Today only 20% of Venezuelan oil money goes to the state. 80% disappears. Stop
the coup!
In 1974 it was the reverse. 80% went to the state. Why the coup-plotters are in such a hurry.
Please forward widely. I have not seen these facts anywhere in the world's mainstream English media. These are the reasons for the continued 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 things for the better. Bold formatting and larger text sizes have been added to some of the text below. 2 articles near the end give more details about progressive changes that have occurred in Venezuela for the poor and others.
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http://www.narconews.com/Issue26/article556.html
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From vheadline.com December 22 2002. | |
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link to this page at URL: |
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Chronology of the Strike that Wasn’t
By Al Giordano
December 22, 2002
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.
[snip. End of excerpt]
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ZNet | A Community of People Committed to Social Change |
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http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=2546 Why Venezuela's Middle Class (for the most part) Opposes Chavez |
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by
Gregory Wilpert October 27, 2002
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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 are in this 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.--------
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Le Monde diplomatique
described the likely scenario for overthrowing Chavez:
“[T]here will be a coalition of the well-to-do, bringing together the Catholic Church …, the financial oligarchy, the employers’ organizations, the bourgeoisie and corrupt trade union leaderships – all repackaged as ‘civil society.’ The owners of major media will collude ... to support the campaigns that they will each launch against the president, in the name of defending that ‘civil society.’...
“The press and TV will brandish terms ‘the people, democracy, liberty,’ etc. They will mobilize street demonstrations and any attempt by the government to criticize them will be immediately described as ‘a serious assault on freedom of expression,’ ... they will revive the insurrectional strike and encourage ideas of a coup and an assault on the presidential palace. ...
“The Venezuelan media currently uses lies and disinformation in the biggest ever destabilization campaign against a democratically elected government. Since the world hardly seems to care, the media hopes that this time it will succeed in committing the perfect crime.”
Excerpt above was found toward the end of this article:
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/07/138635.php
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*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