DECEMBER 2005

Venezuela’s foreign policy was a total success in 2005


The new foreign policy that Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez Frías, has been pushing forward in 2005 has become the seat of honor in the complex world of geopolitics.

Venezuela’s foreign policy has been successful in a series of scenarios, including in the 35th General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; the 60th UN General Assembly in New York; and the 15th Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Governments, held in Spain. This suggests without a doubt that Venezuela’s foreign policy has been successful abroad.

In 2005, two thirds of the most important geopolitical gatherings were held in the United States and despite the fact that there are currently political confrontations between both governments, Venezuela still played a leading role.

The 35th General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS)

During the 35th General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), which introduced a theme entitled “Delivering the Benefits of Democracy,” the Venezuelan delegation was successful after eight of its resolutions were approved.

On that occasion, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Alí Rodríguez Araque said that among the proposals approved by unanimous decision were those pertaining to terrorism, extradition, and freedom of speech.

At the conclusion of the Assembly, a Venezuelan proposal entitled “It is the duty of all OAS members to respect the regulations and principles of international law to preserve and strengthen peace across the continent” was also approved.

The OAS also approved proposals in relation to extradition, terrorism, poverty, equality, social inclusion; micro-loans and financing, and creating jobs.

Furthermore, a series of resolutions were signed regarding freedom of speech and thought, ways to strengthen the Human Rights entities of member States, and political debates in accordance with the inter-American council for integral development.

During the gathering, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) characterized the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in the Human Rights arena as positive.

IACHR President, Clare K. Roberts, described "the success of the August 2005 presidential recall referendum, despite extreme polarization, as a mechanism to solve domestic affairs pacifically in accordance with the Constitution.

The 60th UN General Assembly

Three months later, New York hosted the 60th UN General Assembly. According to Kofi Annan, the summit was a great opportunity “for the world to unite and adopt measures pertaining to the serious threats posed across the globe which demand a quick solution”.

The main theme of the 60th UN General Assembly was focused on evaluating the execution of the “UN Millennium Goals” in every one of the 191 UN member countries. The United Nations was founded in 1945 after World War II “to promote international cooperation and seek peace and security”, just as its predecessor the Society of Nations (in 1919).

According to the UN Web site, “the 8 UN Millennium Goals is a plan that was convened by all nations and development institutions across the globe to eradicate poverty by half, to reduce the spreading of diseases, especially HIV/AIDS, and to attain universal primary schooling by 2015”.

The agreement was reached in 2000 by the UN General Assembly and included in a document called Millennium Declaration.

In this regard, Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez, proposed that the UN be re-founded because the execution of the UN Millennium Goals has been delayed.

"The purpose of this meeting has been twisted. The debate of the so-called process of reforms has taken over the true demands of the peoples, which is to adopt measures to tackle the true problems that puts obstacles on the way of the efforts made by our countries for development and life. Five years after the Millennium Summit, the naked truth is that most of the UN Millennium Goals will never be reached”.

Kofi Annan also said that the meeting would revitalize the UN. However, several democratic countries did not participate as much in the discussions and drafting of the final document of the Assembly.

During his speech, the Venezuelan leader said there is “an open dictatorial scheme at the UN”, denouncing the illegality of the document that was proposed by the Summit of Heads of State, and approved without the consent of all UN members.

The final declaration adopted measures to set up a “Human Rights Council”, review and update the UN Charter, and to create “the Peace Consolidation Commission” by 2006.

The truth of the matter is that Venezuela was not in agreement with the final document, and in terms of the UN Millennium Goals, President Chávez showed the advances made by his government over the past 7 years.

-1,406,000 Venezuelans have learnt how to read or write in one and half years. (Venezuela was declared an illiteracy free territory in October 29 in accordance with UNESCO).

-3,000,000 poor Venezuelans, who had been excluded from primary, secondary, and university education in the past, have now been incorporated.

-17 million Venezuelans have received free healthcare for the first time in their lives.

-12 million people have received over 1,700,000 tons of subsidized food products.

-700,000 jobs have been created and unemployment has been reduced by 9%.

Similarly, President Chávez emphasized that it is time to “create an international society that respects the sovereignty of other societies”, adding that the new UN headquarters must be in the South, “The South exists too”, said Mario Benedetti".

For his part, Venezuela’s Foreign Minister, Alí Rodríguez Araque, said that the Assembly was a failure because it did address the common interests of our peoples, stating "when the peoples begin to suffer from the decisions made by their leaders during these gatherings, they will react and to contribute to instability”.

XV Ibero-American Summit of Heads of States and Governments

In mid-October, Venezuela took part in the XV Ibero-American Summit, which took place in Salamanca, Spain.

While in Spain, Venezuela’s foreign policy kept its discourse, aimed at interdependence integration, as well as the establishment and development of a social democracy that effectively tackles extreme poverty issues and the gaps between nations.


At this Summit, the leaders of the region recognized the success of the literacy campaign in Venezuela; all the participating countries acted as a blocked in petitioning the extradition of the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, as well as demanding that the United States cease its embargo against Cuba.

Reynaldo Gargano, current President of MERCOSUR, announced that Venezuela would be admitted as a full member in December.

“I’ll give you some news which I believe you ought to spread because it is very important from a political and economical point of view. Three moths ago, I received Venezuela’s request to become a MERCOSUR full-fledged member. I transmitted this request to Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay and all of them replied with a positive answer.”

Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Alí Rodríguez Araque, said that Venezuela’s entry to MERCOSUR, as well as the resolution backing Luis Posada carriles’ extradition, was extremely important. Likewise, he condemned the Helms-Burton Law, which sanctions businesses and companies that have commercial relations with Cuba.

Rodríguez said that “the World has been changing; the Cold War is behind us; we have new realities in this World and most countries have accepted this situation and we hope the US accepts the fact that there are changes in the realities that need to be addressed using new criteria and new ways to look at the world.”

The Final Declaration approved two proposals made by the Venezuelan delegation: the making of a series of regional action plans, as well as the Exchange of ideas an plans regarding the fight against illiteracy in the region and the completion of the sixth grade.

In this regard, the Ibero-American Secretary was encouraged to present an Ibero-American Literacy Plan in all member states. The goal is to declare the whole region as “Illiteracy-free Territory” between 2008 and 2015.

The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, affirmed that Venezuela is a country that is accomplishing the Millennium Goals thanks to the success of the social programs put forth by the Venezuelan government.

Annan gladly received the Petrocaribe proposal and the input this multinational oil company has to offer in the Caribbean integration

Positive Balance

The international agenda an the foreign political strategy put forth by Venezuela promotes cooperation agreements that deal with regional, bilateral and multilateral issues. It declares a true war on terrorism and promotes peace in the world, while encouraging the fight against inequalities in the planet. It promotes energy integration in the region thus increasing Venezuela’s geopolitical importance in the world.

Venezuela has had an important role at international events. It has taken a leading role in promoting participatory democracy where everyone is included.

All the previous examples in Venezuela’s multilateral policy in 2005 make it possible to predict that the results at the IV Summit of the Americas will be magnificent. It will be the perfect way to end an absolutely positive year for the internationalization of Venezuela’s integrationist policy.

Mariaemilia Reyes

Translated by: Armando Nuñez / Néstor Sánchez Cordero
Bolivarian News Agency

Trinidad police detain Israeli; may be linked to bombings
w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
_{Last update - 07:38 06/11/2005
By Associated Press and Haaretz Service}
Trinidadian authorities have detained an Israeli national found living in a remote mountainous area east of the capital, police said, declining to state if he was being questioned in connection with a recent spate of bombings in the Caribbean island nation.

A string of bombings, the latest one occuring last Thursday, have rocked the capital of Port-of-Spain. The bombings have injured 28 people.

Authorities identified the detained man as Dahtang Mik Agarunov, 26. They said he was found living in a wooden shack in Arouca, about 10 miles east of Port-of-Spain. Agarunov was detained on Friday and questioned by Interpol, Trinidadian police and immigration officials.

Authorities would not say if Agarunov was being questioned in connection with a spate of four bombings last month. No one has claimed responsibility for the bombings or linked them to any political movement.

"Once we have completed our investigation, we will be in a better place to provide more detail," said Police Commissioner Trevor Paul.

Agarunov has not been charged with any crime. He arrived in Trinidad on October 18, but authorities have not confirmed why he was visiting the island.

The Israeli Embassy spokesman in Venezuela, Giora Loterstein, said he was unaware of Agarunov's detention.

The Israel Embassy in Venezuela - 7 miles (11 kilometers) from Trinidad - oversees Israeli affairs in the twin-island nation.
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/642040.html

VISITING VENEZUELA: A PROFESSOR CHECKS OUT THE CHAVEZ ISSUE

SERGIO PAREJA IN ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL - I have traveled to Venezuela to visit family all my life. During my most recent trip, I could not avoid hearing about the "evils" of Chavez from the well-off, many of whom are convinced that he will turn Venezuela into a socialist dictatorship. Although this group recognizes that Chavez has done some good things for Venezuela, they think the bad greatly outweighs the good. The huge lower class, on the other hand, adores Chavez and can point to countless positive developments during his presidency.

While in Venezuela this past June and July, I made it my personal quest to determine why Venezuela's upper classes hate Chavez. "He's a socialist," was a common response. Another common response was that he provokes the United States with his anti-imperialist rhetoric.

Other responses I received had more to do with guilt by association: Chavez hangs out with Fidel Castro and even visited Saddam Hussein at least once. Finally, I was commonly told that he is usurping patriotism for his political advantage and that he is trying to pack the courts with judges who think like he does. Sound familiar?

"But what is Chavez doing that you hate so much?" I asked. "What, specifically, are his governing policies?" The answers I received, while purely anecdotal, were telling. In general, the wealthy criticize his taxes and social programs, many of which are remarkably similar to U.S. social programs.

I discovered that, for the first time in Venezuela's history, the government is truly enforcing its tax laws. What does this mean from a leader who claims to be a "21st century socialist"? I asked my cousin, a successful orthopedic surgeon, what he now must pay in income taxes under Chavez. "10 percent to 15 percent of my income," was the response-- not quite the wealth redistribution I'd envisioned.

I also learned that one of the biggest complaints about Chavez is that he has raised the national minimum wage from about $25 a week to about $40 a week. For live-in household servants, the rate increased from about $15 a week to about $25 a week.

To put this in context, this is what it costs to have somebody work for you from before sunrise until after dinner. Servants cook, clean, do laundry, watch your children, and basically do anything you ask them to do. . .

The feeling I got in Venezuela last month is that people with money still have money. I saw an abundance of new expensive cars on the road. One of my uncles continues to build and run high- rise apartments and hotels at a healthy profit.

I saw a complete freedom to speak out against the government, with daily
newspaper articles and songs on the radio calling for Chavez's ouster. It made me question our freedom here in the United States. With so many people here opposed to the war in Iraq, and with some brilliant anti-war songs being written, why haven't I heard even one of those songs on the radio?

I am painfully aware that Chavez may ultimately turn out to be a cruel and corrupt dictator. That has been the history of Venezuela, and it certainly could happen again. However, by giving a voice to the poor, Chavez also may have prevented a bloody class war.

[Sergio Pareja teaches at the University of New Mexico School of Law]

Replace Chavez with Machado, the Bolivarians with Sumate...

VHeadline.com commentarist Chris Herz writes: One wonders what it will take the residents of first-world countries to perceive the abyss which lies before them.

For years, the ghetto-ized minorities of our major cities here in the US have lived under conditions of police containment which resemble in more than one way the situation of occupied Baghdad.

In fact, the worst of the torturers at Abu-Ghraib prison there seem to have had their training in the jails and prisons of the imperial homeland. And their first victims were US citizens of minority extraction.

The late and unlamented US president, Richard M Nixon showed us the way to institutionalize the racism and class war which had replaced by his time the overt and official racism of the whole of our history, going back to slavery times and lasting with "legal" racial segregation well into our own day. And as a desirable side-effect of the "law and order" mantra which swept him into office, following the urban riots of the 1960s and 70s, the police and National Guard were to be employed to oppress the poorest of the poor -- the Black citizens of our major cities.

Sadly, the white population of suburb and Southland bought right into this program and have ever since consistantly voted for Republican reactionaries.

Thus not only was our incorporated state able to keep a large section of workers helpless as "the reserve army of the unemployed," but the whole possibility of any general social movement for progressive, let alone Social Democratic reform was permanently and forever destroyed.

Racism remains worldwide the most effective tool in the vast arsenal of reaction to take and maintain power.

And this is so in Europe, we now see, every bit as much as it is so in the USA.

If the continued operation of our economic system depends, as apparently it does, upon a class of marginalized workers, then we must have military, police and prison resources on a scale never before seen in civilized society. We must support in the so-called democracies regimes of control and surveillance hitherto found only in outlaw regimes.

Furthermore, no longer content to import workers from formerly colonial countries, the system demands placing them in peonage even in their own, resource-rich homelands.

Thus, this empire, just as historians such as Arnold Toynbee have shown us was the case in past empires, creates both internal and external proletariats.

The program obviously calls for Venezolanos to accept their natural place in this new form of bondage. And as honorable people whoever we are and wherever we live, this we must reject.

I heard today a radio interview on the public affairs radio station C-SPAN here in Washington. Speaking was the one of the bright hopes of the "opposition" Democratic Party, the governor of our state of Virginia Mr. Mark Warner. Among other truly astonishing things he said was that he was very proud of the US military and its unparalleled ability to "take out" the command and control facilities of any government on the face of the Earth. But he was lamenting its inability to translate this into an equivalent ability to re-establish political modalities more suitable to the needs of the USA.

In effect, this presidential wanna-be was telling us all that we need to find a way; and Venezuela, as a for-instance, to replace Chavez with Machado, the Bolivarians with Sumate, and have everybody accept that! ... and this is what the USA needs to do and has a perfect right to do wherever they feel it necessary.

So even the US opposition is telling us that we are in a permanent struggle for control of diminishing world resources. And we must accept that the regime have all the war-power it needs for conquest of these resources.

Meanwhile, Paris burns, and we are told that 57% of the French support the reactionary methods of Nicolas Sarkozy. We are in the presence of world-wide social war. And we had all better accept the battle which is being thrust upon us.

Chris Herz
cdherz44@yahoo.com