Lucio Vega

My Venezuelan sculptor friend has moved to Buenos Aires and is continuing with his unique brand of symbiotic sculptures, which combine mechanical and organic elements. Some of his installations are kinetic, using springs and other moving elements. He was the most genuine and prolific artist to emerge from the Armando Reveron art school the year I was there, in my opinion.

Check out his blog here.

Christian Parenti on Iraq

I just found this video of Christian Parenti, the subject of a profile piece I am writing for college, talking about the US failure in Iraq.

The most interesting bit is towards the end where he talks about the mind-boggling corruption and incompetence that characterise the invasion, and the impossible mission of defeating a well-armed and well-organised ex-Baathist army resistance. He proposes a pan-regional summit where hostilities are put on hold, where the US recognises its failure and pays reparations to Iraq, and where leaders from across the middle east engage in discussions over a practical way forward - recognising, of course, that this is never going to happen, even under a Clinton administration.

Imperial cocaine bandits

Chávez has, apparently, accused the US of selling cocaine at "below-market prices" in the barrios of Caracas as a means of destabilising Venezuela. This accusation is bizarre as it gives the impression that the US is muscling in on his territory - as if Chávez wants to be the only coke-dealing big daddy in THIS neighbourhood!

Of all the extreme accusation he's come out with, this has to be one of the more unusual ones. It undermines the credibility of his rhetoric and means people are more willing to dismiss what he says, even when he is in fact right.

Just take the whole Farc issue. Chávez had a real opportunity to denounce the many human rights abuses of the Uribe administration by staying as neutral as possible and pressing for a peaceful solution, thus highlighting the failure of the Colombian government to resolve the country's problems.

But instead he has affiliated himself with the Farc rebels and opened himself up to criticism that he aids and abets terrorists. This in itself is an exaggerated claim from hysterical rightwingers but why give your opponents the opportunity to label you in this way if it can be so easily avoided?

As I have always said, Chávez is his own worst enemy.

Heating up...

The debate is getting interesting following the publication of the New Statesman article. It hasn't stooped to name-calling (yet!) which is good, as people are engaging with some interesting issues. Check it out here.

Frontline Club

This is an interesting discovery - a club for journalists, diplomats and policy makers to openly discuss current affairs. Channel 4 News' Jon Snow is a member (he features on the video) as do other established journos.

Free hugs

I had never heard of this campaign until now, but it looks like it's been going a while. Free hugs - it helps that the girl is quite fit.



Mind you, the Scottish chap in this one gets plenty of hugs too, even from other blokes. Aah, heart-warming stuff, isn't it?

Uribe's commitment to peace

Check out this article and this one about how the Colombian military attacked the convoy releasing the hostages from Farc imprisonment. It was clearly an attempt to undermine the release effort in order to humiliate Hugo Chávez, who brokered the deal.


As you will see from my articles I'm not a massive fan of Chávez and believe he deserves most of the criticism he receives, but it's stories like this that make me think that (US-backed) leaders who are just as dastardly as he is - if not moreso - aren't getting the media haranguing they deserve too.

$12 billion oil squabble - truth or dare?

An interesting story is brewing in the hazy world of international business law.

Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA has, according to Exxon Mobil, been ordered to freeze $12 billion of its overseas assets by a UK court. The case arose last year, when president Chávez's nationalisation drive forced foreign oil operators in Venezuela to either hand over majority control of their operations or leave for good. All companies concerned came to an agreement except Exxon Mobil, which chose to pull out of Venezuela and sought recompense in the international courts.

Friday's ruling has been widely reported but I am yet to read a definitive explanation of what it means for PDVSA. Rafael Ramirez, the PDVSA boss and oil minister, has denied that any ruling has been made against PDVSA and has dismissed the whole episode as some sort of gringo PR conspiracy to destabilise the Venezuelan economy. (I know the Chávez government always comes out with this kind of reasoning, but part of me often thinks, "it's not totally out of the question...")

So was there a ruling or not? If there was, how can Ramirez credibly claim that there wasn't? And if there wasn't, what is Exxon making such a hullabaloo about?

Either way, the announcement has managed to undermine the value of PDVSA's bonds, which fell to an all-time low on Friday, which certainly establishes a clear motive for any Exxon-Bush destabilisation conspiracy.

But then again, could it be the Chávez government once again playing the "external forces" card to justify its own incompetence?

Watch this space.

Show of strength

Martin Markovits and Sebastian Kennedy

Hugo Chávez says he wants to bring peace to the warring factions in Colombia's cocaine wars but his increasing militarism could destabilise the region.

Squinting into the glare of the late-afternoon Caribbean sun, hundreds of pleated khaki-dressed soldiers and military dignitaries form orderly rows facing their chief of staff and head of state, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez.

Positioned on stage and flanked by a few lines of tanks and helicopters in a military training ground in the provincial city of Valencia, western Venezuela, President Chávez waits for the roaring fighter jets to pass overhead before addressing the assembly.

"From Colombia, Venezuela is threatened," Chávez says, dismissing as "inventions" widespread allegations that his government has colluded with drug trafficking and arms sales to Colombian guerrillas.

The speech is being delivered to mark the 16th anniversary of the attempted coup led by the then-young Lieutenant Colonel Chávez on 4 February 1992. Although it ended in failure and Chávez and his cohorts were imprisoned, many believe the event - now commonly referred to as 4F - paved the way for his eventual democratic election to the presidency in 1998.

But while the Venezuelan president was commemorating his failed putsch, over a million protesters took to the streets in neighbouring Colombia and in cities across the world to voice their opposition to Chávez's hostage-taking rebel allies, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).

In an almost implausible coincidence, anti-Farc campaigners chose 4 February to mobilise a global protest against the Marxist insurgents. They maintain that the event was entirely apolitical and directed only at the rebel fighters, but in a statement on their website they denounce Chávez's "interventions in the internal matters of Colombia and, particularly, his declarations which seek to justify the Farc as a representation of the Colombian people".

Chávez's inflammatory comments about the threat from Colombia came two days after he declared that the Venezuelan armed forces were "on alert" against possible aggressions from the neighbouring country. In a televised broadcast, the president had warned: "We don't know how far it could go. We don't want to hurt anybody, but no one should make a mistake with us."

He added: "One day things will change in Colombia," referring to the cocaine-fuelled civil war that has raged across the border for almost 60 years. "Theirs is a war in which we cannot participate except as peacemakers."

His words have further aggravated the deepening diplomatic crisis with Bogotá. After successfully negotiating the release of two hostages held by the Farc, he requested that these narco-rebels be removed from lists of international terrorist organisations and expressed an ideological affinity with their insurgent cause.

"The Farc and [National Liberation Army] ELN are not terrorist bodies. They are real armies that occupy space in Colombia. That must be recognised. They are insurgent forces with a Bolivarian political project, which here we respect," Chávez said in his yearly address to the National Assembly on 11 January.

As the anti-Farc movement gathered global momentum through social networking sites such as Facebook, it was quickly seized upon by the Colombian government. On the day of protest, Colombian president Álvaro Uribe even delivered a message of thanks to marchers in the city of Valledupar. "Our gratitude goes to all Colombians who today expressed with dignity and strength their rejection of kidnapping and kidnappers," Reuters reported him as saying.

Back at the Valencia barracks, Venezuelan officials reacted truculently. Jesús González, the strat egic commander of the armed forces, rejected it as a "political ploy to try to identify 4 February with opposition to the Farc".

President Chávez reminded his army and onlookers of the history behind the day's celebrations. "The events of 4 February [1992] swept Venezuela into the 21st century. It was when the Bolivarian revolution truly began," he declared.

In recent years, the flamboyant Venezuelan president has used 4F to demonstrate his increasing regional influence and to launch stinging verbal attacks on his enemies.

While critics maintain that it is hypocritical for a democratic country to celebrate a coup, albeit a failed one, Chávez's supporters see it as the day that planted the seeds for Venezuela's ongoing socialist transformation. Chavistas call it the "Dawn of Hope" and regard it as a stepping-stone to true democracy for the poverty-stricken masses.

"It was the lightning bolt that illuminated the darkness," Chávez said in an interview with the Chilean author Marta Harnecker in 2005.

Continuing his speech to the military, the president maintains that 4F is not finished. "It reminds us we need to be even more revolutionary. My government is a child of 4F," he says.

After two years in prison, Chávez and his allies were released by presidential pardon in 1994 and began a new effort to take over the government, this time through democratic means.

"We realised that another military insurrection would have been crazy," Chávez said in 2005. "A large part of the population did not want violence, but rather they expected that we would organise a political movement structured to take the country on the right path." He came to believe, he has said, that the Bolivarian revolution had to be a peaceful one.

However, some scholars consider the Venez uelan government's decision to actively celebrate 4F a rewriting of history intended to indoctrinate the population.

Néstor Luis Luengo, a professor of sociology and head of research at the Andrés Bello Catholic University in south-west Caracas, believes commemorating the failed coup is a key element in Chávez's broader socialist agenda. "There is an ideological battle taking place in this country. If [the government is] going to push for more reforms, they have to change the ideology of the country and the historical events celebrated." It is in their interests, he says, to make 4 February a patriotic day.

Opposition leaders also criticise Chávez for using the commemoration of the failed coup as an attempt to politicise the military. "For us, the important thing is to have an armed force that is apolitical, modern and at the service of the Venezuelan people, and one that does not become a political party," said Julio Borges, leader of the opposition party Primero Justicia.

Other Chávez opponents are concerned at the militarism: "This government prefers to celebrate a day of violence. They should instead be celebrating the day he was democratically elected president," said Armando Briquet, secretary general of Primero Justicia.

A violent act

Chávez's supporters obviously disagree. Cruz Elena Peligrón, a civilian participant in the 1992 coup and friend and neighbour of Chávez in the 1990s, says: "We have always celebrated our independence day and that was a violent act. The US military commemorates wars like Vietnam and the Second World War. They say you have to fight for peace and unfortunately that's true."

Since Chávez took office in 1999, he has survived an attempted coup, oil strikes and referendums on his presidency. Last December, a package of proposed reforms to the constitution, which would have allowed him to stand for indefinite re-election, was defeated at the polls - his first political loss in nine years.
With Chávez's opponents invigorated by their poll success, this year's 4F festivities were notably restrained, taking place in a small pro vincial barracks instead of the grand military base at Fuerte Tiuna.

Venezuela's ambassador to the UN and former coup plotter, Francisco Javier Arias Cárdenas, said political priorities have changed: "We are no longer going to support unconditionally any segment of the Colombian military that has the objective of destroying either the Farc or the peace process in Colombia. Venezuela is just a third party in the civil war."

He concluded: "Of course we don't support guerrilla warfare, kidnapping or drug trafficking. But to end the war you don't necessarily need to end the Farc - just end the poverty, misery and violence that occur in Colombia every day. Both sides should go to the table and talk peace."

President Uribe maintains an unwavering zero-tolerance stance against the Marxist rebels and has shown much support for paramilitary forces that have been responsible for a catalogue of human rights abuses throughout Colombia's intractable civil war.

Meanwhile, Chávez's flamboyant militarism and allegiances with the Farc make dialogue between Colombia's warring factions seem less and less likely.

Christian Parenti

I have just finished writing a 1,700 word profile piece on American journalist and author Christian Parenti. The guy is a genius, still young (39) given all he has achieved (three books, hundreds of articles) and bound to produce plenty more intelligent, engaging and independent reportage in the future.

Check him out at www.christianparenti.com.

I sniff news - do you?

I have just discovered Newssniffer.co.uk - it monitors BBC feedback and comments and publishes all the stuff that's censored.

There is one particularly interesting thread about NHS reform in which, if I understand it right, a whopping 340 comments were censored and only ONE comment published! If you read the thread (here) you will see that many of the comments are not particularly extreme or prejudiced, they just oppose New Labour's intentions to reform (i.e. privatise) large chunks of the NHS.

One guy even writes:

"My comments have clearly been removed.

I have read the house rules and cannot see where I have contravened them.

So that I dont repeat my mistake, could a moderator please email me and explain what I am guilty of other, unlike the BBC of not being a new labour fan."

This speaks volumes about the BBC's subservience to the government. You wouldn't get such censorship on any large mainstream private media site... or would you?

Frozen Grand Central Station

Cruising for a bruising

There is no denying that the whole Venezuela/Chavez issue provokes heated debate, but the New Statesman's feedback forums on this topic often end up shamefully unreadable and nauseous. Just cast your eye over the comments following this article.

What do "contributors" achieve by engaging in this sort of mudslinging? And why doesn't the NS vet its forums more effectively? I've never seen it this bad on any other site, even when debating Venezuela.

Lets wait and see what kind of reaction my latest article on Mr. Chavez's hypocritical antagonism towards Colombia receives. I reckon I'm once again cruising for a bruising in the blogosphere.

US bipartisan politics

Have a look at this blog. It sums up almost exactly how I feel about the US primaries - I couldn't have put it better myself. Hillary is a machine, Barack an unknown quantity (who I fear would turn a little hawkish in office), and the election of any of the Republican candidates - except perhaps Ron Paul - would probably hasten the end of humanity by a few hundred years (if you can say we have even that long left!).

Surely there is room in the American political landscape for a third party?

FARCing politics

Today's anti-FARC march has sparked plenty of discussion in the Colombian media. The rally has been organised as a supposedly anti-political demonstration against the narco-terrorist outfit Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, but of course has been hijacked by the Colombian government as a pro-State media blitz.

At first it appears to be a fairly innocuous event which most right-(and left-?)minded people should support. But when you cast your eye over this Colombian site, you realise that by excluding any other forms of violence it becomes somehow complicit in crimes committed by other institutions - especially those of the State-backed renegade mercenary Colombian paramilitaries.

I emailed one of the organisers of the march, asking if the choice of date was significant. The reason I asked was that on February 4th 1992, Venezuela president Hugo Chávez led an unsuccessful coup attempt which ended with the imprisonment of the head-of-state-to-be and his cohorts. Since around 2005 Chávez has celebrated this day as the "Dawn of Hope" when, according to his "Bolivarian" rewriting of history, the Venezuelan people decided to stand up to the corrupt, incompetent and oppressive regime of Carlos Andrés Pérez.
I wondered, with Chávez's recent declaration of shared ideology with the FARC, whether holding an anti-FARC protest on this date was a sly way of undermining his attempts to steal the media limelight with another display of his military prowess.

The organiser responded that it was entirely coincidental and that they only realised a week into January when it was too late to do anything about it.

I'm not convinced. It does seem awfully convenient for Colombian president Uribe to outshine Chávez on a day like today.