Suomen sosiaalifoorumissa 2006 on näköjään tilaisuuksia järjestämässä myös omaperäinen Proutist Universal -järjestö (http://www.prout.org/).

Artikkelissaan "VENEZUELA,TOIVON MAA?" proutisti Didi Annapurna hehkuttaa kuinka Venezuela on omaksunut proutistisia periaatteita.

"Vuonna 1999 presidentti Chavezin astuessa valtaan ja luodessa maalle uuden perustuslain, Proutist Universal antoi myös oman Neo Magna Chartaksi- kutsutun ehdotuksensa. Sen tärkeimpänä sisältönä oli perustarpeiden turvaaminen kaikille, kansan tietoisuuden kohottaminen ja ns. referendum, kansan suosion tarkistaminen. Chavez on sittemmin julkisesti käyttänyt perustuslaistaan nimeä New Magna Charta. Oivaltaako Venezuelan johto, ihmisten henkisen ykseyden, josta Sarkarin mielestä riippuu tämän maan menestys, kuin myös koko maailman tulevaisuus? Kirjeessään minulle Chavezin sihteeri Guzman vastasi mm: "On totta, että henkinen ymmärrys alkaa sielun pyrkimyksestä täydellisyyteen…"

Teksti kokonaisuudessaan:
http://www.prodemokratia.net/suomensosiaalifoorumi/mater.html#didi

Proutisteilla tuntuu olevan vähän hakusessaan että mitä he oikein haluavat. Heidän periaatteensa (http://www.prout.org/TableofContents.html) vaikuttavat sinänsä mielenkiintoisilta, esim. päätöksenteon hajauttaminen, ekologinen tasapaino ja henkinen hyvinvointi materiaalisen yltäkylläisyyden kahmimisen sijaan. Kuitenkin heidän mallissaan olisi jäljellä mm. hallitukset, verotus ja teollinen tuotanto. Mitähän Proutistit sanoisivat yllä olevan artikkelin näkökulmista Venezuelan onnelaan?

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Artikkelista
"The Civil War in Venezuela - Socialism to the Highest Bidder"
Prepared by Nachie, for the Red & Anarchist Action Network (RAAN). June 17th, 2006.
http://www.redanarchist.org/texts/indy/civilwarinvenezuela.html

...the situation is already coming to a head as the indigenous populations run out of both time and options for legal protest. During my stay in the country we received word that the National Guard has begun indiscriminately killing Yukpa tribesmen and burning their shelters in Zulia (to my knowledge this has yet to be confirmed). Angela González, a well-known Wayuú organizer for the Zulia campaign declared in an interview with El Libertario that "we can live without coal, but not without water". In her words, "[These people] are not going to leave, the army will have to remove us. Chávez says, 'damn the military that shoots its own people' and then what? There will be blood spilled here. The Wayuú are ready to die for these lands". She concludes, "We're going to die here anyway because of the coal, so [why not march to] Miraflores to die there? They'll have to kill us all."

Aiheesta nyt myös filmi
Our Oil and Other Tales
http://www.ouroil.org/

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Kiitokset pitkästä artikkelista. En usko itsekään, että Chavez on pyhimys tai että Venezuelassa kaikki on hyvin ja oikeudenmukaista. Kuitenkin joissakin asioissa Venezuela on edelläkävijä ja esimerkillinen. Aina voidaan kaivella huonot asiat esiin ja pohjata kaikki sen varaan, tai voidaan esittää vain hyvät puolet ja unohtaa ongelmat. Toivoa ei kuitenkaan koskaan pidä heittää ja aina voi uskoa parempaan. Kuten sanoin Venezuelan menestys riippuu otetaanko siellä yksi elämän väheksytty puoli henkisyys vakavasti, muutenhan heillä sentään ollaan toteuttamassa monia edistyksellisiä projekteja nimenomaan köyhien olojen parantamiseksi. Ja olisiko sitten entinen hallinto parempi, joka keskittyi vain rikkaiden eduista huolehtimiseen? Länsimaiden ylivarojensa eläminen ja saastuttaminen sitä kautta olettaisin lienee suurempi ongelma kuin hiilikaivokset yms. Venezuelassa. Lisäksi monet muut asiat joita on vaikea verrata keskenään. Ainakin Venezuelan kansa oli ykkösenä onnellisimpien ihmisten listalla, sekin kertonee jotain Chavezin aikaansaannoksista.
Didi Annapurna

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Vielä sen verran, että olen pahoillani, en ehtinyt lukea ollenkaan artikkeliasi, vaan vain omaa kirjoitustani koskevan osuuden, joten vastaus oli lähinnä siihen viittaava Venezuelan yleisestä tilanteesta.
Didi Annapurna

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Chávezin valtaa lisäävä poikkeuslaki hyväksyttiin Venezuelassa
Julkaistu 18.1.2007 23:24

Caracas. Venezuelan lainsäädäntöelin hyväksyi torstaina yksimielisesti presidentti Hugo Chávezin valtaa lisäävän poikkeuslain. Laki antaa Chávezille laajemmat valtaoikeudet seuraavan puolentoista vuoden ajaksi.
Vastustajat kutsuivat poikkeuslakia tuoreeltaan "totalitääriseksi vallan hyväksikäytöksi".

Uusi laki antaa presidentille vapaat kädet toteuttaa lupaamansa "sosialistinen vallankumous" Venezuelassa. Viime viikolla Chávez ilmoitti siirtävänsä maan koko energiasektorin ja teleyhtiöt valtion omistukseen.
Tämän lisäksi Chávez vaatii presidentin virkakausien rajoittamisen poistamista Venezuelan perustuslaista. Näin Chávez voisi asettua jälleen ehdolle kun hänen vasta alkanut toinen kuusivuotiskautensa päättyy vuonna 2013. Chávez on johtanut Venezuelaa vuodesta 1999.

Chávezia tukevat vasemmistopuolueet ilmoittivat alkuviikosta aikeensa yhdistyä yhdeksi puolueeksi. Chávez toivoi joulukuussa laajan poliittisen yhteenliittymän muodostamista Venezuelaan.
Presidentin arvostelijat pelkäävät uudistusten ajavan Venezuelan kommunistityyliseen yhden puolueen järjestelmään.

STT-AFP

Poimittu täältä:
http://www.nelonen.fi/uutiset/uutinen.asp?cat=2&d=1135224410949

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Venezuela: El Libertario warns of possible sentence to the 14 SIDOR workers

After taking part in a demonstration for lack of job security in 2006, 14 workers of contractor “Transportes Camila de SIDOR” could be sentenced to 5 to 10 years in jail. In 05 September 2006 a group of workers and union leaders staged a protest against the carrier Camila, a contractor to SIDOR (Siderurgic of the Orinoco), the principal steel core business located in Puerto Ordaz, Bolivar state, in Venezuela. The workers were protesting the failure to pay wages, and maintain health and safety, as well as the lack of tools to accomplish their work. The protest was endorsed by Readers of the “Sindicato Único de Trabajadores Siderúrgicos y Similares" (Sutiss, the SIDOR`s union), stopping the equipment whose breakdowns and lack of maintenance represented a threat to the integrity of the workers, following the safety procedures in the labor standards.

The employers turned to the regional authorities, getting the Public Ministry to issue an arrest warrant against three syndical leaders and a group of workers by the National Guard, which resulted in a protest by workers of the steel mill.

In this way were arrested Leonel Grisette, a member of the Commission who represents 50% workers and 50% of employers on Sutiss; Juan Valor, Secretary of Press and Propaganda, and Jhoel Hernández, Secretary of Culture and Sports of that union. The charges against them were qualified misappropriation and restricting the freedom to work. A trial started for acts defined as crimes after the reform of the Venezuelan Penal Code (Articles 358 to 363) in 2005, and the promulgation of the Organic Law of National Security (Article 56) in 2002: both approved during the Bolivarian government and harmful to the right to strike. The three union leaders, along with 11 workers, 14 of Sidor, have been subjected since 2006 to court procedures, while the trial will end on Wednesday April 29 2009, with the possibility of a sentence of between 5 and 10 years in prison.

Remember that SIDOR was nationalized by President Hugo Chávez in April 2008, following the revocation of the contract with the Argentina transnational Techint. However, a year later, estate control has not meant an improvement in the quality of life of the workers. Speaking to “El Libertario”, Leonel Grisette said "It is not true that outsourcing has been eliminated and working conditions of the flexible workers are such that they cause accidents in 4 to 1 ratio with respect to the other workers. Collective bargaining is frozen, and despite the absence of technical safety workers as required by law, we are forced to work under irregular conditions". Moreover, nationalization has neutralized the current board of Sutiss, which has abandoned the 14 workers on trial, so they had to pay out of their own pockets the fees for their counsel, which add up to 100 million bolivars (over $ 44,000).

Human rights and labor organizations have been denouncing the criminalization of protest in Venezuela, as well as the enactement of laws to restrict the legal right to strike, such as the requirements to present themselves in court and the threat of application of the Code Criminal Law and Security of the Nation. For anarchists the legal architecture of repression is part of the government offensive to end the belligerant autonomy of social organizations, with the excuse of fighting coups d'etat and under the rhetorical mask of Bolivarian Socialism, whose consequences are suffered by the people. Although the syndical organizations split and biased within the inter-bourgeois confrontation that has occurred in the country in recent years- do not keep statistics on cases similar to the 14 SIDOR, workers in the states of Carabobo, Aragua, Miranda and Tachira have been subject to presenting themselves in the courts. In this sense statements by the peasant movement Jirajara, located in the state of Yaracuy have counted 103 cases of peasants who after participating in protests and land occupations, have been referred to the courts. For the union activists of the 14 of SIDOR, these procedures are designed to decapitate the militant labor movement, so the possible penalty of 5 or 10 years imprisonment is a warning to other activists and advocates for labor and social rights.

Historically the libertarians have argued that the people will not feel better if the stick who beats them bears the name of stick of the people. We alert the base organizations and collectives of Venezuela and of the world about the potential sentence against the 14 SIDOR. As anarchists members of El Libertario we stand in solidarity with the Venezuelan workers struggling for their rights, we support militant, honest and autonomous unions and will continue to denounce the contradictions of an authoritarian government at the service of the interests of globalized capitalism in the struggle for a self-managed and revolutionary grass-roots alternative preferable to the false polarization which exists in our country.

El Libertario
ellibertario@nodo50.org
www.nodo50.org/ellibertario (in Spanish, English & others languages)
Caracas, April 27 2009.

http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=2009venezuela-sidor

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Venezuela: The error of being Lusbi Portillo

by Rafael Uzcátegui

As this text is written, Lusbi Portillo, professor at Zulia University (in Maracaibo) and environmental activist in solidarity with the indigenous movement is in hiding to protect his life and physical integrity. During the events of October 13 in the Sierra de Perijá two yukpas were killed and five more wounded in a conflict arising from the demarcation of indigenous land. The regional police announced that an arrest warrant against the professor for “drug possession” was imminent. This is not the first time the professor is criminalized for his active solidarity with the demands of the original peoples, but because the way the events are evolving – an investigation of the events has been decreed “national security” by the authorities – he decided to take preventive measures by going into hiding.

The environmental activist increased his activities in the indigenous struggle as a reaction to the government’s announcement, by the President of the Republic on November 13 2003 to triple coal exploitation in the Zulia region to 36 million metric tons per year. Lusbi Portillo’s first “error”, from the point of view of the immobilizing polarization that controls the nation’s political scene, was to uphold his values and demands in spite of the official discourse that promised to satisfy them some time in the future. Regardless of his expectations and personal sympathies, Portillo did not sell out nor agreed to lower his priorities, preserving his autonomous social character, thus keeping his ability to organize for the solution to the problems in spite of the electoral situation.
[organize, preventative, activist, expectations, sympathies]

The second “error” of Lusbi Portillo was to think with his own head. In contrast with other intellectuals and members of the academic world whose discourse has been diluted to the level of the polarity government- opposition, Portillo mixes elements of research and activism in order to generate a line of thought that motivates him to act consequently. In this way he has been able to diagnose the roots of public and private policies that impact nature and the way of life of the original peoples with a correct appraisal of the consequences of Venezuela’s progressive coupling with the main tendencies of the globalized economy. Thus he relates the development plan promoted for the Zulia region within the project South American Regional Infrastructure Initiative (IIRSA in Spanish), whose objective is to optimize the flow of energy resources and increase regional competitiveness to satisfy international demand. In many documents and conferences Portillo has demonstrated that the IIRSA, a project conveniently silenced by the limited and polarized debate, represents the reverse side of the coin of a policy publicly condemned by the current government: the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (ALCA in Spanish). This sharp analysis of the increasing role assigned to the nation by the main global economic actors, which includes other supposedly “endogenous” development activities such as Puerto America, the Southern Gas Pipeline, the exploitation of the Imataca preserve and the development of the Orinoco-Apure axis, allows us to see what is really behind the anti-capitalist rhetoric proclaimed by the current occupant of Miraflores Palace.

A third “error” of Lusbi Portillo is that, in the framework of his immediate demands – the preservation of the environment and the rights of the indigenous people- he has established links and relations with all kinds of grass roots initiatives, whose precondition is not how they define themselves to President Chavez but rather their degree of solidarity with nature and the original indigenous communities. This way Portillo has been the center of a social network of variable geometry that, in spite of conflicts and fluctuations, has been able to develop one of the few instances in the country whose development has resisted the usual Manichaeism in order to build and express its own perspective, setting an example of how to disassemble the demagogy of those who feed the false dichotomy “Chavism vs. anti-Chavism” in order to domesticate the social struggles and build up to the electoral process.

The former “failings” condemn Lusbi Portillo to ostracism and isolation, precisely one of the objectives of any policy that criminalizes belligerent and independent protests by the social activists. After being repeatedly threatened with warnings, two women, the attorneys Luisa Ortega Díaz (the Republic’s Attorney General) and Gabriela Ramírez (People’s Defender) will be responsible for any attempt on the freedom, personal integrity and even the life of Lusbi Portillo, an activist whose major error has been to maintain his old ideas in a time marked by opportunist ethics and values degraded by the air conditioner. Solidarity with Lusbi Portillo.

ellibertario [at] nodo50.org
http://www.nodo50.org/ellibertario (in Spanish & English)

Translation: Luís Prat
http://www.nodo50.org/ellibertario

http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/10024

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FAI: The Bolivarian Government Against Union Autonomy

From Tierra y Libertad

From the Iberian Anarchist Federation's Tierra y Libertad website, an article describing and criticizing the government of Hugo Chávez and its attempts to co-opt the Venezuelan labor movement.

Orlando Chirino, a revolutionary Venezuelan labor leader, has recently denounced the Bolivarian government as "anti-worker and anti-union." It would be difficult to accuse Chirino of being a "golpista" [1] or an "ally of imperialism." In the year 2002 he condemned the coup, mobilizing to defend the state oil industry from the work stoppage driven by management leadership. In each occasion presented him, he supported and accompanied workers' attempts to control factories closed by their bosses. He is rooted among the workers and was made a leader in the Unión Nacional de Trabajadores (UNT), the labor union promoted by his own president Chávez. If Orlando has been part of the so-called Bolivarian movement for many years, what has happened in 2009 to get him to make these kinds of statements about the government he once defended? The main part of the answer is: because Chirino is an iron defender of the unions' autonomy.

The attempt to control the workers' movement from above began as soon as Hugo Chávez was elected president of Venezuela. In 1999 a clash began with the traditional Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CTV), a labor union created in 1947 by the influence of Acción Democrática (AD) [2], and changed, since 1959, into the main negotiator of the labor policies developed by the state. Nevertheless, in spite of Chavismo's questions about the irregularities and vices of this organization, in the abscence of their own labor movement, they participated in its internal elections in October 2001. The Bolivarian candidate, Aristóbulo Isturiz, was defeated by the AD candidate Carlos Ortega, who became the president of the CTV. A year and a half later, repeating the same history of the CTV, the government created by decree what it called "the real labor union": the Unión Nacional de Trabajadores (UNT), which quickly reproduced the corruption that it claimed to fight. One Marxist organization that participated in its foundation, Opción Obrera, says it more clearly than us: "The UNT was born under agreements from above, and was ridden for a show for the rank and file; few authentic union leaders had power in it... [3] The UNT was born with governmental protection, which lifted it up. The criticized "perks" of the old CTV unionism are now granted to the leaders of the UNT, who are staunch supporters of the government." Paradoxically, before the limited acceptance of the new labor union among the mass of workers, and the resistance of some sectors of the union to their cooptation, the Bolivarian power promoted new organizations in order to displace the UNT, as is the case of the Frente Socialista Bolivariano de los Trabajadores (FSBT).

A second milestone, justified with the argument of weakening the CTV bureaucracy, was the promotion of the so-called "union parallelism" [4] from the seat of government, creating unions artificially, from outside, in the principal industries of the country. In this way Chavismo would be able to publicize that with almost 700 registered unions, the Bolivarian process has promoted the organization of workers like nothing has before. However, this rise of the unions did not mean their greater influence on labor policies. One indicator is the end of the discussion of collective contracts in the public sector, counting 243 expired, paralyzed and unsigned contracts at the end of 2007, in a sector that in May 2009 employs 2,244,413 people, a quarter of those contracted by the private sector.

The decisions on salaries, labor conditions, and labor law are made unilaterally by the institutions of the state, after which they are mechanically ratified by the spokespersons of the UNT. In addition to the fragmentation and loss of capacity for pressure and negotiation, union parallelism has exacerbated the disputes for control of those workplaces in the areas of oil and construction - in which the union can place 70 out of 100 recruits - which have increased the cases of assassination of union leaders and workers in inter-union strife. Between June 2008 and when this text was written, there have been 59 murders that spread with the greatest impunity.

A third element is the creation of the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV), a partisan body that, in president's own words, should absorb all organizations that support the Bolivarian process, including the unions. A few defended the independence of the workers' organizations, but dissent from the official line was not tolerated. In march of 2007 Chávez affirmed in a speech "The unions should not be autonomous... we must end with that," which was followed by successive declarations in the same line, reaching the zenith in march of 2009, when after ridiculing the demands of the basic industries of Guayana - the biggest industrial belt of the country - he threatened to use the police to crush any attempts at demonstrations or strikes there. For a revolutionary like Orlando Chirino, it was unbearable, stating at the time that it "constituted a declaration of war against the working class."

Various initiatives are currently being developed to increase control over the country's workers. For one thing, laws have been passed that limit and criminalize protest, requiring people to report periodically to the courts, in addition to prohibiting them from participation in meetings and demonstrations, such as occurred this past July 13 to 5 union leaders of the oil refinery of El Palito, in the west of the country. According to figures from spokespersons of the affected communities, at least 2,200 people would be currently subject to the scheme. It must be brought out that, curiously, more than 80% are part of the movement to support the national government. This detail is significant because since 2008 has come increasing social unrest in the face of the miseries and limitations of material life for workers on the ground. The protests for social rights have displaced the mobilizations for political rights, that set the scene during the years 2002 and 2006. The failure to meet the expectations generated by Bolivarian rhetoric, the weakening of patronage networks by declining oil revenues and the stagnation and decline of effective social policies, known as "missions," have catalyzed the accumulated unrest in the absence of profound transformations that significantly improve the quality of life for the majority of the country. Another initiative underway, again by decree from above, is the replacement of unions with "workers' councils" for discussing work conditions in companies, a proposal entered in the reform of the Organic Labor Law (LOT), a regulation that has been discussed in secret in the National Assembly, an executive that is promoted around the world as a champion of "participatory democracy."

Other laws, that seem to have no connection to the world of work, have also been restricting workers' rights. That's the case with the reformed Law of Land Transit, which in its article 74 prohibits the closure of streets to obstruct pedestrian and vehicle traffic, which has been the historical practice of protest by the popular sectors, especially in demanding their labor rights. Meanwhile, on August 15 an Organic Law of Education was passed, which has provoked protest by opposition groups for its secularism and for establishing strict regulations for private education institutions. However, what this center-right and social-democratic opposition does not question, much less Chavismo, are the limitations to the right of association, unionization, and collective bargaining, which is not guaranteed. One sign of the reactionary character of the order is section 5.f of the first transitional provision, which states that teachers and professors engage in serious misconduct "by physical aggression, speech, and other forms of violence" against their superiors. To make matters worse, the fifth transitional provision regulates the use of scabs "for reasons of proven necessity" in order to break strikes and work stoppages, a practice that has become habitual in so-called "Bolivarian Venezuela." In addition, the Chavista movement has driven an onslaught against the media outlets that don't accommodate the government, whose principle motivation is the visibility of the conflicts and protests that they provide, in contrast with the scarce coverage of the state and para-state media, self-declared "alternative and community," but without editorial and financial independence of any kind.

The role of Venezuelan anarchists in this moment of fracture of Bolivarian hegemony is to participate, accompany, and radicalize the conflicts, from below and with the people, and in this way to stimulate the recovery of the belligerent autonomy of the social movements. They must also become actively involved in the construction of a different, revolutionary alternative to the inter-bourgeois conflict for the control of the oil revenues that has engulfed the political scene in recent years, fighting the Bolivarian bourgeoisie in power with the same impetus as the potential rearticulations of those political parties it has displaced. In this way we walk, as always, without giving any concession to power and having our old values (self-management, direct action, anticapitalism and mutual aid, among others) as a bright horizon.

1. Literally a "coup-ist," the connotation is a national traitor
2. AD is a Venezuelan center-left party
3. Literally "in the direction converged few authentic leaders with union trajectory"
4. "Parallel association" might be a better translation

Translated by Dan Knutson
Original Spanish article: http://www.nodo50.org/tierraylibertad/4articulo.html

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Chomsky as Chávez’s Clown

El Libertario (Venezuela)

This article criticizes the weak and untenable posture the celebrated North American linguist and essayist holds in support of the current Venezuelan government. It was originally published in Venezuela’s anarchist newspaper El Libertario (www.nodo50.org/ellibertario), issue # 57.

Contrary to what many think, the ability to believe in fairy tales and to blindly accept a fiction, no matter how fantastic or grotesque, is not the sole attribute of the dumb and ignorant. The famous writer Noam Chomsky has just proved that intelligent and cultivated intellectuals are also capable of believing and adopting conduct and political action totally dogmatic, false and authoritarian. They believe so or at least pretend to.

It is nothing new to see a highly ranked intellectual falling into such contradiction. In the Soviet Union and Maoist China we saw the irrational phenomenon of the “fellow travelers” … Those intellectuals who believed –many of them in good faith – the establishment of “socialism” and the construction of “the new man” in those countries until the facts forced them to realize what those regimes really were. Nevertheless, although in many cases such mistakes are not motivated by the search of some sort of reward and may seem sincere, just some anthropological weakness, it behooves to ask the why and how of such conduct. Although the easiest thing would be to think that it is simply due to beliefs that no human being –even the most rational ones- could forever avoid, in Chomsky’s case it is not possible to forget that he himself fought against this tendency in the past.

That is why it is imperative to ask: how can a man, apparently capable of reasoning, of critical analysis of what happens in the world, travel to Venezuela today to sing the praises of “XXI Century socialism” without noticing the military mentality of its inventor, Commander Chávez, nor the crass populism of his so-called Bolivarian Revolution? How can Chomsky commit the same error as some famous intellectuals of the past century, some praising Stalin and some, years later, revering Mao and his “Little Red Book”? They did so because they believed that in Russia and in China they were building the “true communism” and he does so now because he believes that in Venezuela “a new world, a different world” is being created. How can he forget that later all those intellectuals were forced to confess a “mea culpa” for their ideological blindness that prevented them from seeing what was behind the Stalinist and Maoist revolutionary discourse? That totalitarianism, responsible for the death of millions of people, inspired Castro to impose for fifty years a dictatorship in Cuba that Chávez devoutly imitates.

But what is surprising in the Chomsky of the last few years is not only the apparent historical amnesia but that he is sensitive to the praises the histrionic commander bestows: “I give you the warmest welcome (…) it was time for you to visit us and for the Venezuelan people to see you and hear you directly” while he shows his gratitude for his “loving and generous words”. There is also the buffoonery of Chomsky saying how “it moved him to meet the men who have inspired this situation”.

What is most surprising about this conversion to messianic faith, similar to other famous conversions to Catholicism (Baudelaire, Peguy, Claudel, etc) is that the miracle happens after the collapse of “real socialism” of Soviet inspiration and the establishment of capitalism in China by the same communist party Mao left in power. In contrast to the young intellectual “idealists” who worshipped Stalin or Mao before these important historical events happened, Chomsky has been able to observe them in his lifetime and that makes more incomprehensible the fact that he now seems to have forgotten them. Above all, the failures of messianic revolutions confirm without a doubt all his prophecies.

It is true that for a while now we have been witnesses to the instrumentalization of Chomsky in many directions. This happens despite the fact that his ethical position, his ideological references and his political activity are contrary to what many of his followers defend and value. This is easy to see simply by reading his books. Unless today’s Chomsky is not the same who wrote: “We are in a time of corporatizing power, consolidating and centralizing power. It is assumed this is good, if you are a progressive, as a Marxist-Leninist. Three important things come from the same background: fascism, bolshevism and corporate tyranny. They all come from the same more or less Hegelian roots.” (Chomsky, Class Warfare, p.23) And let us not talk about what he wrote a while later regarding the country born out of the Bolshevik coup d’etat in October 1917 that, for Chomsky, was responsible for the dismantling of the emerging socialist structures in Russia: “They are the same brutal communists, the same brutal Stalinists of two years ago, now directed by the whites” and who are “the enthusiastic managers of the market economy”. Hence his pessimism: “Those who try to associate themselves with popular organizations and help the population to organize themselves, those who support popular movements in this way, simply will not be able to survive in such circumstances of concentrated power”. (Chomsky, Comprende le pouvoir, pp.7 – 11).

How is it possible that he can commit the same error as the pro-Chinese “fellow travelers” who had known the same old blindness in the preceding generation –that of the old Stalinists who tardily came to self-criticism- although he was a critical witness to such blindness? What is even more serious in Chomsky’s case is that those experiences have taught him nothing even after seeing and denouncing them.

Regarding Chomsky we must ask ourselves about the mystery of the strange cohabitation of the sharpest intelligence and the most obtuse credulity in the same human spirit. Particularly so because at that time he was one of the harshest critics of the blindness suffered by many of his intellectual colleagues who along with him constituted the cream of western intellectuals: the Sartres and other great philosophers, historians, sociologists, journalists or first rate university people.

It is indeed a mystery since there were few intellectuals who later didn’t have to confess being wrong and admit that Chomsky was right, showing how this blindness had driven them to commit that very grave error in the past. How could Chomsky have forgotten this? It is also true that the old Stalinists’ blindness –a thousand times confessed and analyzed in articles, interviews and books – didn’t serve as lesson for young western Maoists, who 20 years later repeated the same error, with the same arrogance as their predecessors. The first thing for them was blind adhesion to what was presented as an emancipating revolution. In Chomsky we see the opposite: first came the denunciation, the objective, rational analysis, rigorously critical, and then the blindness…

Shortsighted Anti-Imperialism

It is true that Chomsky’s anti American imperialism was rather discreet with regards to the growing authoritarianism of the Sandinistas during their turn in power in the 80’s in Nicaragua and the Castro dictatorship during several decades. And this is so in spite of the fact that among the victims of the latter are many who shared a lot with the militant pro-Cuban anti-imperialists of Latin America.

Could it be that this obstinate anti-imperialism, the fact that in his view the most important thing is to denounce the injustices prevalent in the USA as well as the injustices generated by this country on a global scale, drives him to stake his position on what happens in the American continent in such a confusing manner? Although Chomsky still considers himself “anarchist-libertarian” it’s clear that for him ideological considerations must be relegated to the background and a kind of gradation must be made between injustices according to the degree of global danger posed by the targets of his criticism. The problem is that such political relativism allows many Marxist-Leninists, demagogues and politicians, whose only concern is the conquest of power, its execution and conservation, to get shelter in Chomsky’s anti-imperialist arguments instead of caring about helping the people to organize themselves. It’s a serious problem because Chomsky does and says nothing to dissuade them. On the contrary, maintaining such immoral discretion with such perseverance and allowing himself to be photographed besides the Castros and the Chavezes he becomes an accomplice of the clownishness and the authoritarian, dictatorial deviations of these modern day oligarchs, no matter how convenient or discreet his praises might be.

Unfortunately, this obstinacy in keeping such Manichean discretion (considering that these demagogues’ access to power is less of a danger than the destruction caused by Yankee imperialism in the world) is not only inefficient in preventing such destruction (these demagogues continue to do business with the empire’s multinational corporations) but also contributes to demobilize people and make even harder the task of those who do struggle against worldwide domination by Capital and the State.

It is possible that, given his age, Chomsky can’t recognize it: but it is impossible to think that he isn’t aware of the distance that separates him from all those who believe his arguments against the Yankee empire and who, in turn, are very reticent, because of self-interest or comfort, to denounce the dominating ways of these supposedly revolutionary demagogues.

Octavio Alberola

About the author: O.A. combines theory and activism. In 1955 he organized in Mexico in solidarity with the Cuban struggle against the Batista dictatorship, later directly supporting the preparations for Castro’s landing in the Isle. In 1962 in France he coordinated Interior Defense, a secret group formed by agreement between the CNT, the FAI and the Iberian Federation of Libertarian Youth in order to re-activate the struggle against Franco’s dictatorship, being responsible for sabotage, attempts, printing clandestine propaganda and helping people fleeing Spanish fascism. Today he works on the revision of the Delgado and Granado trial, in the Support Group for Independent Libertarians and Syndicalists in Cuba (GALSIC), among other activities. He is the author of “El anarquismo español y la acción revolucionaria (1961-1974)” and “Miedo a la memoria”.

Note from the publishers of El Libertario: In our issue #51, accessible in www.nodo50.org/ellibertario, we have published another article on this subject: “Chavez y Chomsky. El caudillo y el libertario” by N. Triffon, translated to Spanish from the French original published in Le Monde Libertaire, weekly paper by the French Anarchist Federation in its issue of December 21 2006.

Translation: Luis Prat

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Venezuelan mielenosoituksissa on kuollut kaksi ihmistä
http://takku.net/forum/viewtopic.php?showtopic=5316

Kyseessä siis televisioasemien sulkemisia vastustaneet opiskelijamielenosoitukset tammikuussa 2010.

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Venezuela: the myth of "Eco-socialism of the XXI Century"

* This text, which appeared in El Libertario # 58, March-April 2010, critically examines what has been meaning the government of Hugo Chavez from an environmental point of view, highlighting the clear separation between the rhetoric speeches that are emitted from power and the specific facts being promoted and implemented.

[The author is Professor and Researcher at the Simon Bolivar University in Caracas. This contribution is the revised excerpt from a longer article appeared in Spanish in the Journal of Economics and Social Sciences (FACES-UCV) entitled "XXI Century Eco-socialism and Bolivarian Development Model: the myths of environmental sustainability and participatory democracy in Venezuela ", 2009, vol. 15, No. 1, pp.187-223 (Available on http://www.scielo.org.ve/pdf/rvecs/v15n1/art10.pdf), where quoted references are marked with appropriate details. Not included here for space reasons.]

Venezuela is a country of mining and extractive industry economy, whose model development has been based on the exploitation of oil and other non renewable natural resources that causes strong impacts on the environment. More than a decade, some researchers (Garcia Guadilla et al, 1997) strongly questioned the sustainability of development models in the nineties under the presidencies of C. A. Perez and R. Caldera. In the decade 1999-2009 the government has blamed the "savage capitalism and neoliberal policies” and consequently, property and private exploitation of resources for the environmental problems, despite that current exploitation of these resources and the design of economic policies that support the so-called Bolivarian Development Model reproduce these practices labelled as "neoliberal or savage capitalism", causing negative environmental impacts same strong or higher than in the past.
    [Wait, Hugobama can't save us?]

In the decade 1999-2009, the conflicts and protests for environmental post materialistic and materialistic demands, have had as main actors environmental organizations, indigenous communities, public sectors and even human rights organizations; basing its struggle on the 1999 Constitution, approved by a Constituent Process, that did incorporate participatory democracy and environmental rights, both socio-cultural and indigenous, among others (García Guadilla, 2001). Many of these rights have been violated, and participatory democracy has not resulted in an environmental democracy when resolving such conflicts, which in fact have been multiplied since Hugo Chavez became President of the Republic.

_Memorial of grievances_

Some of the most significant socio-environmental conflicts of this decade in Venezuela have to do with the negative impacts of oil exploitation and mining, and the potential impacts associated with energy mega-projects, proposed both nationally and internationally, to supposedly reduce the U.S. dependence and achieving the integration of Latin America and the Caribbean by the now called Bolivarian Alliance for Our Americas People (ALBA).

The Bolivarian Development Model has been defined discursively by Government spokesmen including President Chavez as "sustainable, endogenous, equitable and participatory" (Fergusson undated; Francia 2007, Perez, undated; Velasco, 2005.2007; Ministery of Science and Technology, undated). The electoral tender made in 1998 by the then presidential candidate Hugo Chavez to support the struggles that environmentalists and indigenous were doing at the time around their conflicts, along with his environmental sustainability speech and criticism of the "neo-liberalism and wild capitalism ", created an expectation among the social movements that if he became president would set a vision more consonant with environmental sustainable development.

However, these expectations were frustrated because according to the announcement made in 2005 by President Chavez, it is contemplated to double the oil production for 2012 through the exploitation of 500,000 km2 of marine platform and over 500,000 km2 in mainland, plus the construction of new refineries and a gas complex in the Gulf of Paria. Other activities included in those development plans are mining extractions in the Imataca Forest Reserve, the substantial increase in coal mining in the Sierra de Perija and increased hydropower production for export to Brazil through electric power lines. The economic crisis along with the government inefficiency have delayed or halted those plans, but if they ever settle, it will affect almost the entire territory, including areas that are now environmentally protected by the laws and Constitution such as Canaima National Park where the Gran Sabana is placed, Imataca Forest Reserve and the basins of the country main rivers. These plans reflect continuity with the policies of previous governments, branded by President Chavez as "neoliberals, capitalists and predators of the environment."

As for the Caribbean and South America, Venezuela is one of the twelve member countries of the Initiative for the Integration of South American Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA), which provides 507 projects with high environmental and socio-cultural impacts spread over ten areas of development, involving construction of major works infrastructure (communication and transport, roads, dams, gas pipelines and waterways) to the length and breadth of South America (AMIGRANSA, 2005). The mega-plan Great Southern Gas Pipeline, one of the most important plans to achieve energy integration between Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina, among other countries and base of the ALBA project, requires cross 8000 kilometres, so it would affect extremely fragile and bio diverse areas which, according with some researchers, are the latest environmental reserves that exist in Latin America. As in the previous case, these mega-plans are paralyzed or delayed due to the economic crisis, but if they’re activated, the impacts on the environment could be compared with the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), ideological mother of the ALBA.

_Resistance beyond rhetoric discourses_

The development model based in the exploitation of hydrocarbons that the Venezuelan government has proposed on a national level, for countries part of the ALBA and the South American and Caribbean region that participates in the IIRSA, has been strongly questioned by the environmental, indigenous and human rights movements due to the large scale environmental and socio-cultural impacts that will generate. In various discussions on the subject made in the World Social Forum carried out in Caracas in January 2006, indigenous social movements and environmentalists of Venezuela and the world expressed strong criticism against the negative effects of oil exploitation, being the largest mobilization of the Forum the march against exploitation and expansion of coal developments in the Sierra de Perija in support of life, environment, cultural identity and, in general, rights sanctioned in the Bolivarian Constitution of 1999 (Soberania.org.ve, 2006). Currently, there are frequent protests against negative effects of oil and gas in Ecuador and Venezuela, and questioning via national and international digital environmental networks such as oilwatch.org, maippa.org, soberanía.org and amigransa.blogia.com; because these spaces are privileged and globalized electronic networks of resistance against the negative impacts of oil and gas exploitation in tropical countries.

In Venezuela as in the whole globalized world, the logic behind social movements is to face "neoliberal policy" whether the government has a "anti-neoliberal discourse", which means that the Bolivarian Development Model, like the other governments that are called left, can generate resistance and mobilization on the part of those movements which demand not only materialistic values but also respect for human rights, own culture, gender equity and a healthy environment. Therefore this can not be understood solely with the logic of neoliberalism or anti- neoliberalism, because both can go against the promotion of these values.

In the case of Venezuela, such resistance movements and proposals can come both from within and outside Chavez circles because of the big ideological heterogeneity of the groups supporting the president; and given the lack of a shared and clear ideological project within the Chavez movement, environmental policies strategies can be woven that do not necessarily have a reference in the anti-neoliberalism or neoliberalism. This could be the case of Venezuelans environmental and indigenous social movements that, while by definition are anti-neoliberal and many of its members support the president Chavez, transcend this dichotomy questioning the model of “civilization” and demand a transformation on the political, cultural, gender, social and environmental rationality.

So far, the great ideological heterogeneity and class differences between environmentalists, has hampered the formulation of collective proposals and has contributed to the estrangement between different social movements that in the past were articulated around strategic alliances of environmentalists. All this seems to affect the expanded environmental movement, the indigenous and human rights organizations, that has lost their power as a result. (García Guadilla & Lagorio, 2006): the missing of an objective reading on the socio-environmental crisis and the lack of a joint strategy about alternative collective proposals related with their identity and constitutionally support, have contributed to this weakening. While ideological alliances become unrealistic given the large heterogeneity and polarization, the protests against a predator model that cause big impacts on the environment and the proposals to "build the new meanings, languages and symbols "of the new model of civilization could be channelled through mobilizations, virtual or real, and new forms of resistance in communities.

_For a consistent Eco-Socialism_

The anti-neoliberal speech of the Bolivarian Development Model can be a first step towards the implementation of a more fair model; nonetheless the rationality implicit in the plans and policies planned within the XXI century Eco-socialism in Venezuela attempt against it, since the productivist, instrumental and developmental logic has not change. In addition, the conception of revolutionary transformation implicit in that model is not different from the '60s and, in any case, its guidelines come from above. Can we speak of justice, social equity and solidarity when the development model does not take into account the environmental dimension or intergenerational equity?, when it sacrifice the welfare and the right to cultural identity of its Indigenous communities for economic development, or a Latin American integration that transcends the expectations of welfare into the national actors involved?, when the model do not recognize the negative impacts that the designed mega-projects have (call these gas pipelines, oil pipelines, or large infrastructure projects) and whose economic costs, socio-cultural and environmental impacts are "invisible" for the sake of a new vision of Latin American integration?; can we speak of a revolutionary model that does not stimulate more equitable practices and relationships with the environment, their communities and future generations?

The construction of the XXI Century Eco-socialism in Venezuela passes, first, to overcome the deep gap between the rhetoric discourse and the reality of the development model; secondly, it requires that the desirable model of civilization is built collectively and not to be imposed from above as in the present and, finally, that his source of inspiration is the transition to a post-petroleum society, such as the one envisioned by Salvador De La Plaza, an eminent Venezuelan historian and politician, who warned about the harmful effects of oil and the need to control them to achieve national sovereignty. He implicitly noted that the oil industry to be sustainable requires that the environment benefits and costs arising from the exploitation of hydrocarbons needs to be listed in the "accounting" not only economically but also cultural and socio-environmental.

This view is not very different from Kovel & Lowry (2002) who in their Eco-socialist Manifesto indicate that a society with a high degree of harmony with nature should lead to "the extinction of dependence of the fossil fuels”, which they considered attached to industrial capitalism. Get rid of this dependence "can provide material base for the liberation of the oppressed countries by oil imperialism "and reduce global warming and other problems arising from the ecological crisis.

Maria Pilar Garcia Guadilla - mpgarcia@usb.ve

[Translation: Julio Pacheco]

El Libertario - ellibertario@nodo50.org - www.nodo50.org/ellibertario

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