[Web page editors note: See this compilation of articles that offer background for understanding events in Venezuela.]

Venezuela: Is President Maduro 'illegitimate'? 10 facts to counter the lies

[reposted from Green Left Weekly]

by Pascualina Curcio, January 25, 2019

Have those who state that Nicolás Maduro is a dictator, a usurper, and that the 2019-2025 presidential period lacks legitimacy, asked themselves why he is illegitimate? Or do they just repeat what they hear?

This opinion was first advanced by the 12 Latin American countries that make up the Lima Group. Their statement reads: “The electoral process carried out in Venezuela on 20th May 2018 lacks legitimacy in that it didn’t have the participation of all Venezuelan political actors, nor the presence of independent international observers, nor the international guarantees and standards needed for it to be a free, just, and transparent process.”

The leaders of the Venezuelan opposition, the non-democratic ones, repeat ceaselessly, and without arguments, that Maduro is a usurper.

In a desperate act, the United States Vice-President Mike Pence, having had to call personally for the opposition march on January 23 due to the incompetence of the opposition’s leaders, insisted and repeated that President Nicolás Maduro is a dictator, usurper, and illegitimate.

The strategy is clear: repeat the lie a thousand times to turn it into truth. Let’s dismantle this lie.

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1.

There was a presidential election. It was carried out on May 20, 2018, months before January 10, when according to articles 230 and 231 of the Constitution, the 2013-2019 presidential period runs out. The Constitution would have been contravened if the election was carried out after January 10 — or never held.

2.

It was the Venezuelan opposition that requested an early election. It was held in May rather than December, as is tradition, because the opposition asked, during a dialogue with the government held in the Dominican Republic, for it to be conducted in the first term of 2018.

3.

In Venezuela voting is a right, but not compulsory. Those who freely, although influenced by undemocratic political organisations that called for abstention, decided not to vote had every right to do so. But in no way does this delegitimise the electoral process, especially when this would imply disregarding the 9,389,056 people who decided to vote and exercised democratically their right to suffrage.

4.

Sixteen political parties participated in the electoral contest, including governing PSUV and the MSV, Tupamaro, UPV, Podemos, PPT, ORA, MPAC, MEP, PCV, AP, MAS, Copei, Esperanza por el Cambio, and UPP89.

In Venezuela it is not compulsory that all political parties participate in electoral processes. It is their right to choose whether to participate or not. That’s exactly why our system is democratic. The fact that three parties (AD, VP, and PJ) decided freely not to participate does not delegitimise the electoral process.

5.

Six candidates competed for presidency: Nicolás Maduro, Henri Falcón, Javier Bertucci, Reinaldo Quijada, Francisco Visconti Osorio and Luis Alejandro Ratti (the last two later decided to withdraw.)

6.

Maduro won by a wide margin, obtaining 6,248,864 votes, that is 67.84%; followed by Henri Falcón with 1,927,958, or 20.93%; Javier Bertucci with 1,015,895, 10.82%; and Reinaldo Quijada, who obtained 36,246 votes, or 0.39% of the total. The difference between Maduro and Falcón was of 46.91 percentage points.

7.

The electoral process was observed by about 150 people, including 14 electoral commissions from eight countries; two technical electoral missions; 18 journalists from different parts of the world; one member of the European Parliament, and one technical-electoral delegation from the Russian Electoral Centre.

8.

This election was carried out with the same electoral system used in the election for Venezuela’s National Assembly in December 2015, in which the Venezuelan opposition won. This system is automated, and audited before, during, and after the elections. The system guarantees the principle of “one voter, one vote” because only fingerprints enable the voting machine, as well as guaranteeing secrecy of vote.

9.

Eighteen audits were carried out on the automated system. The representatives of Henri Falcón participated in all 18 and signed the minutes in which they state their conformity with the voting system.

The audits are public and broadcast live by the National Election Council’s TV channel. Once the audits are done, the system locks, and the only way of accessing it again is by introducing simultaneously the passwords that each political organisation has.

10.

None of the candidates that participated in the electoral process contested the results. There is no proof of fraud; no evidence or concrete reports of fraud have been presented. The presidential elections of May 20, 2018 were free, transparent, reliable, secure, and conforming with the Constitution and the law, despite the anti-democratic calls to abstention from a sector of the opposition.

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It is others who aspire to usurp the presidency. They argue there is a supposed absent power, which is not contemplated in our Constitution, and seek to establish a “transition government”, a concept that does not exist in the Constitution either.  Furthermore, they aspire to exercise power outside our borders, in violation of article 18, which defines Caracas as the location for the public office.

In view of all this, it is clear that it is not Maduro but others who are the usurpers, illegitimate and anti-democratic.

The fact that some sectors of the opposition intend to assert themselves, with the support of foreign imperialist governments, to exercise an authority that neither the people nor the Constitution gives them is clearly illegitimate and an attempt to usurp.

Let’s repeat this truth a thousand times.

[Pascualina Curcio is an economist based at the Simon Bolivar University in Caracas, Venezuela. Translated by Pedro Alvarez from 15yUltimo.]

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Open Letter in Support of Mediation in Venezuela, Not Sanctions

[Reposted from Life On The Left, March 2018]

Sanctions added by the Trump and Trudeau administrations to Obama era sanctions against Venezuela impose new burdens on ordinary Venezuelans who are just trying to live their lives. Unilateral sanctions are illegal under international law. Over 150 prominent US and Canadian individuals and organizations have signed the letter below which is being delivered to US Senators and Congress Members as well as Canadian Parliamentarians. Published by AFGJ.

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Text of Letter

We urge the United States and Canadian governments to immediately remove their illegal* sanctions against Venezuela and to support efforts at mediation between the government of Venezuela and the nonviolent segments of the political opposition.

We, the undersigned organizations and individuals in the US and Canada, support hemispheric relations based on respect for the sovereignty of all peoples of the Americas. We are deeply concerned by the use of illegal sanctions, whose effect falls most heavily on the poorest and most marginal sectors of society, to coerce political and economic change in a sister democracy.

Polls in Venezuela show that the large majority of Venezuelans oppose sanctions, regardless of their opinion of the Maduro government. Sanctions merely complicate efforts by the Vatican, Dominican Republic, and other international actors to mediate a resolution to the deep polarization in Venezuela. Moreover, sanctions undermine efforts of the democratically elected government and Constituent Assembly to address critical economic issues and determine their own political destiny.

Despite the high-minded rhetoric of officials in Washington and Ottawa, it is not a genuine concern for democracy, human rights, and social justice that drives the belligerent interventionist posture towards Caracas. From President Obama’s admittedly untrue presidential decree that Venezuela represents a national security threat to the United States, to UN Ambassador Nikki Haley’s declaration that Venezuela is “an increasingly violent narco-state” that threatens the world, the use of hyperbole in diplomatic situations seldom contributes to peaceful solutions on the world stage.

It is no secret that Venezuela, unlike Mexico, Honduras, Colombia, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia, is targeted for regime change by the US precisely because of Venezuela’s leadership in resisting US hegemony and the imposition of the neoliberal model in Latin America. And of course, Venezuela holds the largest oil reserves in the world, attracting more unwanted attention from Washington.

The US and Canada tried and failed to use the Organization of American States (OAS) to build a bloc to hypocritically evoke the Democratic Charter against Venezuela. Recently, Luis Almagro, the rogue Secretary General of the OAS, went so far as to publicly support the swearing in of a parallel Supreme Court unconstitutionally appointed by opposition legislators and allowed them to use the OAS headquarters in Washington DC for their ceremony – without the approval of any OAS member state. Almagro has thereby delegitimized the OAS, emboldened the most extreme and violent elements of the Venezuelan opposition, and side-lined efforts at mediation.

The US-Canadian sanctions represent a cynical use of coercive economic power to attack a nation that is already dealing with hyperinflation and shortages of basic commodities. While said to be in the name of advancing democracy and freedom, the sanctions violate the Venezuelan peoples’ basic human right to sovereignty, as outlined in the UN and OAS Charters.

We call on the political leaders of the United States and Canada to reject overheated rhetoric and to contribute to the search for real solutions to Venezuela’s political and economic problems. We urge the US and Canadian governments to rescind their sanctions and support the mediation efforts pursued by the Chancellor of the Dominican Republic Miguel Vargas, the President of Dominican Republic Danilo Medina, former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Vatican, and supported by a growing number of Latin American nations.

* Chapter 4 Article 19 of the OAS Charter states:
No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. The foregoing principle prohibits not only armed force but also any other form of interference or attempted threat against the personality of the State or against its political, economic, and cultural elements.

Read the Letter in French 

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Signers

UNITED STATES
Noam Chomsky
Danny Glover, Citizen-Artist
Estela Vazquez, Executive Vice President, 1199 SEIU
Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton, Archdiocese of Detroit
Jill Stein, Green Party

Peter Knowlton, General President, United Electrical Workers
Dr. Frederick B. Mills, Department of Philosophy, Bowie State University
Dr. Alfred de Zayas, former Chief, Petitions Dept, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Medea Benjamin, co-founder, Code Pink
Dan Kovalik, Counsel, United Steelworkers Union

Clarence Thomas, ILWU Local10 (retired)
Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan, President, National Lawyers Guild
Chuck Kaufman, National Co-Coordinator, Alliance for Global Justice
James Early, Articulation of Afro Descendants in Latin America and the Caribbean
Gloria La Riva, coordinator, Cuba and Venezuela Solidarity Committee

Karen Bernal, Chair, Progressive Caucus, California Democratic Party
Kevin Zeese, Margaret Flowers, co-directors, Popular Resistance
Chris Bender, Administrator, SEIU 1000, retired
Mary Hanson Harrison, President Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, US Section
Alfred L. Marder, President, US Peace Council

Tamie Dramer, Executive Boardmember, California Democratic Party
Greg Wilpert, journalist
School of Americas Watch (SOAW) Coordinating Collective
Gerry Condon, President, Board of Directors, Veterans for Peace
Tiana Ocasio, President, Connecticut Labor Council for Latin American Advancement

Leah Bolger, Coordinator, World Beyond War
Alexander Main, Senior Assoc for Intl Policy, Center for Economic and Policy Research
Kevin Martin, President, Peace Action and Peace Action Education Fund
Dr. Robert W. McChesney, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Berthony Dupont, Director, Haiti Liberté Newspaper

Marsha Rummel, Adlerperson, City of Madison Common Council, District 6
Monica Moorehead, Workers World Party
Kim Ives, Journalist, Haiti Liberté
Cindy Sheehan, Cindy’s Soapbox
Claudia Lucero, Executive Director, Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America

William Camacaro, Venezuela activist
Baltimore Phil Berrigan Memorial Chapter Veterans For Peace
David W. Campbell, Secretary-Treasurer, USW Local 675 (Carson, CA)
Alice Bush, retired Northwest Indiana Division Director SEIU Local 73
Teresa Gutierrez, Co-Director International Action Center

Claire Deroche, NY Interfaith Campaign Against Torture
Eva Golinger, journalist and writer
The Cross Border Network (Kansas City)
Antonia Domingo, Pittsburgh Labor Council for Latin American Advancement
David Swanson, Director of World Beyond War

Matt Meyer, National Co-chair, Fellowship of Reconciliation
Rev. Daniel Dale, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), CLRN Board of Directors
Daniel Chavez, Transnational Institute
Kathleen Desautels, SP (8th Day Center for Justice*)
Michael Eisenscher, National Coord. Emeritus, U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW)

Dr. Paul Dordal, Director, Christian Network for Liberation and Equality
Dr. Douglas Friedman, Director International Studies, College of Charleston
Fr. Charles Dahm, Archdiocesan Director of Domestic Violence Outreach
Blase Bonpane, Director, Office of the Americas
Larry Birns, Director, Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Task Force on the Americas
Dr. Sharat G. Lin, former president, San Jose Peace and Justice Center
Stansfield Smith, Chicago ALBA Solidarity
Alicia Jrapko, U.S. coordinator, International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity
National Network on Cuba

Diana Bohn, Co-coordinator, Nicaragua Center for Community Action
Joe Jamison, Queens NY Peace Council
Jerry Harris, National Secretary, Global Studies Association of North America
MLK Coalition of Greater Los Angeles
Charlie Hardy, author, Cowboy in Caracas

Dan Shea, National Board, Veterans For Peace
Houston Peace and Justice Center
Dr. Christy Thornton, Fellow, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Code Pink Houston
Workers Solidarity Action Network.org

Rochester Committee on Latin America
Patricio Zamorano, Academic and International Affairs Analyst
Cliff Smith, business manager, Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers, Local 36
Michael Bass, Convener, School of the Americas Watch-Oakland/East Bay
Joe Lombardo, Marilyn Levin, Co-Coordinators of United National Antiwar Committee

Dr. Jeb Sprague-Silgado, University of California Santa Barbara
Portland Central America Solidarity Committee (PCASC)
Dr. Pamela Palmater, Mi’kmaq lawyer Chair in Indigenous Governance Ryerson University
Lee Gloster, Steward IBT 364, Trustee, N. Central IN Labor Chapter, N. IN Area Labor Federation
Celeste Howard, Secretary, WILPF, Portland Branch (Oregon)

Mario Galván, Sacramento Action for Latin America
Hector Gerardo, Executive Director, 1 Freedom for All
Jorge Marin, Venezuela Solidarity Committee
Ricardo Vaz, writer and editor of Investig’Action
Dr. T.M. Scruggs, University of Iowa, Professor Emeritus

Dr. Mike Davis, Dept. of Creative Writing, Univ. of CA, Riverside; editor of the New Left Review
Dr. Lee Artz, Dept of Media Studies; Director, Center for Global Studies, Purdue University Northwest
Dr. Arturo Escobar, Dept. of Anthropology University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Cheri Honkala, Director, Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign
Suren Moodliar, Coordinator, Encuentro5 (Boston)

Dr. Jack Rasmus, Economics Dept., St. Mary’s College, Moraga, California
Alice Slater, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Rich Whitney, Co-chair, Green Party Peace Action Committee
David Bacon, independent photojournalist
Dr. Kim Scipes, Department of Sociology, Purdue University Northwest

Jeff Mackler, National Secretary, Socialist Action
Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES)
Henry Lowendorf, Co-chair, Greater New Haven Peace Council
Judith Bello, Ed Kinane (founders), Upstate Drone Action
Dr. Daniel Whitesell, Lecturer in the Dept. of Spanish & Portuguese, UCLA

Dr. William I. Robinson, Sociology and Global and International Studies, UC-Santa Barbara
Emmanuel Rozental, Vilma Almendra, Pueblos en Camino, Abya Yala
Ben Manski, President, Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution
Frank Pratka, Baltimore-Matanzas Association/Maryland-Cuba Friendship Coalition
Dr. Hilbourne Watson, Emeritus, Department of International Relations, Bucknell University

Dr. Minqi Li, Economics Department, University of Utah
Christina Schiavoni, PhD researcher, Boston
Dr. Robert E. Birt, Department of Philosophy, Bowie State University
Topanga Peace Alliance
Judy Somberg, Susan Scott, Esq., Co-chairs, National Lawyers Guild Task Force on the Americas

Audrey Bomse, Esq., Co-chair, National Lawyers Guild Palestine Subcommittee
Daniel Chavez, Transnational Institute
Barby Ulmer, Board President, Our Developing World
Barbara Larcom, Coordinator, Casa Baltimore/Limay; President, Nicaraguan Cultural Alliance
Nick Egnatz, Veterans for Peace

Dr. Marc Becker, Latin American Studies, Truman State University
Dr. John H. Sinnigen, Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
Dr. Dale Johnson, Professor Emeritus, Sociology, Rutgers University
Sulutasen Amador, Co-coordinator, Chukson Water Protectors
Mara Cohen, Communications Hub, Trade Justice Alliance

Dorotea Manuela, Co-Chair Rosa Parks Human Right Committee
Efia Nwangaza, Malcom X Center – WMXP Community Radio
Dr. Chris Chase-Dunn, Sociology, University of California-Riverside
Dr. Nick Nesbitt, Comparative Literature, Princeton
Timeka Drew, coordinator, Global Climate Convergence

Jack Gilroy, Friends of Franz & Ben www.bensalmon.org
Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, Social Justice Committee
Victor Wallis, Professor, Liberal Arts, Berkeley College of Music

CANADIAN
Jerry Dias, President, UNIFOR
Mike Palecek, National President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Harvey Bischof, President, Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation
Mark Hancock National President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees
Stephanie Smith, President of the British Columbia Government and Service Employees’ Union

Linda McQuaig, journalist and author, Toronto
Raul Burbano, Program Director, Common Frontiers
Miguel Figueroa, President, Canadian Peace Congress
Heide Trampus, Coordinator, Worker to Worker, Canada-Cuba Labour Solidarity Network
Rights Action (U.S. and Canada)

Joe Emersberger, writer, UNIFOR member
Nino Pagliccia, Jorge Arancibia, Marta Palominos, Frente para la Defensa de los Pueblos Hugo Chavez
Fire This Time Movement for Social Justice Venezuela Solidarity Campaign – Vancouver
The Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War
Vancouver Communities in Solidarity with Cuba (VCSC)
Maude Barlow, Chairperson, Council of Canadians
Canadian Network on Cuba
Mobilization Against War and Occupation (MAWO) – Vancouver
Dr. William Carroll, University of Victoria, Canada
Andrew Dekany, LL.M, Lawyer

Dr. Leo Panitch, Professor Emeritus, York University, Toronto
Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights (CPSHR)
Alma Weinstein, Bolivarian Circle Louis Riel Toronto
Maria Elena Mesa, Coord, Sunday Poetry and Festival Internacional de Poesia Patria Grande, Toronto
Dr. Radhika Desai, University of Manitoba

OTHER
Sergio Romero Cuevas, former Mexican Ambassador to Haiti
Observatorio de Derechos Humanos de los Pueblos, Oaxaca, Mexico

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The Left and Venezuela

June 12, 2017, By Claudio Katz[1]

[Reposted from Life On The Left]

SUMMARY

 

The media keep silent about the violence of the Venezuelan opposition and the prevailing repression by the right-wing governments of Latin America. The Right’s strategy of an institutional coup faces serious limits, but the Left must address this new threat, supporting anti-imperialist decisions and making a distinction between the capitalist boycott and the government’s ineffectiveness.

Adhering to social-democratic standards, the post-progressive “critical left” objects to Chavismo, dismissing the danger of a coup, and mistakenly identifying authoritarianism as the main danger. The dogmatists overlook the main enemy and converge with the conservatives or slip toward passive neutrality.

The Right only wants elections it is sure it will win. In these very adverse conditions, the Constituent Assembly re-opens opportunities and points to a re-encounter with radical intellectual thought.

Supporters of President Nicolás Maduro participate in a rally in Caracas in support of the national Constituent Assembly.

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[1] Economist, researcher with Argentina’s National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET), professor at the University of Buenos Aires and a member of the Economists of the Left (EDI). His web page, where this article first appeared, is at www.lahaine.org/katz.

Full Text (pdf): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0Q-0xxlqzOeT1lxdDdZQ3hyQWM/view

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