Venezuela Distributes Russian Arms, Intends More Purchases

Venezuela's President Chavez hands a new AK-103 rifle to an officer.
Credit: MCI


Russian Sukhoi-30 fighter jet

Caracas, Venezuela, June 16, 2006—In a ceremony to mark the arrival and disbursement of a first shipment of 30,000 Russian-made AK-103 assault rifles on Wednesday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said that these new weapons were merely for the defense of Venezuela. Chavez also confirmed that an agreement had been reached for Venezuela to purchase 24 Russian Sukhoi-30 fighter jets.

Venezuela first announced the purchase of 100,000 Russian Kalashnikov rifles over a year ago. The remaining 70,000 will be delivered later this year. Venezuela’s purchase agreement also includes license for Venezuela to manufacture its own AK-103 rifles, for which it will build a factory.

The rifles are meant to replace the current armament of aging Belgian FAL rifles, which Venezuela had bought over 40 years ago. Chavez handed over the new weapons to officers of the Presidential Honor Guard and gave the old ones to the newly formed military reserve.

During the ceremony, Chavez said, “the world knows we do not have a plan to attack anyone.” “Those who threaten Venezuela with being a threat are the real threat,” added Chavez, referring to the United States, which has repeatedly argued that Venezuela is engaged in an arms race.

The planned purchase of the Sukhoi-30 fighter jets had originally been announced last month, but Chavez confirmed it during the ceremony and specified his government would buy 24 and is considering buying more Russian helicopters. Venezuela has already agreed to buy 44 transport helicopters for the army last year. The additional batch would be attack helicopters for the air force.

“These are assault helicopters, which are ideal for war of resistance,” said Chavez, adding that the purchase would also include, “a state-of-the-art helicopter maintenance center.”

Two of the Sukhoi-30 fighters will arrive in a few weeks, with the rest to be delivered by the end of the year. According to Chavez, these are the most modern fighter jets in the world and are far more capable than the aging F-16s Venezuela received from the U.S. 20 years ago. Venezuelan officials say they need to replace the F-16s because the U.S. has refused to honor its contract to maintain the jets and has blocked Venezuela’s efforts to let third parties, such as Israel, to maintain the jets.

In an event on Thursday Chavez insisted again that Venezuela is not involved in an arms race as Bush administration officials have repeatedly claimed. He went on to say that of the $1.1 trillion dollars spent on arms in the world, the U.S. spends 48% of that figure, while the next largest country spends merely 5% of that figure. In comparison, Venezuela spends a tiny fraction of that.

Iran to Invest $9 Billion in Venezuela

Caracas, Venezuela, June 14, 2006—The Iranian Vice-Minister of Light Industry, Mohsen Shaterzadeh, announced this week that the Islamic Republic of Iran is planning to invest more than $9 billion in 125 development projects in Venezuela as part of bilateral cooperation agreements between the two countries. 

Shaterzadeh declared that they had already signed contracts worth over a billion dollars, to build 2,500 homes and the Cerro Azul Cement Factory, in the Punceres Municipality in the Venezuelan state of Monagas. 

Shaterzadeh made the declarations on his visit to Cerro Azul, where Cerro Azul Cements President Rafael Lugo explained that they have high expectations for the employment the factory will be able to generate.

“In the construction phase we will employ 350 direct workers, while the number of indirect workers will be around a thousand. Once in operation, the plant will have a capacity of employing on the order of 200 people directly and will give work indirectly to another 600 people,” he said. 

Shaterzadeh added that future agreements are being proposed in the areas of infrastructure and productive technology with raw material imported from Iran. The Iranian ambassador to Venezuela, Ahmad Sobhani, who accompanied Shaterzadeh in Monagas also stated that Iran is studying a project whereby tractors and other vehicles can be sent to Venezuela. Both nations created a joint development fund last February worth $200 million. 

Syria

The Syrian Vice-Foreign Minister, Faisal Megdad, was also in Venezuela this past week. On Monday, Megdad met with Venezuela Vice President José Vicente Rangel, whom he told that Syria would support and promote Venezuela in its bid for a seat on the UN Security Council.

"There are many countries in the world that support Venezuela in its bid to join the United Nations Security Council. In Asia And Africa there is huge support for the Venezuelan Government, particularly in Arab countries," the diplomat said.

Five of the Security Council’s ten rotating seats are up this year and one is traditionally reserved for a Latin American country. Venezuela’s largest competitor for the seat is Guatemala, which has never sat on the council before and which is being supported by the U.S.

According to Union Radio, Megdad also proposed strengthening social and economic relations between Venezuela and Syria.

“Syria is well known in grain production, in cotton and derivatives, olive oil processing, cloth production in general, with which we compete with many countries of the world, we could also maintain a petroleum and petrol-chemical exchange, which we hope to materialize in future meetings.” Megdad said.

Venezuela, Syria and Cuba where the only three countries to support Iran in last February’s vote before the International Atomic Energy Agency to report Iran to the UN Security Council for its nuclear aspirations. Venezuela has held that any country has the right to conduct it’s own civilian nuclear energy program for peaceful means.

Venezuelan Women Protest Court Decision to Annul Section of Law on Violence Against Women

Women from Anzoategui protest against the Supreme Court ruling.
Credit: Silvia Leindecker

Caracas, Venezuela, June 10, 2006—In May, the Venezuelan Supreme Court annulled important sections of the Law on Violence against Women and Family.  Shockwaves as a result of the ruling led to last Thursday’s protest in front of Venezuela’s Supreme Court (TSJ) and to a debate before the Venezuelan National Assembly on “domestic violence and violence against women.”

The Venezuela Supreme Court ruling from May 9th annulled sections of the Law on Violence against Women and Family, which impeded an aggressor from visiting the home or workplace of a victim, and allowed an aggressor to be held without warrant or “judicial authorization” for up to seventy-two hours.

The Venezuelan daily, El Universal, reported on May 19th that the Venezuelan Supreme Court had declared that these articles violated the presumption of innocence and the aggressor’s right to defense, “since the Constitution says that a detention can only proceed under a judicial order or by apprehension in case of a flagrant violation. ‘[The detentions] are called for without being accompanied by due process,’” it stated.

The Supreme Court declared the unconstitutionality of the Laws and ordered, “When a cautionary measure is made by administrative organisms, its inevitable execution will require previous judicial authorization.”

As a result, a huge uproar has swelled from individuals, representatives and women organizations across Venezuela.

Trujillo state legislative representative Iris La Cruz declared to the Venezuelan daily, Diario El Tiempo, “With this absurd decision, these granters of justice, superimpose the rights of the male aggressor against women’s rights, where [defense against the] physical, verbal, and psychological torture that they suffer can now be legally denied.”

Maria Leon, President of the Venezuelan Women’s Institute (INAMUJER), responded with a flyer distributed across Caracas stating that as a result of the decision of five male Supreme Court Justices, “Women are thus left, without defense against the violence, as a consequence of this unconstitutional and machista decision, that openly attacks the gender policies that our President is trying to advance.”

“That is why we hold every one of these judges responsible for each death of women that comes as a result of gender and domestic violence, that occurs in this country after the date in which this ruling was passed.”

Women Respond

Members of a women’s rights collective in Caracas.
Credito: Silvia Leindecker

As a result of the decision, last Thursday, over a thousand women from across Venezuela participated in a march to the offices of the Supreme Court, led by the Women’s Institute. 

Although Attorney General, Isaías Rodríguez originated the proceedings to annul the law in 2003, most of the women hold the Supreme Court largely responsible for the ruling, since Rodriguez has since officially apologized before the National Assembly.

Leon declared, “it is not possible that while the Executive Branch, through President Hugo Chavez, is outlining favorable policies towards women, the other branches are mistaken.  Why are they mistaken?  Because they don’t respect or consult the principal body of these policies.”

Women demonstrate in front of the Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice.
Credito: Silvia Leindecker

National Assembly Representative and President of the Commission on Women and Family, Gabriela Ramirez was also in attendance, and in an attempt to find a loophole around the ruling and the exact definition of “flagrant violation,” declared, “We want the Constitutional Court to illuminate the grey area of their ruling and I explained that a flagrant violation is when a crime is committed in the shadows, between four walls and when a women has the courage to condemn it.  We ask them to define flagrant violation when the violence and the crime are hidden from the collective view.”

El Universal also reported that one of the few Supreme Court Judges not to vote for the annulation, Luisa Estella Morales, also lent her solidarity and declared that although the rulings of the Court cannot be revised, “that does not mean that you have exhausted a subject or an interpretation in just one decision.”

National Assembly

Following the march, Ramírez declared, in the National Assembly, that they are preparing emergency legislation and announced the introduction to the Supreme Court of a motion of interpretation “about flagrant violation in matters of domestic violence.”

Meanwhile, Diario Region, reported that Ismael García, National Assembly President of the Technical Council against Crime and Violence declared that the National Assembly is continuing to work in the battle against violence against women, and that they are studying a new legal text in order to recuperate “the rights abolished by the Constitutional Court a few weeks ago.”  Garcia declared that the report, which they have been working on for almost 30 days, is almost ready and will hopefully be presented before the Assembly next Thursday. 

According to El Universal, after participating in the forum, Problems of Violence Against Women, which was organized by the subcommission on the Rights of Women, Garcia stressed the importance of the Law on Violence Against Women and Family, which in his opinion, “has an integral concept, no only directed at the female gender, but also for the protection of the family…. The containment wall of the family has always been and will be the woman and we believe that in this law there should also be included an aspect of protection for the children.”

According to investigative police statistics, over the last four years, “a woman dies at least every ten days at the hands of her partner” in Venezuela. Female activists in Caracas stated last week that 85% of the violence against women, is at the hands of her partner.

Supreme Court Ruling

Interestingly, the Law on Violence against Women and Family was originally put in to affect on August 19, 1998 as one of the last measures of the outgoing government before Chavez became Venezuelan President.  It was kept under the new Venezuelan Constitution, passed in 2001.

Under the recent Supreme Court ruling, Item 4 of Article 3, “Imposition of Cautionary Measures” was annulled, which read, “The institutions to receive accusations (of violence against women) can call for immediate restraining measures indicated in article 39 of this law.”

The following “retraining measures” from article 39 were removed, thus eliminating the ability of the administrative body to:

“1. Issue an order of departure for the aggressor of the common residence, independently of the title on the residence.”

“3. Temporarily arrest, up to seventy-two hours, to be fulfilled by the corresponding police precinct or city hall.”

“5. Prohibit the approach of the aggressor to the place of work or office of the victim.”

Indigenous March in Support of Chavez in Venezuela

Caracas, Venezuela, June 10, 2006—Hundreds of representatives from various indigenous Venezuelan ethnicities marched in Caracas on Wednesday in the “First National March of the Indigenous People.”

The march was organized by the National Indigenous Council of Venezuela (CONIVE) and was held in support of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, against US military operations in Caribbean waters, in support of Venezuela’s withdrawal from the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), and for the unity of their communities in Venezuela. According to CONIVE, the march was the first of many indigenous mobilizations which will be “heating up the streets” over the next 6 months.

CONIVE was born in 1989 and is composed of 60 organizations and representatives from 32 indigenous ethnic groups including the Warao, Yucpa, Wayuu, Timotes, Panare, Yanomami and Yecuana, among others.

“Here we are raising our hands for the first time to say, enough… The indigenous peoples in Venezuela are united, we are united because it’s the only way to advance, it’s the only road to speak loudly and I believe that that’s what we are doing right now,” declared CONIVE President and National Assembly representative, Nicia Maldonado at the beginning of the march. “We wanted to express this to the President of the Republic, that the indigenous people are going to give the first shout and [the presidential election] on December 3rd, isn’t just any old thing, it is about saving ourselves, about dignity for the indigenous people.”The march was also joined by indigenous from Peru and Ecuador. 

“The withdrawal from CAN makes us very happy, because, first off, it helps us to protect our traditional knowledge. That space was there to sell off the traditional knowledge and the natural resources, without even consulting the organizations… we also say that we support Chavez’ politics in terms of the G-3. We are happy that you have gone, you have to analyze all of the spaces of power, because for us they are tentacles of imperialism,” said Maldonado.

“We are also saying to the government of Mr. Bush, take all your military that you have in the Caribbean and get out, because here, we want peace, we want to live, because we are in search of our greatness, our spirituality and the flourishing of our liberty.” She said, “we don’t want war, we want peace, because the liberation is here in Venezuela. You can’t call President Chavez an imperialist, because you are the imperialists and when you speak about President Chavez, you are speaking about the indigenous people.”

As the march wound it’s way towards the Presidential Palace of Miraflores, it paused at the Attorney General’s office, the National Assembly and the Vice-President’s office, to deliver three respective documents declaring the unity of Venezuela’s indigenous, offering their support to President Chavez, condemning the recent elimination by the supreme court (TSJ) of a constitutional article against the violence against women and calling for increased consultation with all of Venezuela’s indigenous.

“We are calling for the construction and the institution of the Organic Law of Political Participation of the Indigenous People which says that they must consult the indigenous people… and ask that they consult all of the people, not just a small part,” said Maldonado.

Maldonado further expressed that she believes Venezuela’s indigenous can offer 300,000 votes towards Chavez’ goal of 10 million in this December’s presidential elections.

“What we wanted to express in the documents is that here are the indigenous peoples, and they can count on our support,” she said.

According to Representative Maldonado, who represents approximately 30,000 indigenous peoples from 25 communities in the southern Venezuelan states of Apure and Amazonia, there are approximately 800,000 indigenous in Venezuela.

Chapter 8 of the 2001 Venezuelan Constitution explicitly protects the rights of Venezuela’s indigenous peoples:

“The state recognizes the existence of the indigenous people and communities, their social, political and economic organization, their cultures, uses and customs, languages and religions, as well as their habitat, original rights to the land that their ancestors traditionally occupied and that is necessary for their development and in order to guarantee their way of life.” Reads Article 119.

But even with protection under the Constitution, many indigenous participants in the march expressed grave problems. “We are losing our culture. Without culture, we can’t live, so we are trying to revive our indigenous culture, so that it is re-born again,” said Valerio Hernandez, one of 300 indigenous fishermen, farmers and artisans from the Macuro Delta who traveled to Caracas for the march. “Economics, transportation and health are also difficult, because the doctors don’t arrive to where we are. And we don’t have the means of communication or transportation. We don’t have anything and that’s how we have been, well, stepped on. But now we want to shed light on this…”

While overwhelmingly supporting President Chavez, CONIVE also lent their support to the indigenous people struggling against the exploration of coal on their “sacred” lands in the state of Zulia, which has become a controversial issue in Venezuela over the last few years. 

“For the Yucpa people, that land is sacred,” said Maldonado “and the President has said, that if you can’t save the land, the coal will stay under ground… I think that’s important. We are defending and accompanying our Yucpa brothers… the companies can’t just come and kick them off… our president has said that it’s a question of dialoging between the people and the government, the coal companies and the international organizations…

We are convinced that through the dialogue with the private companies we will come to a solution, but they need to respect us, and they can’t disrespect our sacred sites.”

As the sun set on Wednesday evening most of the participants in the march were filing back onto their buses and preparing to head home, but Maldonado expressed that this is just the beginning and that they are planning numerous demonstrations for June, July and beyond.

“Right now we are going to incorporate in to the events. On June 22, we are going to unite the masses with mobilizations in all of the states.” Said Maldonado. “After August, everything will be headed towards 10 million [votes].”

Interestingly, just beyond the Vice-President’s Office, the road over Llaguno Bridge (the infamous site of the April 11, 2002 events) towards the presidential palace, Miraflores, was blocked by an armored vehicle and several anti-riot police dressed in storm-trooper gear.

An official with another group of armored police blocking a side street stated that it was not the indigenous march but the students that they were prepared for. The official said that the students had “promised violence” and vowed to go to Miraflores. 

The Venezuelan daily, Ultimas Noticias, reported on Thursday, that students from the Central Venezuelan University were on the streets last Wednesday, protesting against “the persecution” of University of the Andes student Nixon Moreno, who has been accused of instigating the recent violence in Merida, and for which a Venezuelan court has issued an arrest warrant. No conflicts between the military guards and the students were reported.

Universities to Audit Venezuela’s Electoral Registry

Caracas, Venezuela, June 10, 2006—Venezuela’s National Electoral Council announced on Wednesday that seven Venezuelan universities had accepted an invitation to audit the country’s electoral registry, which opposition leaders suspect to be very flawed. Three of the country’s main universities, though, so far refuse to participate because they disagree with the audit procedure.

According to the National Electoral Council (CNE), the purpose of the audit is to complete an audit that the CNE conducted with the technical help of an electoral consulting group (CAPEL) of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights last year.

The issue of the accuracy of Venezuela’s electoral registry has recently become one of the main issues of dispute between the opposition and the CNE. Opposition leaders say they suspect that too many people are improperly registered to vote and that this is a possible basis for fraud on the part of the government.

The electoral registry has increased from 12 to over 15 million in the past three years, mainly because the government has been engaged in an extensive voter registration drive. Currently a far higher percentage of Venezuelans are registered to vote than was historically the case.

With the opposition focusing on the validity of this registration effort, the CNE began to audit the registry last year, with the help of CAPEL. Opposition groups, such as Sumate, though, criticized this effort as not having been sufficiently independent and as having suffered from various technical problems.

CAPEL audited the entire electoral registry of 14 million registered Venezuelans, checking it for duplicate ID numbers, duplicate names, and other inconsistencies. CAPEL also examined databases of deceased, the citizenship registry, and visited a random sample of 14,000 registered voters at their registered address. For one of the potentially most likely causes of voter fraud, whereby the same person votes more than once, using the name of a deceased person, CAPEL found 54,951 cases. It concluded, though, that, “None of the sensitive inconsistencies, which are determinant for the reliability of the electoral registry surpassed 5% of the allowed for margin of error.”

So as to increase confidence in the registry, the CNE agreed to accept proposal from the country’s universities to expand and deepen the audit that CAPEL had initiated. The CNE examined the proposals and on Wednesday announced that it would accept the audit procedure proposed by seven of universities and rejected the proposal of three other universities (Universidad Central de Venezuela, Universidad Simon Bolivar, and Universidad Católica Andrés Bello).

The main differences between the audit proposals involve whether the electoral registry would be compared to statistical demographic data. The three dissenting universities argue that the registry should be compared to demographic data about the country, so that one might be able to tell whether the registry is representative of the population as a whole. The CNE, though, insists that the audit should only be compared to actual voter data on record (such as registration forms) and to the voters themselves (looking them up in their homes).

Antonio Paris, the director of Venezuela’s largest university, the UCV, said that the three dissenting universities would present a new proposal to the CNE on Monday, in the hope that it would be accepted. “We hope that the CNE thinks about it and accepts it,” said Paris.

The CNE director in charge of the audit procedure, Sandra Oblitas, similarly said that the universities’ revised proposal would be, “received with good spirits.” However, their proposal could not, “break with the [audit] in progress, with what we have already established, [then] it can of course be incorporated,” said Oblitas.

While all opposition leaders condemned the CNE’s decision not to accept the three universities’ proposal, there was some dissension about what this means for future participation in the electoral process. Presidential candidate Teodoro Petkoff, for example, said, “These conditions pose the necessity to me to seriously think about the viability of [my] and of all candidacies.”

Julio Borges, the candidate of the opposition party Primero Justicia also rejected the decision, but said to the universities that are working with the CNE, “I ask you to do this [audit], we will conduct our own audit…”

Similarly, Maria Corina Machado, one of the leaders of Sumate, argued that the universities that were accepted for the audit were those that are in the hands of the national government. The CNE had accepted “those organizations whose criteria coincide with the plans of the CNE which, by chance, are institutions of the national government, whose directors are also named by the government,” asserted Machado.

The director of the Experimental University Romulo Gallego, Jaime Gallardos, which is participating n the audit, disagreed with this reasoning, saying, “If we assume that the [participating] universities are of the government, then all of them are, because it is the executive that provides the resources [to all universities].”