Colombian Paramilitaries Arrested in Venezuela

[Judi Lynn]

Colombian Paramilitaries Arrested in Venezuela

CARACAS – Four members of Colombia’s Los Rastrojos paramilitary group were apprehended in the western border state of Tachira, Venezuela’s official AVN news agency said Friday.

The Colombians were captured Thursday by personnel from the Sebin intelligence service taking part in an operation to track down paramilitaries from the neighboring country known to be operating in Tachira.

The suspects were wanted on charges of drug trafficking, murder-for-hire, armed robbery and cattle rustling in Tachira, according to AVN, which said the Sebin agents confiscated two guns, a military uniform, a motorcycle and 300 grams of illegal drugs.

Los Rastrojos is one of the “criminal bands” – to use Bogota’s term – that emerged from the remnants of the AUC rightist militia federation, which demobilized as part of a peace process with the Colombian government.

More:
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=452928&CategoryId=10717

[Peace Patriot]

1. This may be a major reason why the U.S. government hates Venezuela so much!

Venezuela has good intelligence and is NOT part of the U.S. "war on drugs" --a U.S. government euphemism for controlling the cocaine trade and using it to enrich U.S. banksters and others, and to murder trade unionists and other advocates of the poor in Colombia, as prep for U.S. "free trade for the rich." The Chavez government interferes with these U.S. "interests" by genuinely going after gangsters and mobsters who are using the porous Venezuela/Colombia border to create a lawless region (possibly also with intent to destabilize Venezuela and topple the Chavez government).

The U.S. government's Corporate Masters of course hate universal free medical care, universal free education and other benefits to the poor that the Chavez government has implemented, and they lust to control Venezuela's oil (the biggest oil reserves on earth) to fuel the U.S. war machine and U.S. globalization and to prevent any oil profits from benefiting the poor. Those are the visible causes of U.S. hatred of the Chavez government. And there is one other: the Chavez's government's leadership on the political/economic integration of Latin America with goals of Latin American independence and social justice. Reasons enough to earn the undying enmity of the Corporate Ruler establishment. But I think there is a hidden aspect to it--as outlined above. The U.S. "war on drugs" has always been a corrupt, murderous, failed project, but never more so than under the Bush Junta, which I think actually entirely flipped over the purpose of this "war" into a "war" FOR drugs, and especially for drug profits and for the benefits of the murder and mayhem that this "war" inflicts.

[ChangoLoa]

2. Universal free medical care and universal free education date back to the 1960's in Venezuela

Chavez hasn't implemented those.

[Peace Patriot]

3. The rich oil elite's frontmen may have promised it (i.e., lied about it)...

...but they DIDN'T implement it. Instead they padded their own pockets from the oil revenues and utterly neglected Venezuela's vast poor majority who had NO access to medical care, inferior schools which many poor children couldn't attend (for lack of shoes, food, housing, hope...), and NO access to higher education and/or retraining. That is WHY the Chavez government was elected and re-elected! They are actually doing something about medical care and access to education--along with job creation and good wages.

The UN Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean recently designated Venezuela as 'THE most equal country in Latin America" BECAUSE OF the immense reductions of poverty under the Chavez government (which has cut poverty in half and extreme poverty by over 70%) and great improvements in access to medical care and education. Venezuela has met ALL of its Millennium Goals!

Universal free medical care and universal free education may "date back to the 1960s" in Venezuela (and a lot of other places) as IDEAS but ONLY because of the Chavez government's courageous facing down of Exxon Mobil and renegotiation of the oil contracts did the Venezuelan people gain the oil revenues needed for these social programs. The Chavez government defeated the oil elite and its giveaway of the oil (with the oil elite's skimming off of profits for themselves) precisely for this reason, and has been building and staffing medical clinics in poor areas and building new schools and creating new colleges/universities ever since, as well as providing the poor with the wherewithal to go to school, including not just free tuition but subsidies to attend, and to stay in, school.

Of course, we won't read about this in the Corporate Press because LOOTING public education and PRIVATIZING medical care are now the Corporate thing--here and everywhere else in the world. NOT ONE WORD DID THEY WRITE about the UN Economic Commission's report or any other indicator of WHY the Chavez government has been so popular. Why do they hate Venezuela? THIS is why (along with their lust to regain control of all that oil--the biggest reserves on earth--twice Saudi Arabia's). Venezuela pioneered the great social justice movement that has spread all over South America and into Central America. They were the FIRST to demand that natural resources benefit the people who live there, the FIRST to defy U.S. transglobal corporations and the FIRST to envision Latin American political/economic integration for the establishment of Latin America sovereignty and independence. And following the Venezuelan peoples' amazing courage and vision in the early 2000s, we now have Leftist governments in Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay (!), Peru, Nicaragua, El Salvador and other places, all committed to social justice and leading the region toward political/economic integration. It's ALL about social justice, and independence and control of resources to achieve social justice.

The Corporate Press lies about and blackholes this information to serve their looting masters. They are deliberately trying to keep people ignorant of this social justice revolution, most especially with regard to Venezuela's leadership of it. We see headline after headline about Venezuela's problems--street crime or drought-caused power outages--all the USAID-tutored rightwing "talking points"--and nothing--NOTHING!--about the Chavez government's achievements. Venezuela's rightwing, like ours, exists in a La-La Land of unreality which makes them highly manipulable to the Corporate powers. Their "talking point"--that the Chavez government's advances in access to medical care and education do not exist--reminds me of our Mad Tea Partiers who would throw their own grandparents onto the street in order to destroy Medicare and Social Security. They DENY that these programs are beneficial, but they don't go quite so far as to deny that they exist! That's a very special madness of Venezuela's rightwing.

[ChangoLoa]

4. Nearly all our public universities and hospitals date back to those decades. How come?

They're built and functionning. So the promises were kept for a while, you see?

I know that you consider that socio-democrats and non marxist socialists are just traitors to the Revolution, but still you can't deny the concrete, visible results of their policies in Venezuela, in western European countries, etc.

No one denies the dispensaries and the primary schools that were constructed in Venezuela during Chavez's periods. But it's not the big deal you're willing to describe. Chavez himself recognized that half of the dispensaries (Barrio Adentro) that had been built two years ago were already abandoned! No other government in our whole history has been as rich as this one.

Oil is over 100$ a barrel!!! It was 1-2$ in the 60's, 10-15$ after 1973, 30$ from 1979 to 1983 and then it fluctuated between 10-12$ and 20-25$ maximum. It was 108$ today (Venezuela oil). Do you understand the implications of such an incredible shock for a country where 90% of the exports, 50% of the fiscal revenue and 25% of the GDP are based on oil?

------

Besides, on another level, note that foreign oil companies are getting a LOT more production in Venezuela... and profits (!) today than in 1998.

Not as a % of each project they're engaged in, but in absolute terms. Do you understand the difference?

In 1998, they use to produce around 10% of the country's oil in association with PDVSA (national State company). From that production, after the taxes (royalties plus income which amounted for 50-60% of their revenues), they'd get around 70% of the profit for 350,000 barrels per day. PDVSA ALONE (100% public since 1976) used to produce 90% of the country's oil and, after taxes, ALL of its profits went to its only shareholder: the State.

In 2011, foreign oil multinationals associated with PDVSA produce around 30% of the Venezuelan oil. Total taxes increased from 50-60% to 70% and they get 40% of the profit, as their participation is limited to that proportion, but from 900,000 barrels per day. PDVSA alone is just producing 70% of the country's oil.

So the extra money didn't come from that legal change but from the oil shock. It's so obvious that it shouldn't even be mentionned anymore. The price of oil multiplied by 8 during Chavez's presidency. You can keep on trying to explain that it had no impact on public revenus, you're just wasting your time by doing so. Any person with a head understands that an oil exporting country becomes way richer when oil prices skyrockett.

------

Finally, Venezuela was already the second most equal country in Latin America in the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's. So where's the big change you're describing on that particular dimension? Even after 8 years of super oil shock, Venezuela is still among the most unequal countries of the planet, along with other Latin American countries, Africa and, of course, the US. You want to applaud, go ahead, but you shouldn't try to make us believe it represents such a great success for a socialist government.

[spanza]

5. Thanks for the information. Clear and precise as usual.

You're a very knowledgeable person, unfortunately, I fear you're wasting polvora en zamuros.

Cheers.

[Bacchus4.0]

6. yeah, its pretty obvious who the knowledgeable one is in this debate n/t

s

[ChangoLoa]

7. It's free to try :)

But no waste in this.

Thanks