Motta Dominguez: Economic Offensive and Capitalist War

Here is the press note the Agencia Venezolana de Noticias  publishes in its English language service on declarations by the “Inspector of economic rights protections” General Luis Motta Dominguez.

Economic offensive, a challenge before capitalist war

Caracas, 25 Abr. AVN.- This new economic offensive boosted by the Bolivarian Government nationwide represents a challenge before the war staged by capitalist ventures, said inspector of social economic rights protection Luis Motta Dominguez.

Interviewed in local television on Friday, Motta Dominguez said that this new plan aims at benefiting customers before capitalist businesspeople, who gain excessive profits with prices over the law.

Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro informed a few days ago that commercial establishments nationwide would be inspected in order to verify the correct fulfillment of the Organic Law on Fair Prices.

This law provides that the profits of those engaged in economic activities in the country may not exceed 30% and carries administrative and custodial penalties ranging from 2 to 14 years, because its goal is to clean up disruptions of the economic, productive, distributive and marketing chain of the country.

 AVN 25/04/2014 10:19

Elias Jaua Grand Conspiracy Tour: The Official Document

TELESUR has published a link to the document Foreign Minister Elias Jaua is presenting to several UN organizations, including UNESCO and FAO, on his trip to Europe.

As the baroque title of the document reveals, “International Denunciation, Education, Health, and Environmental Rights, and Rights to Live Committed by Governors, Mayors, Deputies and Local Leaders of Legal Parties of the Venezuelan Opposition,” most of the report is devoted to demonstrating that the opposition is to blame for the recent violence in Venezuela. Including the claim in page 10 that the opposition is guilty of environmental “ecocide” by cutting down 1,000 trees (the toll is raised to 5,000 trees in page 11 without explanation.) 

The report begins with four full pages enumerating the social accomplishments of the Revolutions and implying that, given the facts, protesters lack legitimate grievances, and are only driven by the desire to break “the continuity of the popular accomplishments through armed violent actions, promoted, executed, and/or tolerated by regional authorities of [the parties] Primero Justicia and Voluntad Popular.” page 5

The headings of the document give a feel for its rhetoric: “Co-responsibility of the Regional and Municipal Authorities in guaranteeing Human Rights,” “Violent actions promoted by the political parties of the extreme right. Media Situation.”

The report praises the role of State security forces in containing the rightist’s violence, but does devote one paragraph (page 15) to explain that there have been “isolated incidents in which there is evidence or denunciations of abuse by police officers or public order forces.” However, “all the officers [implicated] have been handed to the competent tribunals and appropriate investigations have been opened.”

Venezuelan Central Bank blames inflation on “radical political opposition”

The Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV) has firmly adopted the government’s narrative of recent events in the country.

The long delayed inflation report for March, titled “Effect of the recrudescence of the ‘economic war’ on inflation,” was published today. Before informing that the Consumer Prices National Index (INPC) gained 4.1% last month, the BCV offered this explanation for the rise:

2013 was a year of permanent acts of political destabilization, associated a speculative phenomenon, which altered national production and provoked scarcity and inflationary pleasures.

…a radical group from the opposition, guided by its urge to gain power by any means, without consideration for constitutional order or the will of the people, did not doubt putting into action various initiatives to generate political destabilization, promote political tensions, produce a climate of chaotic political and of economic unease that would stimulate social insurrection, and even provoke the intervention of their foreign allies.

(…) These irrational practices produced a series of consequences in terms of the behavior of the variable associated with the productions and the prices of goods, particularly of food.

For example, a rise of 4.1% of the INPC was registered in the month of March, and there is a serious tendency that [the events] will continue to impact the results for the month of April.

Acts of vandalism and the Agencia Venezolana de Noticias

The following two paragraphs are part of the article published yesterday by the public Agencia Venezolana de Noticias (AVN), “Ejecutivo suma esfuerzos para acabar con el rentismo y construir Nuevo modelo productivo:”

Since the end of last year anti-chavista sectors began an economic war, speculating with the prices of products and propitiating scarcity. Therefore the Bolivarian Government led an economic offensive in order to protect the economy of Venezuelans.

Since February radical groups of the right have perpetrated acts of vandalism with the aim of generating a climate of instability in the country. Because of this, the Executive called diverse sectors to a National Peace Conference to work for the pacification of the Venezuelan Territory.

Note that in these paragraphs AVN is not quoting the opinion of government officials or of government supporters, instead it is stating incontrovertible facts about the recent events in Venezuela.

The Elias Jaua Grand Conspiracy Tour

News agency EFE informs that Foreign Minister Elias Jaua gave a press conference today at the Venezuelan Embassy in Paris. According to EFE, Jaua denounced a campaign orchestrated by transnational interests to destabilize the country trough violence.

“This is a campaign that has been perfectly articulated by powerful transnational interests, and the opposition plays a sad role: they are in charge of exercising violence against their own compatriots,” explained Jaua.

The Foreign Minister is on a European tour presenting the Venezuelan government’s narrative on the recent opposition protests to UN institutions.

He has already met with Irina Bokova, General Director of UNESCO. “We have come to the headquarters of UNESCO and have met its General Director, and we have made a presentation of the whole situation that the Venezuelan people are now going through: facing an antidemocratic, violent, and armed current that has harmed basic rights such as education and communication,” declared Jaua after the meeting.

Jaua will also travel to Rome where he will meet Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) officials and present evidence of an “ecocide” committed by the opposition by cutting down trees during the protests. He will also explain that the opposition has contaminated drinking water sources.

“We will go to each and every one of these institutions [so that] every day there is more and more awareness of the [presence of a] neofascist and violent current, with high levels of intolerance, racism and xenophobia that have unfortunately been inoculated in Venezuelan society,” said Jaua.  

Image from AVN