[NYTr] Venezela: No "Spin" Required, Says Ambassador Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 00:18:12 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit excerpted from VIO Venezuela Daily News Roundup - Jul 25, 2007 [The democratic successes in Venezuela enumerated by Ambassador to the U.S. Bernardo Alvarez are not "spin," the diplomat asserts, but a side of the story that often goes untold in the media. Alvarez points out in the San Antonio Express that polls show Venezuelans are satisfied with their country's democratic credentials, a fact also demonstrated when President Chavez won 63% of the popular vote last December in elections that counted with 75% voter turnout. These are the realities of a nation going through an accelerated process of democratic change, Alvarez stresses, not simply some diplomatic "spin." Second item below: an op-ed in the Guardian today highlights Chavez's role in challenging Washington's misguided neoliberal agenda in Latin America and championing a new model for political and social development. It also warns, though, that the very "wave of popularity" that Chavez enjoys within Venezuela may endanger the administration. Strong political challengers, the author claims, will keep Chavez accountable: "All consensus politics is stifling. So far the opposition has shown itself intolerant and untrustworthy." -VIO] San Antonio Express-News - July 23, 2007 http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/letters/stories/MYSA072307.01O.AlvarezComment.23e3028.html Venezuelan official: No spinning is necessary By Bernardo Alvarez Though Jonathan Gurwitz claims that I am good at spin, there's little I have to spin about Venezuela. The facts speak for themselves. ("ChC!vez envoy is skilled in spin," July 15). Democracy continues to flourish in Venezuela. An independent survey conducted late last year found that of 17 regional neighbors, Venezuelans were second-most likely to refer to their country as "totally democratic." Moreover, in December 2006, President Hugo ChC!vez was re-elected with 63 percent of the vote amidst 75 percent voter turnout ? granting him the highest proportion of votes of any Venezuelan president in modern history. The economy is currently in its fourth consecutive year of growth, and the country's innovative social programs led to a decrease in poverty from 40 percent in 2005 to 30 percent in 2006. No private property in Venezuela has been expropriated. Unused lands have been claimed for purposes of economic development, with full compensation granted to the owners. Nationalizations have focused on strategic industries, and have been accompanied by full payment of the value bought from private holders. Venezuela in no way turns a blind eye toward, much less encourages any form of, terrorism. In fact, the very purchases of Russian weapons Gurwitz criticizes are for the express purpose of securing Venezuela's borders, patrolling its waters and fighting organized criminals and terrorists. I have no need for spin, much less the "charm offensive" Gurwitz mentions. All I try to do is combat the misunderstandings and half-truths that often dominate the discussion on Venezuela and its relations with the U.S. As Gurwitz's writing indicates, they are pervasive. I wish Mr. Gurwitz had taken the opportunity of my visit to ask the questions about issues that seem to concern him. *** The Guardian - July 25, 2007 http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,,2133957,00.html An own goal for ChC!vez By Mark Almond Venezuela's socialist president, Hugo ChC!vez, certainly knows how to rile his critics in Washington. "Oil is going straight to $100," he declared in Nicaragua last week. "No one can stop it." Launching a project there to refine subsidised Venezuelan oil was a good way of tweaking the US's tail in its backyard. ChC!vez's host was Washington's bete noire in the 1980s, the Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega. Ortega was re-elected last year, in part because he could plausibly promise Nicaraguans a bonanza of Venezuelan economic aid after 17 years of futile IMF-imposed austerity "reforms". On the back of high oil prices, ChC!vez has been able to do almost everything Washington would prefer not done in the western hemisphere. He has bailed out Castro's Cuba, and inspired a generation of new radical leaders like Bolivia's Evo Morales to pursue policies that challenge the dead hand of the Washington consensus on economic and social policy. And he is threatening to do more. Then last Sunday, ChC!vez scored an own goal. Irritated by yet another foreign conservative politician visiting Caracas to denounce him as a dictator, he asked during a radio phone-in: "How long are we going to allow a person - from any country in the world - to come to our own house to say there's a dictatorship here, that the president is a tyrant, and nobody does anything about it?" Understandably, he balked at being taught democracy by the head of Mexico's ruling PAN party, accused of fraud in its own presidential elections last year. Few nations take kindly to lessons from abroad. Probably any head of state would get a bounce for saying, "No foreigner ... can come here and attack us. Whoever comes, we must remove him from the country." Yet ChC!vez may be playing into his enemies' hands. Washington's meddling in Venezuela has not paid dividends so far. Five years ago, it backed a coup against ChC!vez only to see a tidal wave of the poor sweep him back into office. The US-backed opposition has tried poll boycotts, fraud allegations and mass demonstrations without effect. The anti-ChC!vez front did turn out huge crowds, but it made the classic mistake of street oppositions. Don't confuse a crowd, however large, with the electorate. ChC!vez rides a wave of popularity because he is the first Latin American leader to mix anti-gringo populism with making life better for ordinary people. But booming oil prices are a mixed blessing, even when the money isn't diverted to offshore bank accounts. Certainly ChC!vez has redirected a great proportion of revenue into projects that help the majority. This infuriates the opposition, which feels housing, doctors and education are wasted on the poor with darker skins. Yet high oil revenues are helping to push up inflation, and even government plans to lop three zeroes off the bolivar won't cure that trend. Venezuela has a great chance to break out of oil dependency and create a better society for the bulk of its people. But its infrastructure needs developing so that more people can get better access to economic opportunities. Oil wealth can fund that. But economic diversification should be the goal. Latin America has suffered under the Washington consensus. It imposed a totalitarian version of the "free market", brooking no dissent. ChC!vez has challenged that model. Worse still for Washington, he has survived and prospered. But now he faces the temptations of success. The risk is that popularity will lead him astray. Latin American history is littered with popular leaders turned sour. It is little comfort that the really unpopular, brutal and corrupt ones were more often lionised in North America. Venezuela doesn't need a one-party system. Pluralism wasn't helped by the US-backed opposition boycotting the polls last time. Naturally, ChC!vez wants an organisation to promote his policies, but melding all of his allies into one party could backfire. The challenge for Venezuela is to evolve a political class that can disagree without delegitimising the other side. All consensus politics is stifling. So far the opposition has shown itself intolerant and untrustworthy. Bad losers don't make good democrats, nor do they keep democratically elected leaders on their mettle. The evident hypocrisy of so many ChC!vez critics, from abroad as well as at home, shouldn't blind us to the flaws in the model he is proposing. Washington wants to demonise ChC!vez. He would be foolish to play up the bogeyman role, because that may be just what Uncle Sam wants. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . 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