Venezuela Announces New Mission: Mothers of the Barrio

Caracas, Venezuela, March 24, 2006—In a country where abortion is illegal, and poverty and teen pregnancy rates are high, the government’s announcement of the beginning of a new social program, Misión Madres del Barrio (Mission Mothers of the Shanty towns) is welcome news.

“This is a very important mission…and the faster they start it, the better,” said Delvalle Rodriguez, a homemaker and mother of seven, who lives in La Bandera, a barrio in the south of Caracas.

The mission will have three focuses: lowering drug use among young people, fighting unintended pregnancies in girls, and offering aid to mothers who live in extreme poverty.

All were critical issues to the neighborhood, according to Rodriguez and her granddaughter’s caretaker Ludíz Leiva, herself a homemaker and mother of two. “There are lots of girls who get pregnant…many many girls…and drugs, well, that is sold everywhere. You see it everywhere. Where you go, where you walk, where you pass through, they sell it. They’re lost,” said Rodriguez and Leiva, finishing each others sentences.

The other element of the mission directed specifically at mothers. “With this mission, we want to give a hand to mothers who are in need, and homemakers without a fixed income,” said Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, when he announced the program yesterday in a barrio in the state of Vargas.

According to Chávez, the government will pay 80 percent of minimum wage, or about $180 per month to mothers who live in extreme poverty.

Chávez originally made the announcement that 200,000 low-income homemakers would receive a salary by this summer last month, saying that their economic contributions to the country should be recognized. “These women [do] so much work ironing, washing, making food, cleaning and raising their kids,” he said.

“It’s a good idea because sometimes homemakers don’t have a husband and others have them, but [the husbands] don’t have work. It’s sad. Living around here is sad. I have a husband, but my husband doesn’t have a job…So this seems good to me,” said Rodriguez, who was holding her two year old granddaughter on her lap.

But the announcement of the program was met with skepticism as well. “Sometimes these things start out well, and then end badly. And that’s worse [than if there had been no program at all],” Leiva said.

Since several million women in Venezuela live in poverty, only a relatively small percentage of the country’s low-income homemakers will receive a salary, a prospect which left the women concerned about whether or not they’d be able to access the program.

“[This] needs to be a program for the people who need it the most, because this [could be like] when they were giving out food here,” said Rodriguez. She said she had received the short end of the stick when the government had been giving out food in the area, only receiving free food once, while others received it over a dozen times. She blamed those managing the programs for the problems. “The president wants for the programs to be done well in this area, what happens is that people running them don’t know how to do things well…There’s no control.”

Since the end of 2003, Venezuela has implemented dozens of social missions aimed at alleviating poverty through expanding access to education, health care, low cost food, and cultural activities. These missions are generally credited with being a contributing factor in the popularity of the president, which exceeded 70 percent in a recent poll.

Chavez Slams Bush as Coward, murderer

CARACAS – Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has rejected recent attacks by the US administration on his government, and slammed President George W. Bush as a “coward, murderer and responsible for genocide,” in an outspoken talk on his weekly TV program, Aló Presidente, on March 19. He was responding to criticism of Venezuela contained in the recently released Bush administration document, Strategy for National Security, 2006.

The document alleges that, “In Venezuela, a demagogue inundated with petrol money is undermining democracy and trying to destabilize the region.” Chavez replied by blasting president George W. Bush over the war on Iraq, and contrasting popular support for himself with the international opposition to the US president.

Referring to the passage of three years since the invasion of Iraq, President Chavez reminded Bush that “that the entire world opposes his imperialist war, his demented attitude of domination; that 70 per cent of his own people are against him…,” according to a report on the Aló Presidente program in the March 20 Diario Vea newspaper.

“God save the world from this threat…. You are a coward, murderer, and responsible for genocide. Why don’t you go to Iraq and command your armed forces there?” Chavez demanded of the US president. He warned Bush that if some day it occurred to him to invade Venezuela, then the whole country would immediately rush to its defense.

In a comment on the failure of the right-wing parties in Venezuela to endorse a serious candidate to challenge him in the presidential elections due in December this year, Chavez said, “This only confirms that Bush is the [real] chief of the Venezuelan opposition. I challenge his minions here in Venezuela, such as [media owners] Granier, Ravell, Otero, and Mata Osorio, to publicize the [recent opinion] polls…. They won´t do it because no candidate of the opposition can do any better.”

Chavez was referring to the poll, quoted in the March 18 Diario Vea, conducted by the research company Seijas, which noted “increasing support for President Chavez, with a popular backing of 82 per cent,” in regard to the next presidential election due on December 3. “According to this poll, the head of state would win with ease against any possible opposition candidate,” the paper noted. Seijas is not a firm linked to the Venezuelan government, having worked for the traditional right-wing party Accion Democratica for many years.

The Venezuelan president’s comments followed a strong rejection of the Bush attacks on Chavez by Venezuelan vice-president Jose Vincent Rangel. According to the March 18 Diario Vea, Rangel pointed out that “the biggest force for destabilization in the region is the politics of Bush.”

He called attention to the fact that for the first time Bush’s aggression was direct and personal against Chavez, leaving aside officials [such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice] who had previously carried out this type of attack. “It is a sign of the desperation, frustration and failure that has entered into the campaign led Washington against Venezuela,” Rangel concluded.

Conviction of Venezuelan Journalist Overturned

Caracas, Venezuela, March 23, 2006—As a Venezuelan court overturned last week’s ruling to put an opposition journalist under house arrest for slander, the cases of two other journalists are moving forward.

Ibéyise Pacheco, editor of the Venezuelan tabloid “Asi es la noticia,” was sentenced last week to carry out the remainder of her prison sentence under house arrest. Originally, she had been sentenced to presentation before a court every 15 days for nine months for an El Nacional column she wrote in which she accused army Colonel Angel Bellorín of having forged a grade he had received in a tax law course. After being convicted of defamation, she criticized him in other columns, which resulted in charges of continuing aggravated defamation.

She then publicly apologized for the original column, saying it had been inaccurate, and received Bellorín’s pardon, thereby avoiding conviction on the second set of charges. A court ruled yesterday to overturn last week’s ruling which forced Pacheco to carry the last 2 and a half months of her original 9 month sentence under house arrest, on the grounds that she had been pardoned by Bellorín.

Pacheco has continued to maintain that her case is one of political prosecution. “We will face the government and expose it for its desire to persecute us through trials and through the courts of this country,” she said after the ruling.

According to El Universal, at one point Pacheco had 12 different charges related to her writing out against her. One of these other cases moved forward last week, according to El Nacional, when a court overturned the conditional suspension of the sentence of bearing false witness that had been brought against Pacheco for a column she had written about a meeting in Miraflores where high ranking government officials, including president Chávez, had allegedly discussed kidnapping opposition leaders.

In a another case involving defamation, Marianella Salazar, another commentator for El Nacional, was charged last week, under article 241 of the Penal code, which prohibits falsely accusing of someone of having committed a crime.

At issue are two columns she wrote for El Nacional, in June of 2003, which accuse Venezuelan Vice President José Vincente Rangel, and then Minister of Infrastructure Diosdado Cabello of having committed administrative irregularities.

Last week, a third case was put on hold until April 24 at the request of defense attorneys. Unlike the cases against Salazar and Pacheco, the case against TV commentator Napoléon Bravo is not for providing false information, but rather for disrespect of a branch of government.

Last year the Venezuelan National Assembly approved revisions to the disrespect portion of the Venezuelan Penal code, expanding the number of government offices covered by disrespect provisions, and in some cases, lengthening sentences for those found guilty. Other versions of this provision of the law have been in effect, though, for decades before Chavez came into office.

According to the international NGO Reporters Without Borders, this is the first case to be tried during the Chávez administration under the law and Bravo is being charged with insulting the Supreme Court.

The Inter-American Press Association released a report on Monday saying that freedom of expression is under threat in Venezuela, citing some of the above cases. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who is widely seen as having influence throughout the government, rebutted the report, but also said that when it came to these matters public officials need to have “thick skins” and not be “hypersensitive.” He said as President he would not bring cases against journalists because some journalists “want someone to fall into this in order to say afterwards that the government has journalists as prisoners and it’s an attack against freedom of expression.”

See also:

• Venezuela Says Press Association “Simulates” Confrontation of Government and Journalists
• Venezuelan Journalist Sentenced for Defamation

Venezuela to Support Literacy Drive in Bolivia

Caracas, March 21, 2006—Sunday, Venezuela’s president Chavez announced that a Venezuelan delegation traveled to Bolivia to be part of a new social mission dedicated to eliminating illiteracy in Bolivia. The Venezuelan delegation will start the project in the Bolivian town of Higueras, where the Guerrilla leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara died.

The 18 Venezuelans will join a group of Cubans to begin Mission Robinson International, which has the ambitious goal of teaching 1.2 million Bolivians—both indigenous and urban residents—how to read. The mission will teach students literacy skills both in Spanish and in their indigenous language, with the goal, according to the website of President Chavez’s weekly television program Aló Presidente, of eradicating illiteracy in two and a half years.

The project is part of the cooperation agreements Venezuela and Bolivia signed a few months ago, shortly after the election of Bolivia’s new president Evo Morales. Other agreements in the area of education involve providing Bolivian students the opportunity to study at Venezuelan universities.

Mission Robinson International, like Venezuela’s Mission Robinson, is based on the Cuban model, “Yes I can,” which uses videos and workbooks to teach people to read and write. Venezuela expanded upon the Cuban model to use “facilitators” or people with a higher level of education than those in the class, to help students with questions after the videos. Critics have argued that the effectiveness in such a program is limited.

However, Venezuelan government officials have said that millions of people have been taught to read and write through Mission Robinson in Venezuela, and Venezuela now calls itself “a territory free of illiteracy.”

Roselena Ramirez, a spokeswoman for the Education Ministry in Caracas, told the Los Angeles Times in 2004 that Mission Robinson uses the Cuban materials for “expedience and economy,” because they’d be very expensive for Venezuela to reproduce itself.

According to the Aló Presidente website, the Venezuelan volunteers will receive the logistical aid of the Venezuelan government for room, board, and transportation while they are in Bolivia, and $200 per month from the Samuel Robinson Foundation.

Venezuela Says Press Association Simulates Confrontation of Government and Journalists

Caracas, Venezuela, March 21, 2006—The Inter-American Press Association issued a report yesterday, in which it warned that freedom of speech is threatened in Venezuela. The Venezuelan government’s reaction was swift, denouncing the report before it was issued, with the Minister of Communication and Information, William Lara, saying that the Press Association (IAPA) does not stand for freedom of the press, but represents the interests of media owners, who have allied themselves with the Bush administration to discredit the Chavez government.

According to the IAPA report, which was presented and approved during the organization’s semi-annual meeting in Quito, Ecuador this past weekend, the Chavez government “violates articles 57 and 58 of the constitution … which are related to freedom of expression and the right to information.”

Also, the report criticizes, “the aggressions and acts of intimidation that the Venezuelan government is pursuing against independent mass media and journalists.” Specifically, the report cites the pursuit of media with the arbitrary use of the government’s tax collection agency (Seniat) and “intimidation with gangs.”

Other supposed examples of the limitation of freedom of press that the report cites is the Law for Social Responsibility in Radio ant Television and the prosecution of journalists for defamation, slander, and disrespect.

The IAPA decided to send an observer mission to Venezuela to examine for itself the situation of freedom of the press in the country.

Government Reaction

The Minister of Communication and Information, William Lara, reacted to the IAPA report, saying that the Quito IAPA meeting was a meeting of, “the exploiters of journalists, who get richer all the time exploiting the honest work of Venezuelan journalists … and pretend to present themselves as the spokespersons of journalists, trafficking in lies in order to put the name of Venezuelan democracy and the image of the Venezuelan people in a bad light.”

Marcel Granier, the President of the oppositional TV channel RCTV headed up the Venezuelan media delegation in Quito.

Lara emphasized that all journalists in Venezuela that are currently being prosecuted are facing trial not for practicing journalism, but for having committed crimes. “It seems absurd to me that [the IAPA] is trying to make it appear to the rest of the American continent that someone being prosecuted for swindling is representative of Venezuelan journalists,” said Lara, referring to the case of Gustavo Azócar, who is being tried for embezzlement.

The communications ministry also released a communiqué, in which it stated that, “The report’s clear purpose is to simulate the existence of a confrontation between the government and journalists. That is not the case. [The confrontation] is about citizens being sued by other citizens that believe they are victims of petty crimes such as fraud, embezzlement, perjury and defamation.”

The communiqué counters the eleven instances of alleged government restrictions of freedom of press in the IAPA report. Instances include the one day closure of a local newspaper, El Impulso, which was closed and fined because of tax evasion charges. Another instance that the report mentions and is challenged by the ministry is a judge’s prohibition against the publishing of the official investigation files of the murder of Public Prosecutor Danilo Anderson. Also mentioned is the case of Nelson Mezerhane, a co-owner of the oppositional TV channel Globovision, and the journalist Patricia Poleo, who are being accused of having been co-conspirators in the Danilo Anderson murder.

The communiqué concludes, stating, “The fourth power usually has an influence compared to the other three constitutional powers. The difference is that no one elects them. Believing they were able to change and modify the way Venezuelans see reality, media owners led a number of coup attempts in Venezuela. They still make racist and hate remarks, anti-communist callings, and further dividing society.”

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Editor’s note: The IAPA report is not yet available to the public, but will be on Wednesday, according to the IAPA’s office in Miami. We will post it here once it is made available. Below, the Venezuelan Ministry of Information and Communication’s communiqué in reaction to the IAPA report.

Ministry of Communication and Information Press Release Regarding Report issued by the Interamerican Press Association (IAPA)

March 20, 2006

The Ministry of Communication and Information gives its impression regarding the report debated by the Interamerican Press Association (IAPA), specifically in its discussion about freedom of speech in Venezuela according to media owners in the country.

In its March 18 edition, Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional published a so-called “Report on Press Freedom in Venezuela,” which was debated at the midyear IAPA meeting. The IAPA gathers all media owners in the hemisphere.

The “report’s” clear purpose is to simulate the existence of a confrontation between the government and journalists. That is not the case. It is about citizens being sued by other citizens that believe they are victims of petty crimes such as fraud, embezzlement, perjury and defamation.

Let us analyze IAPA’s report on the so-called structural threats to press freedom in Venezuela:

Venezuela’s constitution was discussed and approved by the population in a referendum. The Venezuelan government has been ratified in nine consecutive elections. According to the IAPA, these facts represent “a totalitarian inspired political process,” because the powers are “subordinated to the president’s will.”

This arbitrary affirmation (in Venezuela, the president does not appoint judges to the Supreme Court, nor do the governors choose the Electoral College, as in the US) is based, according to the report, on recent public demonstrations of support to the constitution on the part of some members of the Supreme Court. According to the IAPA, the constitution is “part of the regime’s political project.”

The report has eleven points:

1. - El Impulso newspaper case

Currently, taxes are being paid in Venezuela. If a company fails to do so, there are a number of fines and sanctions. In the case of El Impulso newspaper, tax authorities found some irregularities and the newspaper was fined and closed for a day. The government is not going to bully anyone and it will not let anyone bully it.

2. - Economic Pressure

The Venezuelan media moguls were used to have all privileges as they blackmailed scared officials who were afraid of their publishing their crimes. The Bolivarian government is not perfect, but it is not afraid of denouncement nor does it vow to the media power, even though it stands at a 5 to 1 ratio regarding media outlets’ numbers.

3. - TV stations Intimidation

Some private TV channels actively participated in the planning and execution of two coups in 2002: the one involving the military in April and the one involving the oil sector in December. It is the state’s right and duty to adopt all legal measures to avoid another media-led coup. The control of Golbovisión and RCTV’s antennae during previous and upcoming elections is a legal and necessary measure.

4. - General Attorney ordered media investigation

If a judge prohibits the documents to be used in a criminal prosecution case, one cannot claim it is previous censorship. These proofs can only be known by the litigant parties, according to Venezuelan penal code.

Some of the parties accused of planning the murder of Danilo Anderson, a district attorney, actively took part in the media-led coup of 2002 and during the short-lived dictatorship of Pedro Carmona, who attorney Anderson was investigating when he was murdered. There are reasonable doubts regarding the interests of those who said that such prohibition was censorship.

6. - El Nacional newspaper case

The report expresses that this ministry “published a warning to El Nacional newspaper” regarding a so-called “cover-up and defamation” for having published an op-ed on February 21, 2006, where “the Venezuelan National Electoral Council is generally questioned.”

Actually, the op-ed says “they did everything in their power to electronically lower the abstention rate” (…)”they did everything possible to put up an electoral process” and it mentions “the million of electronic votes that they already have in the software.” This op-ed accuses the National Electoral Council of harsh electoral crimes. The Ministry of Communication and Information warned that if El Nacional did not come with substantial proof, it could be accused of covering up.

7. - Freedom restriction against editor and journalist

The fact that Nelson Mezerhane and Patricia Poleo are editor and journalist, respectively, has nothing to do with their innocence or guilty charge regarding the murder of Danilo Anderson. The Executive branch has nothing to do with how the district attorney functions. The fact that Patricia Poleo escaped to Miami “for fears of being tortured” has nothing to do with reality.

8. - Bombs against La Región newspaper

On March 8, 2006, La Región newspaper was attacked for unknown reasons and individuals. The IAPA report states that this attack is part of attacks against the free press because its editorial chief expressed that “it could be the result of the publication of many reports made by the community”.” We understand that media owners are desperate to portray the Bolivarian government as ineffective.

9. - Aggressions to journalists

The report attaches a series of aggressions against journalists. Aggressions made by students, the asking of accreditation by security personnel, professionals hurt by unknown parties, a district attorney confiscating a photo camera, the criminal prosecution of a TV host who called the Supreme Court a bordello, the words expressed by an accused mayor by a journalist and the incarceration of a journalist due to an embezzlement case.

10. - The Ibéyise Pacheco case

This is the poster-child case in the media campaign against the Venezuelan government. Going back to her 1994 sentence by the Ethics Tribunal of the Journalists’ Association, today, Pacheco faces accusation from 15 individuals. This professional slander, recently sentenced by the courts, summarizes the model of communication that the IAPA defends and encourages. Pacheco was in the spotlight in April, 2002, when she insulted the then-kidnapped President Chávez on screen, as she interviewed his captors. Another case was when she accused the son of a minister with corruption and failing to retract when it was found out that the minister’s son had died several years ago.

11. - The Marianella Salazar Case

This journalist, along with Patricia Poleo and Ibéyise Pacheco, practices a kind of journalism based on perjury, slander and false accusations of Venezuelan government officials. They spread elaborated news coming from the Department of State and call “tyrants” those officers who defend their good names and sue them in the courts.

The fourth power usually has an influence compared to the other three constitutional powers. The difference is that no one elects them. Believing they were able to change and modify the way Venezuelans see reality, media owners led a number of coup attempts in Venezuela. They still make racist and hate remarks, anti-communist callings, and further dividing society.

Simultaneously, the Venezuelan government has been able to break through the media blockade as it spreads its example throughout the continent. The IAPA has taken sides with cruel dictatorships in the past and they lack the moral authority to qualify anyone. Its attack against Venezuela uncovers their dependency on Washington and its allies in Venezuela.

Contrary to George W. Bush and his lackeys’ obsession with Venezuela, the Bolivarian revolution renews democracy by empowering a free society, as it has been recognized by all the peoples of the world.

Translated by Néstor Sánchez Cordero

Venezuelan Journalist Sentenced for Defamation

Caracas, Venezuela, marzo 20, 2006—Wednesday, Ibéyise Pacheco, editor of the opposition Venezuelan tabloid, “Así es la Noticia” (“The News Is Like This”) was given permission to complete her prison sentence under house arrest rather than in prison, on the grounds that her physical wellbeing could not be ensured in prison.

Pacheco had been sentenced to nine months for defamation against Angel Bellorín, a colonel in the army. She was convicted under article 444 of the penal code, which prescribes 3 to 18 months in prison for any communication which “attributes to an individual a deed able to expose him to scorn or public hate, or offend his honor or reputation.” It extends the penalties to 6 to 30 months if the claim is made in a public document.

Her defense attorney, Claudia Mujica, said Pacheco has 2 and a half months left in her sentence, and that there will be no police presents at her house, according to the Venezuelan government’s ABN.

According to El Universal, Pacheco was originally sentenced to nine months in prison, but the judge essentially substituted this sentence with parole, mandating that she periodically appear every 15 days before the court.

During this period, Bellorín accused Pacheco of continuing to defame him in her column, published in the Venezuelan daily El Nacional. The editorial page of El Nacional is known for its almost manic opposition to the Venezuelan government, similar to that of the Wall Street Journal. According to El Universal, Bellorín said he asked to be given space in the paper to reply to the allegations, but was not allowed to, so he brought charges against the journalist for continued aggravated defamation.

Pacheco publicly apologized to Bellorín last month, thereby avoiding the possibility of being convicted on these charges, which could have led to three more years in prison. In Venezuela, receiving the forgiveness of the offended party in defamation cases can lead to the charges being dropped. According to El Universal, the attorney’s of Bellorín and Pacheco worked out the apology.

“I am profoundly sorry that because of that piece, Coronel Bellorín found his honor and reputation affected, it was never in my spirit the intention of discrediting him or exposing him to public scorn…Having adequately reviewed the documentation given to my lawyers, which demonstrate the academic and professional merits of Coronel Bellorín, of which I am now convinced, our long judicial confrontation has been avoided. Equally, I confirm my commitment in my professional work as a journalist, my fight for truth and my respect and fulfillment of the Ethical Code of Journalists,” Pacheco said.

Immediately after the apology, Bellorín said he would wait to see how well the media covered the apology before offering his pardon, which he eventually did.

The allegation against Bellorín that led to the original case was that he had forged a grade he had obtained in a tax law course, while in his fifth semester of his law degree in the University of Santa María. Later Pacheco accused him of mistreating his girlfriend in her column, reported El Universal.

According to El Nacional, after last Wednesday’s ruling, Bellorín said that he would keep his promise not to bring any more charges against Pacheco, even though he could appeal the ruling that allowed her to carry out the rest of her prison sentence under house arrest rather than in jail. Venezuelan prisons well known for their brutality, and in Venezuela it is not uncommon for wealthy people to avoid jail on the basis of health or wellness grounds.

Bellorín visited the court in order to find out if the second action he had brought against Pacheco had been dropped after his pardon, reported El Nacional. He went on to say that he was against the political overtone and media circus that had recently characterized the case.

“It’s necessary to make clear that Ibeýise Pacheco is convicted for having defamed me, and not because of the government or the public ministry. What’s more, when a person is convicted what’s normal is for them to go to prison,” said Bellorín told El Nacional.

Pacheco has said she’s the victim of political persecution. “What a coincidence that the accusing parties are the legal representatives of the famous rulers of this regime, that there has been an absolute lack of balance in this entire process, because while all the accusing parties have been given privileges, kindness, and benefits, they have treated me as what I feel I am, a target of this government that considers me part of the dissidence. What’s more, they consider me dangerous, because I look for the truth,” she told the Venezuelan daily 2001, a week before apologizing.

Since her apology, the Colegio Nacional de Periodistas (National Association of Journalists) has met to discuss the increase in prosecution of journalists, mentioning her case. Reporters without Borders and the Inter-American Press Association had also previously taken note of her case with concern.

At one point Pacheco had 15 cases pending against her because of allegedly false information she provided in her columns.

According to Le Monde Diplomatique, during the April 2002 coup, dissident Vice-Admiral Victor Ramirez Perez congratulated Pacheco on her role in the media. "We had a deadly weapon: the media. And now that I have the opportunity, let me congratulate you." Previous to that, on Venevision, she had admitted to having had a longstanding relationship with dissident generals. Some government supporters have speculated that she has used these generals as sources.