11) MADURO ANNOUNCES "FIVE BIG REVOLUTIONS" IN VENEZUELA
With files from TeleSUR English ‑ venezuelanalysis.com
The government of Venezuela is stepping up its efforts to respond to the unrest which shook the country earlier this year, with a combination of structural changes and economic measures.
On Sept. 2, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro announced what he described as "five revolutions", as part of a need to "improve our service to the people."
Maduro said the revolutions would be a "a new way of functioning" for the government, and emphasized the need for a more "efficient" government.
The following five revolutions, he said, "should be united, and should define the government policies, giving power to the people, it will be the people who push government policy."
The first revolution that Maduro outlined is the economic revolution, promoting production, "in order to guarantee stability".
"All the efforts of the government should be concentrated on this, to make this revolution successful," he said.
The second revolution is the knowledge revolution, involve science, technology, and culture. "I call on all of Venezuela, on the youth, students, teachers, to be part of this revolution, to be part of the country's social development, its spiritual development, forming a new ethics for a new society," Maduro said.
The missions are the third revolution. Maduro emphasized their importance in "building socialism, creating the new society, where social rights and life are guaranteed."
The fourth revolution involves state policies and "creating a new state, one that's really democratic, one that's about justice, and rights." It aims to transform all governmental structures, and end with what "remains of the bourgeois state." Maduro emphasized the importance of the fight against corruption.
In this fourth revolution he also announced a range of new ministers and structures. Maduro announced a timeline for social movements to elect "popular presidential councils", including for communes, women, youth, culture, and workers. Elections will be held during September and October.
In terms of the new ministries, they will be restructured, with some combined, and many falling under "vice‑presidencies". The vice‑presidency of economy and finances, for example, will group together six ministries. Of these, the minister for petroleum will no longer be Rafael Ramirez, who becomes the foreign minister.
Maduro said the fifth revolution was one of "territorial socialism". He explained that it was about consolidating the communal model, and creating a "new eco socialist model".
"It's not about environmentalism, its about ecosocialism, environmentalism isn't enough," Maduro stated.
Meanwhile, the "biometric system" now installed in 11 major supermarket chains nationwide to combat scarcity has produced immediate results. All supermarkets will have the system installed by Nov. 30.
"The eternal lines have grown shorter.... and products that used to be considered `a big find' are ever‑increasing upon the shelves," read a recent headline in Zulia state's largest private newspaper, Panorama. The state's capital and Venezuela's second largest city, Maracaibo, has been the center of the government's pilot program since August.
The system is composed of fingerprint scanners stationed at check‑out counters, to track how much each individual buys, blocking customers from making over‑large or over‑frequent purchases. It comes in the latest wave of reforms to eradicate scarcity and speculation.
The measure will only be directed at 23 basic products, among them milk, flour, and beef, which are the most common objects of smuggling. If a customer is not purchasing one of these 23 items, they are not required to scan their fingerprint.
It is estimated that 40% of Venezuelan products are smuggled illegally out of the country to be sold for a profit. Internally, the system will avoid the schemes of street vendors, known as buhoneros, who hoard basic items to be re‑sold for hugely inflated prices when they grow scarce.
In Maracaibo, supermarket owners report that since the system's installation, products which used to be swept off the shelves in hours are lasting over four days.
In border areas, the biometric system will replace the previous slower method of taking down each customer's identification number. Smuggling mafias would easily steal people's ID numbers to bypass this previous system.
But not everyone is impressed. Caracas mayor and hardline opposition advocate Antonio Ledezma warned that the scanners were a sign of the further "Cubanization" of government policy. The opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) upped the ante by declaring a campaign against the system, starting with a nationwide cacerolazo (public banging of pots and pans) in resistance to what MUD spokesperson Cristobal Fernandez Dalo calls a "repressive" operation.
Vice-president Jorge Arreaza has asked that Venezuelans not be "manipulated" by the opposition, insisting that the system will not "restrict consumers... only help to identify those who speculate, steal, and profit from the food of our people."
Other opponents of the system believe it only skims the surface of the real issues at hand. Caracas resident Alexis Yanes told reporters that he agreed with the new measures but, "it would be good if companies increased production and improved distribution as well. That [sector] is very impaired right now."
On the other side of the struggle against smuggling, the Venezuelan National Guard has been cracking down on the Colombian border since August 12th. Two weeks later, 148 people linked to smuggling had been arrested, and 641 tons of food, 413,854 liters of gasoline, and 301,440 medicines had been seized while being transported illegally out of the country.
(The above article is from the September 16-30, 2014, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)