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Towards another coup in Venezuela? February 19, 2014
Posted by rogerhollander in Imperialism, Latin America, Venezuela.Tags: belen fernandez, capriles, emiliana duarte, Hugo Chavez, imperialism, nicolas maduro, regime change, roger hollander, Venezuela, venezuela media, venezuela opposition, venezuela protests
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Roger's note: here is more on the volatile situation in Venezuela that you are not likely to find in the mainstream media. If you have the time to invest in reading an excellent analysis of recent pre and post Chavez Venezuela, go to the link for this article, which I am not posting here due to its length: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/venezuela-archives-35/4694-sabaneta-to-miraflores-afterlives-of-hugo-chavez-in-venezuela.
Protests are initiated by ultra-right factions of the opposition in the hope of an eventual systemic overhaul.Last updated: 19 Feb 2014 08:50
Five days after violent anti-government incitement in Venezuela led to the deaths of three people, the US State Department issued a press statement declaring: "The allegations [by President Nicolas Maduro] that the United States is helping to organise protestors… is baseless and false. We support human rights and fundamental freedoms – including freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly – in Venezuela as we do in countries around the world."
Of course, US commitment to such freedoms is called into question by its own operating procedures, which have included police beatings of peaceful protesters and the incarceration and torture of whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
Inside Story – Making choices after Chavez |
Maduro might - meanwhile – be forgiven for associating the US with efforts to overthrow the Venezuelan government given said country's intimate involvement in the 2002 coup d'etat against Maduro's predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez – not to mention its general history of fomenting opposition to less-than-obsequious Latin American regimes.
George Ciccariello-Maher, a professor at Drexel University and the author of "We Created Chavez: A People's History of the Venezuelan Revolution", remarked to me yesterday that, although "there's no reason to think that the US is directly involved in organising or calling these protests… we need to bear in mind that [it] continues to fund the very same opposition groups that have participated in violent, anti-democratic actions before and that continue to do so".
The great cake famine
The opposition cites insecurity, food shortages, and inflation as factors driving the protests.
However, pinning the blame for all of Venezuela's ills on chavismo - the left-wing political ideology developed by Chavez and continued by Maduro – is transparently disingenuous. Or rather, it would be transparently disingenuous if the dominant international media were not intent on parroting opposition propaganda.
In 2010, for example, the New York Times horrified the world with the news that Venezuela under Chavez was deadlier than Iraq. As noted in Richard Gott's Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution, "much of the violence stemmed from the police itself (the highest crime rates were registered in the states of Miranda, Tachira and Zulia, where opposition governors ruled and controlled the local police forces)".
Since such details complicate the vilification of Chavez and company, they're often deemed unworthy of reporting. So is the fact that Honduras – neoliberal lap dog of the US – happens to be far deadlier than Venezuela, Iraq, and every other nation on earth.
As for the issue of food shortages, it's instructive to take a look at a recent episode of Al Jazeera's The Stream featuring an appearance by elite right-wing Caracas blogger Emiliana Duarte. Asked to elaborate on the circumstances of daily existence in Venezuela, Duarte launches into a sob story about having to visit 10 different supermarkets the previous year during a quest to bake a cake.
In addition to highlighting the sort of absurd hysterics that typify the Venezuelan opposition, the cake-baking anecdote constitutes less than persuasive evidence of the supposedly brutal tyranny under which Duarte and her socioeconomic cohorts are forced to reside.
Perpetual opposition ruckus about the government's alleged control of the media – which is said to be thwarting proper transmission of the protests - meanwhile – fails to account for the fact that the vast majority of Venezuelan media is privately owned. In 2012, the BBC noted that a mere 4.58 percent of television and radio channels belonged to the state.
Regarding Maduro's decision to indefinitely block the far-right Colombian news channel NTN24 from transmitting in Venezuela, Ciccariello-Maher commented that, "while we should be very concerned any time a media outlet is blocked, however briefly, we should also remember that the private media is far from neutral" and that "this is a government that has seen a coup d'etat led by the private media".
The doom-and-gloom squawking of the elite in response to the effective anti-polarisation campaign of the chavistas has merely been a natural reaction to a perceived threat against formerly entrenched positions of arbitrary privilege. |
Indeed, the narrative spun by anti-Chavez outlets during the 2002 coup wasinstrumental to its initial success.
Polarisation by whom?
On the occasion of Chavez's last landslide victory in 2012, Keane Bhatt listed some aspects of the man's legacy thus far in a blog post for the North American Congress on Latin America: "[In the pre-Chavez years of] 1980 to 1998, Venezuela's per capita GDP declined by 14 percent, whereas since 2004, after the Chavez administration gained control over the nation's oil revenues, the country's GDP growth per person has averaged 2.5 percent each year.
At the same time, income inequality was reduced to the lowest in Latin America, and a combination of widely shared growth and government programmes cut poverty in half and reduced absolute poverty by 70 percent – and that's before accounting for vastly expanded access to health, education, and housing."
Such improvements might be of more interest to the majority of Venezuelans than, say, Duarte's cake saga. Although Chavez is relentlessly cast in the mainstream media as a "polarising" figure, the fact is that the late president laboured to reduce the already existing polarisation of Venezuelan society by reducing the income gap and offering the poor masses some acknowledgement as human beings.
The doom-and-gloom squawking of the elite in response to the effective anti-polarisation campaign of thechavistas has merely been a natural reaction to a perceived threat against formerly entrenched positions of arbitrary privilege.
As for the current opposition efforts against Maduro, it's not difficult to see that US support for regime change in Venezuela is itself quite polarising – both domestically and continentally.
While the Mercosur member states – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela – havecondemned the violent "attempts to destabilise [Venezuela's] democratic order", US Secretary of State John Kerry has condemned "this senseless violence" and exhorted the Maduro government "to provide the political space necessary for meaningful dialogue with the Venezuelan people".
To be sure, it's more convenient to blame Maduro for the phenomenon of "senseless violence" than to ponder, say, the practice of assassinating civilians with US drones. That the anti-chavista crowd is cast in the role of "the Venezuelan people" also raises the question of what the millions of people who support the government qualify as.
Initiated by ultra-right factions of the opposition, this bout of violence was far from "senseless"; it did, after all, have a point. And that point, as usual, was to agitate on behalf of an eventual systemic overhaul and the deliverance of Venezuela into the imperial embrace.
Belen Fernandez is the author of The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, published by Verso. She is a contributing editor at Jacobin Magazine.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
US Support for Regime Change in Venezuela is a Mistake February 18, 2014
Posted by rogerhollander in Imperialism, Latin America, Venezuela.Tags: capriles, Hugo Chavez, john kerry, leopoldo lopez, mark weisbrot, mercosur, nicolas maduro, regime change, roger hollander, Venezuela, venezuela protests
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Roger's note: Only the wilfully naive can believe that the United States government is not providing all the support to the anti-Venezuelan government protests it can get away with. As we have seen in the recent past with Honduras and Egypt, the U.S. government will set aside its sacred belief in democracy in favor of military takeovers when it serves its geopolitical interests. This is not to say that there aren't serious problems in Venezuela or that Venezuelan government security forces have not on occassion reacted with undue force. Violence begets violence. But this does not alter our view of the big picture. Beginning with the era of Chavez, the Venezuelan government has been a serious thorn in the side of Uncle Sam, and the latter has acted as he always has, regardless of the party in power, which is to use whatever means necessary to maintain quasi and sometimes not that quasi client regimes south of the Rio Grande.
Oh, and by the way, don't expect this kind of analysis to appear in the American mainstream media, quite the opposite. No???
The US push to topple the Venezuelan government of Nicolas Maduro once again pits Washington against South America
A student takes part in a protest against Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas, Venezuela on 4 February 2014. (Photograph: Jorge Silva/Reuters)
When is it considered legitimate to try and overthrow a democratically-elected government? In Washington, the answer has always been simple: when the US government says it is. Not surprisingly, that's not the way Latin American governments generally see it.
On Sunday, the Mercosur governments (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Venezuela)released a statement on the past week's demonstrations in Venezuela. They described "the recent violent acts" in Venezuela as "attempts to destabilize the democratic order". They made it abundantly clear where they stood.
The governments stated:
their firm commitment to the full observance of democratic institutions and, in this context, [they] reject the criminal actions of violent groups that want to spread intolerance and hatred in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as a political tool.
We may recall that when much larger demonstrations rocked Brazil last year, there were no statements from Mercosur or neighboring governments. That's not because they didn't love President Dilma Rousseff; it's because these demonstrations did not seek to topple Brazil's democratically-elected government.
The Obama administration was a bit more subtle, but also made it clear where it stood. WhenSecretary of State John Kerry states that "We are particularly alarmed by reports that the Venezuelan government has arrested or detained scores of anti-government protestors," he is taking a political position. Because there were many protestors who committed crimes: they attacked and injured police with chunks of concrete and Molotov cocktails; they burned cars, trashed and sometimes set fire to government buildings; and committed other acts of violence and vandalism.
An anonymous State Department spokesman was even clearer last week, when he responded to the protests by expressing concern about the government's "weakening of democratic institutions in Venezuela", and said that there was an obligation for "government institutions [to] respond effectively to the legitimate economic and social needs of its citizens". He was joining the opposition's efforts to de-legitimize the government, a vital part of any "regime change" strategy.
Of course we all know who the US government supports in Venezuela. They don't really try to hide it: there's $5m in the 2014 US federal budget for funding opposition activities inside Venezuela, and this is almost certainly the tip of the iceberg – adding to the hundreds of millions of dollars of overt support over the past 15 years.
But what makes these current US statements important, and angers governments in the region, is that they are telling the Venezuelan opposition that Washington is once again backing regime change. Kerry did the same thing in April of last year when Maduro was elected president and opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles claimed that the election was stolen. Kerry refused to recognize the election results. Kerry's aggressive, anti-democratic posture brought such a strong rebuke from South American governments that he was forced to reverse course and tacitly recognize the Maduro government. (For those who did not follow these events, there was no doubt about the election results.)
Kerry's recognition of the election results put an end to the opposition's attempt to de-legitimize the elected government. After Maduro's party won municipal elections by a wide margin in December, the opposition was pretty well defeated. Inflation was running at 56% and there were widespread shortages of consumer goods, yet a solid majority had still voted for the government. Their choice could not be attributed to the personal charisma of Hugo Chávez, who died nearly a year ago; nor was it irrational. Although the past year or so has been rough, the past 11 years – since the government got control over the oil industry – have brought large gains in living standards to the majority of Venezuelans who were previously marginalized and excluded.
There were plenty of complaints about the government and the economy, but the rich, right-wing politicians who led the opposition did not reflect their values nor inspire their trust.
Opposition leader Leopoldo López – competing with Capriles for leadership –has portrayed the current demonstrations as something that could force Maduro from office. It was obvious that there was, and remains, no peaceful way that this could happen. As University of Georgia professorDavid Smilde has argued, the government has everything to lose from violence in the demonstrations, and the opposition has something to gain.
By the past weekend Capriles, who was initially wary of a potentially violent "regime change" strategy – was apparently down with program. According to Bloomberg News, he accused the government of "infiltrating the peaceful protests "to convert them into centers of violence and suppression".
Meanwhile, López is taunting Maduro on Twitter after the government made the mistake of threatening to arrest him: "Don't you have the guts to arrest me?" he tweeted on 14 February:
Hopefully the government will not take the bait. US support for regime change undoubtedly inflames the situation, since Washington has so much influence within the opposition and, of course, in the hemispheric media.
It took a long time for the opposition to accept the results of democratic elections in Venezuela. They tried a military coup, backed by the US in 2002; when that failed they tried to topple the government with an oil strike. They lost an attempt to recall the president in 2004 and cried foul; then they boycotted National Assembly elections for no reason the following year. The failed attempt to de-legitimize last April's presidential election was a return to this dark but not-so-distant past. It remains to be seen how far they will go this time to win by other means what they have not been able to win at the ballot box, and how long they will have Washington's support for regime change in Venezuela.
Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), in Washington, DC. He is also president of Just Foreign Policy. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis. E-mail Mark: email@example.com
Under My Presidency, Chávez's Revolution Will Continue April 13, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in Democracy, Latin America, Venezuela.Tags: Caracazo, Hugo Chavez, Jimmy Carter, Latin America, nicolas maduro, roger hollander, UNASUR, Venezuela, venezuela coup, venezuela democracy, venezuela eleccion, venezuela election, venezuela government, venezuela poverty
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Venezuela has lost an extraordinary leader, but his democratic and socialist project of transformation is more alive than ever
A month ago Venezuela lost a historic leader who spearheaded the transformation of his country, and spurred a wave of change throughout Latin America. In Sunday's election Venezuelans will choose whether to pursue the revolution initiated under Hugo Chávez – or return to the past. I worked closely with President Chávez for many years, and am now running to succeed him. Polls indicate that most Venezuelans support our peaceful revolution
Chávez's legacy is so profound that opposition leaders, who vilified him only months ago, now insist they will defend his achievements. But Venezuelans remember how many of these same figures supported an ill-fated coup against Chávez in 2002 and sought to reverse policies that have dramatically reduced poverty and inequality.
To grasp the scale of what has been achieved, it's necessary to recall the state of my country when Chávez took office in 1999. In the previous 20 years Venezuela had suffered one of the sharpest economic declines in the world. As a result of neoliberal policies that favoured transnational capital at the expense of people's basic needs, poverty soared. A draconian market-oriented agenda was imposed through massive repression, including the 1989 massacre of thousands in what is known as the Caracazo.
This disastrous trend was reversed under Chávez. Once the government was able to assert effective control over the state oil company in 2003, we began investing oil revenue in social programmes that now provide free healthcare and education throughout the country. The economic situation vastly improved. Poverty and extreme poverty have been reduced dramatically. Today Venezuela has the lowest rate of income inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean.
As a result our government has won almost every election or referendum since 1998 – 16 in all – in a democratic process the former US president Jimmy Carter called "the best in the world". If you haven't heard much about these accomplishments, it may have something to do with the influence of Washington and its allies on the international media. They have been trying to de-legitimise and get rid of our government for more than a decade, ever since they supported the 2002 coup.
We have also worked to transform the region: to unite the countries of Latin America and work together to address the causes and symptoms of poverty. Venezuela was central to the creation of the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), aimed at promoting social and economic development and political co-operation.
The media myth that our political project would fall apart without Chávez was a fundamental misreading of Venezuela's revolution. Chávez has left a solid edifice, its foundation a broad, united movement that supports the process of transformation. We've lost our extraordinary leader, but his project – built collectively by workers, farmers, women, indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants, and the young – is more alive than ever.
The media often portray Venezuela as on the brink of economic collapse – but our economy is stronger than ever. We have a low debt burden and a significant trade surplus, and have accumulated close to $30bn in international reserves.
There are of course many challenges still to overcome, as Chávez himself acknowledged. Among my primary objectives is the need to intensify our efforts to curb crime and aggressively confront inefficiency and corruption in a nationwide campaign.
Internationally, we will continue to work with our neighbours to deepen regional integration and fight poverty and social injustice. It's a vision now shared across the region, which is why my candidacy has received strong support from figures such as the former Brazilian president Lula da Silva and many Latin American social movements. We also remain committed to promoting regional peace and stability, and this is why we will continue our energetic support of the peace talks in Colombia.
Latin America today is experiencing a profound political and social renaissance – a second independence – after decades of surrendering its sovereignty and freedom to global powers and transnational interests. Under my presidency, Venezuela will continue supporting this regional transformation and building a new form of socialism for our times. With the support of progressive people from every continent, we're confident Venezuela can give a new impetus to the struggle for a more equitable, just and peaceful world.
YO SOY CHAVEZ , TU ERES CHAVEZ, TODOS SOMOS CHAVEZ March 8, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in Latin America, Venezuela.Tags: bolivarian revolution, chavez death, economic justice, Hugo Chavez, Latin America, lisa sullivan, poverty, revolucion bolivianiana, roger hollander, roy bourgeois, soa, soa watch, Venezuela
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Greetings friends and thanks for so many lovely messages from so many of you. We are living through such a painful moment here in Venezuela, but an extraordinary moment as well: the passion, conviction and hope of my friends and neighbors is inspiring.
Reflections by Lisa Sullivan on the death of President Chavez
Barquisimeto, Venezuela May 5, 2013
In the past hours my inbox is bursting with messages of condolences from El Salvador, Haiti, Chile, California, Oregon, Spain, Michigan, Italy, North Carolina, Costa Rica, Miami, Nicaragua, Japan, Honduras, and just about everywhere in between, expressing solidarity with my loss. The notes are profound and personal. It's as though Chavez were my father.
The truth is, Chavez is my father, and he is the father of all of my Venezuelan compatriotas with whom I have had the immense privilege of sharing my life and raising my children for so many years in this beautiful and generous land. Twenty of those twenty-eight years have been defined, in great part by Chavez.
When I received the news of Chavez's passing yesterday, the only feeling I can describe is that of being suddenly left an orphan. I immediately called my daughter in Virginia, as I knew she would understand. Several years ago when we went to live in the US for her high school senior year, Maia would tell me: I miss papa so much. And, I miss Chavez. I miss hearing his voice on tv as I go to sleep. I felt so safe. as though nothing could happen to me, nothing could happen to Venezuela.
Indeed, the people of Venezuela, the people of Latin America, the people of the Caribbean, feel suddenly orphaned from those strong and powerful arms that held us to his heart like a man defending his most vulnerable child against a raging storm. He believed in us. He told us stories and sang us songs and reminded us of our unique and dignified history. He affirmed and upheld our best qualities, he told us that we were as lovely as the stars as bright the sun, as free as the wind, as deep as the ocean and as powerful as all the forces of the universe.
And now, he is gone. But as I took the streets last night and this morning, like millions of other Venezuelans, to embrace strangers and cry in their arms, I found too that we had grown up. In those two decades on the Venezuelan public scene and 14 years at the helm, Chavez had given the most precious gift a surrogate parent can offer: the gift of adulthood. Let there be no doubt: the Venezuelan people have come of age. Chavez is gone, but this what resonates on every street and every plaza today: yo soy Chavez. I am Chavez .I am the leader, the dreamer, the visionary, the teacher, the defender of justice, the weaver of a another world that is possible.
That phrase brought me back to 2005, when I was visiting a nun on a hillside barrio in Caracas, one of those of thousands of barrios where Venzeuelans had been relegated like unwanted trash. No water, no sewage, no schools, no streets. Her name was Begonia , and she was telling me how she had walked for hours to see Chavez pass by. When teased by other nuns for being a "Chavista" she said. no, I'm not a Chavista, it's that Chavez is a "Begonista". He believes in all the things I have held dear for decades: the dignity of the poor, the right of the blind to see and those in chains to be freed.
Two days after I heard Begonia's story, Chavez himself invited me to talk to him, along with Fr. Roy Bourgeois. He had heard us speak on tv about the grassroots movement to close the SOA and wanted to learn more. Thus, I found myself in the presidential office with a man noted for his long discourses, talking to the best listener I have ever encountered. Chavez was fascinated by Roy's story of believing so much in his cause that he was willing to go to jail, enthralled by Venezuelan accent in Spanish, and my decision to raise my kids in a barrio. He asked about each of my children's interests, and made sure that he spelled their names correctly as he signed a poster for each.
Oh, and he ordered Venezuelan troops to stop training at the SOA. Defiantly opening the door for five other countries to follow suit.
That's who Chavez was. Deeply personal, celebratory, affectionate, and willing to muscle his way to the farthest limb to take a stand for justice, indifferent to the consequences. That powerful muscling was what had turned me off to him at first. Having spent a lifetime taking a stand for peace, I couldn't fathom looking to a military man for leadership, much less for inspiration. It took family and neighbors to change my thinking: look, Chavez is like the pilot at the helm of a boat. We're in that boat, and we're going UP stream. (i.e. against the neo-liberal tide) Not downstream. Who do you want at the helm? a polite weakling? Or someone with muscles?
Fourteen years later, Chavez has guided that boat so powerfully and masterfully that not only are other boats following in its wake, but his power was so great, he seems to have literally reversed the river's current. We're floating downstream, on a river of independence, sovereignty, dignity,Latin American unity, in a nation that has the least gap between rich and poor, a nation whose college enrollment rivals several European countries, a nation whose oil now funds schools and hospitals instead of personal bank accounts in Miami.
Fourteen years ago my barrio neighbors didn't dream of going to college, much less becoming doctors in their communities. Fourteen years ago my neighbors could barely fit in their tin or mud homes, much less envision living in a spacious three bedroom house with indoor bathrooms that cost almost nothing . Fourteen years ago, only those on the wealthy east side of my city felt they were citizens. Now we know we all are (State Department and Pentagon be forewarned).
When Chavez first announced his cancer almost two years ago, I awoke after another sleepless night and listened again and again to his speech. He referred to a song by our beloved singer/songwriter Ali Primera, who also died too young. Chavez repeated the lines: hay semerucos alla en el cerro y una canto hermoso para cantar. (there are cherry trees on the hillside and lovely song to sing). So much beauty around us, so much to do. As someone who spends every free hour planting trees on a mountain and singing with children, that felt like a personal mandate.
Actually, I do believe this is Chavez's true mandate: Embrace your passion,and then share it with others. If you can play the guitar, teach a kid to strum, if you love basketball, shoot hoops with a teen. If you can fix a bike, teach the skill to an unemployed friend. If you have oil, share it with those who can't afford their heating oil in Maine, if you have doctors, send them where there are none. Celebrate your beauty, your history, your dignity, and honor those qualities others: as family, as neighbors, as nations, as global citizens.
Today in Venezuela our sadness is deeper than Lake Titicaca, colder than Patagonia, larger than the Amazonia and harsher than the Atacama. But, we also know that together -as Venezuelans, as Americans and Caribeños, we are invincible.
That is Chavez's legacy. Yo soy Chavez. Tu eres Chavez. Todos somos Chavez.
Abrazos, Lisa
Lisa Sullivan
Latin America Liason
School of the Americas Watch
Apartado Postal 437 Barquisimeto, Lara
Homage to Hugo March 6, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in About Hugo Chávez, Latin America, Venezuela.Tags: chavez death, Hugo Chavez, injustice, Latin America, poverty, Venezuela
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Roger Hollander, March 6, 2013
I have lived for short periods of time amongst Cubans, for many years in Latin America, and most of my life in the United States and Canada. I have lived as one of and in the middle classes, with very occasional personal contacts with social and economic elites, and with a lifetime of close association and solidarity with the various classes of dispossessed. I think I understand the difference between capital and labor, between rich and poor, between oppressors and oppressed, between truth and lies. And I think that I can understand both the trite and misinformed responses coming out of the North American corporate media as well as the overwhelming reaction of sadness and loss that the great majority of ordinary Latin Americans are experiencing over the death of Hugo Chávez.
Perhaps it is instructive to compare the two rivals: Chávez and Obama. Whereas one loses count of the number of sides of the mouth out of which Obama speaks, and marvels at the capacity to lie with a straight face; Chávez was transparency and forthrightness incarnate, what you saw was what you got. While the North American corporate media and political punditry demonized Chávez as dictatorial and rabidly anti-American (the man who gave free heating oil to poor New Englanders), apart from the Fox news and hypocritically tea partied and toxically neo-Fascist led religious right, Obama gets pretty much a free pass.
Consider that Hugo Chávez never killed hundreds of innocent civilians with drone missiles, never violated the very essence of international law by committing and enabling torture, never violated the most fundamental legal right of habeas corpus, never spied on his countrymen in direct violation of law, never drew and implemented up a list of targets for presidential assassination, never joined with the financial and corporate elites to privatize education, protect Wall Street white collar criminals and banksters, and give in entirely to the corrupt and blood-thirsty private health insurance and pharmaceutical industries in setting back a public universal health care plan for years if not decades.
But this is not about what Hugo Chávez didn't do (or to vent my disgust with Obama), it is about what he did do and what that means to the oppressed of Latin America. Although it is what most North Americans hear and think about him, his standing up to and developing independence from the political and economic hegemony of the United States may not be his most important achievement. What he did that was most needed to be done was to stand up to the poisonous and inhuman rule of capital. That he did this more rhetorically than in actual practice to me is not that important. It is a rhetoric that strikes a chord with the vast majority of Latinos who suffer from poverty, hunger, lack of fresh water, health care, decent housing, and quality education. In practice, as in Ecuador and Bolivia, he lead a government that for the first time in recent history was not in the back pocket of the moneyed elites, a government that took serious investment in health, education, infrastructure, housing and other social programs. That the financing of social programs depended to a large degree on revenue from petroleum is a factor that does not negate the successes achieved in these areas.
What North Americans are not for the most part going to hear or understand are the emotional reactions that I am witnessing here in Ecuador. When you are poor and struggling to survive on a day to day basis, when you are aware to some degree or another the injustices that are responsible for your daily suffering; then when there arises a person of influence and power and charisma and fluency who shines light and gives credibility to your deepest concerns, you are given the precious gift of hope, dignity and pride.
Hugo Chávez delivered such to not only the people of Venezuela, but to all of Latin America and throughout the world who suffer from the heartless hand of either national or international capital and the imperial governments who back them up with overwhelming economic and military power.
Hugo Chávez was not in my mind a genuine Marxist revolutionary. I don't think it is possible to be both genuinely revolutionary and at the same time administer a government in a world where the rule of capital is universal. But to denigrate his achievements on that basis would be a case of unfairly splitting hairs. Like Chile's Allende his government was as revolutionary as could be expected, and like Allende he engendered the hatred of the owning classes and the cowardly and sycophantic media and political classes that serve them.
In death Hugo Chávez will become bigger even than he was in life; and that is both just and understandable. For his greatest contribution, beyond the social achievements of his government and his courage in standing up to the Goliath Uncle Sam, is the honesty, humility and transparency he radiated as a human being and the hope and inspiration that his words and actions have given and will continue to give to those around the globe who struggle for justice, equality and dignity.
As millions of Latin Americans are saying today: "RIP, Comandante!"
How a Washington Global Torture Gulag Was Turned Into the Only Gulag-Free Zone on Earth February 18, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in Brazil, Chile, Latin America, Torture, War on Terror.Tags: 9/11, bagram, cia prisons, counterterrorism, donald rumsfeld, globalizing torture, greg grandin, Guantanamo, Hugo Chavez, Latin America, mahar arar, operation condor, pinochet, rendition, roger hollander, torture, war on terror, wikileaks
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The Latin American Exception
(Max Fisher — The Washington Post)
The map tells the story. To illustrate a damning new report, "Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detentions and Extraordinary Rendition," recently published by the Open Society Institute, the Washington Post put together an equally damning graphic: it's soaked in red, as if with blood, showing that in the years after 9/11, the CIA turned just about the whole world into a gulag archipelago.
Back in the early twentieth century, a similar red-hued map was used to indicate the global reach of the British Empire, on which, it was said, the sun never set. It seems that, between 9/11 and the day George W. Bush left the White House, CIA-brokered torture never saw a sunset either.
All told, of the 190-odd countries on this planet, a staggering 54 participated in various ways in this American torture system, hosting CIA "black site" prisons, allowing their airspace and airports to be used for secret flights, providing intelligence, kidnapping foreign nationals or their own citizens and handing them over to U.S. agents to be "rendered" to third-party countries like Egypt and Syria. The hallmark of this network, Open Society writes, has been torture. Its report documents the names of 136 individuals swept up in what it says is an ongoing operation, though its authors make clear that the total number, implicitly far higher, "will remain unknown" because of the "extraordinary level of government secrecy associated with secret detention and extraordinary rendition."
No region escapes the stain. Not North America, home to the global gulag's command center. Not Europe, the Middle East, Africa, or Asia. Not even social-democratic Scandinavia. Sweden turned over at least two people to the CIA, who were then rendered to Egypt, where they were subject to electric shocks, among other abuses. No region, that is, except Latin America.
What's most striking about the Post's map is that no part of its wine-dark horror touches Latin America; that is, not one country in what used to be called Washington's "backyard" participated in rendition or Washington-directed or supported torture and abuse of "terror suspects." Not even Colombia, which throughout the last two decades was as close to a U.S.-client state as existed in the area. It's true that a fleck of red should show up on Cuba, but that would only underscore the point: Teddy Roosevelt took Guantánamo Bay Naval Base for the U.S. in 1903 "in perpetuity."
Two, Three, Many CIAs
How did Latin America come to be territorio libre in this new dystopian world of black sites and midnight flights, the Zion of this militarist matrix (as fans of the Wachowskis' movies might put it)? After all, it was in Latin America that an earlier generation of U.S. and U.S.-backed counterinsurgents put into place a prototype of Washington's twenty-first century Global War on Terror.
Even before the 1959 Cuban Revolution, before Che Guevara urged revolutionaries to create "two, three, many Vietnams," Washington had already set about establishing two, three, many centralized intelligence agencies in Latin America. As Michael McClintock shows in his indispensable book Instruments of Statecraft, in late 1954, a few months after the CIA's infamous coup in Guatemala that overthrew a democratically elected government, the National Security Council first recommended strengthening "the internal security forces of friendly foreign countries."
In the region, this meant three things. First, CIA agents and other U.S. officials set to work "professionalizing" the security forces of individual countries like Guatemala, Colombia, and Uruguay; that is, turning brutal but often clumsy and corrupt local intelligence apparatuses into efficient, "centralized," still brutal agencies, capable of gathering information, analyzing it, and storing it. Most importantly, they were to coordinate different branches of each country's security forces — the police, military, and paramilitary squads — to act on that information, often lethally and always ruthlessly.
Second, the U.S. greatly expanded the writ of these far more efficient and effective agencies, making it clear that their portfolio included not just national defense but international offense. They were to be the vanguard of a global war for "freedom" and of an anticommunist reign of terror in the hemisphere. Third, our men in Montevideo, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Asunción, La Paz, Lima, Quito, San Salvador, Guatemala City, and Managua were to help synchronize the workings of individual national security forces.
The result was state terror on a nearly continent-wide scale. In the 1970s and 1980s, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's Operation Condor, which linked together the intelligence services of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Chile, was the most infamous of Latin America's transnational terror consortiums, reaching out to commit mayhem as far away as Washington D.C., Paris, and Rome. The U.S. had earlier helped put in place similar operations elsewhere in the Southern hemisphere, especially in Central America in the 1960s.
By the time the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans had been tortured, killed, disappeared, or imprisoned without trial, thanks in significant part to U.S. organizational skills and support. Latin America was, by then, Washington's backyard gulag. Three of the region's current presidents — Uruguay's José Mujica, Brazil's Dilma Rousseff, and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega — were victims of this reign of terror.
When the Cold War ended, human rights groups began the herculean task of dismantling the deeply embedded, continent-wide network of intelligence operatives, secret prisons, and torture techniques — and of pushing militaries throughout the region out of governments and back into their barracks. In the 1990s, Washington not only didn't stand in the way of this process, but actually lent a hand in depoliticizing Latin America's armed forces. Many believed that, with the Soviet Union dispatched, Washington could now project its power in its own "backyard" through softer means like international trade agreements and other forms of economic leverage. Then 9/11 happened.
"Oh My Goodness"
In late November 2002, just as the basic outlines of the CIA's secret detention and extraordinary rendition programs were coming into shape elsewhere in the world, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld flew 5,000 miles to Santiago, Chile, to attend a hemispheric meeting of defense ministers. "Needless to say," Rumsfeld nonetheless said, "I would not be going all this distance if I did not think this was extremely important." Indeed.
This was after the invasion of Afghanistan but before the invasion of Iraq and Rumsfeld was riding high, as well as dropping the phrase "September 11th" every chance he got. Maybe he didn't know of the special significance that date had in Latin America, but 29 years earlier on the first 9/11, a CIA-backed coup by General Pinochet and his military led to the death of Chile's democratically elected president Salvador Allende. Or did he, in fact, know just what it meant and was that the point? After all, a new global fight for freedom, a proclaimed Global War on Terror, was underway and Rumsfeld had arrived to round up recruits.
There, in Santiago, the city out of which Pinochet had run Operation Condor, Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials tried to sell what they were now terming the "integration" of "various specialized capabilities into larger regional capabilities" — an insipid way of describing the kidnapping, torturing, and death-dealing already underway elsewhere. "Events around the world before and after September 11th suggest the advantages," Rumsfeld said, of nations working together to confront the terror threat.
"Oh my goodness," Rumsfeld told a Chilean reporter, "the kinds of threats we face are global." Latin America was at peace, he admitted, but he had a warning for its leaders: they shouldn't lull themselves into believing that the continent was safe from the clouds gathering elsewhere. Dangers exist, "old threats, such as drugs, organized crime, illegal arms trafficking, hostage taking, piracy, and money laundering; new threats, such as cyber-crime; and unknown threats, which can emerge without warning."
"These new threats," he added ominously, "must be countered with new capabilities." Thanks to the Open Society report, we can see exactly what Rumsfeld meant by those "new capabilities."
A few weeks prior to Rumsfeld's arrival in Santiago, for example, the U.S., acting on false information supplied by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, detained Maher Arar, who holds dual Syrian and Canadian citizenship, at New York's John F. Kennedy airport and then handed him over to a "Special Removal Unit." He was flown first to Jordan, where he was beaten, and then to Syria, a country in a time zone five hours ahead of Chile, where he was turned over to local torturers. On November 18th, when Rumsfeld was giving his noon speech in Santiago, it was five in the afternoon in Arar's "grave-like" cell in a Syrian prison, where he would spend the next year being abused.
Ghairat Baheer was captured in Pakistan about three weeks before Rumsfeld's Chile trip, and thrown into a CIA-run prison in Afghanistan called the Salt Pit. As the secretary of defense praised Latin America's return to the rule of law after the dark days of the Cold War, Baheer may well have been in the middle of one of his torture sessions, "hung naked for hours on end."
Taken a month before Rumsfeld's visit to Santiago, the Saudi national Abd al Rahim al Nashiri was transported to the Salt Pit, after which he was transferred "to another black site in Bangkok, Thailand, where he was waterboarded." After that, he was passed on to Poland, Morocco, Guantánamo, Romania, and back to Guantánamo, where he remains. Along the way, he was subjected to a "mock execution with a power drill as he stood naked and hooded," had U.S. interrogators rack a "semi-automatic handgun close to his head as he sat shackled before them." His interrogators also "threatened to bring in his mother and sexually abuse her in front of him."
Likewise a month before the Santiago meeting, the Yemini Bashi Nasir Ali Al Marwalah was flown to Camp X-Ray in Cuba, where he remains to this day.
Less than two weeks after Rumsfeld swore that the U.S. and Latin America shared "common values," Mullah Habibullah, an Afghan national, died "after severe mistreatment" in CIA custody at something called the "Bagram Collection Point." A U.S. military investigation "concluded that the use of stress positions and sleep deprivation combined with other mistreatment… caused, or were direct contributing factors in, his death."
Two days after the secretary's Santiago speech, a CIA case officer in the Salt Pit had Gul Rahma stripped naked and chained to a concrete floor without blankets. Rahma froze to death.
And so the Open Society report goes… on and on and on.
Territorio Libre
Rumsfeld left Santiago without firm commitments. Some of the region's militaries were tempted by the supposed opportunities offered by the secretary's vision of fusing crime fighting into an ideological campaign against radical Islam, a unified war in which all was to be subordinated to U.S. command. As political scientist Brian Loveman has noted, around the time of Rumsfeld's Santiago visit, the head of the Argentine army picked up Washington's latest set of themes, insisting that "defense must be treated as an integral matter," without a false divide separating internal and external security.
But history was not on Rumsfeld's side. His trip to Santiago coincided with Argentina's epic financial meltdown, among the worst in recorded history. It signaled a broader collapse of the economic model — think of it as Reaganism on steroids — that Washington had been promoting in Latin America since the late Cold War years. Soon, a new generation of leftists would be in power across much of the continent, committed to the idea of national sovereignty and limiting Washington's influence in the region in a way that their predecessors hadn't been.
Hugo Chávez was already president of Venezuela. Just a month before Rumsfeld's Santiago trip, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the presidency of Brazil. A few months later, in early 2003, Argentines elected Néstor Kirchner, who shortly thereafter ended his country's joint military exercises with the U.S. In the years that followed, the U.S. experienced one setback after another. In 2008, for instance, Ecuador evicted the U.S. military from Manta Air Base.
In that same period, the Bush administration's rush to invade Iraq, an act most Latin American countries opposed, helped squander whatever was left of the post-9/11 goodwill the U.S. had in the region. Iraq seemed to confirm the worst suspicions of the continent's new leaders: that what Rumsfeld was trying to peddle as an international "peacekeeping" force would be little more than a bid to use Latin American soldiers as Gurkhas in a revived unilateral imperial war.
Brazil's "Smokescreen"
Diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks show the degree to which Brazil rebuffed efforts to paint the region red on Washington's new global gulag map.
A May 2005 U.S. State Department cable, for instance, reveals that Lula's government refused "multiple requests" by Washington to take in released Guantánamo prisoners, particularly a group of about 15 Uighurs the U.S. had been holding since 2002, who could not be sent back to China.
"[Brazil's] position regarding this issue has not changed since 2003 and will likely not change in the foreseeable future," the cable said. It went on to report that Lula's government considered the whole system Washington had set up at Guantánamo (and around the world) to be a mockery of international law. "All attempts to discuss this issue" with Brazilian officials, the cable concluded, "were flatly refused or accepted begrudgingly."
In addition, Brazil refused to cooperate with the Bush administration's efforts to create a Western Hemisphere-wide version of the Patriot Act. It stonewalled, for example, about agreeing to revise its legal code in a way that would lower the standard of evidence needed to prove conspiracy, while widening the definition of what criminal conspiracy entailed.
Lula stalled for years on the initiative, but it seems that the State Department didn't realize he was doing so until April 2008, when one of its diplomats wrote a memo calling Brazil's supposed interest in reforming its legal code to suit Washington a "smokescreen." The Brazilian government, another Wikileaked cable complained, was afraid that a more expansive definition of terrorism would be used to target "members of what they consider to be legitimate social movements fighting for a more just society." Apparently, there was no way to "write an anti-terrorism legislation that excludes the actions" of Lula's left-wing social base.
One U.S. diplomat complained that this "mindset" — that is, a mindset that actually valued civil liberties – "presents serious challenges to our efforts to enhance counterterrorism cooperation or promote passage of anti-terrorism legislation." In addition, the Brazilian government worried that the legislation would be used to go after Arab-Brazilians, of which there are many. One can imagine that if Brazil and the rest of Latin America had signed up to participate in Washington's rendition program, Open Society would have a lot more Middle Eastern-sounding names to add to its list.
Finally, cable after Wikileaked cable revealed that Brazil repeatedly brushed off efforts by Washington to isolate Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, which would have been a necessary step if the U.S. was going to marshal South America into its counterterrorism posse.
In February 2008, for example, U.S. ambassador to Brazil Clifford Sobell met with Lula's Minister of Defense Nelson Jobin to complain about Chávez. Jobim told Sobell that Brazil shared his "concern about the possibility of Venezuela exporting instability." But instead of "isolating Venezuela," which might only "lead to further posturing," Jobim instead indicated that his government "supports [the] creation of a 'South American Defense Council' to bring Chavez into the mainstream."
There was only one catch here: that South American Defense Council was Chávez's idea in the first place! It was part of his effort, in partnership with Lula, to create independent institutions parallel to those controlled by Washington. The memo concluded with the U.S. ambassador noting how curious it was that Brazil would use Chavez's "idea for defense cooperation" as part of a "supposed containment strategy" of Chávez.
Monkey-Wrenching the Perfect Machine of Perpetual War
Unable to put in place its post-9/11 counterterrorism framework in all of Latin America, the Bush administration retrenched. It attempted instead to build a "perfect machine of perpetual war" in a corridor running from Colombia through Central America to Mexico. The process of militarizing that more limited region, often under the guise of fighting "the drug wars," has, if anything, escalated in the Obama years. Central America has, in fact, become the only place Southcom — the Pentagon command that covers Central and South America — can operate more or less at will. A look at this other map, put together by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, makes the region look like one big landing strip for U.S. drones and drug-interdiction flights.
Washington does continue to push and probe further south, trying yet again to establish a firmer military foothold in the region and rope it into what is now a less ideological and more technocratic crusade, but one still global in its aspirations. U.S. military strategists, for instance, would very much like to have an airstrip in French Guyana or the part of Brazil that bulges out into the Atlantic. The Pentagon would use it as a stepping stone to its increasing presence in Africa, coordinating the work of Southcom with the newest global command, Africom.
But for now, South America has thrown a monkey wrench into the machine. Returning to that Washington Post map, it's worth memorializing the simple fact that, in one part of the world, in this century at least, the sun never rose on US-choreographed torture.
Greg Grandin teaches history at New York University and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His most recent book, Fordlandia, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in history.
Venezuela Donates Free Heating Oil to 100k Needy US Households February 15, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in Energy, Latin America, Venezuela.Tags: brett wilkins, citgo, energy assistance, heating oil, Hugo Chavez, joseph p. keenedy, liheap, roger hollander, Venezuela
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By Brett Wilkins, Digital Journal
09 February 13
altimore – For the eighth straight year, Venezuela's state oil company is donating free heating oil to hundreds of thousands of needy Americans.
The CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program has helped more than 1.7 million Americans in 25 states and the District of Columbia keep warm since it was launched back in 2005. The program is a partnership between the Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), its subsidiary CITGO and Citizens Energy Corporation, a nonprofit organization founded by former US Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II that provides discounted and free home heating services and supplies to needy households in the United States and abroad. It has been supported from the beginning by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
In 2005, a pair of devastating hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, led to dwindling oil supplies and skyrocketing fuel costs. Some of the poorest and most vulnerable Americans, including many elderly people on fixed incomes, found themselves having to choose between heating their homes or providing food, clothing or medicine for themselves and their families. Since that first winter, CITGO has provided 227 million gallons of free heating oil worth an estimated $465 million to an average of 153,000 US households each year. Some 252 Native American communities and 245 homeless shelters have also benefited from the program. This winter, more than 100,000 American families will receive Venezuelan aid. With the US government estimating that households heating primarily with oil will pay $407 (19 percent) more this year than last, the program remains an invaluable helping hand to many needy Americans.
"The CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program has been one of the most important energy assistance efforts in the United States," CITGO CEO Alejandro Granado said at the Night of Peace Family Shelter in Baltimore, Maryland, where he and Citizens Energy Corporation Chairman Kennedy launched the 2013 program. "This year, as families across the Eastern Seaboard struggle to recover from the losses caused by Hurricane Sandy, this donation becomes even more significant."
Last year, President Barack Obama and Congress reduced Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) funding by 25 percent, cutting off an estimated one million US households from desperately needed assistance just as winter's worst chill, accompanied by record heating oil prices, set in. Fortunately, the CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program was able to assist an estimated 400,000 Americanslast year.
"The federal fuel assistance program reaches only one-fifth of all the eligible households in the US," Kennedy said in Baltimore. "Millions of families just go cold at night in their own homes."
US Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), who was on hand at the Baltimore launch, expressed his gratitude to CITGO.
"The demand is greater and the resources are shorter," Cummings said to widespread "amens" from the packed house. "We must not turn our heads away from the working poor– remember, we could be in the same position. The help you provide to families is bigger than just the oil. It's about helping children lead stable lives."
The people gathered at the shelter prayed for the recovery of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, whose condition is reportedly improving following cancer surgery in Havana, Cuba.
Chávez is often demonized as a dictator by many US politicians and by the US corporate mainstream media. But he remains wildly popular in Venezuela, where he has won four straight presidential elections. He was reelected last October with 54.4 percent of the vote. Although his leadership style is increasingly authoritarian, his Bolivarian Revolution – characterized by popular democracy, economic independence, equitable distribution of national wealth and reduced corruption – has improved the lives of millions of Venezuela's poorest citizens and inspired tens of millions of Latin Americans seeking more just societies to vote in leftist governments throughout the region.
US critics claim that Chávez is anti-American. This oversimplifies matters – while he is an ardent anti-imperialist who raised eyebrows and ire in Washington and on Wall Street by nationalizing the assets of foreign petroleum companies which many Venezuelans asserted were exploiting the country's natural resources, the US remains Venezuela's most important trading partner. And while Chávez is highly critical of US policies and actions around the globe, he is far from alone in his opposition. His distaste for Washington has also no doubt been influenced by the fact that senior officials in the George W. Bush administration were deeply involved in an attempted 2002 coup d'état against his popular regime.
All of this matters little to most of the 1.7 million Americans who have received free fuel from the CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program.
"All I know is he was kind to the people of the United States," program recipient Alice Maniotis, a New York grandmother on a fixed income, said of Chávez. "He rules differently, like Obama rules differently," Maniotis told RT last year. "Who are we to tell these people how to live? Are they invading our country? They're not. They're being generous to give us what comes out of their earth at no charge. So could you really have ill feelings against them?"
Kennedy thanked CITGO, Venezuela and Chávez for "help[ing] more than 400,000 people stay warm and safe this winter," adding that he has approached numerous major oil-producing nations as well as some of the largest US oil companies and asked them if they were interested in helping the poor heat their homes.
"I don't see Exxon responding," he told the crowd in Baltimore. "I don't see other major oil companies heating the homes of the poor."
"They all said no," Kennedy added, "except for CITGO, President Chávez and the people of Venezuela."
ECUADORIAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS: APOTHEOSIS? February 14, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in Ecuador, Latin America.Tags: Alberto Acosta, alianza pais, CONAIE, Ecuador, Ecuador Election, ecuador mining, gerard coffey, guillermo lasso, Hugo Chavez, Rafael Correa, roger hollander, unidad plurinacional
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Media Hate Fest for Venezuela Keeps on Keepin' On February 1, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in Latin America, Media, Venezuela.Tags: corporate media, el pais, Hugo Chavez, john lee anderson, Latin America, mark weisbrot, Media, new yorker, roger hollander, Venezuela, venezuela economy, venezuela education, venezuela health, venezuela poverty, yellow journalism
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Last week there was a real media hate-fest for Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, with some of the more influential publications on both sides of the Atlantic really hating on the guy. Even by the hate-filled standards to which we have become accustomed, it was impressive.
Spanish flagship newspaper El Pais – known to be hostile to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez – retracted its online and print editions after publishing on its front page a fake photo of Chavez using a breathing tube. (Reuters)
It's interesting, since this is one of the only countries in the world where the reporting of the more liberal media – NPR or even the New Yorker - is hardly different from that of Fox News or other right-wing media (more on that below).
The funniest episode came from El País, which on Thursday ran a front page picture of a man that they claimed was Chavez, lying on his back in a hospital bed, looking pretty messed-up with tubes in his mouth. The picture was soon revealed as completely fake. Oops! The paper, which is Spain's most influential publication (and with a lot of clout in Latin America, too), had to pull its newspapers off the stands and issue a public apology. Although, as the Venezuelans complained, there was no apology to Chavez or his family. Not surprisingly, since El Pais really hates Chavez. For a really funny pictorial response to El Pais, click here.
The New York Times, for its part, ran yet another hate piece on its op-ed page. Dog bites man. Nothing new here, they have doing this for almost 14 years - most recently just three months ago. This one was remarkably unoriginal, comparing the Chavez government to a Latin American magical realist novel. It contained very little information – but being fact-free allowed the authors to claim that the country had "dwindling productivity" and "an enormous foreign debt load". Productivity has not "dwindled" under Chavez; in fact real GDP per capita, which is mostly driven by productivity growth, expanded by 24 percent since 2004 (for an explanation of why 2004 is a reasonable starting point, see here). In the 20 years prior to Chavez, real GDP per person actually fell. As for the "enormous foreign debt load", Venezuela's foreign public debt is about 28 percent of GDP, and the interest on it is about 2 percent of GDP. If this is enormous – well let's just say these people don't have a good sense of quantity.
The authors were probably just following a general rule, which is that you can say almost anything you want about Venezuela, so long as it is bad – and it usually goes unquestioned. Statistics and data count for very little when the media is presenting its ugly picture.
This is especially true for Jon Lee Anderson, writing in the January 28 issue of the New Yorker ("Slumlord: What has Hugo Chávez wrought in Venezuela?"). He mentions in passing that "the poorest Venezuelans are marginally better off these days". Marginally? From 2004-2011, extreme poverty was reduced by about two-thirds. Poverty was reduced by about one-half. And this measures only cash income. It does not count the access to health care that millions now have, or the doubling of college enrollment – with free tuition for many. Access to public pensions tripled. Unemployment is half of what it was when Chavez took office.
I shouldn't have to emphasise that Venezuela's poverty reduction, real (inflation-adjusted) income growth, and other basic data in the Chavez era are not in dispute among experts, including international statistical agencies such as the World Bank or UN. Even opposition economists use the same data in making their case against the government. It is only journalists like Anderson who avoid letting commonly agreed upon facts and numbers get in the way of their story.
Anderson devotes many thousands of words, in one of America's leading literary magazines, to portraying the dark underside of life in Venezuela – ex-cons and squatters, horrible prisons: "A thick black line of human excrement ran down an exterior wall, and in the yard below was a sea of sludge and garbage several feet deep." He draws on more than a decade of visits to Venezuela to shower the reader with his most foul memories of the society and the government. The article is accompanied by a series of grim, depressing black-and-white photos of unhappy-looking people in ugly surroundings (I couldn't help thinking of all those international surveys that keep finding Venezuelans to be among the happiest people in Latin America and the world – did Anderson never meet even one of these Venezuelans?).
I am all in favour of journalism that exposes the worst aspects of any society. But what makes this piece just another cheap political hack job is the conclusions that the author draws from his narrow, intentionally chosen slice of Venezuelan reality. For example:
They [Venezuelans] are the victims of their affection for a charismatic man… After nearly a generation, Chavez leaves his countrymen with many unanswered questions, but only one certainty: the revolution that he tried to bring about never really took place. It began with Chavez, and with him, most likely it will end.
Really? It sure doesn't look that way. Even Chavez's opponent in the October presidential election, Henrique Capriles, had to promise voters [SP] that he would preserve and actually expand the Chavez-era social programmes that had increased Venezuelans' access to health care and education. And after Chavez beat him by a wide margin of eleven percentage points, Chavez's party increased its share of governorships from 15 to 20 of 23 states, in the December elections that followed. In those elections, Chavez was not even in the country.
But it's the one-sidedness of the New Yorker's reporting that is most overwhelming. Imagine, for example, writing an article about the United States at the end of President Clinton's eight years – interviewing the homeless and the destitute, the people tortured in our prisons, the unemployed and the poor single mothers struggling to feed their children. Could you get away with pretending that this is all of "What Clinton has wrought in America?" Without mentioning that unemployment hit record lows not seen since the 1960s, that poverty was sharply reduced, that it was the longest-running business cycle expansion in US history?
This is an imperfect analogy, since many people outside the US know something about the country, and wouldn't buy such a one-sided story line. And also because the improvements of the Clinton years didn't last that long: the stock market bubble burst and caused a recession in 2001; the gains from the recovery that followed went mostly to the richest one percent of the population; and then the housing bubble burst, causing the worst recession since the Great Depression – from which we are still recovering. Unemployment today is considerably above the level of Clinton's first year in office, and poverty has rebounded dramatically; and we could take another decade to get back to full employment. Whereas in Venezuela, progress has not been reversed; there really is no going back now that the majority of the country has gotten used to sharing in the country's oil wealth – not just through government programmes but primarily through a higher level of employment and income in the private sector. Maybe that's not "revolutionary" enough for Anderson, but it's enough for Venezuelans to keep re-electing their president and his party.
As for the media, it is a remarkable phenomenon, this outpouring of animosity towards Chavez and his government, from across the western media spectrum. How is it that this democratically elected president who hasn't killed anyone or invaded any countries gets more bad press than Saddam Hussein did (aside from the months immediately preceding invasions of Iraq)? Even when he is fighting for his own life?
The western media reporting has been effective. It has convinced most people outside of Venezuela that the country is run by some kind of dictatorship that has ruined it. Fortunately for Venezuelans, they have access to more information about their country than the foreigners who are relying on one-sided and often inaccurate media. So they keep re-electing the president and the party that has improved their lives – much to the annoyance of the major media and its friends.
Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), in Washington, DC. He is also president of Just Foreign Policy. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis. E-mail Mark: firstname.lastname@example.com
Why Chavez Won Again October 31, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Latin America, Venezuela.Tags: afro-venezuelan, chavez government, danny glover, democracy, economic justice, henrique capriles, Hugo Chavez, Latin America, poverty, roger hollander, Venezuela, venezuela democracy, venezuela election, venezuela government
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I had the privilege of traveling to Venezuela and witnessing the country's October 7 presidential election and watching the South American country's extraordinarily active and engaged citizenry in action. An impressive 81 percent of the electorate participated in a transparent and secure electoral process that former president Jimmy Carter reportedly referred to as the best in the world.
President Hugo Chavez's 10-point margin of victory over opposition candidate Henrique Capriles stands as a testament to the enduring popularity of his participatory democracy programs and his government's focus on addressing the needs of the poor.
Capriles campaigned on a platform that supported the government's social programs, while criticizing inefficiencies in many government sectors and capitalizing on fears over high rates of violence and unchecked corruption. In reality, as former key supporters revealed, and the majority of voters affirmed at the ballot box, Capriles and his allies backed a sweeping neo-liberal program fundamentally opposed to the current government's state-led, pro-social economic policies and support for direct collaboration with citizens in improving their wellbeing.
In contrast to his prior contempt for the democratic decisions of Venezeulans—including a failed coup in 2002—Capriles formally conceded defeat shortly after the election results were announced. Although media coverage of Venezuelan politics might have led one to think otherwise, these presidential elections were about much more than Chavez, as significant as he may be as torch-bearer of the poor and marginalized.
Venezuela's Afro-Descendents
I began to get a sense of the bigger picture when I visited the country for the first time nine years ago at the invitation of the Afro-Venezuelan Network. I saw how Venezuela's Afro-descendents—among the most under-educated, marginalized, and impoverished people in the country—were becoming proactive as full citizens under the Chavez government, increasingly participating in political decision-making at the local level and claiming a voice in regional, national, and even international affairs. And I became increasingly aware of the growing political collaboration among Afro-Venezuelans, the Chavez government, and the approximately 150 million people of African descent throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
My initial impressions, informed by my university studies in economics and my professional experience in community development in San Francisco, were confirmed on each of my subsequent visits. I observed numerous social, educational, cultural, and economic development projects that were improving the lives of marginalized communities and facilitating direct citizen participation and critical engagement in broader national, regional, and global affairs.
The Chavez government has also helped raise awareness about the historical links between racial exploitation and disempowerment and the socio-cultural relationship between wealth and luxury versus inequality and misery. The government's policies, for which the majority of Venezuelan citizens of all backgrounds have voted for the last 13 years, are addressing the legacy of slavery and helping expose and overcome generations of discrimination based on race, class, and gender.
On my most recent trip to witness the elections, I was greatly moved by the extraordinary civility and enthusiasm of voters from across the political spectrum, despite the fact that the opposing campaign agendas clearly represent radically different visions for the people and the country. Though media accounts create the impression that extreme political polarization is pervasive throughout Venezuela, I witnessed an atmosphere of respect and tranquility at the voting centers. At every voting booth, volunteers from both campaigns were present to ensure that citizens had access to the ballot box and could freely exercise their choice for president.
But the most important moment of my trip was the day after the election when I met with local leaders and activists from the Afro-Venezuela community of San Jose in Barlovento, on the northern coast of Venezuela. I conversed with community leaders descended from the "maroons"—Venezuelans who had escaped slavery and created self-sustaining communities over 400 years ago.
Youth leaders described the educational missions and government programs that provided them with unprecedented access to higher education. Members of workers' cooperatives discussed new state cacao processing factories co-managed by managers and workers that had helped lift the local economy and offered fair prices and social support to poor farmers. Other representatives of the community explained how new health and education missions were addressing the needs of communities that had had little or no access to basic services. In the small, poor community I visited, I learned about a state-run clinic focused exclusively on women's health issues. Though local leaders by and large expressed admiration for President Chavez and his policies, they also noted unresolved issues that they wanted to see addressed.
A Better Life
More generally, life has improved for a great number of Venezuelans over the last decade. Poverty has been cut in half and extreme poverty cut by 70 percent. Free health care, education, and public pension programs have been greatly expanded, the minimum wage has steadily increased, and unemployment has dropped below 8 percent.
The most promising aspect of the Venezuelan government's social development agenda is the proactive effort to promote democratic engagement and citizen control over local conditions and possibilities. We should all take note that these efforts are taking place in the middle of a global financial, economic, and ethical meltdown, when many countries are sharply scaling back social policies and embracing the neoliberal polices Venezuela has repeatedly rejected.
A great deal of the foreign media coverage of Venezuela gives the impression that Chavez's social and economic policies are incoherent, unsustainable, and based on short-term electoral considerations. For years, the financial press has predicted an imminent collapse of the Venezuelan economy. But, in fact, Venezuela enjoys a large trade surplus and has relatively little public debt. That provides the government with lots of room for continued expansionary fiscal, monetary, and social development policies.
The press also often vilifies Chavez and portrays his supporters—a strong majority of the country—as poor, reverent masses who are blindly manipulated by populist rhetoric and occasional cash handouts. This portrayal is not only false, it is denigrating and injurious to the basic workings of democracy: ordinary people expressing their desires with visions of an improved quality of life, development projects, and a choice of political stewards to achieve their goals. Yet, nearly 14 years after Chavez was first elected, misrepresentations and outright fabrications still prevail in mainstream U.S. papers, television news programs, and in the statements of politicians from both major parties.
If you want to understand how the Chavez administration continues to win free and fair elections, you need only hear the stories of formerly marginalized communities and look more carefully at the country's social and economic indicators. As I spoke with Afro-Venezuelans about their support for President Chavez and his agenda, I was reminded of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who said that we as a nation must undergo a "true revolution of values." As King explained, "A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth…and say, 'This is not just.'"
In the Oct. 7 elections, as in more than a dozen previous electoral cycles, Venezuela has shown that the majority of its people have a clear notion of justice and how it can be achieved. It is now time for those of us in the United States to look at our alliance with the elites of Latin America and say: This is not just.


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subset: commoncrawl


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2008 March
Differentiation of cholinergic amacrine cells during chick embryonic development
Vertical sections of postnatal chick retina were labeled with antibodies to choline acetyl transferase (red fluorescence) to identify cholinergic amacrine cells and with antibodies to retinoic acid binding protein, CRABP (green fluorescence), as visualized by confocal microscopy. CRABP was not expressed in type-II cholinergic cells, but was present in non-cholinergic cells. Overlap of signal is shown in yellow.
Taken from: Andy Fischer et al., 2008, BMC Developmental Biology [View article]
To view related images from across BioMed Central, visit the Biology Image Library.


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Temperance and Morality. - There is certainly not nearly as much intemperance among these Indians as formerly. No doubt the difficulty of obtaining liquor, owing to the strict enforcement of the law, has something to do with this, though many see the evils it has brought upon them in the way of sickness and death. I am also glad to say that undoubtedly not nearly as many women now visit the cities for immoral purposes.
General Remarks. - I may here mention that, owing to the great extent of the agency and the difficulty of visiting all the different bands, which are so scattered, many of them moving away altogether during the summer months from their permanent homes, and also to the fact that they have so little land fit for cultivation, much improvement cannot be looked for among these Indians until the children, who are being more or less educated, grow up and take the place of the present generation. These children, who have been in the industrial-school and girls' home, have undoubtedly already some influence for good, and it is in the education of the children in industrial and boarding-schools that greater effort should be made, which would bring about a more general improvement in the people; at the same time other industries should be encouraged as far as possible among the older members.
SIR, - I have the honour to present my annual report and tabular statement for the year ended the 30th June, 1896.
Vital Statistics. - In this agency there are five nations of Indians speaking different languages and forming twenty-four bands as follows: the Haida, nation of three bands, numbering five hundred and ninety-eight; the Nishgar nation of seven bands, numbering seven hundred and eighty-two; the Tsimpsean nation of six bands, numbering one thousand three hundred and sixty-four; the Oweekayno nation of five bands, numbering nine hundred and ten; and the Tallion nation of three bands, numbering three hundred and forty, making a total population of three thousand nine hundred and ninety-four. I have this year ceased to count in this agency a small band of about forty-four Indians living at Smith's Inlet, upon understanding that they rightfully belong to and have been counted in the Kwawkewlth Agency.
During the year seven of the Haida Indians emigrated to Alaska to join their relatives settled in that country.
There has been during the year an increase of twenty births over deaths throughout the agency.
Area of Reserves. - The total area of land reserved for the Indians of this agency is approximately one hundred and forty-nine thousand, three hundred and forty-seven acres, which was selected from the best available land, but is generally of small value.
Occupation. - These Indians can never depend upon agricultural pursuits for a food supply. The principal source of supply must be fishing and hunting. Many of the


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Carrier Statistics Lab Learning Materials
(Image(Image.png,500px) failed - File not found) By completing the Carrier-Statistics Lab in ABACUS - Assembly of Basic Applications for Coordinated Understanding of Semiconductors, you will be able …
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March 23 (HealthDay News) -- People with osteoporosis are much more likely to have vertigo than people with normal bone density, Korean researchers say.
Vertigo is an inner ear disorder that's a common cause of dizziness. It's believed to be caused by loose calcium carbonate crystals in the sensing tubes of the inner ear.
The researchers compared 209 people with benign positional vertigo with no known causes -- such as ear surgery or head trauma -- with 202 people with no history of dizziness. Compared to participants with normal bone density, those with osteoporosis (low bone density) were three times more likely to have vertigo and those with osteopenia (the stage before osteoporosis) were two times more likely to have vertigo.
Among women, 25 percent of those with vertigo had osteoporosis, compared to 9 percent of those without vertigo, and 47 percent of those with vertigo had osteopenia, compared to 33 percent of those without vertigo. Among men, 12 percent of those with vertigo had osteoporosis, compared to 6 percent of those without vertigo, and 40 percent with vertigo had osteopenia, compared to 27 percent of those without vertigo.
The study will be published in the March 24 issue of Neurology.
"These findings suggest a problem with calcium metabolism in people with vertigo," Dr. Ji Soo Kim, of the Seoul National University College of Medicine, said in a journal news release.
"Women most often have their first case of vertigo in their 50s, when they are also having a drop in bone mass due to loss of estrogen. Estrogen is one of the main hormones that influence calcium and bone metabolism," Kim said.
The role that estrogen plays in vertigo hasn't been determined. Since this study also found an association between osteoporosis and vertigo in men, other factors must also play a role, Kim noted.
SOURCE: American Academy of Neurology, news release, March 23, 2009


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Found October 24, 2012 on
It's Always Sunny in Detroit:
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. How are you celebrating? Hopefully the ladies are doing their thing and getting checked. The NFL annually take it upon themselves and wear pink to bring attention to the disease. Arizona Cardinals defensive end Nick Eason did his thing over the weekend to bring awareness…and it didn't involve wearing pink gloves and socks. While the Cardinals were in Minneapolis to play the Vikings over the weekend, Eason visited the Mall of America where he proceeded to take a sledgehammer to a car with the words "breast cancer" on it. He destroyed it. Eason's mother died of breast cancer in August. Pink gloves, towels, socks, shoes and smashing the bejeebus out of a compact car…hey, whatever works, right? At least it wasn't an American car. Go Boobs. Off the Bench
Original Story:
Cardinals' Nick Eason destroys a car for breast cancer
Stephens-Howling comes up big for Cards
Inconsistency killed the Cardinals
Arizona Cardinals Nick Eason destroys car for breast cancer awareness (Video)
San Francisco 49ers at Arizona Cardinals: Week 8 NFL Pick
Darnell Dockett's $100,000 Cash Stack Comes With Special Message For The Ladies
Arizona Cardinals: Week 8 NFL Power Rankings (#21)
Mike Leach bans Washington State players from Twitter
No more twitter, says Leach
Cardinals reportedly aren't working out Vince Young
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Highbullen Hotel
Travel Blogs from Umberleigh
Return to Brixham and on to the wedding
... grown
green beans, salad and potatoes. Delicious.
back onto the flying fox, into Berty and Jan and Jeremy took us to
Paignton to catch the train. The day was once again a bit murky so
the fantastic scenery was intermittent.
took us from the train to Wendover to the Five Bells Pub where we
were to stay for the next few days. Between three and four hours
driving in persistent rain. Ali ...
Wet & Dry
... allotment keeping him very busy and Rose is showing her age a close to 90.
Sharon has organised a family reunion dinner for Saturday night which will see a cast of thousands with all of John and Maureens kids and grand kids,not sure of numbers but it will be a crowd.
Today the weather vis a bit grey looking, but dry!!
Dave & Lona.
Lynton and Lynmouth
... Castles have to be up so high! We then headed off to Washford to see the medieval Cleeve Abbey that dates back to 1191. www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/pro perties/cleeve-abbey/ We caught up with Leonie and Glenn who we're also looking at the Abbey then they were heading off to Lands End. After looking over the abbey, Rod and I drove 150 yards down the road to the White Horse Inn and had a bite to eat, nothing like the ...
Day 31. Last legs. Lynmouth to Minehead
Accidents will happen
The day started off ignominiously. I have been observing the rule fairly religiously that we use Dora's toilet only for a number one visit, except for dire emergencies. I wish I could say the same for Giuli, who conjures up such emergencies and I have to do the emptying as you will recall. Most mornings I manage to get that cup of tea in bed, before nature's call. This morning, I realised I wasn't going to even have time to put ...
Day 30 Hele Bay to Lynmouth
... in a cottage right next to the Dolphin, overlooking the harbour. Lydia took her first steps there. And to cement this as their first walking holiday we took the girls up The Hangmans strapped to our backs.
The stretch up to Heddon's Mouth was much longer and tougher than I remembered. I last walked this several years ago with Ellie, Luke and Simon before he emigrated to New Zealand. Crazily we didn't use the footpath to ...
- Continental Breakfast
- Free High-Speed Internet
- Restaurant
- Swimming pool
- Fitness/Health center


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Knarr Herrick Downs Kestle Ault Kintner Lehman Hane Hornish Engle Royer Credlebaugh Wolff Beery Erbaugh Stull Minnich Hay Coblentz Conrad Rich Bolinger
Welcome to our family research web site! As we add more content, you will want to check back! Enjoy.
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Edexcel International GCSE specifications are not approved for use in UK state schools. The Edexcel International GCSE from 2009 Mathematics A (4MA0) specification is based on the legacy Edexcel International GCSE from 2003 Mathematics (4400) specification.
Our Edexcel International GCSE in Mathematics (specification A) aims to give students a foundation in mathematical skills and develop their knowledge and understanding of how to use and apply mathematical techniques and concepts to solve problems. It is suitable for delivery in schools and colleges and is a two-tiered qualification, graded A* to G. Assessment is via two examinations. Read more Results for this qualification will be only be recorded in school performance tables up until 2013.
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What now for George and Chris?
View Single Post
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 472
Re: What now for Goerge and Chris?
I thought I heard somewhere in the media barrage that Grande is working 100 games, Creeeper is working 120-125 games and the as of yet unnamed "2nd new guy" who will work 120 games in the radio booth would work the TV games Creeper does not work.
If there is only one more new guy besides Thom, we know that whenever Thom works TV, Creeper will be working with him becasue the other new guy will be working the radio booth with Marty on those games.
It seems to me though the math comes up a litte short all around to keep both boothes covered at 2 in each booth with 5 guys knowing the number of games each guy will supposedly work (remember Marty takes those 2 in season breaks now. I figure that at a dozen games). Joe is supposedly in for up to 12 games health permitting but Allen did not seem real firm on that acually happening (Joes health?). I am guessing we will end up seeing someone from the pregame/ postgame TV crew (Jeff Picaro or Jim Day) filling out the TV booth 10 or 12 times during the season like happened this year when George missed some games.
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by Mike Phillips
Posted on 03.01.2011
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ShareThis, the popular social sharing widget, has released an update that is currently in beta. The biggest upgrade is the ability for users to share a page's content to more than one destination simultaneously. With a single click, users can share your content via email, Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Tumblr, LinkedIn and more. This added convenience for the user could be significant - anything that makes content sharing easier should also be on publishers' radars.Also included in the update is the ability for users to share content without ever leaving your website and the incorporation of custom themes and colors. In the works are updated plugins for Wordpress, Blogger and Typepad. ShareThis claims nearly one million websites use the tool. You can see an example of the new widget functionality below, and vist the ShareThis website for more details and to test it out.
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Testing Not Necessary
3 Design Agencies on the Hot Seat
Getty Images Unlocks Its Photo Library
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Basking in Twilight Success; Ava-Toad
Produced by:
Melissa Rosenberg, the screenwriter on the Twilight series talks about being a brand in Hollywood. Plus, we look at how people with even tenuous links to Twilight earn fame and fortune from the frenzied fandom. Then, Mark Lewis, an independent filmmaker from Australia known for making humorous nonfiction films like The Natural History of the Chicken talks about going 3-D with his new film Cane Toads: The Conquest otherwise known as Ava-Toad.
Banner image: © Radio Pictures
- Melissa Rosenberg: screenwriter, 'Twilight' series
- Mark Lewis: Producer and Director, 'Cane Toads'
- Rosenberg's Facebook page
- 'Twilight' screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg talks Kristen Stewart, Bill Condon and 'Breaking Dawn' (LATimes.com, 6/24/20)
- 'Eclipse' Eclipses a Box Office Record (NYTimes.com, 6/30/10)
- 'Cane Toads: The Conquest' Facebook page
- 'Ava-Toad': Toxic 3D Cane Toads Take Sundance by Storm," (TheWrap.com, 1/29/10)
- Video interview with Lewis, including footage of his shooting 'Cane Toads: The Conquest' (ABCNews.com on YouTube)
- Sundance: Mark Lewis Gets Down with 3-D Cane Toads (IndieWire.com, 1/30/10)
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Suspect still on loose after officers' shooting
UPDATED 6:12 PM EDT Aug 08, 2013A man is wanted in connection with the shooting of two Boston police officers.
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Copyright © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved.
Current Biology, Volume 9, Issue 20, R791, 21 October 1999
Add/View Comments (0)Life extension and stress resistance in Caenorhabditis elegans modulated by the tkr-1 gene
Shin Murakami and Thomas E. Johnson
In this Brief Communication, which appeared in the 14 September 1998 issue of Current Biology, the UV dose was reported erroneously. The dose reported was 20 J/m2 but the actual dose used was 0.4 J/cm2. Also, the gene formally referred to as tkr-1 has since been renamed old-1 (overexpression longevity determination).


text: Thanks to a generous donation from Bob & Charlee Moore of Bob's Red Mill, NCNM opened Charlee's Kitchen, its first teaching and research kitchen, in 2012. Located in the newly renovated Helfgott Research Institute and Community Education Center, Charlee's Kitchen fills both academic and community roles, including hosting FAME classes taught by Chef Ken Gordon, among others. Murdock Trust joined in support of the Helfgott Institute's capital improvements, challenging NCNM to raise $155,000 in matching funds in addition to their generous donation. All proceeds from tonight's Gala will be matched by the Murdock Trust to benefit NCNM's Helfgott Research Institute and Community Education Center, and programs in Charlee's Kitchen. NCNM's 3rd Annual


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as long as i wake up next to you
Unless…it's a weird cousin thing.
8x24 - 9x02
"I think it might be the start of something like, really amazing."
it's like the sun came out…
When Steven is unhappy, I know our relationship is in good shape. Then we've been tip-top since the minute I met you.
himym meme: two otps↳ Barney & Robin
so hey, I got this kick ass new flat screen.


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Please note: This is a beta version of the new dblp website.
You can find the classic dblp view of this page here.
You can find the classic dblp view of this page here.
Hai-Hong Jin
2010 – today
- 2013
- [j2]Jimin Ye, Hai-Hong Jin, Qingrui Zhang: Adaptive weighted orthogonal constrained algorithm for blind source separation. Digital Signal Processing 23(2): 514-521 (2013)
2000 – 2009
- 2009
- [j1]Jimin Ye, Hai-Hong Jin, Shun-Tian Lou, Kejun You: An optimized EASI algorithm. Signal Processing 89(3): 333-338 (2009)
- 2006
- [c1]Ji-Min Ye, Shun-Tian Lou, Hai-Hong Jin, Xian-Da Zhang: An Novel Algorithm for Blind Source Separation with Unknown Sources Number. ISNN (1) 2006: 1147-1152
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