the Exposition of Motives.  According to such text, the reform calls for “the progressive dismantling of institutional obstacles that have not allowed the rupture of the bourgeois capitalist model”.  Venezuela commences the proposal for the XXI Century Socialism in terms of a process of destruction of the old society and construction of a new model of human living.  In the war of two models of the conception of the world, the Bolivarian Revolution takes on the slogan of solidarity as the political strategy “to contribute to the construction of the Kingdom of God on Earth”. “The world order sinks and the option to conquer the political supremacy of the people opens up, to impose the other possible world.  The republic will strengthen relations with Latin America, the Caribbean and other countries of the South, with the objective to achieve a common policy of the region, based on a pact of Republics”.  In the chapter related to international politics it is expressed that it is key to socialize international relations, granting them a transversal sense, to “impulse or diffuse the Socialist project at an international level”…”

The challenge of the construction of a plural polar world goes far beyond a multi polar one.  United Nations is the multilateral entity by excellence, but it has been demonstrated that it lacks legitimacy…the concept of free trade zones should be substituted by political and cultural integration mechanisms such as the ALBA and other structural projects that give way to people’s  participation in international mechanisms.  The NA approved the granting to international organizations the necessary competences to carry on integration processes “by way of the founding of great national companies or the foundation of Republics that consolidate the structural projects of the region”.  Is this the Venecuba spoken of by Chavez that same day in the island?  It is therefore reasonable that in the chapter regarding the continuity of the Presidential election, the exposition of motives alleges that it guarantees the success of projects that exceed the limitation of the mandate.

Pedro Nikken, ex president of the Interamerican Human Rights Court, declared that the text of the reform is ambiguous, “within the current political scheme, it will be the president who will determine its interpretation”.  He added that establishing Socialism as the only option is the end of pluralism and that it is incompatible with democracy, with the rule of law and human rights, because the former imply the liberty of thought, the possibility of differing with respect to any political project in force.  Teodoro Petkoff, leader of the democratic left wing, affirmed that the reform fits in the authoritarian, autocratic, militaristic and pre totalitarian context of the Chavez regime.

THE 2007-2013 PLAN

Chavez was able to concentrate political interest in the Constitutional Reform.  Less attention has been afforded to the 2007-2013 Development Plan, which in Hello, President was qualified as “the end of the transition”.  Its text may be read in the government web pages.  According to the document, the State will have total control of the productive activities with strategic value.  Public and “private capitalist” companies will be transformed in companies of social production (CSP), wherein “the surplus economic results will be shared in proportion to the quantity of work provided for, “sole activity that generates value, and as such, that legitimates the right to property, in accordance with the principle that states, each one pursuant to its capacity, and each one pursuant to its work”.  Income tax will be progressive for major companies, natural persons with high salaries, having luxurious property and the use of services considered as luxurious.  The plan proposes to establish the lines that will “guideline the path towards Bolivarian Socialism”.

Oil is the fundamental instrument of the Plan.  PDVSA is assigned with the role of impelling the CSP scheme, in the interior, and in the exterior, serve as a lever in the foreign policy of the President.  The deepening of the internationalization of hydrocarbons is established as a goal, strengthening Petroamerica, Petrocaribe, Petrosur and the alliances with Iran, Algiers and Libya.  Apart from consolidating the Cuba-Venezuela-Bolivia axis, there is the purpose of “strengthening solidarity and public opinion of the alternative movements in Central America and Mexico to neutralize the action of the Empire” and as a more general objective, “a world strategy for the mobilization of the masses in support to the revolutionary process”.  The development of such strategy is based in the acknowledgment of power blocks that are identified in diverse areas of interest.  Latin America (a new MERCOSUR and South American Community of Nations); Iran, Syria, Belarus and Russia (common standing in international organizations); China, Vietnam, Malaysia and surrounding zones, (technological exchange); Europe, Africa, OPEC (strategic alliances) and finally, North America (support to groups that support the Bolivarian Revolution and the excluded sectors of society).

In the title “Protagonist and revolutionary democracy”, private and public means of communication are regulated, obliged to broadcast revolutionary principles and values, for the compliance of the provision, there will be a social control of the private and public spaces, by way of the organization of cooperation associations, wherein common interests and not particular ones should prevail, “because the purpose is the construction of the commune, and entity upon which all original power of the individual will be delivered to”.  “Social organizations will create technical tables of observers for the effective control of the written, radio and TV means of communications”.    Another of the strategies is to strengthen the means of the State to promote communicational sovereignty, which includes the creation of an international entity oriented towards the organization of alternative community means in friend countries.

Chavez is armoring his project.  In November 2004 he presented the 10 great strategic objectives of the revolution.  Now these have a place in the new Constitution and in the economic and social development Plan for 2007-2013.