April 24, 2013

Petras: U.S. does not have the support to ignore Venezuela's election results

Petras: U.S. does not have the support to ignore Venezuela's election results
4/24/13


APORREA.ORG - For the American sociologist James Petras, professor at several U.S. universities, who studies development, class struggle and conflict in Latin America, the US Department of State has no proposed strategy to recognize the election results of April 14, which was declared Nicolas Maduro the winner.

...

"We must consider what levers Washington can use at this juncture, first, the US has lost the ability to launch an attack from Colombia, at least for the moment, since the relations between the two countries are fairly quiet, and second, it's unable to launch a Latin American boycott because Venezuela is well integrated in this region, and thirdly, they can't organize a boycott outside because Venezuela is an OPEC member and has a range of correlations ( correlational relationships) with other powers such as China, Russia and Latin America ... its diplomatic efforts showed weakness and lack of support. "

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The United States sociologist noted that the U.S. government only has the internal opposition left. "Most of the media are in the hands of extremists and the powers associated with Washington. So we think that Washington will channel their opposition using their colleagues in the media. "

...

Professor Petras is convinced that in Venezuela tolerance is very high, so, for him, there must be a greater effort to enforce the law and punish those who killed eight people during the violence last week. "Punish strongly the political terrorists involved ... in the United States a terrorist killed three people and most of the city (Boston) was locked down, there are widespread calls for the electric chair and suspension of constitutional rights."

http://www.contrainjerencia.com/?p=66227

April 24, 2013

Nicolas Maduro did not Steal the Venezuelan Elections - By Greg Palast

Nicolas Maduro did not Steal the Venezuelan Elections
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By Greg Palast - Vice, April 23rd 2013

Greg Palast is a New York Times bestselling author and fearless investigative journalist whose reports appear on BBC Newsnight and in The Guardian. Palast eats the rich and spits them out. Catch his reports and films at www.GregPalast.com, where you can also securely send him your documents marked, "confidential".

The guy in the cheap brown windbreaker walking up the dirty tenement steps to my New York office looked like a bus driver.

Nicolas Maduro, elected President of Venezuela last Sunday, did indeed drive a bus, then led the drivers’ union, then drove Chávez’s laws through the National Assembly as Venezuela’s National Assembly chief.

And this week, the US State Department is refusing to accept the result, suggesting Maduro hijacked the vote count. But did he?

Maduro came to me that day in 2004 on a quiet mission, sent by President Hugo Chávez to give me information I needed for my investigation for Rolling Stone – and to get information from me that might save Chávez’s life.

The central topic was the “Invisible Ring”. Venezuelan intelligence had secretly taped US Embassy contractors in Caracas talking in spook-speak: “That which took shape here is a disguised kind of intelligence… which is annexed to the third security ring, which is the invisible ring.”

(“Invisible Ring”? Someone at the State Department has read too many Alan Furst novels.)

On the grainy film, they worried that “Mr Corey” (a code name we easily cracked) would blow his cover and begin barking, “I am from the CIA! I am from the CIA!”


Maduro at Greg Palast's office.

“Mr Corey” was certainly not from the CIA, an agency holding on to one last fig-leaf of discretion. This crew was far more dangerous, from a spy-for-hire corporation, Wackenhut Inc. I’d been tracking Wackenhut for years, ever since their spies – more Austin Powers than James Bond – were arrested while on a black-bag job for British Petroleum. They’d attempted to illegally tape a US Congressman by running a toy truck with a microphone through the ceiling vents over the lawmaker’s head.

But even clowns, when heavily armed, can be deadly. In 2002, Chávez was kidnapped with the blessing of the US Ambassador right out of the presidential palace and flown by helicopter over the Caribbean where, Chávez later told me, the President assumed he’d be invited for a swim from 2,000 feet. Instead, just 48 hours later, Chávez was back at his desk.

But Washington wouldn’t quit the coup business. New documents revealed several interlocked methods (“rings”) for overthrowing Venezuela’s elected government.

First, US operatives would monkey with voter registrations – and if that didn’t steal the election from Chávez’s party, the next step was to provoke riots against Chávez’s elections “theft”. The riots would lead to deaths – the deaths would be the excuse for the US to back another coup d’etat to “restore order” and “democracy” in Venezuela – and restore Venezuela’s oil to Exxon. (Chávez had seized majority control of the oil fields and Exxon was furious.)

Maduro had already figured the US operatives wanted to use, “The collection of (voters’) signatures… to (occur) amidst a climate of violence and uncertainty, national and international uncertainty…To cause deaths the day of the collection of signatures.”


Hugo Chávez in 2003, the year after his kidnapping. (Image via.)

Would this be to justify another coup?

“Yes: The justification to tell the world Chávez is a murderer, Chávez is a dictator, Chávez is a terrorist and the OAS (Organisation of American States) should intervene and Chávez should be ousted.”

This week, the warlords of the rings are back in Caracas as, per the original script, the US State Department is backing opposition claims (no details provided) that Maduro’s win is in question. And per the old playbook, the losers are taking to the streets, seven voters are dead (mostly Chávistas, but not all) and Caracas waits for the coup’s next boot to drop.

Is a manoeuvre to remove Maduro far-fetched? George W Bush promoted the botched kidnapping of 2002. But it was the progressive Barack Obama who, newly elected President, blessed the overthrow (http://www.resistenciahonduras.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1683:manuel-zelaya-wikileaks-confirms-us-knowledge-of-coup-and-puts-obama-in-a-bind&Itemid=349) of the elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya.

Still, it’s fair to ask if Maduro and the Chávistas stole last week’s presidential election?

Answer: They didn’t have to. Even the Wall Street Journal accepts that, "for a majority of Venezuelans, Mr Chávez was a messiah", (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203458604577265460960140008.html)
and Maduro, the successor Chávez chose from his deathbed, had too big a lead to lose.

Still, the election was nearly stolen – by the US-backed anti-Chávistas.

How? That’s what Chávez wanted Maduro to find out from me: how could US operatives jerk with Venezuela’s voter rolls? It wasn’t a mere policy question: they knew Chávez wouldn't be allowed to survive through another coup.

My answer: They could steal the vote the same way Bush did it in Florida – in fact, using the very same contractor. Take a look at these documents… from the pile I reviewed with Maduro:


The FBI memo detailing the shoplifting of Venezuela's voter rolls " target="_blank">Click to enlarge

According to this once-secret FBI memo, ChoicePoint Corp – under a no-bid contract – had shoplifted Venezuela’s voter rolls, as well as the voter rolls of Argentina, Brazil, Nicaragua, Mexico and Honduras, all of whom were on the verge of electing presidents from the political left.

I did ask myself how our national security apparatchiks could say that filching these voter rolls made our nation more secure? What were they for?

I had little doubt. In November 2000, working for the Observer and BBC Newsnight, I discovered that a subsidiary of ChoicePoint had, for Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, obtained his state’s voter rolls and “purged” more than 56,000 voters, the vast majority black and poor, illegally denying them their vote. And that was how Jeb’s brother, George W, won the US presidency by just 537 ballots.

And now ChoicePoint had the data to allow Homeland Security to do a Florida on Venezuela – and Honduras and the others. (In 2006, the candidate of the left, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, won the election but lost the presidency through gross ballot-box finagling (http://www.demotix.com/news/1314298/lopez-obrador-demands-total-recount-ballots-president).)

Chávez himself read my findings on potential elections theft – to his nation on his TV show – and then he moved swiftly, establishing an election system that Jimmy Carter, who has headed vote observer teams in 92 nations, called, “an election process that is the best in the world".

Here’s how it works: every Venezuelan voter gets TWO ballots. One is electronic, the second is a paper print-out of the touch-screen ballot, which the voter reviews, authorises, then places in a locked ballot-box. An astounding 54 percent of the boxes are chosen at random to open and check against the computer tally. It’s as close to a bulletproof count as you can get.

Still, the loser bitched and – his bluff called – was allowed to pick all the precincts he wanted – 12,000 – to add to the audit.

And that’s why the US State Department then has to turn to the threat of bullets and “Third Ring” mayhem in the streets – to undermine the legitimacy of the new Maduro government and signal the US willingness to support a new coup.


Nicolas Maduro in 2010. (Image via Agência Brasil.)

It won’t succeed this time, either. The populist socialist governments that the US couldn't remove have now replaced the juntas and stooges that once gave the US control of the Organisation of American States. And Venezuelans themselves won’t let it happen.

What impressed me about Maduro and his boss Chávez was their reaction to the Third Ring and the attempted Florida-tion of their election. Instead of ordering mass arrests, their response was to strengthen democracy with a no-tricks voting system.

I should note that ChoicePoint, once exposed, apoligised (http://www.epic.org/privacy/choicepoint) to Mexico's government, agreed to destroy its ill-gotten voter rolls and, soon thereafter, sold itself to a credit-rating company. Wackenhut fired its goof-ball spooks and sold itself off in pieces. Both deny knowingly breaking laws of any nation. And in Bush’s US State Department, all hell broke loose, as UN Ambassador John Negroponte, sources verified, fumed over what he deemed a renegade neo-con escapade endangering remaining US oil interests. (In fact, Chevron ended up paying what I call a “coup tax”.)

The vote was still close, mainly because Maduro – a sincere, competent administrator – is no singing-dancing-camera-perfect Sinatra of politics like Chávez was.

Secretary of State Kerry’s challenge to Maduro’s 270,000-vote victory margin struck me as particularly poignant. Because in 2004, besides Chávez, I gave another presidential candidate evidence of the Bush gang’s ballot banditry: Senator John Kerry. Kerry lost to Bush by a slim 119,000 in Ohio, blatantly stolen, but Kerry refused to call for a recount. It took him two years to publicly acknowledge our findings – when he introduced, with Senator Ted Kennedy, legislation to fix America’s corrupted voting system, then let the proposed law die of neglect.

Chávez knew, and Kerry will never learn, that democracy requires more than a complete count – it requires complete courage.

For one more week, readers of VICE can download Palast's short documentary , The Assassination of Hugo Chávez: (http://www.gregpalast.com/chavezdownload), originally filmed in Venezuela for BBC, without charge.

LICENSE TO USE MATERIALS AVAILABLE ON OUR SITES: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/terms-of-use#a2
(a) keep intact all copyright and other proprietary notices; (b) make no modifications to the Materials;

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/nicolas-maduro-did-not-steal-the-venezuelan-election

April 24, 2013

Maduro appoints new US charge d’affairs for relationship based on respect

April 24, 2013

US clarifies sanctions talk after Venezuela threatens to cut oil exports

April 23, 2013, 3:05 pm
US clarifies sanctions talk after Venezuela threatens to cut oil exports

By Julian Pecquet

The State Department on Tuesday vehemently denied the United States was considering sanctions against Venezuela after the oil-rich country threatened to cut energy exports to the U.S.

Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Roberta Jacobson told CNN's Spanish channel over the weekend she did not know either way if the Obama administration would consider sanctions if the country does not have a full recount of last week's disputed presidential election. Foreign Minister Elias Jaua responded with a promise to retaliate if that happens, prompting State Department Spokesman Patrick Ventrell's remarks on Tuesday.

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Jaua had promised to counter with “trade, energy, economic and political measures as we deem necessary to respond forcefully to this unacceptable threat.”

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“We do not accept any empire threats,” he told Venezuela's Telesur. “You can be sure that faced with any kind of sanctions, we will respond with economic, political, social and diplomatic actions to defend the sacred rights of the Venezuelan people.”

...

http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/americas/295595-us-backs-off-sanctions-talk-after-venezuela-threatens-to-cut-oil-exports

April 23, 2013

ALBA creates joint defense mechanism for transnational arbitration (UNASUR too)

ALBA creates joint legal and political defense mechanism for transnational arbitration

23/04/13.- The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of America (ALBA) agreed on Monday to the creation of a new regional coordination mechanism for joint defense in international arbitration proceedings, especially those brought by transnational companies with Latin American countries.

The decision was made as part of the "First Ministerial Conference of Latin American Transnational Affected Interests" held in Guayaquil on the Ecuadorian province of Guayas (west).

The final resolution of the Conference was the decision to set up an Executive Committee which will be responsible for "designing and implementing mutually supportive political and legal mechanisms" to assist countries in the region that get immersed in transnational arbitration disputes.

...

The resolution also supports the project of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) to establish its own court of arbitration for trade and investment cases, as an alternative to existing arbitration systems.

The court of Unasur would be ready by the end of this year, according to forecasts from the body, and the project must be approved by the foreign ministers' meeting scheduled for July.

....

http://www.ciudadccs.info/?p=414406

April 23, 2013

Venezuelan Government Declares 90 day Emergency period for Electrical System

This is in order to take necessary measures to stabilize the national electrical system. This will allow them to get to the root, the cause of the problems so they can take the necessary actions.

In another article, the Vice President explained that Security and Armed Forces will be guarding the electrical installations to safeguard against sabotage.

April 22, 2013

Venezuelan Private Media Try to Cover Up Attacks on Government Health Clinics

Venezuelan Private Media Try to Cover Up Attacks on Government Health Clinics
By Chris Carlson

Maracaibo, April 21st, 2013 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – After government officials denounced attacks on various government health clinics by rightwing protesters last week, Venezuelan private media launched a campaign to cover up those attacks and deny that they had occurred.

A government health clinic in the state of Miranda that was vandalized by opposition groups. The message says “D---head, out. No to Maduro!!!”

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro denounced via Twitter last Tuesday that several government health clinics and hopsitals (CDI) had been attacked by rightwing groups during the opposition protests of the elections. Maduro ordered that those responsible be detained by security forces.

Flames from a fire started at a CDI in Palo Verde, Miranda after opposition groups threw molotov cocktails at the building.

The attacks were allegedly provoked by a tweet from opposition pundit Nelson Bocaranda who claimed that electoral materials were being hidden by the Cuban doctors in the CDI clinics.

On Wednesday, Communications Minister Ernesto Villegas held a press conference to announce that various people had been killed during the attacks, and placed the blame on Henrique Capriles.

A health clinic in the state of Barinas that was set on fire by opposition groups.

“Now Mr. Capriles is saying once again ‘It wasn’t me’, and he takes back his calls for violence. Now he tells us that those who use violence are not a part of his political project. He tries to disassociate himself from the effects of his comments. But who should pay for these lost lives now?” he said.

Government housing was set on fire in the city of Upata, state of Bolivar

Two of the individuals killed during an attack in a Caracas neighborhood were José Luis Ponce and Rosiris Reyes Rangel, both residents of a the neighborhood which attempted to thwart an attack on the local CDI, and were shot dead by opposition groups.

Government officials attended the funeral of José Luis Ponce, and state channel VTV #at=88" target="_blank">interviewed family members and neighbors about the circumstance surrounding the deaths, which they all said occurred at the hands of rightwing groups.

In the following days, however, Venezuelan private media outlets assured that the attacks never occurred, and that the government was making them up.

Several media outlets visited the CDI’s that the government claimed had been attacked, and assured that there were no signs of any such attack.

One of Zulia’s main newspapers, La Verdad, published an article on Wednesday entitled “There was no damage to CDI’s in Zulia”.

The article states that there was no visible damage to the building. However, upon interviewing staff members the article reveals that opposition groups did approach the buildings, but were thwarted by members of local communal councils.

“Opposition groups came up to the stairs of the entrance, but we were here with the people of the communal council and we prevented them from coming in or doing any damage,” said CDI staff member Jackson Medina to La Verdad.

On Thursday, Caracas newspaper El Universal published an article entitled “Nurses from the CDI in Piedra Azul deny attacks”, in which a nurse who was interviewed claimed to not have seen anything.

The newspaper visited the neighborhood in which Ponce and Rangel had been killed, and reported that there were no damages to the local CDI.

“There are no signs of damage. The windows and walls are all in tact,” reported the newspaper.

However, upon interviewing local residents, El Universal found that witnesses claimed that the CDI had indeed been attacked on Tuesday night, when opposition groups attempted to forcefully enter the clinic and threw flaming objects at the center.

El Universal also confirmed that in a nearby apartment building residents were having a funeral ceremony for one of the people who died in the attack, but still maintained that the attack never happened.

In the central state of Carabobo, a local newspaper reported that “The CDI in Carabobo Suffered Only Minor Damage”.

However, buried in the middle of the article it is revealed that “the cars of the patients in the clinic were destroyed,” and that on Monday night “people tried to burn the CDI” but “residents of the area prevented it”.

The Capriles campaign and various online media repeated the denials, claiming that nothing had happened.

“No CDI’s were attacked. Only sick minds would do something like that!” Capriles said via Twitter on Thursday.

Government Denounces Media Campaign

Various government officials responded to the media campaign with more photos of the vandalism that took place, and interviews with family members.

Venezuelan Public Defender Gabriela Ramírez held a press conference on Saturday to respond to media reports, and criticized local Venezuelan NGO Provea for issuing a report denying any attacks took place.

“According to this NGO, if it doesn’t show up in the media, then it never happened,” said Ramírez, criticizing Provea’s methodology of only reviewing local press reports.

“There are things that the media show and things they do not show, many times because it is not in their interests to show them. They want to cover up the violence that is occurring,” she said.

The public defender went on to show a series of photos and witness testimony confirming that attacks on many health clinics did indeed occur.

Communications Minister Ernesto Villegas also issued a statement on Saturday denouncing the media campaign.

“We want to denounce a strategy that is in motion by the private media to cover up the grave crimes being committed against the Venezuelan people by fanatical groups who are motivated by the irresponsible actions of the anti-Chavez candidate,” said the statement.

Photos and videos of the various acts of violence in which 8 people were killed last week were published here and here by state media outlets on Saturday.

It should be noted that many of the health clinics also serve as homes to Cuban doctors who provide free medical care to the surrounding neighborhoods.

A health clinic in the state of Miranda that was attacked with molotov cocktails which burned this medical equipment


Cars set on fire outside the PSUV offices in Barinas


A health clinic in the state of Vargas was attacked, and windows and doors were damaged


PSUV offices in Táchira after an attack from rightwing groups

Published on Apr 21st 2013 at 5.38pm

This work is licensed under a Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives Creative Commons license

http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/8731

April 22, 2013

Another big lie against Venezuela. ABC.es uses pictures of Egyptian violence and says Venezuela

.

To make sure readers connected the famous Egyptian photo to Venezuela, this is how she repeated it on her blog, right under another picture clearly from Venezuela



On Friday, she apologized for her own manipulation with this flimsy excuse: "Here we rectify and apologize for the publication of photographs in our article" Fascism pure and simple ", where many of them do not correspond to the date, country and circumstances of the Venezuelan reality. It was a mistake not having checked the context before publishing. "





None of that violence however resonated with ABC.

She has since removed the images and the entire entry from her column. You get a "page not found" now.


http://abcblogs.abc.es/bochinche-venezolano/2013/04/18/fascismo-puro-y-duro/

But she's still at it, carrying water for the right.


Another absolute fail for ABC. Too many of us remember those pictures well I'm sure someone will be along shortly to explain that it was easy for journalists to get confused since women in Venezuela wear blue bras also.

April 22, 2013

Horacio Cartes, Conservative Party, wins Paraguay presidential election

Horacio Cartes wins Paraguay presidential election

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The board said on its website that with 35 percent of precincts reporting, Cartes had 46.1 percent of the vote and Senator Efrain Alegre of the ruling Liberal Party 36.9 percent.

Alegre conceded defeat following the announcement.
...

If Cartes' victory is confirmed, Paraguay will have a right-leaning government, joining only Colombia and Chile in South America which are also ruled by conservatives.

....

Most of Paraguay's neighbors viewed Lugo's impeachment as a coup and, in turn, imposed diplomatic sanctions. Paraguay's membership in the Mercosur common trade bloc and the Unasur regional group were also suspended.

...

http://www.dw.de/horacio-cartes-wins-paraguay-presidential-election/a-16761125

April 22, 2013

UNASUR: vote buying and exclusion of the left in Paraguay

April 21 (Prensa Latina) An incident report by UNASUR's Electoral Observation Mission on the elections in Paraguay, records allegations of vote buying and the exclusion of Guasú Front ads from being broadcast.

Although UNASUR's final report on Paraguayan elections won't be out until Monday, this first analysis notes the Guasu Front's protest against Channel 9 Public Television for refusing to broadcast a spot for them.

...

Also highlighted is news about the existence of practices that could influence or unduly affect the vote such as the case involving the Senator from the Colorado Party, Silvio Ovelar, for buying votes to prevent the Liberals from rising in the polls.


Related stories:

Fernando Lugo voted in the Paraguayan elections and noted the exclusion of Guasú Front
Paraguay: Serious accusations against Horacio Cartes, leading in the polls
Paraguay: Liberal candidate target of strong accusations about his role in the parliamentary coup

http://www.prensa-latina.cu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1333131&Itemid=11