Chavez to work on problems facing Venezuela
By Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Wed 11 Nov. 2009, 04:02 CAT
VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez has said his administration will go into offensive in the next three years to solve numerous problems still affecting Venezuela. Meanwhile, President Chavez has warned that if the United States militarily attacked Venezuela through Colombia, it would have provoked a war of hundred years.
“We are the sons of Simon Bolivar (Venezuelan national hero) and we are spread from Mexico to Argentina,” President Chavez said. “Venezuela is not alone, we have a large group of friends… Nobody can think that a war against our country would be only against Venezuela.”
In his Lines by Chavez, before he distributed 80,000 new houses at US $84,000 each in Portuguesa State on Sunday, he said the essential objective of his socialist revolution was to give everyone greatest possible amount of happiness.
President Chavez said the government was subsidising part of the cost at an interest rate of 4.5 per cent payable in a 30-year term.
“Only consciousness frees the human been from the tyranny of the time,” he said. “It can also be said that there is a force as powerful as consciousness that is called love. In the words of Christ, when we love one another, the human being is able to get over the miseries of egoism and the chains shortsightedness.”
President Chavez said in December three years would have passed since his overwhelming victory in the presidential elections of 2006.
“Years 2010, 2011 and 2012 will be a powerful offensive that will permit us to continue solving the numerous problems that still affect Venezuela,” he said.
“They will be three years of battle in the elevation of life levels of the whole people, fulfilling its most profound needs. That will only be possible, I repeat, through socialism.”
Turning the tide to friction with Colombia following the agreement to grant US seven military bases around Colombia, President Chavez asked Venezuelans to be alert and get ready to defend the country if it were necessary. He said agreement gave the United States’ naval, air and land forces strategic presence in Latin America.
"The best way to avoid war is being prepared," he said. President Chavez, who condemned the US-Colombia agreement on his Alo Presidente television and radio programme on Sunday, said all Venezuelans should be ready to defend their homeland. The United States under the accord would have 800 troops and 600 American civilian contractors with diplomatic immunity and would not be subjected to Colombia laws.
President Chavez said an attack by the US from Colombia would provoke a regional war. He said the Colombian administration of President Alvaro Uribe was a “government of lackeys of the empire”.
“Colombia has been transferred to the United States. It was handed over but not the people but the government of that country and the oligarchy who previously wore a mask and now they have taken off their mask,” President Chavez said.
He also announced that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would visit Venezuela to strengthen relations.
“Imperialism and its lackeys have Iran and Venezuela on sight but we will defeat them,” said President Chavez. “As Iran has Israel, we have Colombia's government at the service of the Yankee empire.”
The Venezuelan government suspended bilateral relations with Colombia on July 28 in retaliation to the seven American military bases in Colombia which it says threatens the security of Venezuela and the region.
Labels: CHAVEZ, VENEZUELA
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Chavez is a formidable enemy of imperialism, says Fidel
Written by Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Tuesday, May 12, 2009 4:01:08 PM
CHAVEZ is a formidable enemy of the capitalist production system and imperialism, Cuban revolution leaders Fidel Castro has said. Castro further observed that US governments could change but the instruments they used “to turn us” into a colony were still the same.
The Organisation of American States (OAS) has accused President Chavez’s administration of violating “the freedom of conscience and religion” and charged that Cuba had continued to violate basic rights including freedom of expression.
In his Reflections by Comrade Fidel published on Monday entitled “The Struggle has barely begun”, Castro said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had become a real expert on many of human society’s basic problems.
“He is impressive,” Castro stated. “Considering it calmly, today Chavez is a formidable adversary for the capitalist production system and for imperialism…He masterfully handles even the most insignificant details concerning national production and social services. He is on top of the theory and practice of socialism needed by his country and he makes great efforts through his most profound convictions. “His adversaries understand that it is not easy to win when faced with the tenacity of a man who struggles without even a moment’s rest. They could decide to take his life but his internal and external foes know what that would mean for their interests. There can be irrational lunatics and fanatics, but neither leaders nor peoples or humanity itself are exempt from such dangers.”
Castro stated that President Chavez defines capitalism for what it is.
He stated that President Chavez did not draw caricatures of capitalism but revealed x-rays and pictures of the system.
“We are dealing with a peculiar and horrible ensemble of forms of exploitation of human work - unjust, unequal, arbitrary,” Castro elaborates. “He doesn’t simply talk about the worker; he shows him on television working with his hands, showing his energy, his knowledge, his intelligence, creating the goods or services that are essential to human beings; he asks them about their children, their families, husbands or wives, their kin, where they live, what they are studying, what they are doing to improve themselves, their age, salary, future pension, all the grotesque lies about property that are being spread by the imperialists and capitalists. He shows the hospitals, schools, factories, boys and girls; he provides facts about the factories being built in Venezuela, the machinery, figures on the growth of employment, natural resources, plans, maps, and he provides news on the latest gas discovery.”
Castro also commented on the most recent measure adopted by the Venezuelan Congress leading to the nationalising the 60 key companies supplying services each year to Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA for a value of more than US $8 billion.
He stated that actually those entities were not private property.
Castro stated that Venezuela’s neo-liberal governments created them with resources belonging to PDVSA.
Castro said President Chavez had shown himself to be the political leader in Venezuela who was capable of creating a party, incessantly transmitting revolutionary ideas to its members and educating them politically.
He stated that he had been witness to the unique transformation in Venezuela.
“It is a battle of ideas that has been lost beforehand by the adversary who has nothing to offer humanity,” Castro stated. “No wonder the OAS (Organisation of American States) is hypocritically trying to present him as an enemy of freedom of expression and democracy.”
He stated that almost half a century had gone by since “those chipped and hypocritical weapons [OAS]” came up against the steadfastness of the Cuban people.
Castro stressed that today, Venezuela was not alone and that it had the experience of 200 years of exceptional patriotic history on its side.
“This struggle has barely begun in our hemisphere,” charged Castro.
He stated that since the departure of Jimmy Cater, whom he considers the only US president with a sense of ethics, from the White House the last 28 years had seen three American presidents who committed genocides and a fourth who internationalized the US blockade against Cuba.
“Governments can change but the instruments they used to turn us into a colony are still the same,” Castro stated.
He accused the OAS of being the instrument for those crimes committed by US leaders.
Castro stated that the OAS was not able to prevent Ronald Reagan from unleashing the dirty war against Nicaragua as the US helped unseat Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista administration.
“What did the OAS do to protect it?” he asked. “What did it do to prevent the invasion of Santo Domingo, the hundreds of thousands of people murdered or disappeared in Guatemala, the air attacks, the assassinations of prominent religious leaders, the massive repression against the people, the invasions of Grenada and Panama, the coup in Chile, the tortured and disappeared there and in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and other places? Did it ever accuse the United States? What is its historical evaluation of these events?”
Labels: CHAVEZ, FIDEL CASTRO, NEOCOLONIALISM
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Chávez Supporters Win 17 out of 23 Venezuelan States, but Lose 3 Most Populous
November 24th 2008
by Gregory Wilpert
Venezuelanalysis.com
CNE President Tibisay Lucena (center) announces the first official results of the November 23 regional and local elections. November 23, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)— President Hugo Chavez’s governing party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) got mixed results in the regional and local elections today, winning stronghly in 17 out of 23 states, but losing the country’s two most populous states and the Capital District of Caracas, with two more states still to be decided.
At midnight Venezuelan time, about eight hours after the first polls closed, the president of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE), Tibisay Lucena, announced the results of the regional and local elections, with 95% of the vote counted.
According to Lucena, participation had reached an unprecedented high for a regional vote, at 65.45%. Over 17 million voters were registered, which is several million more than in the last such election four years ago. As a result, lines tended to be long and many polling places had to remain open far longer than the official closing time of 4pm.
Chávez’s PSUV lost the governorships of the two most populous states, Miranda and Zulia, and the mayor’s office of greater Caracas, which will be a significant blow to Chávez and his movement.
The perhaps greatest surprise is the upset victory, with 52.45% of the vote, of opposition leader Antonio Ledezma, of the Brave People’s Alliance, in greater Caracas. Ledezma once was governor of the city, from 1992 to 1995, when it was an appointed office. He was then elected as mayor of the city’s main municipality of Libertador in 1995. Ledezma is considered to be an integral part of the country’s old political guard, given his ties to former President Carlos Andrés Perez.
His challenger this time around was Aristóbulo Isturiz, also a former mayor of Libertador, and former education minister for Chávez. Isturiz is one of the few Afro-Venezuelan politicians of Venezuela with national name-recognition.
The other upset victory is in the state of Miranda, one of the country’s most populous and wealthiest states, where Henrique Capriles Radonski won with 52.56% of the vote, against Diosdado Cabello, the incumbent governor and close confidant of President Chávez. Capriles was able to win on the basis of his success as mayor of the upper class Caracas municipality of Baruta, against Cabello’s relatively poor performance in Miranda.
Finally, the third key opposition victory was in Zulia, where Pablo Perez, the right-hand man of current governor and opposition leader Manuel Rosales beat GianCarlo DiMartino 53.6% to 45.0%. Zulia is another relatively wealthy state with some of the country’s main oil deposits and the largest population.
Another opposition win was in the state of Nueva Esparta, which is mainly the tourist island of Margarita, and which was generally an expected opposition victory.
States where the opposition might still win include the industrial state of Carabobo, where the former opposition governor Henrique Salas Feo is running against PSUV candidate Mario Silva, who is the former host of the satirical talk show “The Razor Blade.” The other state for which no result has been announced is the border state of Táchira, on the Colombian border.
The 17 states where Chávez’s candidates won, they managed to do so often by beating both the opposition candidates and dissident Chávez supporters. For example, PSUV candidate and former communications minister William Lara beat, with 52.1% of the vote, Lenny Manuitt, the daughter of the former pro-Chávez governor in Guarico state.
The Process
Whilst it was aimed to have voting centers closed by 4pm, the president of the CNE, Tibisay Lucena, said that they would remain open as long as there were voters in waiting in line to vote. Some opposition leaders, including Julio Borges from Justice First party, Henry Ramos from Democratic Action and Ismael Garcia from We Can, denounced the extension of voting hours and threatened not to recognize the results.
By 9pm, according to the chief of the Strategic Operational Command (CEO), General Jesus Gonzalez, more than 50 people had been arrested and 106 detained for various electoral crimes. Other than that voting was considered to have proceeded very normally and calmly.
Gonzalez said the vast majority of the crimes were destruction of electoral material, and for distributing political pamphlets. A large proportion of the violations were for tearing up the voting receipt.
In the state of Anzoategui a group of people on motorbikes removed two rifles from militia acting as part of Plan Republic, aimed at protecting the voting center.
Chávez Congratulates Nation
In a late-night address to the nation, President Chávez congratulated the Venezuelan people for having participated in the electoral event in a “civic and joyful” manner.
The event “ratifies” Venezuelan democracy, but not like the “democracy of before” his election to the presidency, which “belonged to the elites,” said Chávez.
Chávez also conceded defeat in the state of Miranda and of the capital district, asking, “Who can say that there is a dictatorship in Venezuela? Well, perhaps some will continue to say so.”
However, he highlighted that of the 17 governorships his party had won, eight of these it won with about 60% of the vote and the others with about 10% difference to the closest rival. Also, his party garnered about six million votes, which represents a significant development for his recently formed party, the PSUV.
This result for the PSUV compares to the approximately four million votes the opposition obtained, according to PSUV vice-president Alberto Müller Rojas, and thus maintains the ratio of previous elections (except last year’s constitutional reform referendum, which was barely lost 51-49), of more or less 60-40 in favor of Chavez’s Bolivarian movement.
For Chávez, “The construction of socialism in Venezuela is ratified and now we will now take charge of deepening it.”
Tamara Pearson also contributed to this article.
Official Results
State Governorships:
Anzoátegui
Tarek William Saab (PSUV) 55.06%
Gustavo Marcano 40.50%
Apure
Jesús Aguilarte (PSUV) 56.48%
Miriam de Montilla 26.54%
Aragua
Rafael Isea (PSUV) 58.56%
Henry Rosales 40.17%
Barinas
Adán Chávez (PSUV) 49.63%
Julio Cesar Reyes 44.58%
Bolívar
Francisco Rangel (PSUV) 46.97%
Andrés Velásquez 30.47%
Guárico
Willian Lara (PSUV) 52.08%
Lenny Manuitt 33.68%
Lara
Henri Falcón (PSUV) 73,15%
Pedro Alcántara 14,85%
Mérida
Marcos Díaz (PSUV) 54.62%
Williams Dávila 45.11%
Miranda
Henrique Capriles Radonsky 52.56 %
Diosdado Cabello (PSUV) 36.74%
Sucre
Enrique Maestre (PSUV) 56.08%
Eduardo Morales 42.62%
Vargas
Jorge García Carneiro (PSUV) 61.56%
Roberto Smith 32.18%
Zulia
Pablo Pérez 53.59%
Gian Carlo Di Martino (PSUV) 45.02%
Falcón
Stella Lugo (PSUV) 55.27 %
Gregorio Graterol 44.49%
Monagas
Jose Briceño (PSUV) 64.79%
Domingo Urbina 15.41 %
Nueva Esparta
Morel Rodríguez: 57,64
William Fariñas (PSUV): 41,69%
Portuguesa
Wilmar Castro Soteldo (PSUV) 57%
Jovito Villegas 27.28%
Trujillo
Hugo Cesar Cabezas (PSUV) 59.47%
Henrique Catalán 27%
City Mayors:
Capital District of Caracas
Antonio Ledezma 52.45%
Aristóbulo Istúriz (PSUV) 44.92%
Libertador Municipality of Caracas
Jorge Rodríguez (PSUV) 53.05%
Iván Stalin González 41.92%
Labels: CHAVEZ, ELECTIONS, VENEZUELA
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Chavez wants the 'black man' to win US vote
Reuters
Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:04:00 +0000
THE VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez predicted on Sunday the "black man" will win the U.S. presidential race and offered to hold talks with him to improve ties between the superpower and one its biggest oil suppliers.
Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee who would be the first black U.S. president if he wins Tuesday's election, said this year he would be open to dialogue with leaders like Chavez -- a remark that was seized on by Republicans as naive.
McCain, who trails Obama in polls, has labeled Chavez a dictator.
Chavez, a socialist who has mocked President George W. Bush and calls ex-Cuban leader Fidel Castro his mentor, has said there is an inevitable clash between U.S. and Venezuelan interests, although he has at times offered to ease bilateral tensions.
"We are not asking him to be a revolutionary, to be a socialist -- no," Chavez said at a political rally. We just want the black man who is about to be the U.S. president to have enough stature for the times the world is living through.
"I send an overture to the black man, from us here, who are of Indigenous, black, Caribbean, South American race," he said.
"I am ready to sit down and talk ... I hope we can, and I hope we can enter a new stage," he said later at another rally.
Most Latin Americans would prefer Obama to win the White House over Republican rival John McCain, according to polls. They have felt largely neglected by the Bush administration as the region swung to the left.
Chavez, who expelled the U.S. ambassador in September, urged Obama to end the Cuban embargo, withdraw troops from Iraq and stop what he called U.S. threats against Iran and Venezuela.
(Reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez; Writing by Saul Hudson; Editing by Bill Trott)
Reuters
Labels: BARACK OBAMA, CHAVEZ, VENEZUELA
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Chavez says "Comrade Bush" turns left in crisis
Wed Oct 15, 2008 10:35pm EDT
2007 CARACAS (Reuters) - Socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez mocked George W. Bush as a "comrade" on Wednesday, saying the U.S. president was a hard-line leftist for his government's intervention of major private banks in the U.S. financial crisis.
Chavez, who calls capitalism an evil and ex-Cuban leader Fidel Castro his mentor, ridiculed Bush for his plan for the federal government to take equity in American banks despite the U.S. right-wing's criticism of Venezuelan nationalizations.
"Bush is to the left of me now," Chavez told an audience of international intellectuals debating the benefits of socialism. "Comrade Bush announced he will buy shares in private banks."
Chavez, who has insulted Bush in the past as a drunkard or the devil, called him clueless on Wednesday. He accused him of simply parroting the words of his aides without understanding the new policies that rely on heavy state intervention.
"I am convinced he has got no idea what's going on," said Chavez, who has nationalized swaths of the OPEC nation's economy in recent years and is in negotiations to take over a Spanish bank in Venezuela.
Chavez lauds his nationalizations for allowing the state to refocus companies' activities on helping the poor rather than creating value for their shareholders.
The Bush administration, which has promoted free-market policies throughout Latin America, resisted taking equity in banks for weeks. But, faced with a spiraling financial crisis, it reversed course this week with a $250 billion plan.
Chavez, who the United States labels an autocrat, is popular among his supporters at home for criticizing Bush and sometimes wins praise abroad for voicing anti-U.S. opinions.
Despite the ideological differences between the two governments and the diplomatic sparring that led weeks ago to the countries expelling each other's ambassador, Venezuela remains a major oil supplier to the United States.
(Reporting by Patricia Rondon; Writing by Saul Hudson; Editing by Anthony Boadle)
Labels: CHAVEZ, GEORGE BUSH, NEOLIBERALISM
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No diplomatic representation in Washington until Bush is out - Chavez
By Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Tuesday September 16, 2008 [13:15]
VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez has vowed not to have diplomatic representation in Washington until US President George W Bush is out of office. President Chavez, who expelled US envoy to Caracas Patrick Duddy on Thursday, placed responsibility for the tense diplomatic situation squarely on the US government.
He said Washington was behind the political destablisation ongoing in Latin American particularly in Bolivia and Venezuela. "As long as President Bush is in power Caracas will have no diplomatic representation in that country," said President Chavez, according to Venezuela's ABI news agency. "We have been recently informed that the US government expelled the Bolivian Ambassador.
We start in this very moment evaluating our diplomatic relationships with the United States and to show our solidarity to Bolivia from now on the Yankee US Ambassador in Venezuela has 72 hours to leave the country." He likewise recalled Venezuelan Ambassador to the US Bernardo Alvarez. "Before they expel him, I sent Alvarez a message to say that he has to come back," President Chavez said. "When there will be a new government in the United States that is respectful of Latin American governments we will send our Ambassador to Washington." He accused the US of fanning the coup and assassination plots against him.
Venezuelans authorities on Wednesday announced that retired and active officers involved in the assassination plot are being arrested or interrogated, after disclosures of recorded talks among several conspirators. "I denounce to the world the US Empire's intention to prompt violence in our country," President Chavez said from the Miraflores Presidential Palace on Thursday night. "Here we have a people ready to defend peace. Some people have been arrested and others are trying to escape.
They will not control Venezuela." President Chavez thanked the Venezuelans who gathered at Miraflores Presidential Palace for their patriotic attitude. "I want to thank you for coming here to show your support to ourselves, to our people," he said. President Chavez asked his followers to organise a revolutionary counterattack in case of a coup.
'My insurance policy, after God, is the people," President Chavez said. "It means that you are my life and my life is yours." He said on Wednesday night he received several phone calls from commanders and officers confirming they were all alert. "That is why I suggest the Yankee lovers to not do something mad because if they carry out a coup, I am not the same Hugo Chavez of the year 2002," he warned.
President Chavez said the revolutionary counterattack must be a norm to guide the Venezuelan people and its government. "Every aggression of the imperialist and its lackeys must be answered decidedly and therefore, the strengthening of the Bolivarian Revolution must continue to clear even more the way," he said. And President Chavez expressed his support for President Evo Morales whose government was experiencing a crisis. He said reactionary forces incited the political crisis in Bolivia.
President Morales has also expelled Washington's representative in La Paz accusing him of being behind the opposition's manoeuvres. President Chavez's announcement came just hours after the Venezuelan administration presented taped recordings of conversations of an alleged attempted coup d'Žtat against his administration. President Chavez said the coup was being planned by active and retired military officers with the full support of the US administration. He warned he would cut oil sales to the United States if the Venezuela became the target of an attack by the White House.
So far the US has rejected the allegations by President Chavez and Morales although Washington has also expelled Bolivian envoy to the US in retaliation. President Chavez was briefly ousted in a 2002 coup that was initially welcomed by Washington.
Labels: CHAVEZ, GEORGE BUSH, VENEZUELA
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Venezuela Creates “Special Area” for Socialist Development in Orinoco Oil Region
August 22nd 2008, by James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com
President Chávez delineates the zone designated as a Special Use Area at a meeting with his team of ministers Thursday.
Mérida, August 22, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- The southern section of Venezuela’s Orinoco Oil Belt region will become a “Special Use Area” where the planned Socialist Development Project of the Orinoco will be
administered by an appointed federal authority, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez told his cabinet ministers on Wednesday.
“This grand belt is going to be one of the greatest projects of the 21st Century, I would say the greatest,” Chávez told his ministers.
The purpose of the project is to assure “integral development,” meaning agricultural and social investments accompany the oil exploitation in the Orinoco region, which is estimated to contain the world’s largest oil reserves, Chávez explained.
“We cannot wait for the Sow Petroleum Plan to be halfway through or more than halfway before starting the Socialist Development Plan of the Orinoco, no! It is simultaneous,” said the president during the nationally televised meeting with his ministers.
The state oil company PDVSA will be a prime mover of the project, “because this company has the resources, and I know they are going to do it,” said Chávez.
Flipping through the pages of Venezuelan laws in front of television cameras, the president, who has been painted as dictatorial by opposition-controlled media, read aloud the National Assembly-approved laws governing the Special Use Areas.
Article 37 of the Organic Law on Territorial Ordering and Planning, passed by the National Assembly in 2005, defines a Special Use Area as having “special characteristics” which require it to be under “special management to fulfill specific objectives of general interest” such as the sustainable use of natural resources, the protection and recuperation of degraded areas, and national defense.
Article 42 of the same law stipulates that Special Use Areas must be established by the president with his or her council of ministers.
The 55,000 square kilometer area to the South of the Orinoco River Basin will be pumped with an 878 million bolivar ($408.4 million) initial investment to set up 13 working camps to organize dozens of planned projects.
Chávez envisions that 160,000 hectares (64,700 acres) of land will be planted with yucca, soy, corn, sorgum, and beans, and a soy oil processing plant will be constructed nearby. Another part of the zone is apt for producing long-fiber cotton, according to the president.
Chicken farms with a capacity of 30,000 tons per month, massive cattle and pork farms, grain processing and food packaging plants to substitute imports and satisfy Venezuela’s growing demand for food amidst global shortages and price inflation.
Along with these agricultural projects, Chávez presented plans for four large oil refineries that can process the extra-heavy Venezuelan crude, one of them big enough to refine 400,000 barrels per day of oil.
To facilitate all this growth, the ministers discussed a series of infrastructure repairs and expansion, including a 660-kilometer freeway and housing projects for the local population.
The president will appoint a federal authority to administer the Special Use Area and steer these projects in line with the national development plan for the years 2008-2012.
Chávez was granted the power to appoint these authorities, which do not fall into line with traditional public offices such as mayors, governors, or elected legislatures, by the Organic Law on Public Administration when it was first passed in 2001.
Article 70 of the newest version of the law, passed by presidential decree three weeks ago, explains the power more explicitly: “The president of the Republic will designate regional authorities, who will have as a function the planning, execution, follow-up, and control of the policies, plans, and approved projects of the ordering and development of the territory in conformity with the centralized planning.”
In an interview with the government television station after the meeting with his ministers, Chávez said the Orinoco plan, like the nationalization of key sectors of the Venezuelan economy, are part of a national plan that aims to develop social forms of property.
For example, the recent nationalization of the cement industry should lead to “small factories of communal property in which the organized people accelerate the solution to the housing problem,” said the president, adding “it is the State and the power of the communities that will achieve it.”
“The state will assume the fundamental role in the economic stimulus of Venezuela,” he told the host of the political talk show Dando y Dando.
Labels: CHAVEZ, ORINOCO SOCIALIST DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
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Nationalised cement plants are operating normally, says Venezuelan min
By Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Monday August 25, 2008 [04:00]
VENEZUELAN energy and petroleum minister Rafael Ramirez has said
the nationalised cement plants are operating completely normal. And Ramirez said with the nationalizing on Tuesday of Holcim, Lafarge and Cemex plants,
the Venezuelan government controlled 90 per cent of the cementindustry. According to the press release issued following an inspection report by technical and transition commission, Ramirez said production was at normal level.
"After analysing the current situation, through the reports of technicians and transition (commission members), we can tell the country that nationalized
cement plants are operating completely normal," he
assured.
Ramirez, who is also president of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA - state owned oil company), said
Venezuela nationalised the three transnational cement plants upon expiry of negotiation period.
"The government recovered the cement plants in
exercising sovereignty right after the negotiation period ended," he said. "The private sector has full opportunities in Venezuela but their interests cannot
be above our people's interests."
Ram’rez said now that the state owned 90 per cent of
the cement industry, it would allow to revising and reducing
of commercial costs.
He also said workers' jobs would be guaranteed.
Ramirez said the Venezuelan government nationalised
the cement industry as part of a development strategy. He said the measure would help government efforts to eliminate the country's housing deficit of between 1.5 and two million housing units.
Ramirez explained that the cement and concrete
production strategy was to guarantee housing and infrastructure for Venezuelans. He said a work group commission would be created to look and solve workers' problems regarding benefits, labour liabilities and contract issues as well as to
deal with environmental matters and technological
improvements.
Ramirez said these would require an aggressiveinvestment plan. He asked workers at Cemex plant to change their white
helmets for the "revolution's red helmets". "From now on workers will use red helmets as it
happened with the oil nationalization," said Ramirez.
"You (workers) will be the symbol of national sovereignty in these facilities."Finance minister Ali Rodriguez said the Venezuelan government negotiated the purchase of 85 per cent of shares with Holcim company for US$552 million.
He said the same procedure was carried out with Lafarge
in a US$267 million deal for 89 per cent shares. Rodriguez said both firms kept control of the rest of the shares. He said in the case of Cemex the deal was not reached because the firm asked for US$1.2 billion.
Rodriguez said the US$1.2 billion that Cemex demanded
was well above the stock market price of below US$400
million.
He said given the situation, the expropriation was
decreed. Rodriguez said the Cemex plant used outdated
technology therefore it would have to be upgraded to
match the other two companies.
He said the nationalization of the cement industry was in line "with a very coherent strategy" in the field
of the metal industry, and the Bank of Venezuela?
Labels: CEMENT, CHAVEZ, NATIONALISATION, VENEZUELA
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State will take main role in Venezuela’s economic development, says Ch
By Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Sunday August 24, 2008 [04:00]
VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez has said the state would assume the main role in Venezuela’s economic development. And President Chavez announced the
Orinoco Socialist Development Project aimed at giving integral impetus to the area, home to Venezuela’s huge oil reserves.
Before Venezuelan Television programme Dando y Dando on Thursday, President Chavez said the nationalisation of key companies was part of a national policy on industrial development that seeks to offer better goods and services to the population.
“We are not going to create a capitalist state,” President Chavez said as quoted by the ABN agency report. “The state will assume the main role in Venezuela’s economic development.”
He said the recent nationalisation of the cement industry would facilitate increased cement production to meet national requirements.
President Chavez said Venezuela was done with private monopolies and now cement prices would reduce.
He said the government would now move to create people’s construction workshops so that organised people could speed up the solutions to housing problem.
President Chavez said a capitalist model could not have a solution to housing deficit. However, he said private sector participation in housing construction was important.
“It is important that this sector contributes to our plans and it should contribute. However, it has been proved that private sector cannot solve the housing problem,” President Chavez said. “The state and communities are the ones able to solve it.”
And President Chavez announced the creation of a Special Use Area at the Orinoco Oil Belt, in accordance with the article 37 of the Organic Law on Planning and Administration of Territory Ordering. He said the zone would help boost the Orinoco Socialist Project which would allow a comprehensive development in the region with the world’s largest oil reserves.
President Chavez said the project to develop the area was formed under an agro-productive development plan 2008-2012 in which more than 150,000 hectares of tapioca-plant, cotton, soy, sugar cane would be cultivated as well as the construction of a poultry, cattle, and bovine integral complex.
In addition, he mentioned the construction of four oil improving plants allowing the conversion of extra-heavy oil into light oil in the same zone where it is exploited.
President Chavez said the project envisaged the construction of a refinery with a capacity of 400,000 barrels a day and a city near the refinery.
He said the socialist project included the construction and improvement of houses, roads, goods and services and a 660 kilometres highway.
President Chavez said 878 million bolívares fuertes (about US $409 million) was approved for the project.
He said 13 camps would be installed along the territory to carry out the first stage of the project.
President Chavez said the project was labelled “the biggest development plan of the 21st Century”.
President Chavez said the project, to incorporate community participation, would run parallel with the development of the Orinoco Belt Oil Project in order to do away with the scheme of exploitation for profit that had ignored social investment.
Labels: CHAVEZ, NATIONALISATION, ORINOCO SOCIALIST DEVELOPMENT PROJECT, VENEZUELA
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Venezuela to nationalise local Mexican cement plants
BBC.
Caracas. Venezuela has said it will take over local plants and offices belonging to Mexican cement giant Cemex, as it proceeds with nationalising its cement industry. Cemex’s Swiss and French rivals Lafarge and Holcim have agreed to hand control of their local subsidiaries to Caracas.
However, a deal with Mexico’s Cemex "hasn’t been possible", said Venezuelan Vice-President Ramon Carrizalez. Venezuela has begun nationalising several industries as part of a drive toward "21st-Century socialism".
Mr Carrizalez said that Venezuela had acquired 89 percent of Lafarge’s Venezuelan operations for US$267 million and paid US$552 million for 85 percent of Holcim’s local unit.
The two firms have signed agreements setting out the process for transferring shares to the government.
Mr Carrizalez said Cemex had asked for US$1,3 billion for its Venezuelan operations.
A spokeswoman for Lafarge earlier said that the company was working to protect the interests of shareholders and staff based in the country.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has accused foreign cement firms of demanding excessive profits and selling their cement overseas. Taking them over, he said, would allow his government to make faster progress with plans to end a massive housing shortage.
"We’re going to lower the costs of cement, the costs for building housing," he said in a televised address on Monday. Banking and telecommunications industries are also set to be taken over by the state. — BBC.
Labels: CHAVEZ, NATIONALISATION, VENEZUELA
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Chavez links oil price hikes to threats on Iran
By Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Monday July 14, 2008 [04:00]
VENEZUELA President Hugo Chavez has said oil prices are rising to astronomical levels due to threats against Iran and Venezuela, including the geopolitical situation in the Middle East. President Chavez also said other multiple factors to the push up in petroleum prices was lack of investment in refineries. Meanwhile, Venezuelan foreign minister Nicolas Maduro opened the
5th PetroCaribe summit in Maracaibo, Venezuela on Saturday urging member states to look deep into the causes of global energy, food and financial crisis.
On his arrival in Maracaibo, President Chavez said PetroCaribe was arrived at following the continuously rising oil prices caused by multiple factors.
"Prices have made unbelievable leaps but a number of forces push them up," he said. "Threats against Iran and Venezuela, the situation in Iraq and the geopolitical situation in the Middle East."
According to the PDVSA (Venezuelan state-owned oil firm) website, President Chavez said another issue that affected oil prices was non-investment in refining.
President Chavez said capitalists considered investment in refining not cost-effective. "Nobody would invest in refineries," he said.
"Venezuela was one of the few countries that always made plans and started to enlarge refineries. Thank God, we timely triggered a plan for the Cienfuegos Refinery in Cuba."
President Chavez said plans were underway to enlarge Venezuelan refineries in Paraguaná in Falcón State, El Palito in Carabobo State, and Puerto La Cruz Refinery, in Anzoátegui state.
He disclosed that the construction of a complex in Barinas would start soon.
President Chavez also said the summit would discuss the food crisis.
"It is impossible in a summit nowadays anywhere in the world not to talk about the food crisis that endangers the world," said President Chavez. "The point at issue is to work on sovereignty and food reliability.
All of us have a great power to use the plow-land through the petrochemical industry and our peoples' manpower to produce all the foodstuffs, by using oil revenues and integration means."
And Cuban Vice-President Carlos Lage said the Cienfuegos Refinery was operating since December 2007 over its design capacity and was currently processing 76,000 bpd (barrels per day).
"The issue of high oil prices would not be so serious if there was solidarity in the world," Vice-President Lage said.
He said rich countries, which have the money and were wasteful in oil consumption, should refrain themselves a little bit and consume less fuel.
"Squander less," urged Vice-President Lage. "There should be solidarity with those which lack oil, other nations should be as supportive as Venezuela."
Meanwhile, Maduro said PetroCaribe was a successful supportive formula that sought to fight the energy crisis that hit the weakest countries in the region.
"At this 5th Summit, there will be an insight into the causes of the energy, food and financial troubles throughout the world," he said.
Maduro said such an insight would help renew, refurbish and strengthen the PetroCaribe's formula as an equation intended to protect the underprivileged countries from those scourges.
"PetroCaribe gives an answer to the actual plight undergone by our peoples and helps to devise formulae that go beyond the old mercantilist-capitalist vision of integration," said Maduro.
PetroCaribe is an Energy Cooperation Agreement based on solidarity support proposed by the Bolivarian Government of Venezuela intended to overcome asymmetries with regard to access to energy resources.
"This agreement aims at establishing a new favourable, equal and just exchange scheme between the countries of the Caribbean region, most of them without a State-controlled supply of these resources," says President Chavez.
The current members are Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Granada, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Surinam and Venezuela.
Petrocaribe has also made progress regarding the creation of an Energy Security Treaty which attempts to complement available primary energy sources by exploiting the potential of and developing renewable energy sources, promoting technological exchange to search new energy sources, and promoting the efficient use of energy so as to achieve maximum savings and energy efficiency.
Labels: CHAVEZ, NEOCONSERVATISM, OIL
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Chavez announces US$1bn development plan
By Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Sunday June 15, 2008 [04:00]
VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez has announced an ambitious US$1 billion production development plan starting this year. And President Chavez said he intended to establish bilateral relations with the new US leader after the November presidential elections. President Chavez further disclosed that national
oil income in 2008 would hit US$75 billion.
In a meeting with Venezuelan economic stakeholders on Wednesday dubbed “Relaunching production: Investing in Venezuela” at Hotel Alba Caracas, President Chavez said the government would inject US$500 million from a recently imposed tax on sudden profit and another US $500 million from a Chinese-Venezuelan fund that hold about US$6 billion.
He said the first amount from the National Development Fund (Foden) would be done this year while that from the Chinese Strategic Fund would be included by 2009.
“This strategic productive promotion will tackle several fields such as food,
manufacturing, industry, public works, machineries, capital goods and all those fields labelled as strategic,” President Chavez said, according to the state news agency - ABN. “Invest what is necessary, there must be no more squandering, no more waste but efficiency in investment.”
The financing is to be strictly for the development of public and private projects, joint ventures and cooperatives in order to consolidate their fixed assets, working capital, machineries and equipments.
President Chavez said the idea was that businessmen and state create new models of social investment companies especially joint ventures.
He invited private banks to participate by supporting the investors in order to establish ideal conditions. President Chavez said he favoured, among vital areas, building the generation of alternative energy such as solar and wind power.
“I want this fund to motivate the businessmen from the biggest to the small businessmen in order to create consortiums,” he said. “Join and create important companies, make strategic alliances with the state.”
Backed by high oil prices, President Chavez said Venezuela’s earning from petroleum would reach US$75 billion.
“What that means is that the oil income for the current year will be almost double Venezuela’s foreign debt,” he said. “Do your sums to see the strength of our economy. There are countries whose foreign debt represents five years of their gross domestic product.
It is not our case. Just with our oil income if we wish to, we will not of course, we would pay all our foreign debt in a year.”
However, President Chavez cautioned that Venezuela was not self-sufficient.
He said what he was trying to explain was that it was good to “remark our strength in order not to receive fairy tales”.
“Some people are mistaken and are saying that Venezuela is crashing into a crisis,” said President Chavez. “Not at all, it is now when Venezuela begins to walk, as Mao Se Tung said, with its own feet.”
On the Washington-Caracas relations, President Chavez announced he would go for smoothening of relations with the next US President.
He said he would talk with the next United States leader but on equal terms so as to chart a new direction of the bilateral ties between the two countries.
President Chavez said among the key issues, he would like to discuss the production of ethanol from agricultural products.
“This wrong policy carried out by the United States of using most of the corn maize harvest for the production of this new fuel bio-fuel instead of using that produce for food is horrible,” said
President Chavez. “ It’s a wrong decision and one of the main reasons of the food price increase in the world. It is something criminal.”
President Chavez also warned about the intentions of Europe to adopt the same policy to produce alternative energy.`
Labels: CHAVEZ, DEVELOPMENT, VENEZUELA
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Chavez condemns capitalism
By Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Monday May 19, 2008 [04:00]
CAPITALISM is a huge machine that creates misery, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said. And leaders of the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean have noted the need to implement ambitious and timely policies to tackle poverty, global warming and high food prices.
The declaration of the 5th EU-Latin America and the Caribbean (VEU-LAC) called for upholding of sovereign equality of all states, respect of territorial integrity and political independence, refraining in international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter.
President Chavez, while in Lima, Peru last Friday, said it was hard to struggle against poverty and hunger through capitalism because neo-liberalism was like a tide that everyday produced misery and poverty.
“We have a formula to struggle against poverty, that is socialism,” he said. “We do not aspire that all the people follow the socialist proposal. However, it is necessary to make a huge effort to avoid the misfortunes caused by capitalism.”
President Chavez also said there was a lot of inequality in the world.
He said it was absurd that a few 100 families in the world had capital that was higher than that of two billion people on earth.
“What they do with all that money while millions of people have not even a cent to afford a piece of bread in several places of the world nobody knows,” said President Chavez, according to the Venezuelan news agency ABN.
And leaders of the VEU-LAC reaffirmed the decision to uphold resolution of disputes by peaceful means and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law.
“We firmly reject all coercive measures of unilateral character with extra-territorial effect that are contrary to international law and the commonly accepted rules of free trade,” the leaders stated. “We agree that this type of practice poses a serious threat to multilateralism. We reaffirm our well-known positions on the application of the extra-territorial provisions of the Helms-Burton Act.” The US uses the Helms-Burton Act in its perpetuation of economic and financial sanctions against Cuba.
The summit agreed to cooperate, in the framework of international law, on matters of security inter alia, illicit drugs and weapons trafficking, organised crime and terrorism, including hostage taking.
The leaders reiterated their commitment to policies for the eradication of hunger and the fight against poverty.
According to the Lima Declaration, the leaders from 66 countries were convinced that in the medium to longer-term, a lasting answer to the current crisis required coordinated actions from the international community with a view to strengthening agricultural capacities and rural development in order to meet a growing demand.
The summit that closed on Saturday agreed that trade was an engine for growth, sustainable development and poverty reduction.
Labels: CAPITALISM, CHAVEZ
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Chavez warns protestors
By Larry Moonze in Cuba
Thursday May 31, 2007 [04:00]
THE state will not tolerate under its nose instigations to violate the law, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has warned protesters. In his first message since the Venezuelan government refused to renew the licence for Radio Caracas Television From (RCTV) on Sunday, now replaced by public broadcaster Venezuelan Televisora Social (TVES), President Chavez said authorities would not condone activities aimed at generating chaos.
"The state will not tolerate right under its nose any instigation for people to violate the law, ignore authorities and kill the president in order to generate chaos," President Chavez warned. "We are obliged to act, and we call on everyone to consider their actions and assume responsibility for them "Sound the alarm in the hills, neighbourhoods and towns to defend our revolution from this new fascist attack."
President Chavez, according to Prensa-Latina in Caracas, also accused privately run Globovision TV of promoting a campaign to manipulate the population. On Monday, Venezuela has accused CNN of lying and spreading political propaganda against it.
The Bolivarian government equally instituted investigations against a Globovision for possible charge of inciting the assassination of President Hugo Chavez. Communication and information minister William Lara, when he presented a demand to investigate Globovision at the Attorney General's Office, said CNN had gone to the extreme of violating the code of ethics of any social communicator in the world, accusing the US medium of dealing in lies. "CNN tells bare-faced lies because it assumes a political stand against Venezuela," Lara said.
Lara said likewise, Globovision implicitly called for President Chavez's assassination by airing footage of the 1981 assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II as some people protested the decision not to renew RCTV licence. Lara said several consulted specialists agreed that this was an act of incitement to assassination, and stressed, "this is what we are asking the attorney general to investigate."
And President Chavez said Globovision recently incited an assassination and continued manipulating the audience's feelings, "which is a characteristic of fascism." He warned Globovision to consider carefully how far it wanted to go with its behaviour.President Chavez urged Venezuelans to be alert to defend the revolution "from the new fascist charge."
Last week Friday, President Chavez warned the Venezuelan oligarchy if it dared to attack again that it would get the strongest response from the government, the Armed Forces and the people. In his speech at an air base to present the Simon Bolivar air group of eight Russian-made Sukhoi-30 planes, President Chavez said the concession for RCTV would not be renewed because the station was the main promoter of a fierce anti-government campaign from the opposition.
He said the economic group controlling the channel had maintained a real tyranny, to the point of attacking public peace through terrorism, coup and economic sabotage.
"I absolutely believe in the armed forces and all its members, and the people believe in them, love them and respect them too, because they have joined the people to defend the country's sovereignty, government, Revolution and democratic institutions," said President Chavez.
Opposition organised protests are ongoing in Caracas following the closure of RCTV. However, the station is free to operate via cable.
Labels: CHAVEZ, VENEZUELA
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Chavez Announces Takeover of 16 Estates for Venezuela’s Land Reform
Monday, Mar 26, 2007 Print format
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By: Venezuelanalysis.com
Caracas, March 26, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)— Sixteen landed estates will be expropriated for Venezuela’s land reform program, announced President Hugo Chavez yesterday, during his television program Alo Presidente. The total area of land that will thus become available for redistribution to peasants and agricultural cooperatives will exceed 330,000 hectares (815,000 acres) in the Venezuelan states of Apure, Anzoátegui, Barinas, Guárico, Portuguesa and Aragua.
The estates, which are all considered to be idle, are located throughout the country, explained Chavez, and will be used primarily for cattle ranching, due to the type of land involved. The effort represents a “true attack against latifundios [large idle landed estates],” said Chavez. He also added that landowners that own productive land do not need to worry, because cultivated land will not be touched by the government.
Speaking about the estate known as Hato Calleja, from which his program was being broadcast and which comprises 24,883 hectares (62,250 acres), Chavez said, “Starting today it will pass on to be what it always should have been: social property and social production for the satisfaction of the needs of the people.”
Chavez also announced the implementation of a new Integral Agricultural Development Plan for 2007 to 2008, which is supposed to contribute to Venezuela’s “food sovereignty.” Currently Venezuela imports approximately 70% of its food needs and the Chavez government has declared that it aims to increase agricultural production so that it no longer has to rely on imports to cover the country’s basic food needs.
The plan involves state support for strategic food categories, such as for rice, sugar cane, cacao, soy, coffee, cattle, fish, corn, cotton, and others.
“The objective of this plan is to promote the new production model on the base of principles of agrarian socialism and of social property,” said Chavez.
In one of the estates that was being expropriated in the state of Apure, General Wilfredo Silva told of how the army had to repel an attack from armed individuals that day. The attackers escaped and are now being tracked, said Silva. In the process the military discovered a small plane, which he suspects is used for drug smuggling. Chavez affirmed that all too often large landowners are “hiding crimes, drug trafficking and smuggling.”
According to official figures the Chavez government has so far redistributed over two million hectares to over 150,000 families in the course of the land reform program, over the past five years. Most of this land, though, has so far come from land the state owns. With yesterday’s announcement, though, the land reform is poised to shift towards the redistribution of privately held land.
Social Property
In connection with the new push for land redistribution, Chavez also announced that the constitutional reforms he is proposing will include a section for the introduction of social or collective property. "It's property that belongs to everyone and it's going to benefit everyone," said Chavez.
Last January Chavez announced five “motors” for the introduction of “21st century socialism” in Venezuela, of which constitutional reform is one of the five motors. The other four were the enabling law, which allows Chavez to pass laws by decree for a period of 18 months, education reform, the reform of political-territorial jurisdictions within Venezuela, and the “explosion of communal power.”
Labels: CHAVEZ, LAND
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Venezuela's Chavez sets fast nationalisation pace
By Reuters
Wednesday February 14, 2007 [08:09]
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is setting a faster than expected pace in his nationalisation drive toward self-styled socialism, striking three takeover deals that push out US firms in about a month. Chavez, an ally of Cuba who is vehemently opposed to what he sees as US imperialism, is boosting state involvement in Venezuela, the No. 4 supplier of oil to the United States, as he consolidates power after a landslide re-election last year.
Venezuelan authorities said on Tuesday they would buy the assets of US power company CMS for $106 million, a day after cutting a similar deal with telecom giant Verizon for $572 million. Last week the government signed an accord to buy the holdings of US-based global power generation firm AES Corp. for $750 million despite analysts' predictions of protracted takeover battles.
"The government has showed it's clearly willing to move at a particularly fast pace to deliver on promises," said Patrick Esteruelas, an analyst with the Eurasia Group. The deals came two weeks after Chavez received special powers to rule by decree and five weeks after he vowed to nationalize the telecommunications and power utilities.
The announcements on January 8, which Esteruelas dubbed "Red Monday," wiped out a fifth of the Caracas stock exchange's value.
Labels: CHAVEZ, NEOLIBERALISM, VENEZUELA
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