After more than a year of contentious negotiations, diplomats from 109 countries meeting in Dublin agreed Wednesday on a treaty that would outlaw the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions, which have killed and injured thousands of civilians over the last four decades... Six of the world’s leading users and producers — Russia, China, the United States, Israel, India and Pakistan — did not attend the conference, and have said they would not sign any ban.

On Wednesday, nestled in a white satin coffin, the 17-year-old girl became to farm labor advocates more a symbol of what they say are secretive and abusive conditions in some of the state’s orchards and vineyards.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi Shia have taken to the streets of Baghdad and other cities to protest against a long-term security deal with the US.

what's really driving the high price of oil?
Last week the price of crude oil reached about $130 a barrel after spiking to $140 briefly. The immediate cause? Guesses by oil man T. Boone Pickens and Goldman Sachs that the price could go to $150 and $200 a barrel respectivly in the near future. They were referring to what can be called the hoopla pricing party on the New York Mercantile Exchange. (NYMEX)
(...) Oil was at $50 a barrel in January 2007, then $75 a barrel in August 2007. Now at $130 or so a barrel, it is clear that oil pricing is speculative activity, having very little to do with physical supply and demand. An essential product—petroleum—is set by speculators operating on rumor, greed, and fear of wild predictions.
(...) Over the time since early 2007, U.S. demand for petroleum has fallen by 1 percent and world demand has risen by 1.3 percent. Supplies of crude are so plentiful, according to the Wall Street Journal, “traders of physical crude oil say their market is suffering from too much supply, not too little.” Iran, for instance, is storing 25 million barrels of heavy, sour crude oil because, in the words of Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, Iran’s oil governor, “there are simply no buyers because the market has more than enough oil.”
(...) In an ironic twist, the major price determinant has moved from OPEC (having only 40% of the world production) and the oil companies to the speculators in the commodities markets. What goes on in the essentially unregulated New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX)—without Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) enforced margin requirements, and, unlike your personal purchases, untaxed—is now the place that leads to your skyrocketing gasoline bills. OPEC and the Big Oil companies reap the benefits and say that it’s not their doing, but that of the speculators. Gives new meaning to “passing the buck.”
(...) He cites “some industry experts, who profit greatly from the high price of crude, and have stated openly that the worldwide economic price of crude, absent speculators, would be around $50 to $60 per barrel.

worst is yet to come:
The United States accumulated a massive, $8 trillion housing bubble during the decade from 1996-2006. Only about 40 percent of that bubble has now deflated. House prices are still falling at a 20 percent annual rate (over the last quarter). This means that the worst is yet to come, including another wave of mortgage defaults and write-downs. Even homeowners who are not in trouble will borrow increasingly less against their homes, reducing their spending.
(...) Of course, for most Americans it has felt like a recession hit some time ago, with real wages flat since the end of 2002, and household income not growing for most of the six-and-a-half year economic expansion.
(...) Some look to exports to lead the recovery, but these are only 11 percent of GDP, and consumption is about 70 percent. Still, the fall in the dollar over the last six years is helping - making our exports more competitive and reducing the subsidy that we have been giving to imports for many years. In a sign of how economic illiteracy prevails in the United States, most people (thanks largely to what they hear and read in the media) see the dollar's decline as bad economic news.

The Iraq war was a disaster for Iraq, a disaster for the United States, a disaster for the Middle East, a disaster for the world community, but most of all, it was a disaster for the experts.

The credibility of Transparency International, a global "non-partisan" organisation which "promotes transparency in elections, in public administration, in procurement and in business", is on the line. Their latest report on Venezuela, which was produced after months of research, is factually inaccurate in almost every respect. TI say that they "stand by their report" and stand by the person who compiled the data, an anti-Chávez activist who backed the 2002 military coup against democracy.

The recent uproar surrounding Pastor John Hagee is only remarkable in the sense that it took so long in coming. The fundamentalist pastor of the 19,000-member Cornerstone "mega-church" in San Antonio, Texas has long shown himself to be not just anti-Semitic, but also anti-Islamic and anti-Catholic. It doesn't take much probing to find ample examples of racism, bigotry and justification of violent tragedy in the words of the man once described by Senator Joe Lieberman as 'Ish Elokim' — 'Man of God'.

Desmond Tutu, the South African Nobel Peace prize winner, has said he is shocked by conditions in the Gaza Strip after months of Israeli sanctions.

the course of naxalism:
The Naxalite movement is mostly active in the tribal areas spreading from Bihar to Andhra Pradesh and Maharastra, and also covering parts of Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. This spread is linked only to the inaccessible hilly terrain of these regions, but a conscious decision by the Naxalites to take up the issues affecting the tribal people, who are among the most exploited in society. India's development process has led to commercialisation of forest resources, reducing the traditional access to forest produce. Alienation of tribal land to non-tribals has been a steady trend despite legal strictures. Mining-based industries and the construction of large dams have caused extensive displacement of the tribals, besides destroying their natural environment. A central Naxalite agenda is for tribal self-determination, asserting the rights of the tribals over local resources.
(...) Overall, therefore, the Naxalite challenge rests upon the issues of agrarian transformation, tribal people's rights, the nationality movement and resisting imperialism and globalisation. All this adds up to what they characterise as the people's democratic revolution to change the very character of the Indian state. Because of the issues they pursue, the Naxalites have a social base which sustains them despite a variety of repressive measures pursued by the state. In fact, over the past decade the movement has spread to new areas such as southern districts of Orissa and West Bengal as well as parts of Uttar Padesh and Rajasthan.
(...) The oft-repeated plea that there is no place for violence in a democracy indicates a desirable norm for seeking peaceful constitutional response to fulfil a people's aspirations. But when the coercive power of the state is used to defend the interest of the rich and the powerful or to eliminate resistance to injustice, the same can sound like a hollow claim. Social violence has grown in India with landlords' armies in Bihar, factional murders in Andhra's Rayalseema, and upper caste atrocities on dalits all over – to mention but a few examples.
(...) Democracy is indeed meant for bringing about peaceful change through people's representatives. But the fact is that existing power centres in society do not allow that to easily happen. Groups fighting for democratic rights have been pointing this out for over three decades now. The state response to the Naxalite movement was to capture and kill activists them by staging 'false encounters'. Human rights groups which go under the acronyms APCLC, PUDR and PUCL, have investigated many such incidents in Andhra, Bihar and elsewhere. They have demanded that rule of law be applied to all such cases, and all persons suspected should be tried according to law rather than be eliminated. When the state itself violates the constitutional obligations with impunity, then the violation of law and civic norms becomes widespread.
(...) During the peace talks and press conferences, the Maoists were confronted with many issues raised by democratic rights groups in the recent years. Could the Maoists be said to be respecting the norms of revolutionary violence when the common people were subjected to killings and torture by them, or when public property was destroyed? How did they explain individual annihilations by their squads, and did this reflect the Maoist norm of 'mass line'?
(...) Human rights activists have also challenged the Maoists, asking whether they practice democracy and civil liberties within their movement, which should after all be the embryo of their 'ideal society'. Factionalism and splits have famously characterised the Naxalite movement, which is why there are over two dozen groups in existence at any given time. And so the natural question, are the comrades guilty of sectarian politics when they should be developing a united front? There was a time the intolerance of divergent opinion within the party was so stark that it led to killings – a tendency that seems to have subsided in recent years. The communist groups seem to resort all too easily to the mechanical understanding of revisionism and dogmatism. The revolutionary tradition of inner-party democracy – the minority accepting the decision of the majority while the majority respects the point of view of the minority – seems a fragile heritage.
(...) The common people whose cause the Naxalites claim to represent confront day-to-day livelihood issues – of making a living out of agriculture and forestry, of finding water for their fields, access to affordable credit, market for their produce, and ways and means to access education and health. Such ground-level issues do not seem to figure prominently in the Maoists' formulation of political strategy. Many of these activities which concretely help the poor are dismissed with terms such as 'reformism', 'welfare work' or even 'ngo action'. The idea that cultural and educational work form an integral part of revolutionary strategy, together with political and military tasks, seems to have been relegated to the background. In the recent years, the Naxalite leadership has indeed tried to respond to these issues, but not entirely satisfactorily.
(...) The issue of revolutionary creativity – the ability to assess the emerging national, local and global environment and adjusting to the evolving while pursuing one's ideological goals – thus remains a challenge for the Naxalite movement in India. It is important not only to learn from the Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions, but also from the experience of the Philippines, Nicaragua, Peru, Venezuela and Nepal.
(...) Indeed, the policy makers, be it in Delhi or Hyderabad, are now guided by a unified understanding of global terrorism. They are excitedly formulating a strategy of counter-terrorism US software, Israeli hardware and some Indian brands added. This strategy cannot see the difference between the CPI-Maoist operating in Andhra and Bihar, from the CPN-Maoist currently fighting the autocratic monarchy in Nepal. No doubt, they are revolutionary communists in solidarity with one another, but they are fighting different battles in their own countries. After all, these are Maoists who believed the great helmsman when he said that the people of each country must formulate their own strategy derived from their unique local conditions. Leaders of the Indian state must try and comprehend the nature of the Maoist challenge and address the socio-economic issues at its heart, so that another spiral of intensified violence in India can be avoided and prospects of peace and democracy enhanced.

the world food crisis:
Of the more than 6 billion people living in the world today, the United Nations estimates that close to 1 billion suffer from chronic hunger. But this number, which is only a crude estimate, leaves out those suffering from vitamin and nutrient deficiencies and other forms of malnutrition. The total number of food insecure people who are malnourished or lacking critical nutrients is probably closer to 3 billion—about half of humanity. The severity of this situation is made clear by the United Nations estimate of over a year ago that approximately 18,000 children die daily as a direct or indirect consequence of malnutrition
(...) At this moment in history there are, in addition to the "routine" hunger discussed above, two separate global food crises occurring simultaneously. The severe and acute crisis, about two years old, is becoming worse day by day and it is this one that we'll discuss first.
(...) The prices of the sixty agricultural commodities traded on the world market increased 37 percent last year and 14 percent in 2006 (New York Times, January 19, 2008). Corn prices began their rise in the early fall of 2006 and within months had soared by some 70 percent. Wheat and soybean prices also skyrocketed during this time and are now at record levels. The prices for cooking oils (mainly made from soybeans and oil palm)—an essential foodstuff in many poor countries—have rocketed up as well. Rice prices have also risen over 100 percent in the last year ("High Rice Cost Creating Fears of Asia Unrest," New York Times, March 29, 2008).
(...) The reasons for these soaring food prices are fairly clear. First, there are a number of issues related directly or indirectly to the increase in petroleum prices. In the United States, Europe, and many other countries this has brought a new emphasis on growing crops that can be used for fuel—called biofuels (or agrofuels). Thus, producing corn to make ethanol or soybean and palm oil to make diesel fuel is in direct competition with the use of these crops for food. Last year over 20 percent of the entire corn crop in the United States was used to produce ethanol—a process that does not yield much additional energy over that which goes into producing it. (It is estimated that over the next decade about one-third of the U.S. corn crop will be devoted to ethanol production [Bloomberg, February 21, 2008].) Additionally, many of the inputs for large-scale commercial agricultural production are based on petroleum and natural gas—from building and running tractors and harvesting equipment to producing fertilizers and pesticides and drying crops for storage. The price of nitrogen fertilizer, the most commonly used fertilizer worldwide, is directly tied to the price of energy because it takes so much energy to produce.
(...) A second cause of the increase in prices of corn and soybeans and soy cooking oil is that the increasing demand for meat among the middle class in Latin America and Asia, especially China. The use of maize and soy to feed cattle, pigs, and poultry has risen sharply to satisfy this demand. The world's total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961. In 2007, it was estimated to be 284 million tons. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over that period. In the developing world, it rose twice as fast, doubling in the last twenty years alone. (New York Times, January 27, 2008.) Feeding grain to more and more animals is putting growing pressure on grain stores. Feeding grain to produce meat is a very inefficient way of providing people with either calories or protein. It is especially wasteful for animals such as cows—with digestive systems that can derive energy from cellulose—because they can obtain all of their nutrition from pastures and will grow well without grain, although more slowly. Cows are not efficient converters of corn or soy to meat—to yield a pound of meat, cows require eight pounds of corn; pigs, five; and chickens, three (Baron's, March 4, 2008).
(...) A third reason for the big jump in world food prices is that a few key countries that were self-sufficient—that is, did not import foods, although plenty of people suffered from hunger—are now importing large quantities of food. As a farm analyst in New Delhi says "When countries like India start importing food, then the world prices zoom....If India and China are both turning into bigger importers, shifting from food self-sufficiency as recently we have seen in India, then the global prices are definitely going to rise still further, which will mean the era of cheaper food has now definitely gone away" (VOA News, February 21, 2008). Part of the reason for the pressure on rice prices is the loss of farmland to other uses such as various development projects—some 7 million acres in China and 700,000 acres in Vietnam. In addition, rice yields per acre in Asia have reached a plateau. There has been no per acre increase for ten years and yield increases are not expected in the near future (Rice Today, January-March 2008).
(...) Speculation in the futures market and hoarding at the local level are certainly playing a part in this crisis situation to make food more expensive. As the U.S. financial crisis deepened and spread in the winter of 2008, speculators started putting more money into food and metals to take advantage of what is being called the "commodities super cycle." (The dollar's decline relative to other currencies stimulates "investment" in tangible commodities.) While it would be a mistake to see these aspects, however despicable and inhumane, as the cause of the crisis, they certainly add to the misery by taking advantage of tight markets. It is certainly possible that the commodity bubble will burst, bringing down food prices a bit. However, speculation and local hoarding will continue to put an upward pressure on food prices.
(...) As critical as the short-term food crisis is—demanding immediate world notice as well as attention within every country—the long-term, structural crisis is even more important. The latter has existed for decades and contributes to, and is reinforced by, today's acute food crisis. Indeed, it is this underlying structural crisis of agriculture and food in third world societies which constitutes the real reason that the immediate food crisis is so severe and so difficult to surmount within the system.
(...) It seems logical that with higher food prices, farmers should be better off and produce more to satisfy the "demand" indicated by the market. To a certain extent that is true—especially for farmers that can take advantage of all the physical and monetary advantages of large-scale production. Yet, the input costs for just about everything used in agricultural production have also increased, thus profit gains for farmers are not as large as might be expected. This is a particularly difficult problem for farmers raising animals fed on increasingly expensive grains.
(...) Rising crop prices cause the price of farmland to increase—especially of large fields that can be worked by large-scale machinery. This is happening in the United States and in certain countries of the periphery. For example, Global Ag Investments, a company based in Texas, owns and operates 34,000 acres of Brazilian farmland. At one of its farms, a single field of soybeans covers 1,600 acres—that's two and a half square miles! A New Zealand company has purchased approximately 100,000 acres in Uruguay and has hired managers to operate dairy farms established on their land.
Private equity firms are purchasing farmland in the United States (Associated Press, May 7, 2007) as well as abroad. A U.S. company is cooperating with Brazilian and Japanese partners to purchase 385 square miles in Brazil, approximately a quarter of a million acres! This is also happening with South American capital taking the lead—a Brazilian investment fund, Investimento em Participacoe, is buying a minority stake in a an Argentine soybean producer that owns close to 400,000 acres in Uruguay and Argentina. Rising crop prices have also led to an acceleration of deforestation in the Amazon basin—1,250 square miles (about the size of Rhode Island) in the last five months of 2007—as capitalist farmers hunger for more land (BBC, January 24, 2008). In addition, huge areas of farmland have been taken for development—some of dubious use, such as building suburban style housing and golf courses for the wealthy.
(...) In China during 2000 to 2005, there was an average annual loss of 2.6 million acres as farmland is used for development. The country is fast approaching the self-defined minimum amount of arable farmland that it should have—approximately 290 million acres (120 million hectares)—and the amount of farmland will most likely continue to fall. As part of an effort to gain access to foreign agricultural production, a Chinese company has made an agreement to lease close to 2.5 million acres of land in the Philippines to grow rice, corn, and sugar—setting off a huge protest in the Philippines that has temporarily stalled the project (Bloomberg, February 21, 2008). As one farmer put it: "The [Philippine] government and the Chinese call it a partnership, but it only means the Chinese will be our landlords and we will be the slaves.''
(...) Although enhanced agricultural production is essential, much of the emphasis in the past has been on production of export crops. While this may help a country's balance of payments, export oriented agriculture does not ensure sufficient food for everyone nor does it promote a healthy rural environment. In addition to basic commodities such as soybeans, export-oriented agriculture also leads naturally to the production of high-value luxury crops demanded by export markets (luxuries from the standpoint of the basic food needs of a poor third world country), rather than the low-value subsistence crops needed to meet the needs of the domestic population. Production of sufficient amounts of the right kinds of food within each country's borders—by small farmers working in cooperatives or on their own and using sustainable techniques—is the best way to achieve the goal of "food security." In this way the population may be insulated, at least partially, from the price fluctuations on the world market. This, of course, also means not taking land out of food production to produce crops for the biofuel markets.

tony blair accused of war crimes:
It seems likely that his head and lower half were screened from the source of this radiation by a window aperture or similar, given the rectangular pattern of the thermal injuries. The weapon that caused such rapid incineration is unknown. It certainly was not a thermobaric weapon as used currently in Iraq and Gaza. Uranium weapons give rise to a fireball as the dust ignites. This can melt steel but there are no photographs of human victims of such attacks which match the incineration of the arms of Ali Abbas, although these weapons have been used frequently – both in the Gulf War and in the ongoing Iraq War. The clandestine use of a small tactical nuclear weapon cannot not be ruled out.

a cluster of excuses:
Cluster munitions leave de facto landmines when their duds scatter, often over a wide area. Today they cause a far greater threat to civilian lives and livelihoods than land mines. With 156 states party to the Mine Ban Treaty, the world has already agreed mines are illegal. Their use has been so stigmatised that even non-parties to the treaty like the US, China and Russia are reluctant to use them.

breaking the chains:
For every $1 that developing countries receive from rich countries in aid, they return $5 in debt repayments.
(...) [a nice, simple, succinct explanation] The genesis of the crisis lies in a world economy saturated by dollars in the 1960s and ’70s, as the dollar replaced gold as the currency of exchange, and the world paid for a growing US budget deficit.When oil-exporting countries in OPEC reduced oil supply in 1973 and oil prices soared, much of this profit was again deposited in dollars in Western banks. Banks, eager to reduce the supply of dollars, to prevent a collapse in the dollar price and to make profit, lent out more money to developing countries, many of which were newly liberated from colonialism. Little thought was given to how useful these loans were or to whom they were being lent. Then, Ronald Reagan came to power in the US. Interest rates soared and the price of commodities, on which many poor countries depended, slumped. Poor countries earned less for their exports and paid more interest on their loans. They had to borrow more simply to repay the interest. The debt crisis was born.
(...) Haiti still owes $1.3bn to international creditors like the World Bank. Some 40 per cent of this was run up by Papa Doc and Baby Doc, who stole parts of these loans for themselves and used the rest to repress the population. When the US flew Baby Doc out of Haiti in 1986, he is estimated to have taken $90m with him.
(...) In 1995, the IMF forced Haiti to slash its rice tariff from 35 per cent to 3 per cent, enriching US business through soaring imports. A country that was self-sufficient in rice is now dependent on foreign imports at the mercy of global market prices.
(...) The Suharto regime in Indonesia was reputed to be one of the most corrupt and brutal governments in modern times. Suharto stole up to $35bn from his country and killed up to 1 million people in political witch-hunts, yet the World Bank still lent it $30bn. Today, the Indonesian people continue to pay $2m every hour for their former dictator’s debt, while 100 million Indonesians live in poverty.

researching while arab:
A masters student at the University of Nottingham who was arrested under the Terrorism Act under suspicion of possessing extremist material was studying terrorism for his dissertation, Times Higher Education can reveal.

GM foods the problem, not the solution:
“By applying conventional agricultural methods, free of any genetic modification, you can substantially increase agricultural productivity in Africa,” Hans Joachim Preuss, managing director of the German non-governmental food organisation Welthungerhilfe told IPS. “What African agriculture mostly needs is better, more efficient irrigation systems, and not genetically modified seeds.”

food security requires new approach to water:
In the United States, people throw away an estimated 30 percent of all food, corresponding to 40,000 billion liters of irrigation water: enough water to meet the household needs of 500 million people, according to the study.

war immemorial day:
The U.S. spends over $600 billion annually on our military, more than the rest of the world combined. China, our nearest competitor, spends about one-tenth of what we spend. The U.S. also sells more weapons to other countries than any other nation in the world.
(...) The US has used its armed forces abroad over 230 times according to researchers at the Department of the Navy Historical Center. Their publications list over 60 military efforts outside the U.S. since World War II.
(...) Most people know of the deaths in World War I - 116,000 U.S. soldiers killed. But how many in the U.S. know that over 8 million soldiers from other countries and perhaps another 8 million civilians also died during World War II? By World War II, about 408,000 U.S. soldiers were killed. World-wide, at least another 20 million soldiers and civilians died.

[list of post-wwII interventions]

1947-1949 Greece. Over 500 U.S. armed forces military advisers were sent into Greece to administer hundreds of millions of dollars in their civil war.

1947-1949 Turkey. Over 400 U.S. armed forces military advisers sent into Turkey,

1950-1953 Korea. In the Korean War and other global conflicts 54,246 U.S. service members died.

1957-1975 Vietnam. Over 58,219 U.S. killed.

1958-1984 Lebanon. Sixth Fleet amphibious Marines and U.S. Army troops landed in Beirut during their civil war. Over 3000 U.S. military participated. 268 U.S. military killed in bombing.

1959 Haiti. U.S. troops, Marines and Navy, land in Haiti and joined in support of military dictator Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier against rebels.

1962 Cuba. Naval and Marine forces blockade island.

1964 Panama. U.S. troops stationed there since 1903. U.S. troops used gunfire and tear gas to clear US Canal Zone.

1965-1966 Dominican Republic. U.S. troops land in Dominican Republic during their civil war - eventually 23,000 were stationed in their country.

1969-1975 Cambodia. U.S. and South Vietnam jets dropped more than 539,000 tons of bombs on Cambodia - three times the number dropped on Japan during WWII.

1964-1973 Laos. U.S. flew 580,000 bombing runs over country - more than 2 million tons of bombs dropped - double the amount dropped on Nazi Germany. US dropped more than 80 million cluster bombs on Laos - 10 to 30% did not explode leaving 8 to 24 million scattered across the country. Since the war stopped, two or three Laotians are killed every month by leftover bombs - over 5700 killed since bombing stopped.

1980 Iran. Operation Desert One, 8 U.S. troops die in rescue effort.

1981 Libya. U.S. planes aboard the Nimitz shot down 2 Libyan jets over Gulf of Sidra.

1983 Grenada. U.S. Army and Marines invade, 19 U.S. killed.

1983 Lebanon. Over 1200 Marines deployed into country during their civil war. 241 U.S. service members killed in bombing.

1983-1991 El Salvador. Over 150 US soldiers participate in their civil war as military advisers.

1983 Honduras. Over 1000 troops and National Guard members deployed into Honduras to help the contra fight against Nicaragua.

1986 Libya. U.S. Naval air strikes hit hundreds of targets - airfields, barracks, and defense networks.

1986 Bolivia. U.S. Army troops assist in anti-drug raids on cocaine growers.

1987 Iran. Operation Nimble Archer. U.S. warships shelled two Iranian oil platforms during Iran-Iraq war.

1988 Iran. US naval warship Vincennes in Persian Gulf shoots down Iranian passenger airliner, Airbus A300, killing all 290 people on board. US said it thought it was Iranian military jet.

1989 Libya. U.S. Naval jets shoot down 2 Libyan jets over Mediterranean

1989-1990 Panama. U.S. Army, Air Force, and Navy forces invade Panama to arrest President Manuel Noriega on drug charges. U.N. puts civilian death toll at 500.

1989 Philippines. U.S. jets provide air cover to Philippine troops during their civil war.

1991 Gulf War. Over 500,000 U.S. military involved. 700 plus U.S. died.

1992-93 Somalia. Operation Provide Relief, Operation Restore Hope, and Operation Continue Hope. Over 1300 U.S. Marines and Army Special Forces landed in 1992. A force of over 10,000 US was ultimately involved. Over 40 U.S. soldiers killed.

1992-96 Yugoslavia. U.S. Navy joins in naval blockade of Yugoslavia in Adriatic waters.

1993 Bosnia. Operation Deny Flight. U.S. jets patrol no-fly zone, naval ships launch cruise missiles, attack Bosnian Serbs.

1994 Haiti. Operation Uphold Democracy. U.S. led force of 20,000 troops invade to restore president.

1995 Saudi Arabia. U.S. soldier killed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia outside US training facility.

1996 Saudi Arabia. Nineteen U.S. service personnel die in blast at Saudi Air Base.

1998 Sudan. Operation Infinite Reach. U.S. cruise missiles fired at pharmaceutical plant thought to be terrorist center.

1998 Afghanistan. Operation Infinite Reach. U.S. fires 75 cruise missiles on four training camps.

1998 Iraq. Operation Desert Fox. U.S. Naval bombing Iraq from striker jets and cruise missiles after weapons inspectors report Iraqi obstructions.

1999 Yugoslavia. U.S. participates in months of air bombing and cruise missile strikes in Kosovo war.

2000 Yemen. 17 U.S. sailors killed aboard US Navy guided missile destroyer USS Cole docked in Aden, Yemen.

2001 Macedonia. U.S. military lands troops during their civil war.

2001 to present Afghanistan. Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) includes Pakistan and Uzbekistan with Afghanistan. 432 U.S. killed in those countries. Another 64 killed in other locations of OEF - Guantanamo Bay, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Yemen. US military does not count deaths of non- US civilians, but estimates of over 8000 Afghan troops killed, over 3500 Afghan civilians killed.

2002 Yemen. U.S. predator drone missile attack on Al Qaeda.

2002 Philippines. U.S. sends over 1800 troops and Special Forces in mission with local military.

2003-2004 Colombia. U.S. sends in 800 military to back up Columbian military troops in their civil war.

2003 to present Iraq. Operation Iraqi Freedom. 4082 U.S. military killed. British medical journal Lancet estimates over 90,000 civilian deaths. Iraq Body Count estimates over 84,000 civilians killed.

2005 Haiti. U.S. troops land in Haiti after elected president forced to leave.

2005 Pakistan. U.S. air strikes inside Pakistan against suspected Al Qaeda, killing mostly civilians.

2007 Somalia. U.S. Air Force gunship attacked suspected Al Qaeda members, U.S. Navy joins in blockade against Islamic rebels.

why darfur intervention is a mistake:
His are good intentions but they pave the way to a problem from hell. Darfur is a war - a horrible war, but first and foremost, it is a war. Ninety per cent of the deaths occurred four to five years ago and the government and its militia proxies were the main culprits.

culture conundrum:
Ever since the early 19th century, culture or civilisation has been the opposite of barbarism. Behind this opposition lay a kind of narrative: first you had barbarism, then civilisation was dredged out of its murky depths. Radical thinkers, by contrast, have always seen barbarism and civilisation as synchronous. This is what the German Marxist Walter Benjamin had in mind when he declared that "every document of civilisation is at the same time a record of barbarism". For every cathedral, a pit of bones; for every work of art, the mass labour that granted the artist the resources to create it. Civilisation needs to be wrested from nature by violence, but the violence lives on in the coercion used to protect civilisation - a coercion known among other things as the political state.

obama's secret war profiteering:
More important than even the Democrats' declaring that oil company profits are undeserved, is their implicit understanding that the profits are the spoils of war.
And that's another reason to tax the oil industry's ill-gotten gain. Vietnam showed us that foreign wars don't end when the invader can no longer fight, but when the invasion is no longer profitable.

where are those iranian weapons in iraq?:
US officials have failed thus far to provide evidence that would support that claim, and a long-delayed US military report on Iranian arms is unlikely to offer any data on what proportion of the weapons in the hands of Shiite fighters are from Iran and what proportion comes from purchases on the open market.

the pleasures of the flesh:
At 2.1bn tonnes, last year’s global grain harvest broke all records(3). It beat the previous year’s by almost 5%. The crisis, in other words, has begun before world food supplies are hit by climate change. If hunger can strike now, what will happen if harvests decline?
(...) There is plenty of food. It is just not reaching human stomachs. Of the 2.13bn tonnes likely to be consumed this year, only 1.01bn, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), will feed people(4).
(...) The World Bank points out that “the grain required to fill the tank of a sports utility vehicle with ethanol … could feed one person for a year”(5).
(...) What new evidence does she require? In the midst of a global humanitarian crisis, we have just become legally obliged to use food as fuel. It is a crime against humanity in which every driver in this country has been forced to participate.
(...) But there is a bigger reason for global hunger, which is attracting less attention only because it has been there for longer. While 100m tonnes of food will be diverted this year to feed cars, 760m tonnes will be snatched from the mouths of humans to feed animals(9). This could cover the global food deficit 14 times. If you care about hunger, eat less meat.
(...) Simon Fairlie has updated the figures produced 30 years ago in Kenneth Mellanby’s book Can Britain Feed Itself? Fairlie found that a vegan diet grown by means of conventional agriculture would require only 3m hectares of arable land (around half the current total)(13). Even if we reduced our consumption of meat by half, a mixed farming system would need 4.4m hectares of arable fields and 6.4 million hectares of pasture. A vegan Britain could make a massive contribution to global food stocks.
(...) What level of meat-eating would be sustainable? One approach is to work out how great a cut would be needed to accommodate the growth in human numbers. The UN expects the population to rise to 9bn by 2050. These extra people will require another 325m tonnes of grain(14). Let us assume, perhaps generously, that politicians like Ms Kelly are able to “adjust policy in the light of new evidence” and stop turning food into fuel. Let us pretend that improvements in plant breeding can keep pace with the deficits caused by climate change. We would need to find an extra 225m tonnes of grain. This leaves 531m tonnes for livestock production, which suggests a sustainable consumption level for meat and milk some 30% below the current world rate. This means 420g of meat per person per week, or about 40% of the UK’s average consumption.
(...) I would like to encourage people to start eating tilapia instead of meat. It’s a freshwater fish which can be raised entirely on vegetable matter and has the best conversion efficiency - about 1.6kg of feed for 1kg of meat - of any farmed animal(17). Until meat can be grown in flasks, this is about as close as we are likely to come to sustainable flesh-eating.
(...) Re-reading this article, I see that there is something surreal about it. While half the world wonders whether it will eat at all, I am pondering which of our endless choices we should take. Here the price of food barely registers. Our shops are better stocked than ever before. We perceive the global food crisis dimly, if at all. It is hard to understand how two such different food economies could occupy the same planet, until you realise that they feed off each other.

and this world goes on and on...

afl-cio and unt/ctv:
-------------------SUSTAR FIRST------------------------
“Here in Venezuela, the situation in the unions is similar to all the countries in Latin America and, I would say, the greater part of the world,” Gil said in an interview last August. “The number of unionized workers isn’t more than 12 percent. That means we can’t win.” Therefore, he said, the UNT demands “universal unionization,” in which “workers in every enterprise, economic sector, and branch of work can vote for a union in a way that’s massive, plural, and in a representative [labor] central.”[5] Gil’s perspectives on unions put him squarely on the left wing of the UNT, which is contending with more moderate forces for leadership of the new federation. In October 2004, Gil, who had previously served as the general secretary of SINTRALCASA, recaptured his old post in a recall election that ousted his rival, Trino Silva. But the Venezuelan Supreme Court ruled the election to be illegal, several weeks later.[6]
(...) The internal struggle in the UNT reflects the pressures on organized labor in a highly polarized society. Yet, for both the AFL-CIO representative in the Andes and the CTV executive board member Froilán Barrios, the UNT is an “arm of the state.”[7] An example, said Barrios, is the recently launched gas workers union, Sindicato Unitario de Trabajadores del Gas (SUTG). “Every day this union seems more like the unions of the ex-USSR and Cuba—a type of commissariat of the Communist Party, where they are more repressive organs against the workers.”[8] Barrios acknowledged that there are clasista (class-conscious) leaders in the UNT. But others, he said, “are using their relationship with the state, well, to enrich themselves.”
(...) In fact, the Venezuelan state provided 90 percent of the funding for the CTV in the 1960s and 1970s.[10] The AFL-CIO’s ties to the CTV, moreover, have been among its closest with any foreign labor federation. This relationship has continued despite the CTV’s alliance with the forces that mounted the April 2002 coup—of which the CIA had foreknowledge—that was embraced by the Bush administration.[11] The AFL-CIO’s support for the CTV continued through the devastating oil industry lockout, and the strike that followed.
(...) There are in fact serious criticisms to be made about the Chávez government from a trade union standpoint. Yet, by rejecting the legitimacy of the UNT out of hand, and backing the CTV, the AFL-CIO has lent political credibility to the conservative Venezuelan opposition. This, in turn, has revived debate over the AFL-CIO’s involvement in U.S. foreign policy.[12] Indeed, a look at the AFL-CIO’s past and present in Venezuela points to two conclusions: that the files on organized labor’s collaboration with U.S. foreign policy should be opened, and that the AFL-CIO’s reliance on government funds for international work should end.
(...) The situation for Venezuelan labor, he said, “is closer to Colombia than anything else” in Latin America. “You have a government that is systematically and consistently violating fundamental labor rights in an attempt to eliminate independent labor.”
(...) Yet, under Ortega, the CTV quickly swung further to the right into an alliance with the business chamber of commerce, the Federación de Cámaras y Asociaciones de Comercio y Producción (FEDECAMARAS), calling four general strikes with the backing of the employers. The general strike of April 2002 became the pretext for the unsuccessful coup.
(...) The representative dismissed as absurd the charge that, through its support for the CTV, the AFL-CIO gave de facto backing for the coup. He acknowledged that the CTV “is far from perfect,” but defended the CTV-FEDECAMARAS alliance and their meetings on the eve of the coup attempt. “They [the CTV] were meeting regularly with civil society organizations, looking for strategies to confront Chavismo,” together, he said. “But these meetings were open, they were public.” He pointed out that Ortega and other CTV leaders didn’t sign the dictatorial decree issued by FEDECAMARAS chief Pedro Carmona. Rather, Ortega was “utilized” by Carmona, he added. (Ortega was ultimately arrested for his role in the coup nearly three years later.)
(...) What is indisputable, however, is that Ortega joined with FEDECAMARAS to call the strike and march that set the stage for the coup. This alliance was facilitated by the Solidarity Center, which funded five regional meetings to promote labor-business collaboration, capped by a national CTV-FEDECAMARAS gathering on March 5, 2002—a month prior to the coup. “The joint action further established the CTV and FEDECAMARAS as the flagship organizations leading the growing opposition to the Chávez government,” concluded a Solidarity Center report about the effort, which was funded by a National Endowment for Democracy (NED) grant for $125,7114 in 2001-2002.[25] This direct support for the opposition’s mobilization appears to go far beyond the Solidarity Center’s stated aim of “building capacity” in the CTV.
(...) The AFL-CIO’s Gacek said that the federation supported the Chávez government wherever its policies are “pro-labor” and “reflect a pro-social agenda.” “Really, the only area where we are in disagreement has been with regard to the incursions against freedom of association,” he said. Assumptions about the nature of Solidarity Center activities in Venezuela today are based on a mistaken comparison with AIFLD’s role in the past, Gacek continued. “I’m not saying in any way these things were done,” he said, about criticisms of AIFLD’s past role. “But…the premise was that there was a pro-U.S. government position that was assumed by the institutes in the past in the Cold War period.” The critics’ arguments, he said, boiled down to this: “There was a coup, ergo the AFL-CIO was involved in making the coup. [It’s] basically using a certain syllogistic reasoning where the premises are totally faulty.”
(...) Steve Ellner, the labor historian, disputed this, pointing to the CTV’s support for the regressive “reform” of Social Security in the 1990s, and the termination of the severance payment system for laid-off workers.[33] “The argument that the AFL-CIO was supporting the good guys in the CTV, the leftists and the moderates who were anti-Chavista but also anti-Ortega, doesn’t explain the fact that the CTV joined hands with FEDECAMARAS to oppose [land reform] legislation,” he said.[34]]
(...) [important: UNT's autonomy] Such policies give pause to trade unionists wary of government interference in organized labor. Yet, the picture is far more complex than the CTV, the AFL-CIO—and for that matter, the Chávez government—have acknowledged. The UNT isn’t a creation of the state, but the result of a break by some union leaders from the CTV after the oil lockout-strike, to form a bloc with pro-Chávez leftists and dissident social Christians in 2003.[35] Alliances with the UNT’s 21-member interim coordinating committee have been shifting ever since, with the Left calling for a more aggressive stance towards employers, and emphasizing workers’ self-management.[36] A major influence on the UNT is the experience of the “new unionism” in Ciudad Guyana’s steel industry in the 1970s and 1980s.[37]
(...) The challenge for the UNT is how to support the “revolutionary process”—known as “el proceso”—yet independently assert the interests of workers.
(...) This freewheeling debate within the UNT has little in common with the centralized pronouncements of a state-controlled union.
(...) Where does this leave AFL-CIO policy in Venezuela? The Solidarity Center’s focus on trade union independence is necessary, but far from sufficient. The CTV was, after all, formally free from state domination, but in practice was subsidized and controlled by a corrupt party duopoly that ruled Venezuela for more than 40 years. Therefore, the Solidarity Center’s attempt to shore up the CTV-FEDECAMARAS alliance in the name of “dialogue” inevitably meant aiding the effort to re-impose a discredited status quo.
-------------------GACEK RESPONSE------------------------
(...) The CTV executive refused to sign the infamous decree of the short-lived Carmona regime that dissolved the National Assembly. The CTV refused any and all offers to serve in the coup-installed government, and made a point of not being present at the inauguration of Carmona’s cabinet.
(...) There exists an unfortunate conventional wisdom which depicts a socially progressive, thoroughly incorruptible, and perfectly democratic Chávez administration pitted against an opposition that is 100 percent corrupt, putschist, antidemocratic, and fascist. Yet, the thousands of CTV members who marched to Miraflores to protest Chávez’s violations of freedom of association and collective bargaining rights were not demanding his ouster by means of military force.
(...) We did not finance the March 5 event. However, the symposium produced a constructive, joint CTV-FEDECAMARAS proposal calling for direct negotiation with the Chávez administration on job creation and poverty abatement. The statement expressly rejected “all forms of violence and military coups,” reaffirming “dialogue and discussion as the path to resolve conflicts.”
(...) [hmmm...] Sustar parrots the Venezuelan government’s line that the shutdown of PDVSA’s operations in December 2002 was basically a management lockout engineered by the CTV’s leadership. Then why did the government fire nearly 20,000 workers in retaliation? There are only 35,000 PDVSA employees, so the idea that all of the fired employees were “management” is absolute nonsense.
(...) In fact, the unions representing PDVSA workers (including those of FEDEPETROL, with its pro-Chávez President Rafael Rosales) joined the job action to demand a change in the Company’s overall public policy, planning, investment, and labor relations practices. Both the Venezuelan judiciary and the ILO’s Freedom of Association Commission concluded that the shutdown was a legitimate strike, ordering the reinstatement of the fired workers. (Upon receiving the news from Geneva, Chávez retorted that the ILO could “go fry monkeys.”)
(...) [question of universality] Nonetheless, saying that the AFL-CIO should never have worked with an internally democratic national labor central of 1.2 million (2001 CNE census of CTV membership), representing well over 80 percent of Venezuela’s organized workforce, is the functional equivalent of saying we should not have a relationship with the Venezuelan labor movement.
(...) [this is obviously where an apparent tension appears: for some leftists, a necessary evil; for the AFL-CIO, cannot be violated - paper can argue that this is a false dichotomy, in the venezuelan case, as agency appears on the grassroots] We have praised Chávez for agrarian reform, public health and education, and his advocacy of social justice. We have joined him in its criticism of the FTAA. We have publicly condemned the coup attempt against him. But we will continue to denounce his systematic and reprehensible violations of freedom of association and collective bargaining rights.
-------------------SUSTAR RESPONSE------------------------
Stan Gacek systematically avoids addressing the central thrust of my article: that social polarization and class conflict in Venezuela has led to the revival of militancy in that country’s labor movement, expressed through the creation of the UNT.
(...) What’s more, in February 2003, the AFL-CIO Executive Council passed a resolution criticizing the Venezuelan government’s prosecution of “brother Ortega” for his role in the oil lockout-strike. If this isn’t “support” for Ortega, then what is it? (As for Ortega’s current predicament, he’s been charged so far only with his role in the lockout-strike, but still faces possible charges in connection with the coup, according to the website of Venezuela’s Panorama newspaper.)
(...) It’s telling that Gacek chooses to rehash old news rather than provide evidence for a comment made by the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center’s Andean representative—that the new UNT is an “arm of the state.” That’s because the UNT, as I tried to show, is full of tension and debate on issues ranging from organizational structures to relations to the government, and from contract negotiations to socialism. Moreover, extensive interviews with Venezuelan workers highlighted the way in which the CTV leaders’ alliance with business shattered its little remaining credibility with union members—particularly in the oil industry, where the rank and file effectively ran the refineries during the strike-lockout.
(...) I don’t claim that the UNT is immune to government influence or manipulation—no union federation can be. I do, however, argue that the UNT is not a creation of the Venezuelan state, but is a product of workers’ struggle and is worthy of international solidarity. Gacek gives a nod in that direction with his stated willingness to “work with” the UNT. But that doesn’t mean much in view of his attempts to justify the AFL-CIO and Solidarity Center’s support for the CTV—with U.S. government funds—during the period of the coup and oil lockout-strike.

co-management (november 2005):
(...) Part of this is an experiment in cogestion or co-management, where workers are given a role in the running of their workplaces. The idea of co-management has been around for some time. In Germany, for example, co-management was used to co-opt the workers’ movement by giving workers shares and some nominal decision-making power, aimed at convincing them that their interests lay with increased production and profits for the bosses. However in Venezuela, co-management is being posed as an alternative to the interests of the bosses, and more fundamentally, to those of capitalism. As Canadian academic Michael Lebowitz, now living in Venezuela, explained at a recent national gathering of workers for the recuperation of factories, “the point of co-management is to put an end to capitalist exploitation and to create the potential for building a truly human society. When workers are no longer driven by the logic of capital to produce profits for capitalists, the whole nature of work can change. Workers can cooperate with each other to do their jobs well; they can apply their knowledge about better ways to produce to improve production both immediately and in the future; and, they can end the division in the workplace between those who think and those who do — all because, in co-management, workers know that their activity is not for the enrichment of capitalists. “The development of worker decision-making, the process of combining thinking and doing, offers the possibility of all workers developing their capacities and potential.”
(...) Barreto Nestor, a worker from Rudaveca in the state of Carabobo, told GLW: “Unless this capitalist system is transcended, the workers, regardless of the best collective contract signed, will not achieve our goals. We need to transcend capitalism, and co-management is part of that. It is giving power to the workers, power to us.”

open letter to the ILO (february 2005):
We, the undersigned leaders of the National Union of Workers of Venezuela (UNT), issue this appeal to the trade unions around the world that are represented in the Workers' Group of the International Labor Organization (ILO), as well as to all our sisters and brothers who are championing the trade union battles in defense of workers' rights.
(...)The joint Complaint by FEDECAMARAS and the CTV is highly unusual, as trade unions are generally the ones filing ILO Complaints against the employers and seeking support from the ILO Workers' Group against all violations of trade union rights, including the right to strike. It is unprecedented, as well, on account of the convergence of interests between FEDECAMARAS and the CTV.
(...) Later, in December 2002 and January 2003, FEDECAMARAS – together with the same leaders of the CTV – organized an employer lockout/work stoppage that was political in nature and that sought to bring down the government through the sabotage of the country's main source of income: the oil industry. In both the attempted coup and the bosses' lockout/work stoppage, the CTV leadership took actions that were repudiated by the overwhelming majority of the workers of Venezuela.
(...) At no time, in fact, were the workers consulted by the CTV leadership about the work stoppage in the oil industry. Quite the contrary, upon learning of this action by the CTV leadership, the workers mobilized massively to occupy the oil rigs and refineries to ensure the resumption of oil production.
(...) From our vantage point as the UNT, genuine democracy means respecting the sovereign will of people to determine their own fate. And we wish to reiterate this point: Venezuela's right to self-determination must be respected and upheld independent of whatever one may think about the current government of Venezuela. It is not up to the U.S. government to decide in the place of the Venezuelan people what is "positive" or "negative" for Venezuela.

solidarity and disinformation about venezuela (interview with orlando chirino, september 2005)
(...) Mentioning the ILO, it is important to underline the major shift in ILO support away from the CTV and towards the UNT. In the ILO conference of June this year, the Fedecamaras/CTV complaint against the government of Venezuela was withdrawn and the CTV was voted off the ILO Governing Body. Nevertheless, in November, Venezuela will again be on the agenda at the ILO conference in Geneva. We hope that the complaint relating to the dismissal of the PDVSA white collar/administrative workers (the people who did all they could to sabotage the oil industry and destroy the Venezuelan economy during the 2002/2003 employers’ lockout) that has been referred to the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association - will be rejected. Things should certainly be easier for us with the new ILO Governing Body (i.e. without the presence of the CTV). Certain sectors within the ICFTU have been using the issue of the PDVSA dismissals to attack the Chavez government.
(...) A big challenge for the Bolivarian Revolution is to reform the inefficient bureaucratic state institutions and eradicate corruption. We need to strengthen peoples’ participation in decision-making processes at all levels of government - a sort of ongoing social-based audit (“Controlaria Social”). Our Constitution allows for this to take place. The Chavez government is encouraging the formation of local planning councils with grassroots participation. A new initiative is that of the “Mobile Cabinet” (“Gabinete Móbil”) where the president and his ministers are making visits all over the country and are talking to people at all levels (state governors, mayors, local communities, etc.).
(...) [important to question of universality] A solidarity movement should embrace all the different sectors in a similar way that the Bolivarian Revolution is doing in Venezuela (e.g. with women’s groups, indigenous groups, workers, peasant organisation, etc.). It is important to link up these different sectors in Venezuela with their counterparts in Britain.

british trade union congress gives support to UNT (september 2005):
(...) Then John Wilkin explained how the vacuum left by the CTV had been filled by the UNT. He mentioned that the UNT was the response of democratic and revolutionary trade unionists to the betrayals of the CTV. At this point in his speech he turned to address Orlando Chirino, national coordinator of the UNT, who was in the visitors’ gallery listening to the debate accompanied by Hands Off Venezuela supporters. He addressed him in Spanish. Comrade Chirino responded to the applause he got at that moment by standing up and clenching his fist in front of the approximately 1500 delegates present in the hall.

unity and UNT (december 2004):
According to UNT activists, the CTV has never represented such a tool, and their new-found progressive rhetoric is a product of pressure from the alternative confederation. UNT leaders argue that the CTV’s subordination of worker’s issues to their political attempts to topple Chávez has been a main factor in many unions’ decision to leave the traditional central. The CTV’s close cooperation with business, their historic ties to the two traditional political parties—Democratic Action (AD) and Copei—a sordid history of anti-democratic leadership and corruption, and their complicity in the implementation of neoliberal reforms detrimental to Venezuelan workers in the 1980s and 90s also gave impetus to the creation of the UNT.
(...) Both centrals are racing to hold their elections first. In a statement last month, Cova noted the “urgency” in holding the upcoming elections as quickly as possible. At stake for the rival confederations is the upcoming International Labor Organization meetings scheduled for the first week of June, 2005. The UNT represented Venezuelan labor in 2003 and 2004, despite the CTV’s claims that they remain the most representative central. The Venezuelan government has refused to recognize the CTV leadership since their 2001 elections were invalidated by the National Electoral Council (CNE) on the basis fraud charges.
(...) Chirino represents the Bolivarian Workers Force (Frente Bolivariano de Trabajadores - FBT) faction in the UNT, along with fellow coordinators Marcela Maspero and Eduardo Piñate, among others. The FBT was formed as an alternative federation within the CTV in 2000. The 5th Republic Movement (MVR), one of the official Chavista parties, initially exerted significant influence over the new federation, causing consternation in labor activists attempting to a tradition of dependent unionism. Though the MVR holds less influence in labor today, the FBT is still seen by some critics within the UNT as being too close to the Ministry of Labor. Chirino however works now with his own political party, Option for a Revolutionary Left (Opcion de Izquierda Revolucionaria - OIR), a grouping of trotskyites and other marxists which hopes to strengthen the working class' role in the deepening of the Bolivarian Revolution. Since the formation of the UNT, relations between the FBT and Machuca supporters have been shaky at best. Mutual accusations have escalated over the past few months, with both sides seemingly preparing for the upcoming campaign by trying to knock the other out of the race before it starts.

divisions in UNT congress (june 2006):
when key leaders of the UNT started speaking the internal differences became evident. There were boos and calls of “elections, elections” during the address of UNT national coordinator Marcela Maspero. Maspero leads the largest minority group within the UNT, and favours postponing the union elections until the first quarter of 2007, mainly on the grounds of giving priority to the campaign to re-elect President Hugo Chavez in December this year.
(...) In a statement issued on May 28, Chirino argued: “For C-CURA there was no doubt that the democratic will of the workers and trade union leaders from the grassroots was that the UNT should have a new, legitimate direction, that there be an end to all the fights and conflicts, and that in December the re-election of President Chavez be achieved as a form of defending the social and democratic conquests. The majority of workers supported the position that there should be elections this year, that a UNT leadership would then be legitimate, it would be strengthened, and in a better position to fight for 10 million votes for President Chavez.”
(...) Marcela Maspero, for her part, declared, according the May 30 daily Ultimas Noticias, that the “majority of delegates agreed to have elections in the first trimester of 2007 in order to give priority to the 10 million votes [campaign] for the presidential elections”. The three other currents supporting her were the Bolivarian Workers Force (FBT), the Autonomous Union, and followers of Franklin Rondon, who was roundly booed at the congress as a former supporter of the April 2002 coup against Chavez.
(...) In his speech to the section of delegates remaining in the hall after the walkout, Chirino said that every effort had been made during the all-night meeting the previous evening to find a compromise, involving a transitional election to be held soon with a commission being set up to hold permanent elections at a later date. The interim election would involve a system of special consideration for minority representation.

speculate to accumulate:
History repeats itself, one speculation after another. The Federal Reserve’s monetary policy encourages debt, first the internet bubble, now the real estate bubble. In 2006 the IMF was still saying there was “every indication the mechanisms for granting loans on the US property market were still relatively effective”. Market effective. Perhaps the two words should be welded together once and for all. The real estate bubble has burst. So the speculators are resurrecting an old eldorado: the grain markets. Purchasing contracts to deliver wheat or rice at a future date and counting on selling them at a higher price. And what ensures prices will keep on rising? Famine.

may day 2007 (may 2007):
Just as in previous years, two Venezuelan union federations organized competing demonstrations in support of the May 1 International Workers’ Day. While the pro-government demonstration attracted more marchers, it appeared more divided than the smaller anti-Chavez demonstration.
(...) The UNT-Aragua issued a statement with ten points yesterday, in which it called for union autonomy, denounced the actions of the state security forces, and called for the governor’s resignation. It also stated that the UNT-Aragua is “concerned” about Chavez’s recent statements that questioned union autonomy, when he called for the unions that support the government to join the newly forming Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). Similarly, the UNT faction headed by Orlando Chirino, known as C-CURA (Classist Current, Unitary, Revolutionary, and Autonomous), sent an open letter to Chavez for May 1st, that insisted on the importance of union autonomy. Chavez had stated in early April, during a PSUV event, that “unions should not be autonomous, one must put an end to that.” The letter cites Vladimir Lenin, who once stated that unions should be independent of the state and goes on to refer to Chavez’s comment that the PSUV will not be a Stalinist party. “When Stalinism took political power and led the state and the party, one of the first things it eliminated was the independence of the unions, precisely against the opinion of Lenin, who had already died.”

call for unity (july 2007):
Various leaders of Venezuela's primary pro-government labor union, the National Workers Union of Venezuela (UNT), called on all sectors of the organization to join together and hold elections later this year. At a press conference on Tuesday, labor leaders Marcela Máspero and Orlando Chirino invited all sectors of the UNT to a general meeting on July 26th to organize general elections and, in that way, unite the principal labor union of the country that has remained divided in recent years.

the reforms (october 2007):
The Venezuelan left debated what to do earlier this year. There were divisions inside the UNT, the national trade union federation and several other organisations. For example, Orlando Chirino, a highly respected leader of the UNT, remained outside the PSUV; others in the leadership opted to go in. The same argument developed within other organisations of the left. Eventually, given the mass affiliation, most decided to join in the hope that it would be possible to build a critical current within the new party. That seems less and less likely.
(...) [chavista cronies] Many of them were opportunists who had enjoyed the privileges of the previous corrupt regime and switched to Chavez late in the day. Some proved to be fair weather friends, and supported the attempted coup against him in 2002. Others kept their powder dry and remained within government - but they maintained the habits of previous times, above all the habit of corruption. They interlocked with the powerful state governors too, as well as many of the city and town mayors, and they began to establish relationships with elements of private capital. We could define these people as the Chavista right.
(...) [could people's power become this:] There is, of course, another point of reference in the discussion about what poder popular can mean. The Cuban model of people's power is pyramidal and centralised, with a leadership appointed from the state and nominated delegates, with a national assembly meeting twice a year for a few days to give (invariably) unanimous support to the proposals coming from the state. The organs of local power in this model are simply given the role of executing those decisions and discussing how best that might be done. The Cuban influence on the Venezuelan government is an open secret. The fact that what Denis calls the "democracy of the people's assembly" is replaced by what is simply another vote of confidence in Chavez, with which no one could disagree, is a sign of the limitations of people's power.

the reforms and the PSUV:
Despite their overall contradictory and transitional nature, key aspects of the reforms are aimed squarely at the heart of the capitalist system, specifically measures which although they don't abolish private property altogether, provide a framework for further inroads into the rights of capital and the "new geometry of power" aimed at transforming the capitalist state through the construction of organs of popular power, such as communes, workers councils, student councils, and campesino councils.
(...) When Chavez first announced the formation of the PSUV in December 2006 he clearly conceived of it as an anti-bureaucratic measure, as a tool to broaden the leadership, overwhelmingly centered on Chavez himself, and push forward with the revolution. "A new party needs new faces," he said.
(...) However, despite Chavez's intentions to build a party with "new faces" from below, many of the old faces remain and a key contradiction the new party faces is the struggle between the radical grass roots and what many on the Venezuelan left refer to as, the "endogenous rightwing" of Chavismo (based on a nexus between the state bureaucracy and sections of capital). As José Miguel Casado points out, "This is the objective reality that reflects the true contradictions of the complex political universe that is the Bolivarian Revolution, it is the live expression of the class struggle, a phenomenon that the PSUV will not escape, nor any other social or political space."[13]
(...) However, despite this there are in reality a myriad of radical left groupings organizing within the PSUV. These include; the majority of the most class-conscious workers from all the union currents that organize in the National Union of Workers (UNT), including the majority of C-CURA (whose rank and file workers agitated for and voted to go into the PSUV, while a smaller section around Orlando Chirino stayed out), the Revolutionary Front of Workers in Occupied and Co-managed Factories (FRETECO), and the Ezequiel Zamora National Campesino Front (FNCEZ).
(...) Bilbao points to the extraordinary potential of the PSUV, "The possibility of carrying out the battle [for socialism] in a scenario of 5.7 million people who want to construct a revolutionary party is," he says, "something that changes the political face of the planet, not just Venezuela and Latin America."
(...) What the struggle for the constitutional reform and the construction of the PSUV has revealed most clearly is that the battle lines are drawn between the endogenous rightwing and the revolutionary grassroots of Chavismo. Chavez has designated 2008 as the year of the "revolution within the revolution"- it remains to be seen if the PSUV can truly become "a political instrument that puts itself at the service ...of the people and the revolution, at the service of socialism."[18]

an emphatic defense of the referendum (december 2007):

report on venezuela's trade union situation (may 2004):
Carlos Ortega, the president of the CTV, has been out of the country since early 2003, and is currently in Costa Rica. He is currently at risk of being kicked out of that country because of his insistent calls for the overthrow of the Chávez government. Most others who planned the coup continue to function as before. The ongoing ramifications of that impunity continue to haunt the government.
(...) In December 2002, the FEDECAMARAS and a CTV union representing managerial workers at the state-owned petroleum company, PDVSA, organized a work stoppage in the sector to shut down the oil industry. This was a clear attempt to paralyze the country's main source of wealth. The action prevented hourly workers not involved in the labour action from continuing their work. The protesting management workers led a very aggressive attack, including sabotaging computer control systems, damaging valves and other operational equipment in the refineries, and removing hard drives containing exploration maps and reports. The shutdown (which one observer has identified as 1/3 lock-out, 1/3 strike, and 1/3 sabotage) was all but over in March. It was at this point that the government fired approximately 18,000 petroleum workers for dereliction of duty, mainly from the management echelons of PDVSA. These fired workers have also lost their company-provided housing and benefits, and are pursuing legal avenues as well as complaints to the ILO to achieve redress. There have been very few legal charges against the protesters, and the Venezuelan courts again determined in pre-trial hearings that because the demands were not related to collective bargaining, this was not a strike.
(...) [this group's summary of CTV history] The Venezuelan labour affiliate of the ICFTU is the CTV. Founded in 1936, the organization has a history of struggle for the rights of organized workers as well as on behalf of the working class in general. It survived several periods of dictatorship, the last of which ended in 1958. At that time, the CTV formed a "strategic alliance" with the business association, FEDECAMARAS to move the country in a more democratic direction. This was not the last of such alliances with this powerful employer group. Through the 90s the CTV accepted privatization and made no sustained efforts to resist neo-liberal or free trade policies. The organization's executive committee is composed of individuals who were elected at large by delegates, and are not selected with regard for sector or elected office. Obviously, this reduces the accountability of individual members of the executive to any particular rank and file base. The executive has historically been dominated by the Acción Democrática, in theory a social democratic party currently aligned with the country's right wing forces, and a major component of the Coordinadora Democrática coalition working for Chávez' ouster.
(...) A number of academics, as well as consultants from labour NGOs who work intensively with the CTV, expressed the concern that the executive committee had abandoned its concern for basic trade union functions and was focussing all its attention to political opposition.
(...) In May 2003, the government approved Orlando Chirino, a leader of the very new UNT, to represent Venezuela at the ILO's annual convention. In order to be appointed, the government must certify that the appointee is from the country's most representative union formation. Communication from the ILO on Venezuela's designation of the UNT representative used sharp words, and concluded with the wish that such a manipulation not recur. The government holds that the CTV placed itself ‘out of the running’ for nomination as it did not send a representative to the 2003 meeting at which all the labour centrals met to choose their delegate. The CTV sent a lawyer with no decision-making authority. This year the CTV sent a full-fledged member of the executive committee to the meeting, held on May 13 and then extended to May 17. The decision was pending as of this writing, but it seems likely that the government would take the position that the UNT is now the most representative labour body in the country, despite the lack of elections to establish this claim.
(...) In 2003, The ILO singled out China, Colombia, Belarus and Venezuela as countries with the most serious violations of trade union freedoms. Noting systematic physical harm to trade unionists in the first three countries, in the case of Venezuela, the allegations were more procedural: delays in registrations, suspension of trade union dues, obstruction of collective bargaining, dismissals, and extensive interference in trade union activities.
(...) Beginning around the time of the general strike and resulting coup, a number of labour leaders sought to distance themselves from the CTV and began to discuss disaffiliation from that central labour body and the formation of new central. Currently, many labour leaders in the strategic petroleum, public, auto and rubber sectors (likely a majority in these sectors) have signed on to the UNT. The major union in the steelmaking sector, SUTISS, is seen as being close to the UNT. Within the UNT, some leaders maintain a union independence stance, while others are firmly identified with the current government and see defence of the government as a major axis of their formation. The next phase for that emerging centre is to hold elections for its leadership at all levels, and to confirm formally the will of the members to affiliate to the new central. Members of the national coordinating body stated their hope that such elections would be held in October. However, with the potential for a referendum on the country's leadership on the horizon for August, a delay is likely.
(...) At the same time, SUNEP-SAS leaders vigorously denied any participation in the coup by the CTV. However, this participation is alleged to be a fully substantiated "fact" by human rights and labour NGOs close to the CTV, including PROVEA and the Ebert Foundation, as well as the government and UNT sources.
(...) There appears to be substantial evidence that members of the current CTV executive participated in the plot to overthrow the government by "extra-legal" means. However, no union leader has ever been charged with any violation of law in the coup. Due to the fact that the initial charges were subject to pre-trial hearings at which no merit to the charges was established, all charges were thrown out. Video documentation aside, in the eyes of the country's judiciary, the coup "never happened."
(...) The novel, emblematic of the "magic realism" genre in Latin America, seems particularly appropriate to the Venezuelan scene, where all parties assert that any official document can be produced or altered to order, to be passed off as authentic. This means that no documentary evidence, transcript of a speech, official document, or election ballot can be definitively verified.
(...) We were told about the parallel trade union central, UNT, while in Canada. What we learned once on the ground was that parallelism exists in other realms, in particular the five "missions" (Robinson, Sucre, Ribas, Vuelvan Caras and Barrio Adentro) created to deliver programs such as educational and health services directly to the people. In general, the government's creation of parallel structures responds to the government's concern desire to circumvent bureaucratic and highly corrupt government service delivery systems built up over the last 60 years. The old systems were anything but universal in service delivery; the new services are reported to be reaching the people. While we made no attempt to verify the accounts of corruption in delivery of services, the allegations are wide and consistent and we had no reason to doubt their truth.
(...) As the strength of the UNT grows, the CTV is being revealed as an organization lacking in even the most basic trade union agenda. Its top leadership has suffered a serious loss of credibility with its rank and file membership. It is almost universally seen to be dominated by a partisan political agenda, displaying single-minded determination to oppose the government. On most policy issues, CTV continues to act in conjunction with business representatives, such as the FEDECAMARAS, a key player in the failed April 2002 coup d'état. For example, the CTV and FEDECAMARAS recently opposed both the increase in minimum wage and the no-layoff policy adopted by the government.
(...) For all its centralism, the CTV is far from monolithic. Affiliated national unions and federations represent a range of programmatic approaches and styles of operation, from democratic to authoritarian. However, there are few spaces in which the lack of trust and respect between the CTV and the UNT can be bridged, and virtually no such expressions of trust between the government and the CTV. All parties believe that their opposite numbers cheat and lie.
(...) When we asked what steps the CTV planned to take to ensure that "historic errors" (such as intertwining with political parties and employers' associations, distance of the leadership from the base, and corruption) do not recur, the CTV executive would only say they planned to implement procedures long on the books to increase the transparency of their financial dealings. Perhaps this is all that can be expected of them.

labor and the reforms (november 2007):
For Orlando Chirino, a national coordinator of the National Union of Workers (UNT) labor federation, Chávez’s reforms herald the “Stalinization” of the state and state control of the labor movement “along the lines of the Cuban CTC labor federation,” he said in an interview.
(...) Chirino, a key leader of the C-CURA class-struggle current of the factionalized UNT, is among the most prominent figures on the left to oppose the reforms. He made waves on the left when he granted an interview with a leading opposition newspaper and appeared on the platform with leaders of the CTV, the corrupt old trade union federation implicated in the 2002 coup.
(...) Despite some criticisms of the centralizing aspects of the constitutional reform, including the new provisions for states of emergency, the Marea current has joined the majority of the Venezuelan left in calling for a “yes” vote to achieve social gains and defeat the opposition. Arias and his C-CURA allies are already at loggerheads with prominent members of the PSUV, including Oswaldo Vera, a member of the National Assembly and leader of the Bolivarian Socialist Labor Front (FSBT), a faction of the UNT that also controls the ministry of labor.

sacking of the labor minister:
The move appears to be a repudiation of recent actions of the Labor Minister, who only two days prior, held a joint press conference with one faction of the National Union of Workers (UNT)—the Bolivarian Socialist Workers Force (FSBT)—and announced the formation of a new national labor federation calling on unions to disaffiliate from the UNT.
(...) [proposals for resuscitating the UNT] As a way forward Pérez Borges said Socialist Tide was proposing a meeting “between all the currents that are active within the UNT and the revolutionary process to give firm steps towards the necessary regrouping and unification of a worker’s leadership consistent with the process but democratic, pluralist, and independent of the state.” As the second step towards a workers movement capable of “occupying the place that it deserves in the Bolivarian revolution” Pérez Borges said Socialist Tide was also calling for a united mobilization and march in Caracas on May 1. Thirdly, it is necessary to “initiate a democratic process within the working class, their grassroots unions and their natural leaders to re-group and reorganize the UNT, without exclusions of any currents who support the revolution,” he explained.

may day and worker autonomy:
(...) However, the president clarified, the working class must be autonomous in its decisions and its capacity to choose its own leaders. “Now the PSUV [United Socialist Party of Venezuela] is being born, it must contribute to the unity and struggle of the working class, the struggle of the campesinos, the youth, the students, and the women’s movement. But the party should never aim to take the reigns of the worker’s movement. It should never aim to supervise or subordinate it. Long live the working class, the workers movement!” he declared to a standing ovation.
(...) The opposition aligned Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), largely discredited for its role in the April 2002 military coup against the Chavez government, held a significantly smaller demonstration of around 1,000 people across town, opposing the presidential decree increasing the minimum wage saying it would contribute to inflation.

[new union federation called by oswaldo vera]
(...)In a joint press conference with Venezuela's Labor Minister Jose Ramon Rivero on Sunday, National Assembly Deputy and coordinator of the Bolivarian Socialist Workers Force (FSBT), a faction with in the National Union of Workers (UNT), announced the formation of a new national union federation and called on unions to disaffiliate from the UNT.
(...) With 24 national coordinators, the UNT was formed essentially as an alliance of union leaders that later came to represent five major currents within the Bolivarian labor movement (the FSBT, the Collective of Workers in Revolution (CTR), the United Revolutionary Autonomous Class Current (C-CURA), the Alfredo Maneiro current, and Union Autonomy, as well as a number of smaller currents). It was promised that elections for the national leadership would be carried out within 3 months of the founding congress. However, after much internal wrangling over the modalities of the vote, they were repeatedly postponed and have so far never taken place.
(...) Of Venezuela's 11 million workers, 3 million are unionized (the majority of which are affiliated to the UNT, though some still remain affiliated to the CTV). Of these 3 million, Vera said the new union federation aims to organize 2 million.
(...) [oh oswaldo] The Venezuelan union movement also has to overcome the "bad practice" of failing to hold elections he added in an interview on state owned television station VTV today. However, Vera's current was instrumental in opposing elections proposed by C-CURA and others in the 2006 UNT congress. Critics have also accused the FBST of failing to hold elections in individual unions they control.
(...) However, other national coordinators of the UNT, including Stalin Perez Borges, Marcela Maspero, and Orlando Chirino rejected Vera's claims that the majority of national sectoral unions support the new federation. Chirino, a leader of C-CURA accused the "red bureaucrats" of the government of carrying out a "coup" via the FSBT "against the autonomous and democratic will of the Venezuelan workers." For Chirino the proposed new federation is a sign that Venezuela is heading towards Stalinism because "the government wants to control the labor movement."
(...) Máspero, the only female national coordinator of the UNT and leader of the of the CTR current, said this new federation "emerges from the endogenous right wing of the revolution" and accused the FSBT of implementing "the same bureaucratic practices as the CTV."
(...) Socialist Tide argued that it is necessary for the union movement to be reorganized from the grassroots, "because we are conscious that while we continue to be dispersed the bosses and the endogenous right win. As long as we are disarticulated the workers will not be the social subject in the revolutionary process that we are living through in Venezuela."

[Chirino's sacking]
The reason for this persecution, "corresponds to my categorical opposition to bureaucratic and corrupt practices in the industry and my intransigent defense of worker's rights," he said.
(...) Chirino claimed the decision to fire him was primarily based on his opposition to President Chavez's proposed constitutional reforms together with pressure from the Ministry of Labor and the Bolivarian Socialist Force of Workers (FSBT), which he described as a "bureaucratic union current."
(...) Chirino lost significant support in the trade union movement last year, including from within his own trade union current C-CURA, due to his opposition to the constitutional reforms (which he described as "class collaborationist") and a proposal he made to fuse with sectors of the largely discredited, right-wing opposition aligned trade union federation, the CTV. Despite Chirino's opposition, the vast majority of the rank and file workers in C-CURA also voted to join the new United Socialist Party of Venezuela and in September, twenty-four unions aligned to C-CURA in Zulia sent Chirinos an open letter criticizing his position on the reforms and the PSUV.
(...) In a statement on October 22 a number of other union leaders from C-CURA, including Stalin Pérez Borges, National Coordinator of the UNT and Ismael Hernández, Coordinator of the UNT Carabobo (both identified with the MAREA Socialista current within C-CURA and the PSUV), also distanced themselves from Chirino's position on the reforms and criticized his comments on the CTV.
(...) However, in another statement today, Perez Borges, Hernandez, and a number of other union leaders, on behalf of the MAREA Socialista current expressed their solidarity with Chirino. "Independently of the fact that we don't share some of the political positions that Orlando Chirino has defended in recent times, we defend his right to express himself, his right to work and to be recognized and respected as a trade union leader in our country," they wrote.

chirino's firing:
The League for the Revolutionary Party (LRP) wishes to join our fellow workers in Venezuela and elsewhere who are protesting the dismissal of union leader Orlando Chirino on December 28, 2007 by the PDVSA of Venezuela, the state-owned oil company. Chirino has worked at the PDVSA of Venezuela, since 2003. He is a prominent left-wing union leader, and he has been a prominent left critic of President Hugo Chávez’s recent scheme to revise the Constitution. We agree with Chirino’s own declaration that his dismissal was an act of “discrimination and political persecution.”

orlando chirino and stalin borges respond to oswaldo vera:

interview with orlando chirino (april 2006):
(...) [evaluation of the Bolivarian process] In the first place, today Venezuela is provided with a government that’s independent and autonomous in relation to imperialism. In the second place, its constitution, which was approved by the Venezuelan people, is an important advance for a process of transition toward socialism, thanks to a new autonomy of powers, numerous victories in terms of human rights, the new freedom for trade unions, the increased number of social missions with the creation of free community clinics (“Mission Inside the Barrio”), with the literacy campaign among the poor (“Mission Robinson”)... In short, there are various victories that are very important. But we’re still inside a capitalist framework, where private property is respected and where most of the means of production remain in private hands, as is the case with the large banks, which earn fantastic sums based on operations on the order of financial speculation. Because of that, at the trade-union level, we’re demanding participation in the activity. Nevertheless, we’re not even getting involved at the bottom, we’re demanding direct control of the utilities and the property. At this level, it can be said that there’s a “confrontation” between a democratic government that respects private property and us, who are planning a profound change in the relations of production. But in relation to the previous governments, the Bolivarian government is deeply democratic and the most progressive of all.
(...) the result of the most recent legislative elections, some trade union by-elections, or disturbances in the barrios express the fact that we’re seeing a kind of decline after 7 years of government. The workers are starting to demand more. There are enormous expectations, for example, in the area of the control of production, especially in the companies where the work is more insecure. But let’s say that there’s a certain uneasiness among the people and some anxieties, parallel to the popular support for the government.
(...) At present, there are three essential elements in the national debate. First, the process of growing bureaucratisation which the country recognises, and the anti-trade union practices; in the second place, corruption; and in third place, the conservative posture of some ministers, mayors, or governors. All this when we’re in the presidential re-election year! People at the grassroots are demanding more participation and the end of “dedocracy” [1]: the revolution, the process, must be intensified. The two governmental organisations, PODEMOS and the MVR are very bureaucratised and their leaders are the new rich of this country. In spite of this and these conflicts, we’re fighting for the re-election of President Chávez, which is an important part of this struggle. It’s still necessary to keep up support and struggle to maintain Hugo Chávez as president in order to guarantee the continuity of the process.
(...) [co-management] the government started to restrain the co-participation process: above all in the petroleum and electrical sector, arguing that it involves the strategic sectors and that they run the risk of remaining in the hands of the right if co-participation is applied there... we don’t understand now, when the production has been normalised, why there’s no workers’ control (even integrating the users of these public services). We analyse this retreat above all as a political concession to the conservative sectors by the government, and this with arguments like the one that Che Guevara was opposed to workers’ management in Yugoslavia, and others.
(...) [hmmm...] We, within the UNT, propose that the cooperatives should be able to be complementary. For us, the first instrument of organisation and participation is the trade union. Therefore we’re against a cooperativism that violates the collective negotiations or trade-union law. Many people are using the cooperatives as a form of turning jobs precarious, making them flexible, with subcontracts for a fixed period of time... Today the majority of cooperatives in the country are involved in this type of relation, where 4 or 5 people are owners of the cooperatives and make contracts with people for a limited time, with low wages and without trade union rights: they’re like “small businesses” ... This obviously contradicts what the government says about the construction of socialism.
(...) The first challenge will be finally, to make the holding of this national congress a reality. Because during the UNT founding congress, it was agreed to hold elections in order to elect a democratic leadership within the next year and to reform the statutes. And it’s been three years and it still hasn’t been possible to carry out the resolution of the congress: there are tendencies within the UNT that don’t want to submit to a referendum. The reform of the statutes will be designed to radically democratise our organisation, with the aim that elections can be held in May through direct and secret election in all the local organisations. If that happens we’ll be the first workers’ union in the world that will have an executive committee elected in such a way. The second challenge will be to ratify the character of the UNT: autonomous and independent of business, the state and the political parties.
(...) Yes, but there are strong pressures and there’s a tendency within it [the Bolivarian Workers’ Front – editor’s note] that demands “governmentism”, meaning that they have visions of appendices of the government.
(...) In short, we have to re-discuss our programme: take a position on the country’s internal and external debt and know if we demand a popular referendum in order to abolish it; for the formation of a club of debtors, to hoist the flag of our people’s sovereignty and self-determination, to take a position on the astronomical profits of the bank of Venezuela and the transnationals and to know whether we’ll raise the slogan of nationalisation, etc...
(...) At the grassroots, there’s a strong opposition to the bureaucratisation, the degeneration of these organisations, and the serious corruption of some of their members. As for us, we believe that it’s vital to prevent the loss of the advances that we’ve made, because that means nothing less than also taking care of the lives of many revolutionary leaders of this country, and basically the people of this country, who have devoted themselves, who have gone into the streets to defend the process. With this, I want to emphasise that our victories are not the fruit of the parties who have deputies in the congress.