Open letter to the workers of Venezuela on Hugo Chávez’s support for Ahmadinejad

BY Maziar Razi

Open letter to the workers of Venezuela on Hugo Chávez’s support for Ahmadinejad

Honourable workers of Venezuela,
The Revolutionary Marxists of Iran are aware of your achievements as part of the Bolivarian Movement and have always supported this movement against the widespread lies and the open and covert interference of imperialism. In order to defend your invaluable movement and to confront the attacks and interference of US imperialism in Venezuela, labour and student activists in Iran have set up the ‘Hands Off Venezuela’ campaign in Iran and during the past few years have stood together with you in confronting the imperialist attacks. It is obvious that your achievements were gained under the leadership of Hugo Chávez and, for this reason, you reserve deep respect for him.
In terms of his foreign policy, however, Chávez has made a mistake. With his support for Ahmadinejad he has ignored the solidarity of the workers and students of Iran with your revolution, and in a word, made it look worthless. Most are aware that two weeks ago Ahmadinejad, with the direct support of Khamenei, committed the biggest fraud in the history of presidential elections in Iran and then, with great ferocity, spilt the blood of those protesting against this fraud. You just have to take notice of the international media reports to be aware of the depths of this tragedy. All over the world millions of workers and students, and also those of Marxist and revolutionary tendencies (which mostly are the supporters of the Bolivarian revolution), protested against these attacks.

Boris Johnson's cancellation of London-Caracas deal now affect Londoners

Boris Johnson's cancellation of the mutually beneficial London-Venezuela agreement has contributed to the recent higher fares in London and was to the detriment of Venezuela.

No fare deal for London or Venezuela

January 6th 2010, by Alex Holland - The Samosa
Publised on Venezuela Solidarity Campaign web site on 26th January 2010.

Not many Londoners can be happy as they grope through the frozen murkiness of the commute to their first days back at work after the winter break. Adding to their misery is London's mayor, Boris Johnson, who has made their journey much more expensive with huge fare rises.

Critics of Johnson's transport policies have highlighted how these massive increases - 20 percent for single bus fares alone - would not have been so high if Johnson hadn't trashed other sources of funding for London's transport.

Scrapping policies such as the extension of the congestion charge into West London or the £25 charge for gas guzzling cars have rightly been identified as stopping millions of pounds coming into the Transport for London (TfL) budget.

The impact of Johnson's cancellation of London’s Venezuelan oil deal has not received as much attention, however. Though not as lucrative as the estimated £70 million congestion charge extension, the Venezuelan oil deal would have meant an extra £18 million for cash strapped TfL. Perhaps even more importantly, it was a genuinely great deal for Venezuelans.

The deal was brokered by former London mayor Ken Livingstone and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez as an exchange of London's urban expertise – city-planning, transport and environmental protection – in return for cut-price fuel for London's buses. This oil subsidy meant that Londoners on income support could travel half price, and was warmly welcomed by a wide range of poverty activists.

Announcing Venezuela’s First and Only English Language Newspaper, Correo del Orinoco International

Published on January 22nd 2010, by Correo del Orinoco International, republished by http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/5093

Caracas, January 22nd 2010 – This Friday, Venezuela celebrates the launching of its first and only English language newspaper, the Correo del Orinoco International. While in the past other English-language publications have existed, none remain in circulation today, and no others have been created during the Bolivarian Revolution.

Editor-in-Chief Eva Golinger explained, “This will be the first newspaper of its kind in Venezuela. We will produce news and information for an international audience, but from the Venezuelan perspective. Most of the news that’s out there in English comes from international news agencies that report with a biased perspective and tend to ignore important human interest stories that paint a positive picture of the Chávez government.”

“Our most important mission is to combat the massive media manipulation and information blockade against Venezuela and to inform the international community about many incredible events taking place daily inside Venezuela that rarely receive attention from the corporate media”, commented Golinger.

The original Correo del Orinoco was founded by Venezuela’s liberator, Simón Bolívar on June 27, 1818. It served as a principal source of information during the time of independence and the creation of the Venezuelan Republic. Bolívar encouraged writing and reporting as a form of “artillery”, termed by him as the “Artillery of Ideas”.

One hundred ninety one years later, the Correo del Orinoco in Spanish was relaunched as part of the Venezuelan people’s effort to combat corporate media misreporting and disinformation campaigns against the Venezuelan government and the Bolivarian Revolution, nationally and internationally. Today, the Correo del Orinoco is a widely-read and referenced daily paper, reporting on political, social, economic, judicial, cultural and international events of importance to the Venezuelan people, with a balanced and informative tone.

In times of Simón Bolívar, the Correo del Orinoco was published not only in Spanish, but also occasionally in English and French. Today this tradition is continued with the creation of the first foreign language version of the Correo del Orinoco International, a weekly paper in English for distribution nationally and internationally.

“Issues and stories of how social and economic justice are being built in Venezuela today will be our priority”, added the editor, Eva Golinger.

The Correo del Orinoco International will be available in print this Friday, January 22, and next Friday, January 29, as a free insert in the Spanish-language daily edition. The English-language paper will be formally launched as a separate publication on February 4, and then will be available every Friday at newstands across Venezuela. International distribution of the print edition is a future goal, but initially, it will be available in digital format on the Spanish-language website, also to be launched February 4.

Simplistic's Robert Plummer economic report on Venezuela

When I read the report done by Robert Plummer as business reporter for BBC News, I was surprised  for the lack of some details so necessary for the understanding of Venezuela economic behaviour and the internal and external interaction of the main economic factors.

The first quick appreciation of Mr Plummer is that Caracas is full of Bags of rubbish "piled up on patches of waste ground, while many walls were adorned with pro- and anti-Chavez graffiti". The garbage is not a new problem, it's a long lasting deficiency that a chaotic badly planned city has been still unable to solved, but what is the impression if I walk for London's streets on a day of recollection before the truck pick the bins up? exactly the same. London is "piled up on patches of waste ground", so his rush appreciation just add spice to a picture that some opinion maker are very keen to portrait. But he added "many walls were adorned with pro- and anti-Chavez graffiti". How on earth a "dictator" like Chavez is supposed to be measure when everybody is using all the means possible to put their message across, once the media is very selective of the message they wants to portrait. I am sure the goods pals of Mr Plummer behind his wonderful article understand what I mean when I say that many media choose a selective version of reality to mask their own interest. The culture of street's graffiti is a gauge on the political sphere. Unfortunately, with the exception of the unidentified British street artist Banksy, who is under prosecution for do what is a democratic right, Londoners may never understand what means write on a wall what is a meaningful message to your fellows. Of course, Mr Plummer don't take the time to reflect which are the contents of those graffiti's. In his first class mind, he may see just ugliness.

Venezuela Steps Up Aid Effort to Haiti, Questions U.S. Military Deployment

Published on January 20th 2010, by Kiraz Janicke – Venezuelanalysis.com


           Reproduced and Posted on IntelliBriefs by Naxal Watch on January 20, 2010



Caracas, January 20th, 2009 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela has stepped up its aid effort to Haiti as a second earthquake rocked the Caribbean country again today. This follows a 7.3 magnitude earthquake which destroyed the Haitian capital, port-au-Prince last week leaving at least 75,000 people confirmed dead, 250,000 injured and millions homeless.

Echoing his Nicaraguan counterpart Daniel Ortega, who accused the United States of “manipulating the tragedy to install North American troops in Haiti” and French Secretary of State for Cooperation Alain Joyandet who criticised the US role in Haiti, saying the priority was “helping Haiti, not occupying Haiti,” Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez also questioned the US military response to the disaster.

“It seems that the United States is militarily occupying Haiti, taking advantage of the tragedy, 6000 have soldiers arrived. Thousands of men are disembarking in Haiti as if it were a war,” Chávez said during his weekly television program Alo Presidente on Sunday.

Haiti, “needs doctors, tents, rescue teams and machinery…Now, who said soldiers, rifles and machine guns are necessary?” he asked.

A free press in Venezuela

There is an important point to make regarding the free press in Venezuela. The unprofessional nature of the media at the time during the coup in 2002, is still the case today in Venezuela. So, if we want to defend to free press, we have to demand professionalism, balanced approaches of at least the two sides of the history, and contrast of valid opinion makers. I don't even ask the simple principle of objectivity or impartiality, that is almost impossible in Venezuela's journalism. The commitment of the media owners is not to defend the free press, is to defend their political preference in how the society must be ruled. That is damaging the democracy in my opinion, when the decision making process is diverted from the population into the preferential concepts managed by the media itself.

In Venezuela the level of distrust between journalist is such that the opinion programmes do not invite the key opinion makers to be summated to questions, they limited to invited their own partisans and cross referencing each other by video flashbacks. The few cases where an official opinion maker was invited, the levels of insults and grotesque management of the programme was horrendous.

How to defend the free press when a rational minimum approach is discard in benefit of the personal-passionate militant journalism, ones in ultra defence of private property and profit making, and others in ultra defence of communal property and social justice. Do we need an arbiter? who can do that role? maybe a extraterrestrial being.

Venezuela banks under scrutiny

Being from Venezuela I welcome the actions done by the venezuelan goverment. Chavez is finally tackling corruption in their closed circle. That is a excellent news for Venezuelan institutions. I wonder why some venezuelan opposition run in defence of the allegedly corrupt people, unless we are in front of another "political persecution" portrait again by the Venezuelan opposition.

First, the banks in Venezuela are not normal banks like any other in a capitalist system. The intermediation between savers and lenders are minimal in Venezuela private banks. Our oil economy has created a huge distortion in the structural financial system were the normal creation of wealth is overwhelm by the oil rent. The bankers are used to play on casino banking. The distortion is such that is the main caused of our structural endemic inflation, not associated to the real productivity or lack of productivity of our country. Chavez is right when he says that a strong public sector have to play their part into the resetting of the financial parameters. Regaining order and morality into a business usually disloyal to the people what is suppose to serve.

I read in the news in English: "after intervening four of the most important banks of the country" ?!!!

BanPro, Canarias, Confederado and Bolívar Banco are not the most important banks in Venezuela, not even in a middle rank, they hold 10% of the money's mass of the Venezuelan bank system.

I wonder if all jokes starting with a lie instead of a fact, are they better jokes?