<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Thursday, May 01, 2003 By: Venezuelan Ambassador Alfredo Toro Hardy

Venezuelan Ambassador Alfredo Toro Hardy writes: The United States of America has been invincible in every field.  Its GDP represents 31.2% of the world's average ... its expenditure on defense amounts to 36.6% of global defense spending and is more than the combined spending of the 15 immediately following countries.  Its expenditure on research reaches 40.6% of global expenditure in this field and it turns out to be the equivalent of the next seven richest nations on the planet. Its cultural presence, which Joseph Nye has characterized as the "soft power" is to be found everywhere: North American ideas, habits and values make up the universal language of globalization.

Paradoxically, over the space of the last few years and at the moment of its greatest glory, United States intelligentia has been immersed in a markedly pessimistic reflective process with respect to its future.

Starting with Paul Kennedy and his masterful study of the decadency of the United States, there have been many authors who have touched on the theme from distinct perspectives.  Among them we find Robert Putnam, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Lester Thurow, Donald White, Samuel Huntington and  Immanuel Wallerstein.

The incomprehensible stance of intellectual Americans has taken on decibels of paranoia and deep depression and reaches the levels of conservative, neo-conservative and neo-populist North American sectors, especially those who form the base of the Republican Party.  Particular mention in this regard should be given to the ample neo-populist alliance of movements such as "America First," "Third Force," "Christian Soldiers," "Third Wave Conservatives," "Radical Rebels" and "State Rebels."  The United States is hounded on all fronts by neo-populism, by forces which are alert to their decadency: immigration, trans-culturalization, moral crisis, loss of religious values etc.

Meanwhile, the more inconsistent the feeling of pessimism for the future of their country becomes, in moments where the United States had arrived at a point that has not been attained by the hegemony of any of the Super Powers before them, it is evident that there is a price to pay.  The search for self-ratification which comes from their perception of their own decline, has led to extreme levels of arrogance and high-handedness.

Little by little, the Bush administration has been destroying international order and a system of universal rules and principles accepted by common agreement, of which the United States was the principle author and greatest beneficiary.  At the same time, "soft power" has been transmogrified into "hard power" at the expense of goodwill and the popularity that the United States and its lifestyle enjoyed far and wide throughout the planet.

The "Ugly American" thesis with which it had been associated during the Vietnam War has once again come to symbolize the current world mood vis-a-vis the United States of America.

More and more, the United States is becoming a powerful recluse ... it is evident that despite its unquestionable primacy, such an attitude has greatly limited its capacity to mould international will.

Its power has twisted into antipathy and is moving away from any real capacity to influence.  In some way, the warnings of its intellectuals, braced by the deep pessimism of right-wing sectors could well be the road leading to self-fulfilled prophecy.

Former Venezuelan USA Ambassador Alfredo Toro Hardy has extensive diplomatic experience in Washington and across the United States.  He is presently Venezuela's Ambassador to the Court of St. James (London), writes regular editorial commentaries in the Spanish-language Venezuelan media and appears here for the first time in VHeadline.com Venezuela.  You may email Ambassador Toro Hardy at embvenuk-despacho@dial.pipex.com

BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD — Special for Granma International —

Without Frontiers • Under the pretext of fighting for press freedom, Reporters Without Frontiers has been transformed into a tool of Washington and its Interests Section in Havana • In order to try and undermine the Cuban Revolution, Robert Menard, leader of this organization, is purchases the services of pseudo-reporters to fuel the fascist, annexationist and Batista-loving Miami press

PLAGIARIZING the name of credible international organizations was not that difficult for neo-reactionary Robert Menard - pseudo-journalist, fraudster and CIA agent – in order to make a space for himself in the communications world. Nor was it difficult to find funds for his projects of misinformation: the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) are offering the bread and butter.

One of Robert Menard’s protégés, journalist Néstor Baguer, was president of the Association of Independent Cuban Journalists...until it became known, during the trial of those mercenaries of misinformation, that he was State Security agent Octavio. Menard also lent his support to Aleida Godínez, journalist with Lux magazine, an alleged trade union publication from the electricity industry, printed in Miami and distributed by USIS. Above, Néstor Baguer in a "journalists" meeting held in the U.S. Interests Section.

Following the arrest in Cuba of those individuals who actively collaborated with the U.S. Special Interests Section and its plans to destabilize the Cuban Revolution, Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Frontiers-RWF-), Menard’s NGO (that’s not that non-governmental) in support of "independent journalists" (who are not exactly journalists or independent), has thrown itself into an hysterical anti-Cuba campaign worthy of counterrevolutionaries in Miami.

For several years now, Menard and the RWF organization have managed to penetrate the editorial offices of several French and international media agencies, disguised as imperialist-style human rights activists, demanding the right to interfere in the internal affairs of individual nations and justifying the military interventions of their bosses.

A recent, sensationalist publicity stunt by RWF was to make a scandalous parallel of the human rights situation in Baghdad - where U.S. fascism has just carried out a massacre - with Cuba, where the Revolution exercises the right to defend itself from brazen foreign intervention.

In a press conference on April 9, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque recalled that there is an abundance of financial sources which groups like Menard’s – obsessed with Cuba and supposedly "humanitarian" - have access to.

The balance sheet is, quite simply, indecent.

RAINING BUCKS

In 2002, the International Republican Institute in the United States received the sum of $1,674,462 USD in order to "help create bases of international support to provide material, moral and ideological aid to activists in Cuba."

On December 27, Adolfo Franco (a member of the so-called Miami Connection and one of more than 20 Cuban-Americans to have penetrated the upper echelons of the Bush administration), the USAID administrator for the Latin American and Caribbean region (get this!) openly stated before the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee that the US foreign aid agency had invested $22 million USD in materials, propaganda and other items for Cuba, including 7,000 radios "to listen to Radio Martí."

It is worth mentioning that the very same Radio Martí receives $25 million USD from Voice of America funds, of which it is a simple subsidiary... In the same way every year, from the many sources created by the government in Washington to supply mercenaries, tens and tens of millions of dollars rain on those who collaborate with imperialism, as much in Paris or Havana as in Miami.

The self-same James Cason - a CIA agent and head of USIS – who was commissioned by George W. Bush’s government to intensify the subversive campaign against Cuba, announced on Miami television that he would meet at every possible opportunity with the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF), an organization created, sustained and directed by the CIA, servant of the NED and USAID, and identified by terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, currently imprisoned in Panama, as his principal financial source.

Cason also acknowledged his immoral and active relationship with the paramilitary version of CANF, the Cuban Liberty Council, an organization run by terrorist couple Ninoska Lucrecia Pérez Castellon and Roberto Martí Pérez, the proven organizer and financier of multiple acts of terrorism committed against Cuba.

In his eagerness to "liberate Cuba" and "support press freedom", and with the anti-communist venom he has been unable to hide, Menard has not only hired out his organization but has transformed it into a misinformation agency and a mechanism for distributing funds to counterrevolutionaries, one that also provides false material for all the neo-fascistic and Batista-supporting media channels in South Florida: a French version of CIA-operative Frank Calson’s Freedom House, which also devotes itself to distributing payment funds.

"WE GAVE THEM $50 USD A MONTH"

Some years ago, Menard implicitly confessed to his participation in the distribution of money to an important number of "collaborators" who were carrying out work for the USIS.

"We gave around 20 journalists $50 USD per month each to survive," Menard confirmed to Hernando Calvo Ospina and Katiijn Declercq, authors of ¿Disidentes o mercenarios? (Dissidents or Mercenaries).

In fact, the way in which these funds - of "undetermined" origin – were distributed by Menard and his organization correspond with the methods used by various organizations in the United States openly connected to the NED and USAID and reveal the relationship between RWF and the CIA; like the destination of the supposed "information" circulated by the counterrevolutionary "agencies".

This material, systematically directed at undermining and damaging the Revolution’s image, is destined for publications characterized by their alignment to Washington. In such a way that RWF is not just fulfilling its mission to locate, recruit, direct and financially support a series of mercenaries, but also to fuel media channels controlled by a stew of Batista-loving personalities such as El Diario de las Américas, El Nuevo Herald, Radio Mambí and Radio Martí, each of them with clear neo-fascist, annexationist tendencies.

By behaving in this way, Menard is aligning his supposedly humanitarian organization with the vision of Cuba held by the "Pontiff" of Radio Martí, Alberto Pérez-Roura. This individual is the head of a loathsome channel that constantly expresses its support for the bloodiest terrorism, represented by Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles.

A clear collaborator with the blockade in respect of information, Menard has always abstained from condemning the tremendously repressive policies of numerous "regimes" associated with the United States. Nor does he attack the empire that generates them, preferring instead to get his funds from those in the European Union and various business people suspiciously interested in the cause of information.

Significantly, Menard’s organization is one of three similar organizations provided with large budgets and saturating the global market of the defense of press freedom in its monopolistic version. Curiously enough, the other two are U.S. organizations: CPJ of New York and Miami’s Inter American Press.

Some months ago, Menard let his mask slip in Venezuela, by rushing to the aid of the putschist press, that of multimillionaire Gustavo Cisneros and others like him, whilst ignoring the fate of journalists from the community press, those in favor of the immense popular support enjoyed by President Hugo Chávez.

In the same way, he has always ignored the brutal attacks on and detentions of reporters connected to the anti-globalization campaigns (most notably those from the Indymedia network) and the large-scale protests that have taken place since 1999 against the World Trade Organization in Washington.

A self-proclaimed freedom fighter, he has embarked on his new crusade whilst George W. Bush sets off on his, with admirable simultaneity.

In the same way that George W. Bush and his regime use the issue of human rights as their defense in crushing them - either through the Patriot Act or cluster bombs - Robert Menard uses it to finish off with information. Dreaming of one America...without frontiers.

By Alex Contreras Baspineiro Special to The Narco News Bulletin April 24, 2003

"“The life of the nation is at stake" -Hugo Chávez, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

Hugo Chávez Frías, president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a patriotic soldier, a tireless worker, uniquely charismatic, a friend of the poor, an enemy of imperialism, and a model revolutionary leader.

Alex Contreras with President Chávez in Miraflores: During the course of the World Gathering of Solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution, which ran from April 10 to 13 in Caracas, I had two opportunities to speak with President Chávez – first, at a lunch in Miraflores Palace for about 30 intellectuals and social activists from around the world; and second, at a private dinner with three fellow Latin American leaders.

People close to the president describe him as a man of boundless energy and an incredible work ethic: a natural leader and an uncompromising individual.

When Chávez arrives at the Government Palace, he makes quite an entrance. He responds to a salute from his security guards with a slap on the back and friendly hello. "How you doing?" he asks them. They chat and laugh all the way to his office, as Chávez gets the latest news and his schedule for the day. Colonel Jorge Barrientos Fernández, a man very close to the president, confessed that Chávez is like a river: “the more you throw at him, the higher he rises.”

A Government of the People

Just like the president, people from all sectors of Venezuelan society can enter Miraflores Palace. It’s estimated that every day more than fifty people try to

On April 13 in Caracas, Venezuelans reject the coup of a year ago and celebrate the Day of Dignity. Photo: Alex Contrerassee the president every day, and more than 700 write letters, with various demands. All of these petitions are answered. By presidential order, the staff is instructed to attend to all the demands of the people, from the smallest to the most complicated.

At the luncheon that Chávez hosted on April 12 in Miraflores’ Bayacá Hall, Colonel Barrientos was seated to my right, and answered all my questions about the head of state.

“The president is an example for all of us,” he said. “He starts working at six in the morning and doesn’t quit until after three AM. He has extraordinary energy, and this gives us a lot of strength.” Although the military no longer has the privilege it did under previous administrations, soldiers are willing to give their lives for the “proceso,” or change process. That’s one thing that makes the Bolivarian Revolution different than many others – the revolution is supported by the masses, but also by the military.

The president’s security chief, Barrientos, has known Chávez since he was a cadet. “He was always a leader, a role model, and a man of unbending will,” he said. “He was never a conformist, and would give us long talks about the revolution.” The top officers of all three branches of the armed forces, he said, support the Venezuelan revolution; the opposition traitors’ numbers are small.

In Spite of the Media Blackout

Although the Venezuelan commercial media – controlled by giant multinational corporations and under pressures from the US government – attack the Bolivarian government twenty-four hours a day, one can’t help but see important changes here, changes that benefit the public.

During the last two years, the government has built 150,000 new housing units. Fifteen thousand of these units were handed over to the victims of catastrophic foods that hit the coastal state of Vargas in 1999. Three thousand Bolivarian Schools have opened, where children get the attention and adequate nutrition they once lacked. More than two million people have drinkable running water for the first time. More than three thousand Venezuelans have received free medical treatment in Cuba. Millions of small farmers have benefited from the “Land Law,” which redistributes unused farmland. The government has tripled the public university budget and raised teachers’ salaries. The privatization of the electric, gas, and water industries has been stopped.

Thousands of men and women fill Bolívar Avenue on April 13, 2003. Photo: Alex ContrerasAs he listed these achievements, the Colonel beamed with pride. This is the “proceso” – the change process supported by the majority of the people of Venezuela, and rejected by the “squalid ones” whose numbers grow smaller every day.

At this time, President Chavez began to speak. “In Venezuela,” he said, “we are developing a model of struggle against neoliberalism and imperialism. For this reason, we find we have millions of friends in this world, although we also have many enemies."

Chavez wore a dark suit, a white shirt, and red tie, at the luncheon. Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage, US sociologist and noted analyst James Petras, the Argentinian activist and leader of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo movement Hebe Bonafini, the Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement representative Jaime Amorín and others were also there. Chávez, as promised, kept his comments brief.

The Hurricane has Begun

Around one in the morning on Monday, April 14, Chavez received three indigenous leaders, all major figures in their own countries, at Miraflores. This authentic journalist had the privilege of witnessing the president's meeting with Bolivian congressman and coca-growers’ leader Evo Morales, Ecuador's indigenous leader Blanca Chancoso, and Honduran peasant farmers' leader Rafael Alegría.

Rafael Alegrìa of Honduras, President Hugo Chávez, Blanca Chancoso of Ecuador, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and Narco News correspondent Alex Contreras, in the Palace gardens.From an unlit garden, Chávez emerged from the shadows wearing jeans, a t-shirt and blue sneakers. This was a casual affair. “Hey, careful Evo, we want you alive!” was the first thing Chávez said as the three greeted him excitedly.

A small table for five people was served. “I don’t drink,” said Chávez, “but let me offer you some wine.”

“We know how to drink, and to make a toast,” someone answered. “To Bolivarian unity!” They shared a smoke as well.

The first thing the leaders talked about was security – the security of the Bolivarian leader, but also of the other leaders, organizers, and activists, opposed to the global policies of the US empire.

I’m sure you will understand, kind readers, that the subjects these leaders went on to discuss were off the record. After the four had spent more than an hour in sincere and relaxed conversation, the time came to say their goodbyes, with a handshake, an embrace, and, of course, a group photo as a souvenir.

“The hurricane of revolution has begun,” Chávez told them, “and it will never again be calmed.”

“We’ll keep the flame burning, comandante,” responded Alegría, the Honduran farmers’ leader.

"We will return, and there will be millions of us,” said Chancoso.

“Thank you, President Chávez,” said Morales, who almost won the Bolivian presidency last year. “I leave here full of ideas for the struggle ahead in 2007,” the next general election in his country.

As we left Miraflores, around three in the morning, the president was just receiving the Cuban delegation, headed by Vice President Carlos Lage. One of the security guards at the palace told us that they have adjusted to Chávez’s rhythm.

“It’s all for the revolution,” he said. “Revolution is synonymous with sacrifice. We should all be willing to sacrifice ourselves for a better future for our children.”

As we walked through the halls and courtyards of Miraflores, from where the fascist coup led by businessman "Pedro, the Brief" Carmona" massacred the Venezuelan people one year ago, I remembered the words of President Hugo Chávez:

“Faced with the outrageous excesses of the powerful, our only alternative is to unite… That’s why I call upon all of you to globalize the revolution, to globalize the struggle for the freedom and equality of mankind.”