Only 20% of Venezuelan oil income reaches the state. NarcoNews.com and vheadline.com news.
In 1974 it was the reverse.
I have not seen these 2 facts anywhere else in the world's media. Please forward widely. This is the reason for the continual coup attempts this year in Venezuela. The corporate media and the corporate coup plotters want to overthrow the elected government to prevent the January 2003 implementation of economic legislation that will change all of this.
Today only 20% of Venezuela oil money goes to the state. 80% disappears.
In 1974 it was the reverse.
I have not seen these 2 facts anywhere else in the world's media. Please forward widely. This is the reason for the continual coup attempts this year in Venezuela. The corporate media and the corporate coup plotters want to overthrow the elected government to prevent the January 2003 implementation of economic legislation that will change all of this.
---------------------------
http://www.narconews.com/Issue26/article556.html
The Narco News Bulletin |
|
|
narconews.com - Reporting on the Drug War and Democracy from Latin America |
Home | Mailing List | Search | Print |
|
|
--------------------------
From vheadline.com December 22 2002. | |
External
link to this page at URL: |
|
|
|
|
The Narco News Bulletin
Christmas Comes Early in Caracas, Venezuela
Chronology of the Strike that Wasn’tBy Al GiordanoDecember 22, 2002 |
Mid-December:
The Oil Sector Sabotage
http://www.narconews.com/Issue26/article571.html
[snip. Excerpt begins]
There was, this month, one sector of oil company executives that claimed they
were on “strike,” but who in fact have spent this month actively working to
lock-out rank-and-file employees and, according to their own public statements,
to facilitate the sabotage, including eco-terrorism, of oil facilities.
According to public records at the Venezuela Secretary of Mining and Energy (MEM,
in its Spanish initials), these were the annual salaries of the 22 major oil
“strike” leaders, including their bonuses, paid vacations, and other
benefits, at the trough of the state-owned oil company, Petroleum of Venezuela,
or PdVSA:
Edgar Paredes makes 837 million bolivars a year ($643,000 U.S. dollars).
The lowest paid of these 22 ringleaders, Luis Ramírez, makes 310 million
bolivars a year ($238,000 U.S. dollars).
The highest paid, Karl Mazeika, makes 990 million bolivars a year ($761,000).
The average annual salary of these 22 “strike” leaders is $426,000 U.S.
dollars a year; almost 100 times the per capita income of the average Venezuelan
citizen of $4,760 dollars per year. In the Venezuelan economy, $426,000 gives
somebody more buying power than people who make millions of dollars a year in
the United States.
Check out the rest of their salaries in the Venezuelan currency of Bolivars (at
1,300 bolivars to the dollar), here they are, the annual booties of the
oppressed “vanguard” of The Strike That Wasn’t:
Luis Andrés Rojas: 688 million
Vincenzo Paglione: 979 million
Raúl Alemán: 687 million
Horacio Medina: 320 million
Juan Fernández: 399 million
Edgar Rasquin: 668 million
Rogelio Lozada: 410 million
Luis Matheus: 533 million
Carlos Machado: 542 million
Iván Crespo: 498 million
Luis Aray: 530 million
Andrés Riera: 508 million
Maria Lizardo: 444 million
Armando Izquierdo: 501 million
Luis Pacheco: 542 million
Gabriel García: 322 million
Francisco Bustillos: 643 million
Salvador Arrieta: 596 million
Armando Acosta: 471 million
Each of these oil executives, of course, had their own team of highly-paid
middle managers underneath them: controlling the paperwork, the computers, the
hiring and firing, and all other aspects of the company.
In recent weeks, they locked out the workers, and installed their own men at key
strategic points where sabotage has been committed to facilities under their
watch.
The “opposition” complains about graffiti on the wall of a Commercial TV
station and calls it “vandalism” or “violence.” These guys, meanwhile,
have presided over the destruction of pumps, pipelines, tankers and other ships,
trucks, and other key points in the flow of oil from the ground to the consumer,
including to the United States.
If they had tried anything like this inside the United States, we would see the
White House calling them terrorists, locking them up in Guantanamo Bay, and
suing them for the millions of dollars of losses that they have caused. Some of
the members of the “oil-igarchy” have made public statements that some oil
supplies have been contaminated, and some facilities have been booby-trapped to
cause environmental disaster if they are re-started.
Between the oil drilling facility and the gas pump there are many stops along
the road. Shut down or sabotage one of those points, and you shut down the
entire pipeline. That has certainly happened at various points. But to hear the
U.S. and British press correspondents, the language of distortion always uses
these events to claim that there is somehow universal compliance with the strike
at every point in the pipeline. That is not the case, nor has it been the case
at any point during December 2002.
As the government is now firing these petrol-terrorists and retaking tankers and
other facilities, it has had to bring in licensed foreign inspectors to make
sure that environmental disaster doesn’t occur once the facilities are
inevitably re-started, and to make sure that the oil that is sent to the U.S.
and elsewhere meets safety and quality standards. Thus, the delays and the
shortages in certain regions: but none of the true facts reveal anything close
to a “strike” or “work stoppage” by the eco-terrorists who claimed to be
rank-and-file oil workers.
Even with so much sabotage, five tankers have already left for the United States
with crude oil. Hundreds of tanker-trucks have been shipping gasoline to service
stations all over Venezuela.
It’s going to take a few more weeks to restore the situation to normal; that
will happen sometime in early 2003.
But what is unforgivable by the U.S. and British correspondents, like the
corrupt Commercial Media in Venezuela, is how they abused the facts of these
delays, withheld the true reasons for them from the readers, to create the false
impression that there was a “strike” (when there was nor is none), that it
was “growing” (when it was not), and that the problems “increased” (when
they did not) for the democratically elected government.
When the final history is written of December 2002, it will be known as the
month that the Venezuelan democracy took its oil industry back from a clique of
over-paid and corrupt coup-plotters after the executives tried to sabotage it.
(Just as April 2002 is now remembered as the month that the people brought the
Armed Forces back under democratic control; a fact that is underscored by the
events of December, in which the military, now purged of most of its “School
of the Americas” trained terrorists from previous administrations, has behaved
in an exemplary manner.)
To repeat: In April, the problem of military coup was solved by a creative
popular movement and its democratically elected leaders; in December, the last
gasp of elitist control of a nation’s oil has played itself out and the
petrol-terrorists have been sent packing.
Also in December 2002, for the first time in history, the nations of the entire
hemisphere stood up to the United States executive branch through the
Organization of American States Permanent Council. There were still games being
played by the OAS secretary general Cesar Gaviria and by the White House in
continued efforts to destabilize democracy in Venezuela, but they now have much
less maneuvering room today than they had a month ago or ever before. As
reported: Gaviria has already run from the scene of the crime. And come January,
with Brazil and Ecuador inaugurating popular presidents smart and savvy enough
to stand up to foreign intervention, this is already not Bush’s father’s América.
This is history in the making. In the middle of the simulated “War on
Terrorism” and its Twin Tower, the “War on Drugs,” being used by cynical
Power to get its way on every front, a grassroots democracy movement in
Venezuela, related to similar movements throughout our América, has beaten the
empire’s advances.
[snip. End of excerpt]
------------------------
ZNet | A Community of People Committed to Social Change |
||||||||||
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=2546 Why Venezuela's Middle Class (for the most part) Opposes Chavez |
|
|||||||||
by
Gregory Wilpert October 27, 2002
|
||||||||||
|
Women and the new Bolivarian
Constitution of Venezuela. 72% of men and women voted FOR it. Many
details on the progressive aspects of the new constitution and how it
effects women and others. Message at Ireland Indymedia:
http://indymedia.ie/cgi-bin/newswire.cgi?id=22333&start=0
“We women reject the organizers of hate and chaos.
"We women are on the front line for our right to live in peace and to defend the Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela, which gives us, for the first time in history, the right to full legal equality, to social security, to a pension for housewives. We are on the streets backing our President and our Bolivarian Revolution.
"Long live the Constitution! No to the fraudulent referendum! No to the pro-coup fascist stoppage! Don’t stop for the stoppage!”
----Go to the link above for many more details.--------
--------------------------
*Stop corporatism. "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito
Mussolini (from Encyclopedia Italiana, Giovanni Gentile, editor).
http://corporatism.tripod.com and
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cannabisaction
http://www.zmag.org/venezuela_watch.htm
I was reading more news, and the last one of the list in ZNET Venezuela Watch is this new:
The Yanomami: Survival or Extinction?
The Yanomami are unique for a number of different reasons. They are the largest tribe in the Amazon which make up the largest relatively unacculturated tribal population in the world. Anthropologists have become fascinated with this tribe and have produced a large amount of material on them in a relatively short period of time. These works, especially Napoleon Chagnon's Yanomami: The Fierce People, as well as the gold rush of 1987 have given the Yanomami substantial attention and have made them the most well known tribe in the world. All of these factors give the Yanomami a greater likelihood of survival. Yet if the Yanomami do not survive, if governments cannot or will not keep their lands free of invaders, then the destruction of smaller and relatively unknown Indian tribes of the Amazon is inevitable.
And Napoleon Chagnon is of no trust for me, as an experienced enironmentalist in lots of emails lists in Venezulea, plus an adict to information... I got severe reasons to put my dubt in this article regarding indians in Veneazuela, so far as I am concerned, Napoleon Chagnon's work is more a danger to Yanomami...
And still I am each day more sure than the only revolutionary news report that includes the real voice of Mother Earth's defenders, the indians is EL LIBERTARIO ALONE...
Trastor
The only possible consensus is that there can be no consensus in which all individuals and lands march in lockstep according to the same thoughts. This is part of why that, since I saw a "consensus process" destroy the Clamshell Alliance in the late 1970s - having invited every undercover agent provocateur in New England to show up at meetings and block "consensus," why I don't participate in efforts that use "consensus" process. I see consensus as authoritarian by its very nature: forcing everyone to take the same exact view or, if they don't, preventing any action from happening.
-----------------------------------------------
Trastor write:
All pemon indians where I live in La GRan Sabana, Venezuela uses consensus, it is the traditional way, I don't understand the bullshit above, I will translate to spanish these and the entire words regarding consensus as Giordano says, and then I will print it in a paper and then I will go to various pemon communities to ask what they think of this words of Giordano, and then I will return here, translate the pemon response to english and post it here... I promise to post here any result of this experiment, even if it is in favour of Giordano. And I promise to show this to pemon without any other information that could bias the result of this investigation...
Wait until then to see if we need to erase the word "MAYBE" in the title of this post
Trastor
Your thoughts.
Almost anyone who has used consensus knows that it is only good to a point. That point being deadlock. At that point after reasonable efforts have been made to reach consensus people have to choose their paths.
I criticize you Trastor for your yuppie attitudes. We have the same problem here in the USA. Greens who are 99% concerned about the environment and only 1% concerned with economic justice, universal healthcare, etc..
Do you really think the Greens in Germany, for example, would find better allies in the more corporate party, the Christian Democrats?
You have proved Al Giordano's points in spades. You sit on the sidelines and let progress for the poor be overturned by the rich who want to keep their 80% of the Venezualan oil revenue.
Al Giordano has responded in detail to Trastor in the comments after the San Francisco Indymedia interview with Al:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/12/1552703.php
Here is a web page of mine on the Greens:
*Greens and the Drug War. Worldwide. LINKS. Green Party candidates, positions, platforms, etc.. Concerning the Drug War, cannabis, marijuana, harm reduction, etc.. Ralph Nader info, links.
http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/greens.htm and
http://corporatism.tripod.com/greens.htm ___
*9-2000. MAP/DrugNews SEARCH SHORTCUT for many press articles about RALPH NADER's September 8, 2000 press conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he called for legalizing cannabis/marijuana, and for harm reduction drug reform. Ralph Nader "called for the legalization of marijuana as part of an overhaul of the nation's 'self-defeating and antiquated drug laws.' ... Legalizing marijuana, Nader said, would allow the government to regulate and potentially tax its use like tobacco products." -Albuquerque Journal, September 8, 2000.
http://www.mapinc.org/find?BK=nader+johnson+santa&YY1=1997
Venezuela's oil coup-strike-lockout for the rich.
In 1974 80% of oil income went to the state. Today 80% of Venezuelan oil income goes to the rich, and to "operating costs." Only 20% goes to the state. Chavez reforms will help reverse this in January 2003. This is why the coup-plotters, "strike"-promoters, and corporate media are in such a hurry to overthrow the fairly-ELECTED Chavez government. They want to prevent these reforms, and reverse others already-implemented. Reforms that help the poor and lower middle class. Massive corporate-media disinformation, destabilization campaign going on inside Venezuela. Support President Chavez! Please forward widely.
http://portland.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=39515 and
http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/12/1555816.php --Latest version.
The 2 links above also allow one to search Venezuela news sites. Quote from the links above:
"Progressive news search engine. Choose sites from dropdown window. This search form below can be emailed in HTML (color and graphics) email. Or just send the URL of the page where you found this. You can click "save" in the file menu of your browser. This will save it to your computer for use anytime you are online. It is easy to add or delete site choices in the search form below. Just look at the HTML code in any web page editor. Google indexes some sites more often than others. So for the very latest info you may have to go to the websites directly, and browse there, or use their site search engines there if they have one."
Some Venezuela news sources.
http://www.aporrea.org (in Spanish)
http://www.narconews.com (English, Spanish)
http://www.vheadline.com/p1/ (English)
http://www.einnews.com/venezuela/ (English)
http://www.zmag.org/venezuela_watch.htm (English)
http://www.indybay.org (English, Spanish. Use search to find Venezuela articles and many comments)
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.