Viva Venezuela!

    Monday 29 August 2005

    Last Monday, Christian televangelist Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. While Robertson's remarks were shocking in their utter disregard for global democracy and the rule of law (he eventually apologized), he is by no means the first to beat the drum against Venezuela.

    In fact, his comments were merely a more vitriolic version of what the Bush administration has been saying for some time, with declarations to contain Chavez and the funneling of millions of dollars to opposition groups within the country. The White House even supported a 2002 military coup, before popular uprisings restored Chavez to power. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and now Robertson are all in their own ways trying to build the case that Chavez is a menace, a danger to democracy and a source of instability in the region.

    But I was in Venezuela just this month. And I saw a different reality.

    I attended the 16th World Festival for Youth and Students, which drew more than 15,000 young peace and justice activists from across the globe.

    What I saw, in the enormous city of Caracas and the rural towns of Monagas state, were huge numbers of people who, for the first time in their lives, have free and adequate health care, the opportunity to attend university, access to land grants and work contracts, constitutionally assured rights for women and indigenous people, and free breakfast programs for children. And with all this, a sense of dignity and ownership over their lives.

    Let me show you.

    In a room that smells of Tiger Balm, with rain beating on the roof, a doctor massages the curled hands and feet of a crippled boy while his mother murmurs gentle words. Before the free hospital was built, the boy had no access to regular physical therapy and lived in constant pain.

    An old woman, her eyes gleaming through thick glasses, says that two years ago, when she enrolled in a reading class taught by university volunteers, she practically ate the books in her hunger for words, flying through basic reading and moving on to high school equivalency courses. She plans to attend one of the nation's new free public universities next year. At 76 she dreams of being a lawyer.

    The 22-year-old Osmar, with tight curls and baggy jeans, says that in yesterday's Venezuela he would have been a taxi driver or sold cigarettes on the street, doing work without honor. But he was among the thousand top scorers on a nationwide exam and will soon leave for five years of free medical school in Cuba.

    These individuals, like millions across Venezuela, have experienced tangible, visible change in their lives over the last several years. But while these changes have made Chavez a hero in the eyes of Venezuela's poor majority, they have made him an enemy in the White House.

    It makes Washington's blood boil that Chavez not only denounces its global mandates of fiscal austerity, structural adjustment and radical privatization, but that Venezuela has the resources to successfully enact its own development model.

    Using its oil wealth, Venezuela is constructing one of the truly alternative models of economic growth in today's world. The fourth-largest exporter of petroleum to the United States, Venezuela has shifted production from multinational corporations into the hands of the state, which now harvests the bulk of this liquid gold in order to sembrar el petroleo, sow the oil, and invest billions inwards.

    So while Venezuela sows its oil, Washington is sowing the seeds to unseat Chavez. It is building up the case for invasion, a coup or an assassination. If, for many of us, Robertson's comments were the first we registered of this positioning, it is not the first for Venezuelans, who speak often of being the potential next battleground, overt or covert, in the United States' deceptive and never-ending war on terrorism.

    Let us be wary. Very. For those moving to vilify Chavez are the same people who knowingly lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, who used nonexistent uranium to justify a war in which tens of hundreds of young Americans and countless Iraqis have died.

    Let's also honor the value of freedom, of human dignity and democracy. Let us support Venezuela's right to build its own future.

• Viva Venezuela! - gt
  • Viva socialism!! - Reality check
    • socialism for a shrinking planet - gt
      • Chavez - PK
        • yes, sigh - gt
      • A socialist's heart revealed. sm - Yeah Yeah
        • heart of darkness? - gt
  • We have people dying in Iraq and in a hurricaine and you are worried about this! / - ?
    • LOL - gt
      • You like oil or you don't like oil? - Reality check
        • oil - gt
          • Oil from Israel - bea
            • Thanks, I will try to watch this.sm - Democrat
          • I have no problem with US drilling its own oil, BUT 10-15 years down the road - Democrat
      • Just when I think you have gotten as low as you can go BAM! SM - MT

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if you're going to make a statement gt don't beat around the bush.  Just come right out and say it.

I'm sure they would welcome you with open arms.

Venezuela will ship an additional 1,000,000 barrels in the wake of Katrina

Venezuela Embassy, Washington D.C. -- Press Release  -- September 7, 2005: As announced by President Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan national oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) will ship approximately one million barrels of PDVSA-produced gasoline this month directly to the United States in the wake of the horrible devastation and destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina.

This volume is in addition to PDVSA’s normal shipments to the United States.

“Venezuela is privileged to be able to help the United States in this time of need,” said Venezuela's Ambassador to the United States, Bernardo Alvarez Herrera. “We see ourselves as a compassionate people and hope that our efforts will help cope with current market needs of the U.S. for gasoline, and provide some immediate relief to the victims of this horrific natural disaster.”

Four additional shipments of gasoline, totaling over 960,000 barrels, taken from storage and diverted from other customers, will be sent to and distributed by PDVSA’s wholly-owned US subsidiary, CITGO Petroleum Corp (CITGO) and will supplement PDVSA’s previously scheduled shipments to CITGO in September of 1.2 million barrels of petroleum.

Each of the four additional gasoline shipments will be sent from Venezuela to CITGO during the following time frames:

September 14-16, September 23-25, September 28-30 and September 29-October 1.

With shipping time from Venezuela to the US Gulf Coast only four-five days, these shipments from Venezuela will arrive much more quickly than cargoes from Europe, the Middle East or Asia and, hence, will be able to meet US needs that much sooner.

PDVSA is the fifth largest provider of petroleum products in the world and the third largest provider to the United States. During the last year, Venezuela has occasionally been the largest supplier of oil to the United States, surpassing Saudi Arabia, Canada and Mexico. It exports 95% of its hydrocarbons, 57% of which are earmarked for the United States. PDVSA’s oil refining capacity globally is 3.3 million barrels per day.

military manuevers near Venezuela.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,457106,00.html