Wednesday, July 30, 2008

102 youth delegates will represent Anzoátegui in the PSUV Congress

Barcelona, 25 Jul. ABN.- A total of 102 delegates will represent the state Anzoátegui in the Founding Congress of the Youth of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), to be celebrated from the 11th to the 13th of September in the state of Miranda.

Thus it was brought to light this Friday by an integral member of the PSUV leadership in Anzoátegui and coordinator of the Francisco of Miranda Front, Jonathan Tabares, who indicated that with this decision from July 30 to August 10 they will carry out assemblies in the battalions.

He explained that in these meetings the youths belonging to each battalion will conform the youth front and they will elect its official representative, who from August 10 to 30 will participate in the youth assemblies by socialist district.

Tabares commented that, ``continuing the method utilized for the election of the delegates of the PSUV, the youth representatives will meet and they will select a spokesperson for each one of the 102 active constituents''.

He emphasized that "the regional team (of the PSUV) will incorporate a group of promoters in the different municipalities to be the guarantors to ensure that the assemblies be called and is a democratic process, where a large quantity of youths shall be linked".

He pointed out that from August 30 they will initiate a process of discussion in the different battalions to centralize the proposals and contributions that they will present in the Founding Congress of the Youth.

"We anticipate that it be a massive event where the ideas, the own defiance of the youth be manifested, and from there springs forth the construction of this youth (of the PSUV) that is being called to the construction of the future that already is present".

On his part, the president of the Bolivarian Federation of Students, Gilberto Verde, announced that this Monday July 28 they will carry out the first meeting of municipal youth promoters, specifically at 9:00 in the morning, in the Assembly Room in Anzoátegui of Barcelona.

Precisely in this meeting they will discuss the methods of work for the assemblies, the creation of the youth fronts and the election of the representatives and delegates, on top of the aspects linked with the contributions that they will do in the different areas.

The director of the National Institute of the Youth (INJ) in Anzoátegui, Ronnie Figuera, declared that the intention is that all the youths, with ages understood to be between 15 and 28 years, be incorporated in the day to day discussion.

He indicated that at present they shall work in the conformation of the municipal electoral rooms and they shall support the National Electoral Council (CNE) with motivating the youths so that they be recorded in the Electoral Roll (RE).

Translated from Bolivarian News Agency by Ricardo Jorquera

PSUV conformed 14 thousand youth teams in all the country.

Caracas, 24 Jul. ABN. - To fortify the conformation of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Psuv), this Thursday, the youths that are inside the organization constituted the J-PSUV organization that will be comprising 14 thousand youth teams and that will work directly with the socialist battalions.

Thus said Jorge Amorín, delegate of the PSUV in the state of Miranda and promoter of the conformation of the J-PSUV, during the informative assembly that was carried out this Thursday in the Hotel Anauco in the town square, which was attended by youth delegates from all the states of the country.

Amorín explained that in the mentioned assembly, it was reported all the discussions that were given in the Founding Congress, and in which also participated organizations like the National Institute of the Youth, the Francisco of Miranda Front, among others.

"The proposal that today (Thursday) we are presenting is framed in three phases, the first one consists of the conformation of the youth teams inside the battalions, that will be conformed by a minimum of 10 youths between the ages of 15 and 28; from 18 to 28 they are militants of the party and those from 15 to 17 although they cannot be militants, because thus states the Law of political parties, they will begin a direct relation with the PSUV to begin developing themselves as the political cadre of the revolution", explained Amorín. In the beginning, they will work in the discussion and proposal of ideas along with the battalions", he mentioned.

The youth teams will elect a spokesperson in order then to begin discussion on the different roles of work on how should the J-PSUV be conformed. Then for the first and second week of August the spokesperson of each one of these teams will meet in district assemblies with the ones that already make up the PSUV.

"These assemblies will collect the ideas of all the youth teams, and for the days of the 11th, 12th and 13th of September will be established the founding congress of the J-PSUV that perhaps will be able to have a space in the state of Miranda", said Amorín.

Among the fundamental tasks that the J-PSUV will have is voluntary work, the schools of political formation for the new cadre of the revolution and the support for the inscription of militant voters of the PSUV inside the Permanent Electoral Roll on the eve of the regional assemblies predicted for this 23rd of November.

Hector Rodriguez also a youth militant of the socialist party, indicated that the 14 thousand youth teams shall debate in August, on 5 founding documents that have to do with, energy and petroleum, integral defense of the nation, the food and agricultural system and the programmatic statutes and lines, in order then to elect 1,600 delegates to the Founding Congress.

In the assembly of this Thursday there attended delegates of the PSUV from all the regions of the country, who also presented their proposals on the conformation of the J-PSUV.

Translated from Bolivarian News Service by Ricardo Jorquera

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Eva Golinger : Venezuela 101



Eva Golinger speaking at the Venezuela Solidarity Network national symposium on Venezuela that took place at Howard University in Washington DC on April 20, 2008.

To view Part 2,3 and 4 please visit www.handsoffvenezuela.org

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Street battle in Merida

Tamara Pearson - Merida

At 5pm I got a text from my friend saying he couldn’t make it because “there are protests in the centre and they are shooting, I even had to run when I was at the bus stop.”

I went home, but passed street 26, where a large crowd was gathered, and decided to have a look.


A block down there were about 4 police, and a block down from there it looked like about 30 opposition students with their tshirts off and over their heads like balaclavas, firing and throwing rocks at the police, and the police firing back. Amongst them, scattered garbage bags (Friday night is one of the garbage pick up nights).
The police had shields, the youth had one of the Carlos Leon (mayor of Merida, chavista) billboards. The youth would throw something or fire something and the police would respond or duck, and the crowd edged close and closer to watch (still a good block away), and the police near the crowd made a half attempt to keep us back.


I walked a block over, and then down to where the fighting was. Stupidly, it wasn’t until I was right amongst the opposition that I realised I had a red tshirt on and my camera was very obvious (they don’t like being photographed). Oh well, I got out a pen and took some notes. There were a good 100 or so opposition people there- all men, young, and most of them covering their faces with balaclavas or improvised t-shirts. They had empty glass bottles, rocks, broken bricks and guns.
They also had 2 old blue ULA (Los Andes University) buses, which they drove around recklessly, frequently driving up to where the crowds were, skidding over corners, turning around, and heading back to their crowd.


The battle between the police and opposition/movement 13 went for ages. Soon it started to get dark and cold and a lot of the crowd went home. The police were getting a bit over it I think (they were not armed, they only had guns which fired these plastic gas canister things), and one cop walked back up to the crowd looking sad, “I was hit here, and here and here” he said, pointing to various parts of his leg. Most of the crowd was sympathetic and moved into listen to him describe what was happening. I think it was about then that people started thinking they should back the police up.
The police started pulling out and the opposition was turning on the crowd, throwing rocks. People started chanting “Alerta, alerta, alerta que camina, la espada de Bolivar por America Latina” (Warning, those who walk, the sword of Bolivar goes about Latin America), and picking up bricks, breaking them on the ground to make throw-able rocks, and going back after the opposition. It had become a Chavista/opposition battle now.


The opposition would retreat, collect their rocks, glass bottles or bits of glass and I think Molotov cocktails (it looked like they were throwing fire at us), then suddenly line up and attack, we would run back a bit, then people found rocks and would chace them and throw stuff back. The ‘line of battle’ would move up and down the street, and at one point when the Chavistas were running back, I turned down a side street instead, but found the opposition following and suddenly I was caught amongst them. I guess being female, they decided to completely ignore me, so I sat huddled against a wall as they kicked at shop doors, threw rocks at just one guy who’d done the same thing as me, and yelled out “hijo de puta” at him and the chavistas (son of a bitch). Rocks were flying everywhere, another chavista woman with her boyfriend yelled out ‘family’ to the opposition, signalled to me to come with her, and we ducked out back to where everyone else was.
By now it was pretty dark, too dark for photos. The shooting was constant. The police had completely gone- down a few blocks away, sitting down with their truck. Amongst the Chavistas it was almost only men left (and people I knew kept coming up to me (as a women I guess) and saying ‘be careful’ so I told them to be careful too). The police waited for people to disperse more, then they made a line behind their shields and started walking towards the opposition, with us behind them. There were almost no opposition ‘fighters’ left, they retreated behind a tall fence, and the Chavistas started chanting ‘alerta…’ again. There was a sense that we had almost won, we had made them leave ( I should add that by now there were probably about 100-150 Chavistas).
The police line continued down the road, advancing a block at a time. At one point I went up to the police line and looked around the corner where I think a small opposition still was, it was full of tear gas- from which side or why, I’m not sure. I put my notebook over my face (not that that helped) and walked back again and felt the tears coming, my eyes and face stinging, my throat hurting.
The line of police walked down another block and everyone yelled out ‘lets go’. We were now walking over where the opposition had been. Large street lights and poles were knocked right over on the road and smashed. The road was covered in broken glass, rocks, half bottles, toilet paper for some reason, burnt out tires and other unrecognizable burnt things. We arrived at the uni campus/student centre where the two opposition buses that they had been driving crazily around, were parked. Some people went in and started taking the air out of the tires and doing something to the engines. One guy threw a rock and broke a glass window and everyone got angry at him and told him not to do that.
There was little media. Before there were a few people filming and one guy from a newspaper, now there were just the TAM (Andean Television of Merida) media. No doubt Globalvision (very openly pro opposition TV channel) will say some crap about violent police attacking students, but they weren’t even there.
It was over. The Chavistas chanted “The people united will never be defeated” and one guy gave a speech, “…Today we defended the city and the people…the movement 13 don’t respect human life but we will defend it…Fascists don’t rest and neither will we…we are chavista!” and more chants of “We are the Chavistas of the university!”
Then there was “Venceremos!” (We will overcome) and everyone left.
-
Yesterday, Saturday, the Chavists mobilised in Plaza Bolivar ‘in defence of the Revolution’ – basically a show of numbers to prevent any further violence.
We used the opportunity to chat and catch up and exchange opinions about the previous days events…and then as it started to rain a few hours later, people went home and to meetings and the day finished off peacefully.
I noted down a few people’s opinions, although I really should have got more. One friend, a Tupamaru, said the Chavists shouldn’t have fallen into doing what M13 does- that is, throw rocks back etc, and that “The governor had a role in it all, he didn’t send enough police on purpose…and anyway the police don’t want to go out in the street because they are angry with Chavez because their wage is still very low.”
When I suggested to a different friend, from the CMR, that the slashing of the tires of the M13 buses was a bit over the top, he argued that strategically it was useful, to prevent them taking those buses out again and causing havoc and destruction like they did yesterday.
Another friend, from the Fuerzas Socialists argued that, “the opposition have done this under the inefficiency of the authorities, which has opposition members among them.”

Most of the people at this mobilisation were also young men. It was a ‘student battle’ so on one level it makes sense, but I’m also starting to sense a sort of age delineation, with the communal councils and the more theoretical and debate type meetings mostly attended by middle aged people and up, and protests like the anti-Uribe one- which didn’t have Chavez’s support, is mostly youth.

The M13 left their mark though, literally, all over the bridge from the centre and down Avenue Las Americas (one of the main roads on Merida), with painted outlines of bodies meant to represent bodies- deaths by crime.

Posted on http://gringadiary.blogspot.com/

For background and an indepth explanation of events, see James Suggets article at http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3640

For more of my photos, check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/16992000@N03/?saved=1

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Chávez announced the great battle for unity and socialism

ABN 25/06/2008
Valencia, Carabobo

Valencia, June 24. ABN.- The President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez Frías, said at the end of the civic-military parade to mark the 187th anniversary of the Battle of Carabobo (key battle for the independence of Venezuela) and the Army's Day, “let's take this opportunity to vindicate and seal for good the great battle for national unity, socialism, and independence.”

President Chávez reminded that, when he was a cadet, some people talked to him about socialism “but as a wrong thing. They said it was a threat; that it was the path to peoples' destruction. Every single instructor from United States came to say the same thing. They scared us. They indoctrinated us against socialism.”

“Nowadays, things are getting their right place, the capitalism is the true peoples' threat. Through capitalism, peoples are destroyed, the imperialism finishes off their nations, independence, and sovereignty”, Chávez held.

In this regard, President Chávez stated that unity has to be strengthened, adversaries “try to divide us, weaken us, and sometimes they damage us.”

Moreover, he mentioned some examples: “precisely, on June 24, some years ago, at this right same place, an Army's Commander cried when, in front of the whole country, I announced his promotion to General-in-Chief, because I considered he deserved it; however, I was wrong. He did not. He became a traitor and he is around making everybody feel sorry for him.”

“As Christ said once, let the dead bury their dead. We go for life, for motherland, everybody has to choose its path. Those choosing treason and a moral political dead, just go for it (...) that is an example of the constant work of the enemy”, he added.

Furthermore, he also talked about the Governor of Carabobo State, Luis Felipe Acosta Carlez: “the enemy will not rest in its attempt to weaken us. Another example of it is the Governor of this State (Carabobo), this is sad, but it is another sorrowful example. This responsibility was too much
for him, I say it with too much pain. It hurts but has to be said.”

Regarding a casino that was operating illegally in this state, President Chávez addressed to one of the generals of Venezuelan Army, “you have suffered attacks from the City Hall, General Alcalá. I remember a day when Alcalá looked at me and told me: President, look what I have found. A casino. I told him close it down. He then told me, Ok I will close it, but some people is going to protest from the City Hall because they control it.”

“A casino? Did you come here for that? Well you are going to go out by the back door because, sadly, you chose it that way. I say this like a soldier and it hurts me, most of all in some cases like this one. It hurts a lot but it is the truth”, Chávez added.

In this regard, Chávez held that Acosta Carlez is “a governor that lost the path. I told him dozens of times, hundreds of times i talked to him, trying to make him reflect, but he lost his whole capability of reflection and rectification and I can say that the (Bolivarian) revolution lost him.”

“But it does not matter. What we can not lose is Carabobo: these people, this state, this region that is so important for the country and for the revolution.”

Translated by Ernesto Aguilera

Chávez: “We are achieving our second independence in Latin America“

ABN 01/07/2008

Venezuela’s President, Hugo Chávez, stated that a new freedom phase glimpses in South America and the exclusion mechanisms that have historically characterized the life development of the peoples of the region come off.

After arriving in the international airport Teniente Benjamin Matienzo in San Miguel de Tucumán, the Venezuelan head of State sent regards to the Argentinean people and expressed that “the second independence in Latin America” is in motion and the political scene shows it.

He mentioned the new dynamic after the arrival of progressive governments like Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Bolivia and Venezuela.

“We won’t be really independent if we don’t break the exclusion mechanisms completely,” he pointed out.

Though he warned that, in the political aspect, “we have a lot to do to be completely free,” President Chávez stated that the South American countries are now more independent than 10 years ago, when the capitalist vision ruled in the Argentinean government.

The Venezuelan president arrived in the capital of the Tucumán province together with the ministries of People’s Power for Energy and Oil, Rafael Ramírez, Foreign Affairs, Nicolás Maduro; Food, Félix Osorio; as well as the Ambassador of Venezuela to Argentina, Arévalo Méndez and the Argentinean diplomatic representative in Caracas, Alicia Castro.

Presidential Press Office / July 01, 2008

Chávez calls Europe’s immigrant deportation law outrageous

TUCUMÁN, Argentina, June 30.–– President Hugo Chávez of Venezuelan said the so-called Returns Directive law passed recently by the European Union is “outrageous,” in comments after arriving in the northern Argentine province of Tucumán to attend the Mercosur Summit, the AFP reported.

“It is outrageous,” Chávez stated. “It is the law of shame, of ignominy,” he told journalists who met him at the airport, commenting that the law “is a reflection of the great hypocrisy of the European elite, as Fidel said recently.”

The Venezuelan president praised the angry opposition to the law that has been expressed in South America, and which Mercosur was to set down explicitly in a document at the end of its summit.

“I think it is very good how we Latin American governments have unanimously and firmly stood up to Europe’s ignominy and called on them to reflect,” he said.

A law providing for the deportation of undocumented immigrants was passed on June 17 by the European Parliament in Strasbourg. It stipulates that those accused of being in Europe illegally may be held for up to 18 months in jail and banned from Europe for five years.

Translated by Granma International