Venezuela

By Stalin Perez Borges

Introduction by Green Left Weekly:

April 19, 2008 -- Denouncing the “coloniser attitude” and “barbarous exploitation” of workers by the management of the Sidor steel company, Venezuelan Vice President Ramon Carrizalez announced at 1.30am on April 9 that President Hugo Chavez had decided to nationalise the company.

“This is a government that protects workers and will never take the side of a transnational company”, said Carrizalez.

The decision of the Chavez government to nationalise Sidor has begun the process of returning to state hands one of the most important steel factories of Latin America, located in the heartland of Venezuela’s industrial belt in Guayana.

Sidor was privatised in 1997, one year before Chavez was elected. The major share-holder has been an Argentinean-controlled conglomerate Techint. Since privatisation, the workforce has been slashed from around 15,000 to just over 5000 and the company has used contract labour in violation of a government decree banning the practice.

By Kiraz Janicke

Caracas, April 15, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com) -- In a joint press conference with Venezuela's labour minister Jose Ramon Rivero on Sunday, National Assembly deputy and coordinator of the Bolivarian Socialist Workers Force (FSBT), a faction within the National Union of Workers (UNT), announced the formation of a new national union federation and called on unions to disaffiliate from the UNT.

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STOP PRESS

CARACAS, April 16 (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez named a veteran communist leader as labour minister on Wednesday, days after ordering the nationalisation of a giant steelmaker whose workers are fighting for better pay. The first task facing Roberto Hernandez, a [former] long-term member of the Venezuelan Communist Party, will be to negotiate a new labour contract with the union at the Ternium Sidor steel works.

The appointment was published in the government's official gazette.

Alberto Müller Rojas, first vice president of the of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), speaks to Kiraz Janicke of Venezuelanalysis.com and to Federico Fuentes of Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal about the significance of the formation of the PSUV for the Bolivarian Revolution -- debates within the new party, what its relationship with the government should be and the immediate tasks of the PSUV in the struggle for the socialist transformation of Venezuela

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By Eva Golinger

The US government is waging war on Venezuela -- not your typical, traditional war, but a modern, asymmetric - 4th Generation War -- against President Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution. Below is a presentation I created regarding the pattern and escalation of US government aggression against Venezuela, with clear quotes and citations as evidence to back up this claim.

By Luis Bilbao, translated exclusively for Links by Federico Fuentes

Venezuela has entered a decisive phase of its revolutionary process, which has advanced rapidly, and without pause, since 1999. The failed attempt to reform the constitution in the December 2, 2007, referendum opened up a conjuncture of sharp contradictions in the short and medium term and modified the institutional framework in which this period will develop; but it does not modify the content of the confrontation underway. The forces of the revolution will be unleashed, along with those of the counterrevolution.

By Kiraz Janicke

Caracas, March 10, 2008 - The so-called ``traditional'' or moderate left wing prevailed in the elections for the provisional national executive of Venezuela's new United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) on March 9. The party's vice president, Alberto Müller Rojas, announced the results of the elections for the fifteen principal delegates to the national executive and fifteen substitute delegates at a press conference , after 87.7% of the votes had been scrutinised.

While key figures associated with the right wing of the Chavista movement, such as Diosdado Cabello and Francisco Arias Cardenas, failed to get elected to the national executive (Cabello made it on to the list of substitute delegates), the preferred candidates of the radical left, such as Fernando Soto Rojas, Vladimir Acosta and Lidice Navas, were also not elected.

Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network

March 5, 2008 -- What only a few days ago seemed like a remote prospect has suddenly become a real possibility. The Colombian military’s brutal massacre of 21 (at last count) guerrillas with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -– Peoples Army (FARC-EP), including Raul Reyes, the FARC's chief negotiator and spokesperson, in Ecuador on March 1 marks a dramatic leap in the United States' plan to potentially trigger off an armed confrontation between Colombia and Venezuela.

These events should be of major concern for all supporters of the Venezuelan revolution, and anti-war and peace activists the world over.

Federico Fuentes, part of the Green Left Weekly/Links Caracas bureau, spoke to two of the key leaders of Socialist Tide (Marea Socialista), asking them their opinions on the PSUV and its founding congress, particularly in light of the defeat of the December 2, 2007, referendum on Chavez’s proposed constitutional reform.

By Kiraz Janicke & Federico Fuentes, Caracas

February 22, 2008 -- In recent weeks, external and internal pressure against Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution, as the process of change led by socialist President Hugo Chavez is known — has intensified dramatically. It is clear that US imperialism and the US-backed Venezuelan opposition see the defeat of Chavez’s proposed constitutional reforms on December 2 as a green light to push forward their plans to destablise the government.

Federico Fuentes, a member of the Green Left Weekly/Links Caracas bureau, interviewed a number of elected spokespeople from the local grassroots units and delegates to the founding congress of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. This is the first in a number of interviews that will appear in Links -- International Journal of Socialist Renewal.

By Carolus Wimmer, Communist Party of Venezuela

Caracas bloc of delegates to PSUV Founding Congress

Caracas, February 13, 2008 -- In the face of the [US] empire's counterrevolutionary campaign, and that of the anti-patriotic and lackey oligarchy, that threatens the Bolivarian socialist revolution and the Venezuelan people, the PSUV expresses its support for the Bolivarian government and Commandante Chavez.