[Venezuelanalysis.com's Kiraz Janicke visits Inveval, one of Venezuela's new worker co-managed factories, to talk to
the workers and find out more about their struggle, their history,
their experience of workers control, the challenges they face as well
as the broader question of how they are strategising to transform
Venezuelan society in the struggle for ‘Socialism in the 21st Century’.]
[Venezuelanalysis.com's Chris Carlson reports on the call made by various leaders of Venezuela's primary pro-government labour union, the National Workers Union of Venezuela (UNT), for all sectors of the organisation to join together and hold elections later this year. --Ed] Orlando Chirino, coordinator of Venezuela´s National Workers Union (UNT) at a march in the state of Carabobo in 2006. Credit: Aporrea.org
[In an interview earlier this month with Iran's newly launched Press TV, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez commented on a number of issues particularly
the South American nation's foreign policy.The following is the text of the interview with the President]
[General Raúl Isaias Baduel held a widely reported speech on the
occasion of his leaving the office of Defense Minister. The event was
also one in which Chavez swore in the new defense minister and a new
military high command. Baduel is a long-time friend of President
Chavez, who co-founded the MBR-200 with Chavez, the clandestine
movement that was later to organise the 1992 coup attempt
against then-president Carlos Andrés Perez. More recently, Baduel was instrumental
in bringing Chavez back into office during the April 2002 coup attempt.
Baduel’s speech ruffled some feathers in Venezuela because some
believed that he was issuing an indirect criticism of Chavez. A more
charitable interpretation, though, is that he was merely telling the
country in which direction he believes 21st socialism must go.]
[A new paper from the Center for Economic and Policy Research looks at
the Venezuelan economy during the last eight years and finds that it
does not fit the mold of an "oil boom headed for a bust," as is
commonly believed. For a Spanish version of the CEPR paper click here.]
[For Calvin Tucker, co-editor of www.21stcenturysocialism.com, the BBC’s Caracas
correspondent, James Ingham, has been at it again. 'It' being the use of clever
journalistic tricks that leave the reader with the impression that the
Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, is a dictator-in-waiting. For a Spanish version of the article click here. --Ed]
[Tom Barry, senior analyst with the Americas Program of the Center for International Policy, argues that five years after
U.S.-funded groups were associated with a failed coup against
Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, the U.S. government's political aid
programs continue to meddle in Venezuelan domestic politics. A new
focus of the "democracy builders" in Venezuela and around the world is
support for nonviolent resistance by civil society organisations. --Ed]
[Colin Burgon MP, chair of the Labour Friends of Venezuela, responds
to last week's New Statesman story by Alice O'Keeffe on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Click here to see a statement released by the Venezuela Information Centre in relation to O'Keeffe's article. Click here to see a statement released by Hands Off Venezuela in relation to O'Keeffe's article.--Ed]
[The following
interview was conducted with Orlando Chirino, national organiser of
Venezuela’s National Workers’ Union (UNT) federation and leader of
C-CURA (the United Autonomous Revolutionary Class Current) within the
UNT. --Ed]
[Below is an article by International Socialist Review's Lee Sustar that will (1) analyse the rise
of Chávez within the context of Venezuelan history and politics; (2)
examine the government’s economic, social, and political policies; (3)
evaluate the Venezuelan revolutionary process from the standpoint of
classical Marxist theory; and (4) outline a strategic approach towards
the Chávez phenomenon for those committed to anti-imperialist and
revolutionary socialist politics. --Ed]
