VHeadline editor & publisher Roy S. Carson writes: Overnight headlines scream "Chavez' socialist government seize foreign-owned cement plants" as though the end of the world is nigh. Unwitting sub-editors smoldering over copy off the wires link immediately to the recent "nationalization" of Banco de Venezuela, the "nationalization" of Siderurgica de Orinoco (Sidor), the "nationalization" of telecommunications giant CANTV and the Venezuelan government's insistence on culling the corrupting power of mainly USA oil giants and to bring Venezuela's own resources back under its own sovereign control.
NATIONALIZATION?
It's such a scary word for capitalist-controlled wage-slaves across America and the world ... like SOCIALISM, it's another adjective used by the FOX News duplicity to conjure up McCarthy-istic bogeyman paranoia in the complacent masses who are purposely kept uninformed about what is REALLY happening in the Big Bad World far beyond the location of the nearest McDonald's hamburger joint.
Why indeed did Venezuela's legitimate and democratically elected President, Bush bogeyman Hugo Chavez Frias see the need to NATIONALIZE a single (Mexican) cement producer? Look behind the screaming headline FOX-type rhetoric and, although the facts are not brought to you in the US media, you could quickly discover that the move was made necessary by the Mexican company's insistence on exporting almost all of its Venezuelan production to world markets while totally ignoring the requirements of the domestic construction industry...
So what was the Venezuelan government to do? Should it be forced to buy construction materials on the world market in hard currency and at exorbitant world prices ... and see the profits benefit only the Mexicans ... or should it seek to secure production, profits and much-needed jobs domestically?
Would the US government have done any different (although what the US government and the US media has to do meddling in Venezuela's domestic political-economic affairs is yet another unexplained conundrum)?
NEVERTHELESS: Contrasting the recent NATIONALIZATIONS with the wholesale nationalizations of Venezuela's oil industry, banking sector etc., etc., some 32 years ago in 1976 -- under the first mandate of USA puppet President Carlos Andres Perez (CAP) -- we see that the Chavez regime, for better or worse, has not simply seized foreign assets (no matter how infamously they were accumulated in the first place) but has striven to pay reasonable market value to the previous owners for their time and trouble.
The buy-back/nationalization of telecommunications CANTV is but one example and the internationally much-screamed nationalization of Siderurgica del Orinoco (SIDOR) is pretty much the same thing ... in fact the latest news (out today) is that Argentinian partner TECHINT is to receive US$1.65 billion...
ADDITIONALLY: The Spanish Santander banking group most certainly is NOT going to go away empty-handed following the NATIONALIZATION of Banco de Venezuela announced a few weeks back. The fact is (but don't let that trouble Fox's Hannity or the New York Times) that while Santander bought the bank just over a decade ago for $300 million -- it was offered up in a fire-sale by the Caldera presidency after the multiple crashes of the nation's corrupt banking sector in 1994 -- Santander had already be searching for an alternative buyer for the bank before Chavez stepped in to pay an estimated $1.3 BILLION rather than let the nation's 3rd largest financial institution fall into the hands of further corrupt interests.
A $ billion profit isn't to be sneezed at, is it?
- And remember that organized international crime syndicates, money launderers and drug cartels are always hovering, ready to latch their sticky fingers on such assets as banking institutions etc.
CERTAINLY: The Mexican cement producers are not likely to be overly upset when their compensation check from the Venezuelan government is banked and cleared ... in fact you COULD say that they will be laughing all the way to the bank in Ciudad de Mexico or perhaps even Switzerland or the Seychelles?
Perhaps then it's time to call Webster and insist on another descriptive than NATIONALIZATION to describe an action to protect national interests from foreign exploitation and looting? For the true nature of Venezuela's move towards Social Productive Partnerships (EPS) is more akin to Public-Private partnership with the Venezuelan State retaining sovereign control of foreign operations aimed at protecting and preserving the nation's wealth and future prosperity for the benefit of the Venezuela people ... isn't that what it's all about?
Why should the Venezuelan State permit majority control of Venezuelan assets by foreign entities ... compare with the United States' own flap over the prospect of foreign control of US ports! Liken also with the current debate in Britain over Spanish control of the nation's major airports...
If ports are a major concern for the Bush administration, how much moreso is control of the nation's banking, steel production, telecommunications, construction materials etc., etc., of primary concern to President Hugo Chavez Frias even without the direct and covert efforts by the United States to impose its unilateral military, trade and financial conditions on Latin America...
Yes, Venezuela is open to foreign investment and foreign participation in just about all aspects of its economic survival. Venezuela welcomes and encourages investment in all areas where profits are reasonably to be made ... but it must be on Venezuela's terms and conditions. Venezuela has been held hostage to often dubious international interests for more than half a century of feather-bedded Quisling collaboration with the enemy (i.e. those who would seek ruthlessly to exploit Venezuela and Venezuelans). Enemies are enemies, friends are friends ... and the majority of Venezuelans are effuse with their welcoming hospitality and generosity which innocence has frequently been sadly abused.
With the ascendency of Hugo Chavez to the Presidency of Venezuela in February 1999, it was intended that Venezuelans would be able to look forward to a 'Promised Land' of hope, equality and mutual prosperity. Over the now almost ten years since then, there has certainly been huge efforts to realize the original goals which remain still just out of reach.
How long will it take? How long is a piece of string? It's anybody's guess!
The battle is still not won! Skirmishes continue on the fringe with exploiters constantly seeking loopholes through which to enter to sack and pillage the national patrimony.
Unfortunately a new elite of 'sifrino' abusers has infected the corridors of power ... Quislings and traitors who are ready to sell the nation's birthright for pieces of silver to be conveniently stowed away in Miami, Geneva or otherwise out of sight!
President Chavez, and what remains of his ministerial team that is not otherwise engaged in salting away assets for personal 'retirement', seriously need to take immediate action!
Safeguarding the Venezuelan nation from foreign pillagers is not enough! It is the thieves already in the house that pose a greater danger!
Roy S. Carson
vheadline@gmail.com
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Venezuela is facing the most difficult period of its history with honest reporters crippled by sectarianism on top of rampant corruption within the administration and beyond, aided and abetted by criminal forces in the US and Spanish governments which cannot accept the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people to decide over their own future.
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