VENEZUELA  NEWS  BULLETIN
No. 1048
 

*** VENEZUELA: Diana versus HAARP

Por Franz J.T. Lee

*** The Possible Faces of Venezuelan Democracy.

Diversos grupos populares derribaron estatua de Colón situada en la Plaza Venezuela Por: Aporrea.org Publicado el Martes, 12/10/04 07:31pm				imprímelo mándaselo a tus panas

Que nos metan presos a todos los que apoyamos el derribamiento de la estatua de Colón Por: AIPO, ABA y Movimientos Populares Publicado el Martes, 12/10/04 09:45pm				imprímelo mándaselo a tus panas

volume 9, issue #19 - Tuesday, October 05, 2004

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World energy crisis... the Venezuelan context

12-09-04 University of Los Andes (ULA) professor Franz J. T. Lee writes: Do we really have a "World Energy Crisis"? Is there a global, historical connection between this "crisis" and the dramatic social events in Venezuela?
And why is Latin America a revolutionary time-bomb?

Already on June 12, 2000, in an article: "The Unnecessary Energy Crisis: How to Solve It Quickly", T.E. Bearden, LTC, US Army (Retired) CEO, CTEC, the Director of the Association of Distinguished American Scientists (ADAS) and a Fellow Emeritus of the Alpha Foundation's Institute for Advanced Study (AIAS), explained the energetic quintessence of the current world recession, depression and crisis.
In the last analysis, within this "crisis," the current problems of Venezuela, the war on Afghanistan and Iraq, the imperialist policies of Russia vis-a-vis the Balkan peoples, the counter-revolutionary roles of Israel in the Middle East and of South Africa on the African continent, have to be seen.

Firstly, avery careful historical politico-economic study of the revolutionary processes of the accumulation of world capital, of the various modes of production on the planet, will reveal that all the well-known, dramatic, dialectical, intra-systemic changes that have occurred, basically concern the radical transformations of energy and technological sources and resources.
This applies to all productive processes, from the stone-axe to the computer, from the use of man-power to horse-power, to Pentagon "Aliens", to United States "Flying Saucers", leaving Los Alamos, driven on by Tesla energy and technology, already discovered and partially probably used since the end of the 19th Century.

Historically, as intrinsic part of the even, uneven and combined development, slave labour clashed with agricultural manual labour, the latter survived, then, later, as a result of the "Emancipation of the Slaves" and the "Industrial Revolution", both were superseded predominantly by industrial production, by modern factory labour.
The British textile industry necessitated wool, thus sheep drove the peasants off their ancestral lands, food production diminished, vagrant laws eliminated the unemployed serfs, that is, progressively destroyed the obsolete agricultural energetic resources.

Nowadays, as a result of a "Global Revolution," 6 bn already obsolete manual industrial and agricultural labourers, as forces of production, as energetic forces, are continually being eliminated from the global market.
So-called "intellectual labour," "intellectual property," "human capital" or "global social and natural resources of mankind"... for example, Amazonia... not only usher in the current fascist stage of a mode of global destruction, but also of a still possible post-productive mode of creativity and creation, thus, also nurturing already existent, alternative, energetic sources and resources, that could give birth to trans-revolutionary possibilities and emancipatory realities.

This is the trans-historic background in which the current Bolivarian Revolution has to be placed, be seen, as part of the tip of the emancipatory, creative iceberg -- for it, for the impoverished millions of Latin America, to be anything else, surely would mean, regression, stagnation, vegetation, reform, self-annihilation.
Venezuela, as one of the main suppliers of the "long term" already obsolete energetic resources of oil and gas, is directly affected by current "new wars" by the EURO-US "world mode of destruction"; hence, let us summarize what an expert in this matter, Thomas Bearden warned about... that is, in how far the global "energy crisis" affects Venezuela and Latin America, and why the permanent, ferocious, global, globalised attacks against the Bolivarian Revolution.

Already in 2000, what did Bearden tell us with reference to the current "world energy crisis"?
"The world energy crisis is now driving the economies of the world nations. Presently there is an escalating worldwide demand for electrical power and transportation, much of which depends on fossil fuels and particularly oil or oil products. The resulting demand for oil is expected to increase year by year. Recent sharp rises in some US metropolitan areas included gasoline at more than $ 2.50 per gallon already.”
“At the same time, it appears that world availability of oil may have peaked in early 2000, if one factors in the suspected Arab inflation of reported oil reserves. From now on it appears that oil availability will steadily decline, slowly at first but then at an increasing pace."

Concerning the "some 150 nations," mainly of South America, Africa and Asia, who live outside the big metropolitan countries, he explained their immediate future:
"The transfer of manufacturing and production to many of these nations is a transfer to essentially "slave labour" nations where workers have few if any benefits, are paid extremely low wages, work long hours, and have no unions or bargaining rights. The local politicians can usually be "bought" very cheaply so thatthere are also no effective government controls. This has set up a de facto return to the feudalistic capitalism of an earlier era when enormous profits could be and were extracted from the backs of impoverished workers, and government checks and balances were nil."

Very accurately he foresaw the current collapse of the global economy:
"Bluntly, we foresee these factors -­ and others not covered -­ converging to a catastrophic collapse of the world economy in about eight years. As the collapse of the Western economies nears, one may expect catastrophic stress on the 160 developing nations as the developed nations are forced to dramatically curtail orders."
Thus, how do the desperate actions of blowing up "Twin Towers" and declaring "new wars" on Afghanistan and Iraq, including oil sabotage in Venezuela, fit into this gruesome picture?

And, who all are more desperate?
Surely, less North Korea or Iran, but in the first place, certainly, the United States Administration, Bush-Kerry, Corporate America, but also the "opposition" in Venezuela, Carter, Gaviria and Gustavo Cisneros.
"History bears out that desperate nations take desperate actions. Prior to the final economic collapse, the stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number of their conflicts, to the point where the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now possessed by some 25 nations, are almost certain to be released. As an example, suppose a starving North Korea launches nuclear weapons upon Japan and South Korea, including US forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response."

Below, he explained the capitalist, corporate, energetic reasons for the establishment of the current "Fourth Empire" and why the issues at stake are so urgent for the survival of the current "world order" for "world peace." In other words, he indicated why Iraq and Afghanistan need "regime change," why Iran and Venezuela are next on the list, and why President Chavez' "understanding of democracy" is "out-dated."
"The resulting great Armageddon will destroy civilization as we know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many decades. My personal estimate is that... beginning about 2007... on our present energy course we will have reached an 80 % probability of this 'final destruction of civilization itself' scenario occurring at any time, with the probability slowly increasing as time passes. One may argue about the timing, slide the dates a year or two, etc., but the basic premise and general time frame holds. We face not only a world economic crisis, but also a world destruction crisis."

Well, we have passed the critical year, 2003, the following await us:
"The 2003 date appears to be the critical ‘point of no return’ for the survival of civilization as we have known it. Reaching that point, say, in 2005 will not solve the crisis in time, and the collapse of the world economy as well as the destruction of civilization and the biosphere will still almost certainly occur, even with the solutions in hand.... Eerily, this very threat now looms in our not too distant future, due in large part to the increasing and unbearable stresses that escalating oil prices will elicit. So about seven years or so from now, we will enter the period of the threat of the Final Armageddon, unless we do something very, very quickly now, to totally and permanently solve the present ‘electrical energy from oil crisis.’"

Of course, Thomas Bearden is not a socialist, he wants the best for Corporate America. Thus, according to him, what is required to solve the problem? Venezuela, listen very carefully to what he said.
"To avoid the impending collapse of the world economy and/or the destruction of civilization and the biosphere, we must quickly replace much of the "electrical energy from oil" heart of the crisis at great speed, and simultaneously replace a significant part of the "transportation using oil products" factor also.... In the name of all humanity, let us begin! Else by the time this first decade of the new millennium ends, much of humanity may not remain to see the second decade."

Other solutions that he has suggested, could be read in the document referred to above, however, according to him, it is now already too late. No real measure was taken to avoid a global catastrophe. In any event it is important to see the real, true, historic context of the current Bolivarian Revolution; surely, the solution of problems is to be found neither in "away with Chavez" nor in "away with the Opposition."
Precisely this global situation has produced the Bolivarian Revolution, it is its alma mater, its emancipatory matrix. We have to solve our immediate short term problems, but even they are dictated by trans-historic long term processes and developments. We have to arm ourselves, practically, militarily, theoretically, philosophically, and creatively, that is, in toto, we have to enter the horizons of invisible, invincible, invulnerable, emancipatory spheres.

Source: VHeadline
http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/ntl44028.htm

Latest

Published: Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Bylined to: Franz J. T. Lee

Franz J. T. Lee: The big lie of Human Trafficking in Venezuela

 University of Los Andes (ULA) professor Franz J. T. Lee writes: The latest terrorist, political gimmick of the USA against Venezuela ... even threatening to block access to international loans with a de facto veto in international lending institutions ... is to accuse Venezuela of participating in "human trafficking" ... in other words, that Venezuela is promoting modern global slavery ... more precisely, is nurturing "forced human labor."

In the 2nd US Annual Trafficking in Persons Report, the US Department of State itself had explained a while ago what Venezuela is being accused of.

According to the report:
Women and children make up the overwhelming majority of victims, typically being sold into the international sex trade for prostitution, sex tourism and other commercial sexual services, and into forced labor situations in sweatshops, construction sites and agricultural settings. In other forms of servitude, children are abducted and forced to fight for government military forces or rebel armies, and to act as domestic servants and street beggars.

Well, the Chavez Frias government has absolutely nothing to do with the above ... it is too much occupied with the integration of Latin America against the Free Trade of the Americas Agreement (ALCA) and the CIA ... Chavez Frias is organizing popular "missions" to provide education, health, housing and food for the nation.

In spite of such "urgent preoccupations" of the White House, at least Secretary of State Colin Powell had the objective decency to report the following about the Euro-US Mafiosi which is very much occupied with global human trafficking:

"...that some 50,000 women and children are trafficked annually for sexual exploitation into the United States. "Here and abroad," said Powell, "the victims of trafficking toil under inhuman conditions -- in brothels, sweatshops, fields and even in private homes."

What does not bother the US administration in the least is that ... over the last decades, in Europe ... the trafficking in women and girls for the purpose of sexual exploitation was (and still is today) a huge profitable industry. In Western Europe alone, the International Organization for Migration estimates that around 500,000 women per year are being trafficked from poorer regions in the world." That is, from Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Surely, sexual and labor exploitation are against the law in the United States?  Also US Federal laws prohibit slavery, also in prisons. However, it seems, that under the US Trafficking Victims Protection Act and other similar laws in Europe, that Bush, Schroeder and Chirac have no measures available to mete out punishment or sanctions against their very own slave masters.

For sure, according to the US Amendment XIII:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Yet, in reality, according to reports, in the USA, ten of thousands of prisoners ... especially Afro-Americans ... are being enslaved by forced labor. Very few people have read serious investigations about these forms of modern slavery, for example, the report, HIDDEN SLAVES, Forced Labor in the USA.

These documents show how Slave Labor is an easy source for US Corporate and Government profits. One article touches the very core of the issue:

What has changed over the last 400 years? Not much. Only the improved cleverness of the slave masters in latching on to ingenious rationales to cloak their crimes.

In conclusion, the truth of the matter is that, apart from the universal, politico-economic fact, the USA is itself exploiting billions of physical and mental labor forces en masse ... by prostituting them, buying their very bodies and souls cheaply, northern corporate imperialism still has the arrogant audacity.  Especially after its lies about Pearl Harbor, the Twin Towers and its preventive Invasion of Iraq  ... now by means of bare-faced international info-war, to disseminate more blatant hoaxes across the globe, lies about Venezuela and its revolutionary government.

Concerning human trafficking/modern slavery ... by secretly tolerating them or even organizing them; and by forcing young men into genocidal economic world wars, the very USA and Europe are in the front line of such heinous crimes against humanity. In reality, they should be at The Hague or in Nuremberg trials to be judged for heinous crimes against the very species homo sapiens, against all life on the planet.

However, as always ... if not Chavez Frias, the "bad guys" are the Arabs.

According to a 1993 US State Department estimate, about 90,000 blacks were supposedly owned as slaves by North African Arabs who, in a thriving slave trade, were selling them for as little as US$15 per human being.

Even worse, UNICEF estimates that 200,000 children from West and Central Africa are being sold into slavery each year.

Another more serious report brings us nearer to the truth:

(Currently there are about) 27 million slaves in the world. At least ten thousand live in the United States. This is real slavery, in which people are forced to work for little or no pay and under the constant threat of violence.

Hence, Bush and Kerry, Hands off Venezuela!

Urgently attend your own trafficking of drugs and human beings at home, before your very own cocks will come home to roost!

In spite of your modern technology of malicious, massive, disinformation campaigns, Big Lies still have very short wings.

Franz J. T. Lee
franzjutta@cantv.net

Franz John Tennyson Lee, Ph. D (University of Frankfurt), Author, Professor Titular & Chairholder of Philosophy and Political Science, University of The Andes, Merida (Venezuela) -- http://www.franzjutta.com ; http://www.franz-lee.org ; http://www.geocities.com/juttafranz/publications00001.html

More VHeadline.com commentaries
by Professor Franz J.T. Lee

The Possible Faces of Venezuelan Democracy

Monday, Oct 11, 2004		Print format
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By: Jonah Gindin – Venezuelanalysis.com

In the eastside Caracas barrio of Petare, an elderly former guerrilla addresses his neighbours: “In the 1960s and 70s when we were fighting the government,” notes Renardo Tovar, “we had to create our own media of communication: clandestine newspapers, radio, barrio-newsletters.  Now that we are part of the process and supported by the process, we have lost our creativity.  We depend on existing media—Ultimas Noticias, Radio Nacional, Canal 8[1]—when the need is still great to create our own.”

Looking-in from the barrios that surround Venezuela’s capital. Credit: Jonah Gindin

An infamous epicentre of rebellion and politicization, Petare residents played a leading role in the caracazo—the popular uprising against the neoliberal policies of then President Carlos Andres Perez in February 1989.  On April 12th, 2002, hours after a coup had (temporarily) toppled Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’ government, Petare residents stormed the state television station, bringing it back on the air to inform the country of the coup, rallying Chávez’ supporters to successfully demand his return.

Renardo Tovar is participating in a ‘popular assembly’, bringing community activists and social movement militants together to debate the ‘deepening of the revolution.’  Since Chávez’ declaration that the referendum victory inaugurates a new stage in the Bolívarian project, communities across the country have begun debating what the “revolution within the revolution” actually means.

After a year and a half thaw, popular power is once again stimulating popular consciousness in Venezuela.  Since the campaign for recalling Chávez got under-way after the failed oil lock-out of 2002-03 the opposition shifted strategy from extra-legal attacks on Chávez (the 2002 coup, the lockout) to legal ones (the referendum).  But with their defeat last August, the immediate threat to the Bolivarian revolution has—temporarily—been averted.  As a result, Venezuela’s revolution has entered a new stage.  Chávez calls it ‘deepening the revolution,’ but it is more than just his initiatives for ‘deepening’ at the level of the state.  This new stage is characterized by a dialectical shift from the defensive politics that subordinated everything else to the defence of the revolution, to a return to the creative dialogue that Chávez’ proceso initially represented.

At this moment, as the splintered collection of anti-chavists represented by the Democratic Coordinator (CD)—unable to come to grips with their defeat—continues their self-immolation, dialogue and dissent have returned to debates within chavismo.  The collective imagination that has been largely stagnant since the 2002 attempted-coup is once again finding spaces for expression.  It is a moment for ‘deepening’, but it is also a moment for reflection, and for self-criticism.

Between a Friend and a Principle

With the upcoming regional elections as a further catalyst, communities are once-again demanding national forums for the articulation of community interests, and community-based struggles.  Thus, a series of popular assemblies held in communities across the country to frame their position with respect to the regional elections: local-selected candidates (primaries) or conditional support for candidates selected from above?  And thus a lively debate that is slowly emerging on the future of the Electoral Battle Units (UBEs) initially created as part of the chavista referendum campaign.

Outside Miraflores Palace, a small group of Chavistas demand primaries to chose candidates for the upcoming regional elections. Credit: Jonah Gindin

In response to increasing mobilization demanding primaries for regional candidates, Chávez’ position has been a surprise to many.  Last month, he declared “We have already announced the candidates, and these are the candidates.  Those who don’t want unity can join the escualidos (opposition).”  Yet since these candidates were all appointed by a national committee dominated by the governing party, the 5th Republic Movement (MVR), the result has been fierce opposition in many communities who are demanding that the government act in accordance with its participatory rhetoric.

While many in the interior continue to press for primaries, Caracas seems to have come to a consensus.  Recognizing the time constraints with the October 31st date of the regional elections looming, three of Caracas largest working-class districts have chosen conditions over primaries.

Yet the anger that this contradiction in the governments position has sparked remains.  As the April 13th Movement, spawned during the mobilization on April 13th 2002 that resulted in the reversal of the coup against Chávez, argues: “We either make revolution, or we face destruction by the counterrevolution…this is the ethical dilemma cited by Chávez when he makes us chose between a friend and a principal.”

Rhetoric and Practice: Local Autonomy, Community-based Power

In a series of independently organized popular assemblies held in the Caracas barrios of El Valle, Petare, and Catia the focus was on declaring publicly and collectively the changes that they expect to see after chavista victory in their states and municipalities, no matter the candidate.  To this end community members participating in the popular assemblies drew up manifestos that were subsequently sent to candidates at the municipal and state levels, and to Chávez.

In a manifesto published by various independent media outlets via internet, the Left Revolutionary Option (OIR) declared: whoever the candidates are, “the upcoming regional elections cannot be a new electoral event, nor a media-show without content or political perspectives…On the contrary, they must be a continuation of the struggle against imperialism and against the Venezuelan oligarchy.  They must be an opportunity to debate ideas, suggestions, programs, and concrete plans of action that provide answers to the most urgent needs of the workers and the people.”

Manifestos drafted by these popular assemblies include provisions for the improvement of a diverse range of community rights and services.  One focus for all three assemblies was the idea of local public planning councils.  Last spring the organic law of Local Public Planning Councils was passed, yet these potentially key institutions of participatory democracy so close to the heart of the Bolivarian project have yet to be implemented.

Subordinated to facing the direct threat to the revolution that the referendum represented, the local public planning councils have returned to the forefront of the debate in many communities.  They represent a Venezuelan version of the participatory budget experimented with in Porto Alegre, Brazil.  According to Conexion-Social (Social-Connection), a nation-wide forum for community activists and social movements, the public planning council law is plagued by difficulties.  Yet their implementation is the first step in addressing and eventually rectifying these potential problems.

As Pedro Infante, director of the National Coordination of Popular Organizations points out, the law was changed before being passed in the National Assembly.  “Deputies to the National Assembly often do not consult their base on the laws they pass.  But we as organized communities are not pressuring them sufficiently to do so.  We are organized, but we are dispersed.”

Last weekend in 23 de Jenero[2], another vibrant center of revolutionary activity, neighbours and activists held a ‘popular assembly’ with the express aim of defining their community’s autonomy.  Not content to wait for the national government to fix the existing legislation for local power structures, community-members took the initiative and explicitly stated the need for the creation of a self-sufficient local governing body inexorably rooted in, and directly accessible and accountable to, the community.

Small Steps: Internal Limits and Contradictions

Despite the continuing—and in fact increased—dynamism of Venezuela’s experiment in revolution, the process remains a gradual one, and it is one plagued by difficulties stemming from within as well as without.  Whatever the external limitations imposed upon a third world Latin American country—even an oil country—internal limitations represent as much of a potential barrier to the development of the Bolivarian project.

Venezuela’s opposition succeeded in temporarily subverting the democratic project of the Bolivarian revolution by forcing the last one and a half years to be dominated by exercises in representative democracy.  But the strength of the Bolivarian project has been its articulation of an alternative model of democracy.  This has been one of the few areas in which Venezuela has been able to advance on its own.  Lacking a regional movement dedicated to opposing neoliberalism it is difficult for Venezuela to do so alone, without isolating itself in an artificial, and likely short-lived socialist bubble.[3]

Depending as it does on oil wealth, Venezuela has the advantage of a certain autonomy from global capital in the sense that it does not depend as heavily on foreign lending institutions and can finance its development projects independently.  Yet this autonomy is also the firmest guarantee of Venezuela’s continuing integration into the global economy.  Oil wealth is of no use to the Bolivarian revolution if it cannot be sold on the world market. As a recent article in the Economist commented: “Chávez…has a grandiose scheme, called Petroamérica, for a Latin American energy conglomerate based on an alliance of state oil companies. Argentina's president, Néstor Kirchner, has shown interest. Brazil is less keen. But, for now, the Bolivarian revolution rests firmly on the shoulders of the foreign oil giants.”  Even south-south trade relations pursued by Chávez have not effected significantly Venezuela’s dependence on the US market.

Compounding these difficulties, and intricately related to them, is the hesitancy of the V Republic to shed the vestiges of the IV Republic once and for all.[4]  After 6 years of ‘revolution’ and a new constitution, the Venezuelan state has too much in common with the very un-revolutionary Venezuelan state that kept the country mired in the corrupt selective distribution of oil wealth from 1958-1998.

Politically the transition from representative to participatory democracy has proceeded at a painfully slow rate.  Economically, the government has often proven reluctant to act in accordance with its own revolutionary rhetoric.  The few currently-existing examples of co-management in Venezuelan factories have so far failed to concretely improve the lot of the workers in question, and examples of self-management do not yet exist.  Culturally the revolution has seen some impressive advances, though largely limited to education.

Yet even the promise of the educational misiones, providing free and accessible education from basic literacy to university, raises questions of sustainability.  Opposition critiques that Chávez is able to maintain the misiones solely due to record-breaking oil prices is probably exaggerated, but it represents a very real concern.  Former Minister of Higher Education Hector Navarro has called for the ‘municipalization’ of higher education as a means of institutionalizing the universal right to higher education.  Yet this would require a concurrent ‘municipalization’ of state resources and power structures, something that has yet to happen to a significant degree.

What has kept the revolutionary process going despite these barriers is the genuine cooperation between Chávez’ leadership and the Venezuelan people, represented by political mobilization.  “Compared to Venezuela’s past,” notes Infante, “the Bolivarian project’s politicization of the people is clear.  Whereas previously, social exclusion was a government policy, now social inclusion is a constitutional right.”

Practice and Ideology

Facing history: Chávez draws a lesson from the French Revolution. The paintaing “Raft of the Medusa,” by Theodore Géricault represented a critique of post-revolution French government, and bureaucratic mismanagement. Credit: Jonah Gindin

In a recent press release Chávez referred to the philosophical responsibilities of the current juncture.  “As Victor Hugo pointed out in Les Miserables,” he noted “we had abolished the ancién regime in effect, but we had not been able to abolish it in our ideas.”  We must “transform the ancién regime not only in actions, but in ideas,” continued Chávez.  “If we don’t, it will come back to haunt us, against our children tomorrow and will once again install the old ideas of egotism, individualism, the exploitation of some by others, the degeneration of man, as Víctor Hugo said, the degredation of women and the atrophy of children for want of knowledge.”

As the only community-based organizations that bring together chavista activists from all sectors of Bolivarian society, the UBEs have a unique potential to evolve into a national forum capable of providing a voice for community interests that act not only as a consultative body, but as an active partner in government.  Currently Chávez has no adequate mechanism for consulting the nation on state decisions.  The National Assembly is seen as inefficient and ineffective by many Venezuelans.  Regular referendums on specific issues would be too impractical, and would run the risk of desensitizing the population to electoral politics.  If a national forum existed with representatives from community UBEs, who were elected, and who were completely accountable to their base (perhaps through a system of constant reporting and dialogue, buttressed by short rotating terms) it would provide a body with which Chávez could be forced to consult regularly, and effectively.

Yet so far the UBEs have been a tool of the governing party, the MVR.  They do not have any democratic structure, created as they were specifically to facilitate the ‘No’ (against the recall) campaign leading up to the referendum.  The future of the UBEs will likely be decided by the communities across the country in which the UBEs are mobilizing and from which they draw their membership.  And these communities have made their distaste for appointments from above abundantly clear.

As Chilean writer and activist Marta Harnecker notes in a preliminary version of a paper on the need for a wide political font, it “should not be a political organization decreed from above without taking into consideration the base.  In many cases, the leaders of the Bolivarian forces are not the real leaders of their respective sectors, distancing the base and forcing them to find other forms of organization.”[5]

If the UBEs are to remain relevant, and especially if they are to be converted into Social Battle Units (UBSs), forming the base for a nation-wide participatory forum, it will be due to grassroots initiatives.  As Harnecker notes, “It should be an organization in which exist mechanisms of control of its leaders by the base.”  And the primary focus of this base after the regional elections will be concrete advances in participatory structures such as the local planning councils.  Whether the government facilitates this project or tries to block it will be a crucial test of their willingness to put rhetoric into practice and to dilute their own power in the interests of further empowering the Venezuelan people.

Back in Petare, William Yaguaran, an army reservist who teaches history in Caracas’ poor barrios, refers to the importance of “peoples’ participation in constructing their own histories.”  If the history of the Bolivarian revolution is to be written by the Venezuelan people, it must continue to be what ex-minister of Higher Education Hector Navarro describes as “a process of learning to do, and learning by doing—a process of building learning, by doing learning.”

---

[1] Ultimas Noticias is Venezuela’s largest circulating daily newspaper, and perhaps the only one that manages to maintain some semblance of political balance in its coverage; Radio Nacional is the official government radio station; Channel 8 (Venezolana de Television—VTV) is the state television channel.

[2] The neighbourhood is named after January 23rd, 1958—the date that Venezuelan dictator Peréz Jiménez was overthrown.  Built during Jiménez’ dictatorship, its original name was Urbanizacion 2 de Deciembre.

[3] The importance of Venezuela as a source of oil for the US market is what would ensure such a socialist-bubbles short life.

[4] The Fourth Republic refers to the period between 1961 and 1999, before Chavez became president. The Fifth Republic, refers to the period after 1999, when the new constitution was approved.

[5] “Ideas para Frente Nacional,” August 26, 2004.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1291

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Organizaciones Bolivarianas en Chile
La Patria es América, el pueblo es uno solo, y también el enemigo

Rangel pide a EEUU explicar campos de entrenamiento anti-Chávez

Véase también:

Venezuela fortalece relaciones políticas con el Gobierno de Rusia

La integración militar de América Latina Por: Heinz Dieterich Publicado el Viernes, 08/10/04 04:46pm				imprímelo

Friday, Oct 08, 2004		Print format
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By: Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Original source / relevant link:
Council on Hemispheric Affairs

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1290

Andrew McKillop: Energy transition and final energy crisis

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=23067

VHeadline.com oil industry commentarist Andrew McKillop writes: World commercial energy demand, overall, is well over 90% based on non-renewable and environmentally damaging fossil fuels (only 8% is hydropower based, while capital intensive nuclear power depends entirely on non-renewable uranium, thorium and other minerals).

The current ‘oil price crisis’ in reality reflects an emerging and permanent supply crisis for oil and gas (which currently provide about 65% of world commercial energy).

Initially, this will concern ever slower net additions of world production capacity in the face of strong demand growth, and will manifest itself as continued oil price rises, and continued gas price rises.

For oil, the myth of OPEC always being the ‘supplier of last resort’ has in 2004 already been discredited if not finally destroyed. Soon after the present and short-term ‘price crisis’ ... which can only intensify in the 2005-2008 period ... and within at most 10 years, both oil supply and natural gas supply will enter into constant and terminal decline, due to physical depletion.

This is to some, small extent admitted in a grudging way by so-called ‘leaderships’ of the business and political, financial and economic ‘communities.’ Opinion formers and policy makers in late 2004 now admit that ‘oil prices will remain high’ because of fast demand growth and slow growth of supply, but add brave claims that oil prices ‘will fall to normal levels,’ perhaps by the end of 2005, without explaining which normal levels and why!

In fact only two factors can bring down oil and gas prices (which in any case are interdependent and related through same-market trading): increasing supply or falling demand.

For the first, increasing supply, the outlook is bleak. Worldwide oil depletion is now running at about 1.25-1.5 million barrels/day (Mbd) of capacity lost each year, and net additions to world oil production capacity are small, slow, high cost, and irregular.

On the demand side, because of strong industrial growth in China, India, and also in East Europe, West Asia and Latin America, oil and gas demand is growing at its fastest percentage rate since 1975-80.

In many non-OECD countries experiencing fast industrial and economic growth, typical annual growth rates of demand are 5%-9% for oil, and 8%-12% for gas.

World demand growth is admitted by the IEA to be running at 3%/year or more and will stay strong unless world economic recession is triggered through OECD countries racking interest rates to double-digit highs, or by runaway oil price rises to well over US$100/barrel (US$/bbl), equivalent to gas prices at US$16/million BTU, causing an inflation outburst, first and mostly in the OECD countries.

This ‘price crisis’ could occur at almost any time, especially due to further and more intense destabilization and conflict in the Middle East, or through stoppages, accidents, or weather-related damage to very large oil and gas production, refining or transport systems anyplace in the world. We can note that current oil prices, at around US$50/bbl, are in real terms equivalent to only about 60% of the peak price they briefly achieved in 1979-80, over 24 years ago.

Oil crisis then and now: The ‘oil crisis’ of 1979-80 was due to the Iranian revolution cutting supply to world oil markets. The physical supply shortage or undersupply was equal to about 5%-7% of daily needs, for a period of over 4 months.

In today’s terms, with world oil import demand running at around 46 Mbd and growing very fast (at over 3 Mbd per year), an equivalent supply cut would be about 2.5-2.75 Mbd.

This assumes that ‘normal’ levels of spare supply capacity exist, but in fact today’s margin of spare capacity has been deeply cut with the loss, or effective sabotage of Iraq’s oil export capacities (around 2.4 Mbd prewar) through military invasion and destabilization by the US and UK, in what UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan describes as an illegal war.

When this illegal war was decided in 2003, Iraq’s export capacities of around 2.4 Mbd were likely equivalent to 60% or 65% of world ‘spare’ capacity. Today, 18 months later, this spare capacity margin has dramatically shrunk to probably less than 1 Mbd, because of demand growth and effective loss of Iraqi oil export capacities, ongoing depletion losses, and slow growth of new oil production capacity at the world level. Relative to current oil demand, this 0.75-1 Mbd margin is equivalent only to about 4 months of world demand growth, or 3 months of world import demand growth.

• Any supply cut-off, of not much above 1 Mbd and for any reason will in these conditions rapidly lever up oil prices -- and by ‘contagion’ effect gas prices -- in a very short period of time.

Iran attained its ultimate peak oil production more than 20 years ago. Since 1975 its population has nearly tripled, and today it has one of the fastest growing car fleets in Asia (after China), leading Iran to become a large and growing importer of refined products, and a declining exporter of crude.

When or if Iran’s so-called ‘illegal’ nuclear installations are of course ‘surgically’ bombed by Israel or by US forces stationed in Iraq, another Iranian oil crisis, this time by Iranian embargo, would very surely and rapidly drive oil prices well beyond US$100/bbl.

This would again be through political decision, but the emerging and short-term prospect is of near-simultaneous peaks for world oil and then world gas production being attained in the 2008-2018 period. This will bring structural physical shortage and permanent undersupply. We are in fact entering a terminal energy crisis for ‘cheap and abundant’ oil and gas supplies, and recognition of this requires urgent attention and immediate action for energy transition.

In this new and emerging context, there is ever less need or reason for political action, embargo, or war damage -- that is ‘geopolitical risk’ -- to be considered the sole cause of oil and gas prices attaining ‘extreme’ levels. This is due to the ‘pincer action’ of increasing depletion losses and slower annual additions of new capacity in a context of fast energy demand growth. This first limit concerns oil, but within a period no more than 10 years after ‘peak oil’ is attained, the same will occur for world gas production capacities. In addition, and because of ‘peak oil,’ world gas demand will increase very fast through massive demand shift from oil to gas.

Faced with structural under-supply until and unless economic restructuring and energy transition are implemented on a worldwide basis, the final energy crisis will surely test leaderships of the big consumer and importer nations and groups of nations, now including nuclear armed China, India and Pakistan as well as the EU and USA.

Action and goals for energy transition: The Kyoto Treaty and ‘Kyoto process’ for implementing fossil energy saving, reduction of CO² and other climate-changing gas emissions, and development of renewable energy-based, sustainable infrastructures -- that is “clean development” -- will in theory and by about 2012 bring falls in oil and gas demand of some ratifying countries.

Other ratifying countries, such as Germany and Denmark, which have developed large wind electric capacity and are slow growth/high unemployment economies, will not need to target large falls in their fossil energy burn or purchase of tradable licenses to pollute. These licenses or permits essentially transfer nominal responsibility for oil, gas or coal burning from richer, oil- and gas-intensive economies to low income, presently energy-lean or energy-extensive economies.

This effectively ‘exports oil and gas demand,’ entraining faster conventional or ‘classic’ economic growth in the recipient country.

Overall and in fact, Kyoto Treaty implementation starting in about 2008 will result in only marginal, or no total and overall reduction of world fossil energy consumption by 2020-2030.

In the near-term, certainly to 2010-2015, world total fossil energy demand will likely increase even faster than today, because of accelerated ‘conventional’ economic development by the newly emerging industrial superpowers, China and India, and several other large population, fast growing economies such as Brazil, Pakistan and Turkey.

This creates nearly sure ‘trends continued’ outlooks of world demand for oil and gas continuing to expand, perhaps as fast as today, until physical rationing and allocation of fossil fuel supplies becomes the last option and only solution, because of physical depletion.

Oil and gas price rises are totally sure, and the ceiling prices needed before the present market trading system is abandoned is hard to estimate.

Extreme prices for oil and gas will in fact first impact the world’s most oil-intensive and gas-intensive economies -- that is the OECD group of countries. This will surely start causing severe economic difficulty within the very short-term near future, in the 2004-2006 period. This makes it of strict national interest for OECD countries to set plans for physical rationing and supply allocation, and start implementing programmed cuts in oil and gas consumption, and development of renewable energy output capacities over and above any Kyoto process requirements, which in any case will not start being applied much before 2008.

By 2015, it will be urgent to consider ways and means to reduce world total oil and gas demand on a year-by-year basis. Given the vast scope of such a program, and the need for the OECD countries to act in the immediate short-term of 2004-2008, the action and goals of a world energy transition program should be proposed, discussed, decided and start being applied from 2004-2005. Currently there is almost no movement towards to setting frameworks and agendas for this very urgent task.

Geopolitical risk: In the mid-term and long-term there is recognized need to cut oil and gas burning to limit climate change. More importantly in the short-term there is an increasingly urgent need to limit and head off oil and gas price explosions able to trigger ‘great power rivalry’, that is armed conflict for remaining reserves of oil and natural gas between the world’s economic superpowers, motivated by ‘national economic survival.’

World regions most exposed to this risk are evidently the Middle East and Central Asia, and to a lesser extent Africa. We can note that threats of using military invasion, or actual invasion -- of Iraq in 2003 -- did not in any way ‘facilitate and improve’ oil supplies to the large consumer countries and groups of countries.

In fact the exact opposite: the US-UK invasion of Iraq has effectively sabotaged or neutralized Iraq’s oil export capacity for many years.

Any international plan and program for energy transition, perhaps modeled on or incorporating the Kyoto Treaty, must ensure that oil producers are not exposed to military invasion, nor catastrophic falls in the oil price and their export revenues, when or if they choose to husband or conserve their non-renewable resources, and cap their oil or gas production before reducing it, instead of waiting for resource depletion and exhaustion to do the same job. No “obligation to supply” a depleting, non-renewable resource exists.

The risk of great power rivalry for remaining oil and gas reserves is high. Even the most unconditional believers in “unlimited oil and gas reserves” accept that covering depletion loss, and adding net production capacity takes time and is increasingly costly to develop.

The risk, or threat of large nations or groups of nations ‘jumping the queue’ and taking oil and gas production capacity wherever it already exists -- leading inevitably to armed resistance, as in Iraq -- is real.

Certainly since 1973, political deciders in the US have considered that any embargo or ‘unreasonable’ reduction in supplies of oil, by exporters, is hostile to US vital interests -- opening the way to retortion or revenge by military invasion, to restore the ‘free flow of reasonable priced oil’ ... as it was called by George Bush-1 at the time of the ‘liberation’ of Kuwait in 1991. Any other large oil-importer nation, or group of oil-importer nations with nuclear weapons capability can adopt the same ‘oil supply security’ doctrine.

Participation in faster development and construction of non-oil, non-gas renewable energy alternatives to fossil fuels, and especially substitutes for oil, will therefore reduce invasion risks for oil and gas exporter countries. The same effort will also reduce ‘threats to economic security’ of the large oil importer nations and groups of nations.

As noted above, current and future oil and gas ‘supply gaps’, causing undersupply to markets, will become structural. This will raise the risks from failed attempts at obtaining oil reserves or production capacity through military invasion, as in Iraq.

Logically, this should lead to renouncement of the ‘military option’ for obtaining oil and gas production capacities.

The non-option of military invasion as a ‘respose’ to declining supply and rising prices should urgently be replaced by international cooperation and action for energy transition, featuring concerted near-term multilateral action to first limit growth, then reduce world total oil and gas utilization, while rapidly developing larger-scale renewable energy systems.

The double-edged sword of oil and energy prices: On the one hand higher oil prices increase world oil demand until very high prices are attained, as is very simply verified by checking world oil demand growth, and growth of oil prices through 1999-2004. On the other hand, much higher oil and energy prices are obligatory for rationalizing and justifying replacement and substitute energy sources, systems and strategies in the energy economy.

Neither of these two propositions are accepted.

The so-called financial community, notably the presidents of the US, European and Japanese central banks, and the IMF’s Chief economist have in 2004 repeatedly claimed, without presenting any coherent evidence, that high or ‘extreme’ oil prices can only depress economic growth.

If this happened, it would lead to a fall in world oil demand growth, or even to zero growth of world oil demand, with actual contraction of demand being possible if the ‘hard landing’ continued. In fact the real world, real economy does not operate this way. Increasing oil prices tend to reinforce and increase economic growth at the world level, leading to further oil and energy demand growth.

• Through the period 1999-2004, as oil prices have increased, world oil demand growth rates have consistently increased -- not decreased.

To accommodate this distressing ‘reality gap’ between official mythology, and measurable economic reality, so-called ‘experts’ now add that ‘extreme priced oil’ will not hurt economic growth until about 12 months have elapsed, enabling the ‘real but delayed action’ negative impacts of high priced oil to work through the economy. This fantasy economics is unlikely to translate to reality unless interest rates in OECD countries are hiked to double-digit rates.

Higher priced oil will almost certainly continue to drive world economic growth until oil prices attain at least US$75/bbl.

In addition, the first slowing impacts on economic growth of much higher oil and energy prices will occur not in low income oil-importing countries, as repeatedly claimed by official economic mythology, but in the most oil-intensive economies and societies of the OECD group of countries. Oil saving is therefore of basic interest, concern and utility to the most oil-intensive, oil-wasteful economies and societies.

Development of renewable energy systems has in general been slowed first by derisorily low and volatile prices for competing fossil energy sources through 1986-99, ‘hidden’ infrastructure subsidies for fossil-based energy and nuclear power, and by high capital costs and long lead times for proving, then developing large scale renewable energy systems. In addition, renewable energy is often low-intensity and needs wide area conversion, making necessary the integration of energy-only production and output with other forms of local or regional economic development (e.g. agriculture, sylviculture, mariculture, horticulture etc). For all of these reasons, high and stable fossil energy prices are needed to make renewable energy systems competitive and feasible using conventional cost-benefit analysis.

For the oil and gas exporter countries ... whether OPEC members or not ... there is also at least mid-term, and surely long-term national interest in developing and proving substitutes and alternatives to fossil fuels.

One major reason (apart from reducing invasion risk) for their active participation in oil- and gas-saving and fossil energy replacement by renewables is to conserve their non-renewable economic resources and limit environment damage, and economic resource misallocation caused by maximizing extraction.

Oil saving and personal oil consumption: Annual personal or per capita oil demand (PCOD) rates are entirely dependent on economic development, urbanization and personal consumption. Rates vary in the OECD developed, high consumption, oil-intensive economies, where car ownership rates range from about 40-75 cars/100 population.

The ultimate peak for the OECD group is about 25 barrels/capita/year (bcy) in the USA and Canada, and is around 10-12 bcy in the EU nations, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore.

Conversely, the low income but fast growing, high population, industrializing countries including China, India, Pakistan and Brazil, with under 5 cars/100 population, currently use only about 1.25 - 2.5 bcy.

Due to extreme consumption in the OECD nations, world average PCOD (about 4.7 bcy and increasing, albeit slowly) is well above per capita oil demand in the new and emerging industrial superpowers, and over 8 times the average PCOD of rural populations in the low income countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Total commercial energy demand is in general 2-3 times the above rates for oil-only demand and consumption, depending on development and utilization of pipeline gas and LPG, the use of domestic and imported coal, and the size and output of installed non-oil electric power capacities.

In many low income countries, so-called ‘non commercial’ energy, that is biomass source energy specially in rural areas, contributes up to 30% or more of total national energy consumption. Urban migration and urban industrial development, driven by and causing further rural-urban migration, inevitably shifts energy demand from ‘non-commercial’ to commercial energy.

The net result is to increase national average PCOD, making it necessary to prioritize sustainable rural development not only to assure food supply and conservation of bio-resources, but also to limit national oil and gas demand growth.

Current and conventional urban-industrial economic infrastructures are close to 100% dependent on oil and gas energy, thermal electricity, and hydrocarbon based raw materials, as well as derived products (for example gas and oil-based fertilizers and insecticides for food production, materials utilized for building, and energy needs of operating ‘conventional’ habitat and transport systems).

Economic growth, worldwide, is at present entirely dependent on increased oil, gas and electric power consumption. This results in potential world oil and gas demand being effectively close to ‘unlimited.’  If for example the world was able, by miracle, to attain the extreme heights of US oil consumption (about 25 bcy) world oil demand would run at around 445 Mbd.  This production capacity -- very simply -- will never be attained on this planet. No energy agency, data source or ‘expert’, however optimistic or illuminated, will provide claims that world oil production capacity can ever exceed about 120-150 Mbd before ‘peak oil’ is attained.

Despite this reality, US politicians claim that US-style ‘prosperity and wellbeing’ are global objectives and can be attained for example in militarily invaded and occupied Iraq: if this occurred, Iraq’s current 25 million population would require about 1.75 Mbd, or well above Iraq’s present total, war damaged oil production capacity !

Energy transition imperatives: The first imperative can be understood from the above: with the world’s current population of around 6.4 billion, and maximum likely oil production capacity of around 90 Mbd, world average PCOD will probably never attain more than a short-term peak of around 5.25 bcy.

• After this peak, average PCOD will decline at about 3%/year, as oil and gas depletion sets in after 2008 while world population continues to grow, albeit at ever shrinking rates.

The decline rate of 3%/year for average PCOD can be split as around 1.5%/year for the fall in net oil production, and about 1.5%/year due to remaining population growth. From about 2010-2015, depletion will accelerate the annual decline of world oil production to 3.5% or more, and world gas output will at that time peak out, before starting to decline.

Current rates of oil and gas demand on a per capita basis in the OECD group, especially the US and Canada, are therefore impossible to sustain and must be reduced by large amounts in a short period of time.

Conversely, the low and medium income nations and economies can target some small increase in their national average PCOD, during transition. In all cases the role of oil and gas prices will be significant in entraining and directing economy restructuring for energy transition.

It is necessary and urgent to consider ways and means to reduce world oil demand growth to zero, and then reduce world oil demand, at latest from the date world oil production peaks, and preferably well before. This requires the OECD countries to set targets for oil demand reduction able to accommodate short-term increases in the PCOD of the emerging industrial powers, still in demographic transition and rapidly developing their economic infrastructures.

Overall, this results in targets for OECD national oil demand cuts, and within a short period gas demand cuts, at rates up to 10%/year, depending on national demographic trends.

For evident geological and environmental reasons, the fossil fuels will phase out, and must be replaced by reduced overall energy needs, and by increased supply of renewable energy. The second imperative, therefore, is for large-scale multilateral program for rapid, cost-effective development of sustainable economic infrastructures based on renewable energy sources.

Conclusions: The strengthening likelihood is that oil prices will easily exceed US$75/barrel in the absence of any war, sabotage or hostile action, solely because of ‘structural undersupply’ and almost certainly by 2008. This itself will powerfully draw attention to study and action for firstly slowing the growth of oil and gas demand, then reducing demand for these fossil fuels.

Only at genuinely ‘extreme’ oil prices, well above US$100-per-barrel, will there be a rapid and uncontrolled fall in fossil energy demand, firstly in the OECD countries, triggered by economic crisis.

This will come too late to offer any chances of organized and efficient economic and energy restructuring, especially in the OECD economies and societies, which are the most oil-dependent due to their high or extreme average per capita rates of oil demand.

Laisser-faire scenarios will necessarily include a new ‘Great Depression’ to a backdrop of already serious tension and low-level but increasing international conflict and warfare focused on the Middle East (‘war against terror’ and ‘war for oil’).

De-globalization, or increased self-reliance will necessarily feature in longer-term restructuring of the world’s energy and economic systems.

The sooner that internationally agreed targets, frameworks and structures for managing energy transition can be set, the greater is the chance of avoiding endgame energy resource conflicts, and achieving long-term sustainability.

The likely, near-term oil shocks due in final analysis to emerging supply deficits will be ‘salutary crises’ if they bring coherent action to head off irremediable crisis.

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Andrew McKillop  is a former expert-policy and programming, Division A-Policy, DG XVII-Energy, European Commission, founder member, Asian Chapter, Intl Assocn of Energy Economists. Currently in France he is available for consultation and research assignments.  You may contact Mr. McKillop by email at xtran04@yahoo.com

More VHeadline.com commentaries by Andrew McKillop

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BREAKING NEWS:

International Forecaster: Oil has to go 30% higher ... US$60-72.00 a barrel

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=23070

THE INTERNATIONAL FORECASTER editor Bob Chapman writes: World oil demand since 1988 is up 25% from 64.95 million b/d to 82.15 million b/d ... Europe is up 16% ... the US 18% ... Japan 25% and China 175%.

On an absolute basis, American consumption is up 3.08 million b/d and China's is up 3.98 million b/d.

China consumes more oil than Japan, 7.6% of the world total versus 7.4% for Japan ... Russia is a badly needed source of oil and gas supply for China and Putin's move is very relevant.

Oil could well put Russia in the position Saudi Arabia is today in the future ... the cash flow will be enormous which will force Russia to invest worldwide. Elitist interests in the West want part of that action, particularly in the Caspian Basin, that is part of what our two invasions were all about.

If we continue to push the issue, we could end up in a nuclear war and we can assure your Russia has the brains and guts to push the button. We are already an invasion too far.

Within OPEC, only Saudi and Venezuela can increase production and the Saudi production is heavy, high-sulfur crude that is very undesirable. The referring capacity isn't available to handle that sludge. In addition, that heavy oil has to be produced by massive water injection. Water is scarce in the desert.

• In addition, the cost per barrel is US$32.00 .. we cannot expect any oil increases from Iraq with the pipelines being blown up weekly.

Venezuela has the oil, but needs massive outside investment. We do not know if the elitists will give them the money in as much as they periodically, like clockwork, attempt to dislodge him or murder President Hugo Chavez Frias.

Alberta tar sands have a cost basis of US$30.00 a barrel and more oil than Saudi Arabia ... it will take lots of money and natural gas, but the oil is there in very large amounts.

If the US pushes Russia on the Caspian, there will be nuclear war.

Nigeria is a zoo as religious wars enter their 40th year ... oil is moving higher and it will stay at higher prices until a depression begins and finally it will fall like everything else.

Then, we have ongoing terrorism that will not go away in a hurry and that brings more speculation that drives prices higher.

How can anyone in their right mind expect oil prices to go lower when the dollar is going 30% lower?

Oil has to go 30% higher ... that is about US$60.00 to US$72.00 a barrel.  Oil is leading the discounting of the US$ as gold and silver will ... or are in the process of doing.

China desperately needs Russian oil and minerals .. China has lots of US$. Russia does not want depreciating US$ ... it is in Russia's best interest to want Euros and gold ... China sells US$ to buy what it needs from Russia.

Are you getting the picture?

Aluminum prices hit a fresh nine-year high of US$1,857 a tonne on the LME, exceeding the previous long-term high of US$1,845 set in April. Lead prices hit a peak of US$942 a tonne, its highest since 1993. Copper jumped through US$3,000 a tonne close to a new high while nickel is up 25% in the past two weeks ... oil's next resistance level is US$53.30 a barrel.

THE INTERNATIONAL FORECASTER
P. O. Box 510518, Punta Gorda, FL 33951, USA
Bob Chapman international_forecaster@yahoo.com

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En el Panteón Nacional presidente Chávez conmemora el Día de la Resistencia Indígena Por: Prensa Presidencial Publicado el Martes, 12/10/04 01:46pm				imprímelo mándaselo a tus panas

Caracas, 12 Octubre. 04 (Prensa Presidencial) El Presidente de la República, Hugo Chávez Frías, asistió la mañana de este martes al Panteón Nacional con motivo de la celebración del Tercer Aniversario del Día de la Resistencia Indígena.

En el acto estuvieron presentes los representantes de los cinco Poderes Públicos del Estado, los ministros que integran el Gabinete Ejecutivo y el Alto Mando Militar así como representantes de las comunidades indígenas de los estados Zulia (añú, barí, wayúu y yukpa); Amazonas (baniva, baré, panare, guajibo, jodi, pemón, piapoko, piaroa, warekema, yekuana); Bolívar (akawayo, arawak, kariña, pemón, yanomami, shirian); Delta Amacuro (warao); Anzoátegui (kariña) y Apure (guajibo, pumé).

Como parte de la ceremonia, el Jefe del Estado y el resto de los Poderes colocaron una ofrenda floral ante el sarcófago del Libertador Simón Bolívar.

Posteriormente, el Mandatario Nacional hizo lo propio ante el monumento simbólico del Cacique Guaicaipuro, en compañía de los integrantes de la Comisión Indígena de la Asamblea Nacional, encabezada por la diputada Nohelí Pocaterra y representantes de las 36 etnias extendidas a lo largo y ancho del territorio nacional.

Seguidamente se procedió a dar lectura al Libro de Actas que fue firmado por el Jefe del Estado, los presidentes de los poderes públicos nacionales y los representantes indígenas.

Según lo dispuesto en el decreto 2.028 con fecha del 11 de octubre de 2002, todos los 12 de octubre se conmemorará el Día de la Resistencia Indígena en reconocimiento "a la autoafirmación americanista por la unidad y diversidad cultural y humana, reivindicando tanto a los pueblos indígenas de América como los aportes de estos pueblos a las culturas africanas, asiáticas y europeas en la conformación de nuestra nacionalidad, en el espíritu del diálogo de civilizaciones, la paz y la justicia". (R.R)

 
http://www.aporrea.org/dameverbo.php?docid=51465

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