Category Archives: Socio-economic Collapse

A meeting that could play a significant role in the future of Australias food and fibre production will take place in Canberra this month.

On Friday, June 16 the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council (MINCO) will discuss the suite of projects that could be used to recover additional water under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

Wakool Rivers Association chairman John Lolicato said this could be a ground-breaking meeting for our nation, especially rural communities.

The adverse impact the Basin Plan is having on rural communities is starting to get some recognition, and I expect will be highlighted further in socio-economic reports to be delivered this year, Mr Lolicato said.

To stop any further damage it is imperative that water recovery comes from efficiency and complementary projects.

The MINCO recognised this at its March meeting in Mildura, and it must continue to be the focus at this months meeting.

The June ministerial council meeting will discuss projects, known as sustainable diversion limit adjustment mechanism projects, and make a final determination on these by the end of the year.

Our nation, in particular regional communities that rely on food and fibre production, need all states to approach the SDLs with a commitment and willingness to agree on an implementation schedule that will recover additional water without further social and economic damage, Mr Lolicato said.

At its March meeting the ministerial council agreed to a pathway to implement the Basin Plan that included reaching the water recovery target of 2,750 gigalitres using the SDL adjustment mechanism, and recovering the additional 450GL, referred to as up water with neutral or improved socio-economic outcomes.

We firmly believe the additional 450GL should be taken off the table because there is little scientific proof that it is needed for the environment, Mr Lolicato said.

There is no evidence to show it is needed, so why would we try to recover it? It doesnt make sense.

Mr Lolicato said ministers also need to recognise an indisputable fact attempting to squeeze large volumes of water through the Barmah and Millewa chokes trying to deliver the original 2,750GL will continue to collapse the river banks in the mid-section of the Murray and Edward Rivers, and the suggestion of an additional 450GL would be sheer madness.

The compensation which would have to be paid to landholders under this scenario would be astronomical, let alone the cost to rehabilitate the damage to the river and adjoining environment, Mr Lolicato said.

We trust ministers will accept this reality and take a balanced, common-sense perspective at the June meeting.

We mustnt forget that communities were promised a plan that delivered the so-called triple bottom line, which gave equal prominence to social, environmental and economic outcomes.

Unfortunately to this point the environmental aspect has been the primary consideration, to the detriment of rural communities.

Lets hope this months meeting is another step towards delivering what our communities were promised.

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Important meeting for our nation's future | Deniliquin Pastoral Times - Deniliquin Pastoral Times (registration) (blog)

Johannesburg The collapse of a roof at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital was caused by "negligent" overloading of rubble, Gauteng Infrastructure MEC Jacob Mamabolo said on Wednesday.

"The intention was for the crushed stone to be removed, regrettably it was stockpiled on the roof. The excessive load caused as a result, the collapse."

On March 2, 2017, five people sustained minor injuries when part of the roof near the hospital's main entrance collapsed.

Workers from a privately-owned company were repairing a leaking section of the roof at the time.

"The contractor was negligent in how it conducted their work. They should have removed the crushed stone from the roof. Instead of removing the stones from the roof, they allowed the stones to piled up...."

He said the contractor should have known that that particular weight could not be carried by the structure, and it was their responsibility to execute the project safely without damaging the property.

"The damage caused and the people injured are treated in a serious light."

Mamabolo said those responsible for the collapse would be held accountable.

He said the incident had led the department into reviewing how it appoints contractors.

Mamabolo said he commissioned the report after the collapse on March 2.

He received a report from specialist attorneys Adams & Adams on April 4. According to the infrastructure department's website, the Gauteng government planned to spend R42bn on socio-economic infrastructure programmes in the next three years.

Shortly after the collapse, two anonymous sources told News24 that another section of the hospital, a dental clinic run by the University of the Witwatersrand, had been cordoned off because part of its ceiling, which collapsed in January, had still not been repaired.

24.com encourages commentary submitted via MyNews24. Contributions of 200 words or more will be considered for publication.

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Chalotte Maxeke roof collapse caused by 'negligent' rubble overload - MEC - News24

By Emeka Aginam LAGOSBroadband service providers in Nigeria have warned that the broadband plan of the Federal Government might be derailed unless difficulties threatening to cripple their operations were addressed immediately by the government.

The operators, made up of broadband companies in Nigeria, also asked the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, to take immediate and decisive steps to avert the looming threat of strangulation facing its members.

The delegation of operators made the call during a visit to the Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, in his office in Abuja.

The operators noted that the industry was in a situation where they were all finding it difficult to justify the required investment case for additional CAPEX for network capacity expansion to improve quality of service to customers.

The delegation included Mr. Godfrey Efeurhobo, Managing Director of Smile Communications; David Venn, Managing Director of Spectranet; Mr. Osondu Nwokoro, Director Regulatory and External Affairs of NTel and Mr. Chuma Okoye, Chief Commercial Officer of Swift Networks.

Warning on a systemic industry failure threat, with likely negative collateral and great national socio-economic implications, the group further noted that the Network OPEX of Telecommunication Operations had skyrocketed in the last 15 months by over 85%, with revenues remaining relatively flat.

Most operators, according to the group, are currently struggling with meeting obligations to their suppliers, particularly Network Vendors, TowerCos and servicing Loan obligations.

This worrying trend, they noted, includes even some of the Tier I Operators.

According to them, a perfect storm is brewing and if not headed off will result in the collapse of key players in the industry.

According to the operators, the domino effect of bankruptcy of any of the Tier I or Tier II operators on the entire ecosystem, particularly, banking, employment, corporate and SMEs businesses constitutes a major threat to the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, ERGP, of the current administration.

Such bankruptcy and consequent collapse, they noted will also substantially lessen competition with its attendant deleterious impact on consumer choice and attainment of the Broadband objectives of the country.

Read the original:

Operators list threats to FG's broadband plans - Vanguard

By CHIMA AKWAJA, Lagos

Broadband telecommunications service providers using fourth generation (4G) technology, also known as Tier II operators, have drawn attention to the difficulties threatening to cripple their operations, with the attendant effect of derailing the broadband plan of the federal government.

Accordingly, the operators are asking the the industry regulator, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), to take immediate and decisive steps to avert the looming threat of strangulation, which its members currently face.

The leaders of the telecoms operators made the call during a visit to the executive vice chairman of the NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, in his office in Abuja.

They were represented by a high-powered delegation made up of Mr. Godfrey Efeurhobo, managing director of Smile Communications; David Venn, managing director of Spectranet; Mr. Osondu Nwokoro, director regulatory and external affairs of nTel and Mr. Chuma Okoye, chief commercial officer of Swift Networks.

They warned against a systemic industry failure threat with likely negative collateral and great national socio-economic implications in the offing.

According to them, the industry was in a situation where all operators are finding it difficult to justify the required investment case for additional capital expenditure (capex) for network capacity expansion to improve quality of service to customers.

They further noted that the network operating expenditure (opex) of telecommunication operations has sky rocketed in the last 15 months by over 85 per cent with revenues remaining relatively flat.

Most operators, they observed, were currently struggling with meeting obligations to their suppliers, particularly Network Vendors, TowerCos and servicing Loan obligations.

This worrying trend, they noted, includes even some of the Tier I Operators, adding that a perfect storm was brewing and if not stopped, it will result in the collapse of key players in the industry.

According to them, this is because the domino effect of bankruptcy of any of the Tier I or Tier II operators on the entire ecosystem, particularly banking, employment, corporate and SMEs businesses, constitutes a major threat to the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERPG) of the current administration.

The observed that such bankruptcy and consequent collapse will also substantially lessen competition with its attendant deleterious impact on consumer choice and attainment of the Broadband objectives of the country.

The MDs stated that the NCCs declaration of 2017 as the Year of the Telecoms Consumer can be derailed by failure of operators to deliver on the expected quality of service, particularly on data throughput and experience due to the weak investment case to support additional capex as a result of deteriorating market conditions.

Symptoms of the declining fortunes of operators, they stated, were already evident in the market as debts continue to grow and overall service quality continues a downward trend.

They said there is a grave threat to the Broadband Agenda of the government and expected dividend from growth in Broadband penetration envisaged in the Economic Recovery and Growth plan 2020.

This threat, they warned, will materialize if the market is not sanitized and the Tier II operators are not protected to encourage and justify the capital investment required to continue to invest and improve broadband penetration in the country.

The Tier II operators also bemoaned their deteriorating fortunes due to predatory pricing and cross subsidy of data using voice by Tier I operators who possess significant market power.

This, they said, is a challenge the NCC must intervene to stop.

They, however, concluded by applauding the various interventions of the NCC in engaging other stakeholders in ameliorating the difficulties that operators face.

Expressing their gratitude to Danbatta for intervening with the CBN to reduce the burden of Forex liquidity, they also commended him for his role in leading the campaign to educate the populace that base stations do not cause cancer.

They further implored him to protect the Tier II Operators so that their operations will not collapse.

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Broadband: Telecom Operators Warn Of Possible Collapse ... - Leadership Newspapers

The governor made the observation at a media parley in Ilorin as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the state.

The Kwara State Governor, Dr. Abdulfatah Ahmed, over the weekend warned of imminent collapse of local government areas in most part of the countryshould the dwindling federal allocation to the third tier of government persist.

The governor made the observation at a media parley in Ilorin as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the state.

He said the dwindling allocation had continued to threaten the existence of the local government structure.

According to Ahmed: If the problems of the local government areas must be permanently laid to rest, the revenue base of local government areas must be broadened. Local Government Areas require to be reformed along financial sustainability and independence if they are to carry out their statutory obligations at the grassroots.

The governor said it is mischievous blaming state governments for the incapacity of some Local Government Areas to meet their statutory financial obligations of paying salaries.

Ahmed insisted that the state government did not deduct any penny from allocation due to the third tier of government.

According to the governor, the term Joint Account Allocation Committee does not imply a joint account between the state and the local governments but a joint account among the 16 council areas.

He insisted that the state government did not share out of the local government allocation.

On his activities in the last six years, Governor Ahmed said his administration had invested in education, health, infrastructures and human capital development to improve socio-economic development of the state.

The governor promised to sustain his strategic approach to issues and programmes with a view to making the state more economically viable.

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LGs will soon collapse Gov. Ahmed - The Eagle Online

(UPDATE 5 8:49 a.m. May 28) Scrambling to save the fifth round of formal peace talks, the negotiating panels of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) meeting in The Netherlands have agreed to continue informal negotiations at 9 am Sunday, May 28, (3 pm Philippine time).

NDFP panel spokesperson Luis Jalandoni told reporters Presidential Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza requested for the postponement of the resumption of their panel-to-panel meeting originally scheduled at 8pm Saturday (4 am Philippine time).

The parties met at 6:30 in the evening (12:30 am Philippine time) for the NDFP to submit a written reply to the GRPs statement that it would not participate in the fifth round of talks unless the Communist Party of the Philippines rescinds its earlier order to the New Peoples Army to further intensify its military operations against state forces.

The NDFP also said the GRP asked them to sign a bilateral ceasefire agreement for the fifth round to proceed. Reacting to the NDFPs written reply, GRP chief negotiator Silvestre Bello III said the NDFP reply is worth looking into.

Both the NDFP and the GRP refused to divulge the contents of the reply, however, saying they have mutually agreed to keep the current informal negotiations between themselves.

Their early evening discussion was attended by the Third Party Facilitator, the Royal Norwegian Government.

The GRP and the NDFP are still trying to save what appeared earlier in the day to be an imminent cancellation of the round, sources from both parties said.

Bello and NDFP counterpart Fidel Agcaoili were seen holding backchannel talks in between panel-to-panel discussions in apparent efforts to save the formal round.

Earlier, Agcaoili said it is the third consecutive round the GRP presented conditionalities before the peace negotiations formally opened.

The GRP has been consistently asking the NDFP for a bilateral ceasefire agreement since the third round in Rome last January. The NDFP position, expressed repeatedly, is that such is only possible when socio-economic reforms as well as political and constitutional reforms agreements have already been signed and implemented in accordance with The Hague Joint Declaration of September 1, 1992.

5th round still possible

Both parties said the fifth round is still possible.

Earlier reports reaching Manila on Saturday, May 27, indicate that the 5th Round of the formal negotiations between the Government of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherlands has been put in suspended animation by a last minute conditionality that almost scuttled the talks, now best described as in recess as a result.

The respective panels of both sides promptly scrambled to troubleshoot the negotiation in order to try and salvage the peace talks.

The NDF Negotiating Panel said it was drafting a reply to its Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) counterpart as part of efforts to find common ground, untangle the bind and allow the fifth round of formal peace negotiations to proceed.

The government of the Philippines had announced it would not proceed with the scheduled 5th round of talks, through Presidential Spokesman Ernesto Abella in the light of the latest public announcement by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) to accelerate and intensify its attacks against the government due to the Presidents declaration of martial law in Mindanao.

We question the sincerity of the CPP/NPA/NDFP, if they truly are in pursuit of peaceful coexistence. The Duterte administration would rather pursue the path of genuine dialogue to build a nation worthy of its citizens.

Abellas statement wrong GRP chief negotiator Silvestre Bello III, for his part, clarified that Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abellas statement was wrong.

Abellas announcement was lifted from Durezas prepared statement read to Filipino and Dutch journalists covering the talks.

Informed of Abellas announcement, Bello looked surprised but underscored that such statements should come only from the government panel present in The Netherlands.

The fifth round is still a possibility, Bello maintained.

The panels are set to meet again in a last ditch effort to salvage the scheduled fifth round, Kodao Productions indicated in a dispatch as reported by Raymund B. Villanueva.

The CPP order to NPA The CPP order had been in response to the intensified AFP operations and widespread human rights violations preceding and following the declaration of Martial Law in the whole of Mindanao.

President Duterte justified his Martial Law declaration by citing as reason the terrorist actions of the Maute Group in Marawi City.

But Lorenzana declared that the NPA was also a target of AFP military operations.

Silvestre Bello made a subsequent clarification that Duterte had said that the Mindanao martial law was not aimed against the NPA.

NDF reply NDFP chief negotiator Fidel Agcaoili said their reply will clarify to the GRP the NDFP panel could not order the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) to retract its order to the New Peoples Army (NPA) to further intensify their offensive operations against the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police.

Agcaoili explained the CPPs directive was a response to GRP Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzanas statements that the NPA was among the targets of President Rodrigo Dutertes Martial Law declaration over the entire Mindanao region.

Agcaoili cited bombings of communities in North Cotabato and Bukidnon that killed one civilian and injured several others in the past two days.

There are NPA units operating in those areas, Lorenzana reasoned.

He added that the NDF could only recommend to the CPP in much the same way that GRPs chief negotiator Silvestre Bello III and Presidential Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza could not order the AFP and the GRP security cluster to withdraw their all-out war policy against the NPA and lift President Rodrigo Dutertes martial law declaration over the entire Mindanao region.

Agcaoili said they have gone as far as they could go in recommending to the CPP to reconsider its order to the NPA.

GRPs cease fire demand Agcaoili revealed the NDFP panel was also told by the GRP panel it wants a bilateral cease fire agreement signed during the fifth round.

We have made our position clear that until we reach an agreement on social and economic reforms as well as political and constitutional reforms, there could never be a cease fire, Agcaoili said.

We hope they would receive our reply positively so that, hopefully, we can proceed with the opening ceremony of the fifth round tomorrow [Sunday], Agcaoili said.

We question the sincerity of the CPP/NPA/NDFP, if they truly are in pursuit of peaceful coexistence. The Duterte administration would rather pursue the path of genuine dialogue to build a nation worthy of its citizens.

Word reaching Manila from The Netherlands, indicated that the fifth round of formal peace negotiations had, indeed, hit a snag with the announcement bythe government panel of its conditionality.

Mixed signals This is the second time the GRP submitted to its counterpart a set of demands before a formal opening to a round of formal peace negotiations. For his part, the NDFs negotiating panel chair Fidel Agcaoili reacted to the Abella statement: This is contrary to what the GRP negotiators are saying here, after they submitted to us a copy of Durezas opening speech containing such a pronouncement. They [the GRP panel] are now clarifying that they are they are willing to sit down and find solutions to the problems. So, like everyone else, the NDFP is receiving mixed signals from the GRP. But we hope to know the real score in a couple of hours time.

In a press briefing, the NDF panel said this demand by the GRP is a new one and it was not included in their April 6 Joint Statement that the fifth round of talks shall focus on the socio-economic reforms agenda.

NDF added that a signed bilateral cease fire agreement must only come after ground rules for its implementation have been forged by the parties: We are supposed to be talking while fighting like the parties have successfully done in the past, especially during the Ramos regime.

The status at the moment may best be described as a recess while both sides try to work out whether to proceed or not.- With Raymund B. Villanueva, Kodao Productions

Below are excerpts from two texts, from remarks already prepared prior to the last-minute snag that hit the talks.

OPENING REMARKS AT THE FIFTH ROUND OF FORMAL TALKSIN THE GRP-NDFP PEACE NEGOTIATIONS AT NOORDWIJK AAN ZEE

By Prof. Jose Maria Sison Chief Political Consultant, National Democratic Front of the Philippines May 27, 2017

We are riding on the momentum set by four successful rounds of talks and by unilateral meetings and bilateral consultations between rounds. We in the NDFP appreciate once more that President Duterte recently received and conversed with the Chairperson of the NDFP Negotiating Panel Fidel Agcaoili, Panel member Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria.

To stay on course in the peace process, we must firmly adhere to the major agreements that the GRP and NDFP have reaffirmed since the first round in August last year. We must follow the substantive agenda set by The Hague Joint Declaration and the Joint Agreement on the Sequence, Formation and Operationalization of the Reciprocal Working Committees.

We must assure all the openly known participants in the peace process of both sides and the holders of documents of identification that they are entitled to, protected by and enjoy safety and immunity guarantees under JASIG. It is highly desirable and necessary that all the participants in the peace process are not subjected to any kind or degree of duress, such as surveillance, harassment or threats of arrest or even worse.

We must resolutely comply with and diligently implement the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). The hundreds of political prisoners listed by the NDFP must be released in the most expeditious manner. Even while in the mode of carrying out its all-out war policy, the GRP and its armed forces, police and paramilitary auxiliaries must be guided and bound by CARHRIHL. Likewise the NPA and the peoples militia must comply with CARHRIHL as they engage in self-defense and counter-offensives.

Frankly speaking, the NDFP is unwilling to engage in any kind of prolonged and indefinite ceasefire agreement before there are substantive agreements on social, economic, political and constitutional reforms which are significantly beneficial to the people. The NDFP does not wish to fall into the trap of capitulation and pacification, betraying the trust of the oppressed and exploited masses of the people. It also does not wish to preoccupy the peace process with accusations and counter-accusations of ceasefire violations and put aside the peoples demands for basic social, economic and political reforms.

The Filipino people and both the GRP and NDFP are aware of the fact that on February 5, 2017 GRP Secretary of National Defense Lorenzana declared an all-out war policy against the NPA. In this connection, President Duterte terminated the JASIG and in effect the entire peace negotiations. He also issued on March 7 the order to the AFP to use artillery fire and aerial bombing against the NPA on a nationwide scale. Despite the March 11 backchannel agreement for the GRP and NDFP to resume peace negotiations and to issue simultaneous and reciprocal unilateral ceasefire declarations, President Duterte did not order the issuance of the GRP declaration of unilateral ceasefire, according to a public statement of Lorenzana. The NPA has had no choice but to engage in self-defense and counter-offensives.

The cause of intensified fighting between the armed forces of the GRP and NDFP is the GRP all-out war policy and threat of martial law. It is wrong for anyone to blame the NPA and claim that it has gone out of the command and control of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the NDFP. The NPA maintains high fighting morale and iron discipline under the absolute leadership of the CPP. It is even more absurd to claim that the NDFP negotiating panel has lost its authorization from the NDFP to negotiate with the GRP negotiating panel and to make recommendations to the NDFP principal.

If the objective of the intrigue is to justify the GRP all-out war policy and extract a bilateral or joint ceasefire agreement ahead of any substantive comprehensive agreement on basic reforms, the GRP is practically terminating the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations or daydreaming that it can destroy the NPA by force of arms in the course of the peace negotiations. The NDFP Executive Committee has already informed the NDFP Negotiating Panel that the NPA is intensifying the peoples war under the absolute leadership of the CPP to resist and defeat the all-out war policy of the Duterte regime and the scourge of martial law for Mindanao and possibly for the entire Philippines.

However, in so many examples of successful peace negotiations in various countries, it is possible to negotiate while fighting goes on in the battlefield. We were able to forge the CARHRIHL in only six months in 1998, even as the civil war went on between the belligerent forces. It is possible to continue to accelerate the negotiations and forge the CASER within the current year and the CAPCR within the first quarter of the next year on time for the framing and ratification of a charter founding the Federal Republic of the Philippines.

It is preferable to accelerate the peace process rather than overburden or lay this aside with what the NDFP cannot accept: the negotiation of an interim Joint Ceasefire Agreement in violation of the substantive agenda set by The Hague Joint Declaration and the Joint Agreement on the Sequence, Formation and Operationalization of the Reciprocal Working Committees. While the civil war continues, the GRP and the NDFP can demonstrate their respective causes and fighting capabilities within the framework of CARHRIHL. The battles ought to prove that the peace negotiations are necessary.

A prolonged and indefinite interim joint or bilateral ceasefire agreement may be negotiated and drafted in advance but should not be signed and approved by the principals of the GRP and NDFP ahead of any of the substantive agreement even by a split second. We in the NDFP do not wish such a ceasefire agreement to preempt the substantive agreements, especially CASER. The NDFP also considers it desirable and necessary that the basic reforms are being implemented for at least two years before the permanent truce can be formalized in the Comprehensive Agreement on the End of Hostilities and Disposition of Forces.

It might be relatively easy for the GRP and NDFP Negotiating Panels to forge the CASER as a policy agreement. But it might be more difficult to obtain from GRP as annexes to the agreement the executive orders, legislation and constitutional amendments needed to implement CASER in view of the predominance of pro-imperialist and reactionaries within the different branches of the GRP and in view of their priorities which run counter to genuine land reform and national industrialization and which divert economic and financial resources from these.

The security cluster of the Duterte cabinet is interested only in the capitulation and pacification of the revolutionary movement through a combination of all-out war policy, martial law and a lopsided joint interim ceasefire agreement. The economic development cluster of the Duterte government is dominated by the neoliberals who oppose social and economic reforms. We refer to the problems in order to solve them.

If used by the Duterte regime to aggravate its all-out war policy against the revolutionary forces, martial law will increase the power of the pro-imperialists and reactionaries within the regime and will incite the revolutionary force and the broad masses of the people to intensify the peoples war. The only conceivable instance when the NDFP can agree with the Duterte regime on the proper use of martial law is when there is an alliance to combat the armed collaboration between US imperialism and local reactionary forces. Otherwise, the regime has to reckon and contend with a broad united front against a Marcos-type martial rule.

They are peace spoilers within and outside the Duterte regime who wish to impugn the credentials of the NDFP Negotiating Panel and the NDFP Chief Political Consultant. The fact stands that the principal of the NDFP Negotiating Panel is the NDFP National Council and its Executive Committee. These include the representatives of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New Peoples Army, with the former having command and control over the latter. They make their consensus on whatever policy and course of action to take in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations by relying on the reports and recommendations of the NDFP Negotiating Panel to the NDFP National Council.

The major points that I have presented and stressed in these opening remarks come from the latest appraisal of the situation and the instructions that the National Executive Committee has given to the NDFP Negotiating Panel. The NDFP Negotiating Panel has no command and control over the NPA, just as the GRP Negotiating Panel has no such command and control over the AFP and PNP. But it provides to its principal the reports and recommendations as basis for decision-making.

The NDFP Negotiating Panel through its Chairperson will elucidate to its counterpart the latest instructions that it needs to know.

OPENING SPEECH FOR THE FIFTH ROUND OF THE FORMAL TALKS

By Fidel V. Agcaoili Chairperson, NDFP Negotiating Panel

We in the NDFP Negotiating Panel have received a Directive from its Principal, the NDFP National Executive Committee.

Firstly, we have been directed to firmly adhere to The Hague Joint Declaration as the framework agreement for the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations. This Declaration sets forth the substantive agenda which aims to result in one comprehensive agreement after another on respect for human rights and international humanitarian law, social and economic reforms, political and constitutional reforms and the end of hostilities and disposition of forces.

The Declaration is reinforced by the Joint Agreement on the Sequence, Formation and Operationalization of the Reciprocal Working Committees. Thus, the subject of any prolonged and indefinite ceasefire or cessation of hostilities cannot be negotiated and agreed upon before the GRP and NDFP principals have signed and approved the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER) and the Comprehensive Agreement on Political and Constitutional Reforms (CAPCR). The proper time to discuss a prolonged and indefinite ceasefire is when we reach the point of negotiating and agreeing on the Comprehensive Agreement on End of Hostilities and Disposition of Forces (CAEHDF).

If the NDFP agrees to put the subject of a prolonged and indefinite ceasefire ahead of CASER and CAPCR, it would fall into the trap of capitulation and pacification and it would be abandoning the substantive agenda which are aimed at addressing the roots of the armed conflict through agreements on social, economic and political reforms to lay the basis for a just and lasting peace.

Secondly, the NDFP must demand compliance with Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) an already existing comprehensive agreement, especially in the face of certain violations. If the GRP does not comply with this comprehensive agreement, there would be no point in making further agreements.

In this regard, the NDFP raises the following prejudicial questions in demanding compliance with CARHRIHL.

1. Why are the political prisoners listed by the NDFP still being kept in prison in violation of the CARHRIHL and its provision on the Hernandez political offense doctrine as well as the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG)? There are expeditious remedies to set aright what is wrong.

2. Why is the GRP carrying out an all-out war policy, occupying communities, taking over civilian functions and using aerial bombs and artillery fire, against the people and revolutionary forces in violation of the CARHRIHL? The use of disproportionate force victimizes most the civilian population rather than the highly mobile guerrilla forces of the NPA.

3. Why are the NDFP Panel member and consultants to the peace talks continuously threatened and harassed?

4. Fourth, it must be pointed out that in raising these prejudicial questions, the NDFP is in no way attempting to hinder the peace talks. We must remember that the NDFP has no record of terminating the peace negotiations. A number of times, it was the GRP, under the Estrada, Arroyo, Aquino and Duterte regimes that has scuttled the peace negotiations, sometimes even without bothering to terminate the JASIG with the proper notice of termination given 30 days in advance.

At this point, the NDFP is faced with two possible reactions from the GRP.

One is that President Duterte may terminate the JASIG and the peace negotiations as he did last February 5 even before he could consult with his Negotiating Panel on February 20. In this event, the responsibility for the further escalation of the civil war will rest squarely on the GRP.

In truth, an all-out war has long been waged by the GRP against the revolutionary forces and people, despite the fact that there were unilateral ceasefire declarations.

As to the release of the hundreds of political prisoners, more than a year of negotiating with the Duterte government has thoroughly convinced the NDFP that the regime has no intention of releasing even the very small number of 15 it last mentioned. Instead, it is increasing the number of political prisoners and the concomitant violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. As of May 15, 2017 there are 403 political prisoners, 37 of them were arrested under President Duterte. There have been 59 cases of politically-motivated killings under President Duterte. In addition, there are tens of thousands of displaced persons all over the country as a result of military operations.

The recent martial declaration in Mindanao will surely lead to a burgeoning in the number of political prisoners and human rights violations.

The other possibility is that the GRP and NDFP continue to negotiate peace even while fighting continues in the battlefield. If this be the case, the NDFP remains willing to accelerate the peace negotiations and forge at the soonest time possible the comprehensive agreements on social and economic reforms and on political and constitutional reforms before the end of 2017 and early part of 2018, respectively.

Subsequently, the GRP and NDFP can discuss such subjects as the expeditious release of all political prisoners listed by the NDFP and a prolonged and indefinite ceasefire related to the implementation of all comprehensive agreements and the prospective end of hostilities and disposition of forces.

In any case, it is unacceptable to the NDFP for the GRP to insist on putting its demand for any joint or bilateral prolonged and indefinite ceasefire ahead of CASER and CAPCR in order to obtain the capitulation and pacification of the revolutionary forces and the people, and lay aside the substantive agenda and the ever urgent demands of the people for social, economic and political reforms necessary for achieving a just and lasting peace.

For its part, the CPP posted two articles on its web site articulating its position and perspective regarding the prevailing situation, as follows:

AFP offensives and atrocities in Mindanao heighten since declaration of Martial Law

Communist Party of the Philippines 27 May 2017

It would have been good if Bello were telling the truth that Dutertes Mindanao Martial Law is only aimed against terrorists and not against the NPA or the people in general. The facts on the ground, however, belie Bellos statements. The burden of proving such claims are heavy on the shoulders of Bello, as well as of key security and military officials of the Duterte government.

Prior to the declaration of Martial Law in Mindanao, the AFP has been carrying out intense armed offensives against the people and their revolutionary forces following the Duterte-Lorenzana declaration of all-out war against the NPA last February. Duterte has not rescinded this order .

Just this morning, we have received partial information from NPA operations commands in South, Far South and parts of North Central Mindanao that search and destroy operations, strike operations, shelling and occupation of peasant communities are being carried out intensively by the AFP against the NPA and the peasant masses in the following provinces:

1) Compostela Valley 2) Davao City 3) Davao del Sur 4) South Cotabato 5) Saranggani 6) Sultan Kudarat 7) North Cotabato 8) Bukidnon

These offensive operations have been heightened since the declaration of Martial Law. On May 24, AFP units carried out shelling and indiscriminate firing against peasant communities in Barangay Colon Sabak, Matanao, Davao del Sur. These areas are at least 180 kilometers from Marawi.

On May 25, on the second day of Dutertes Mindanao martial law, hundreds of elements of the 39th IBPA dropped bombs, shelled and indiscriminately fired 50 caliber machine guns at dominantly Moro civilian communities in barangays Salat and Tuael in President Roxas, North Cotabato and barangays Tangkulan and Anggaan in Damulog, Bukidnon. These areas are at least 100 kilometers away from Marawi City.

Abdullah Pamansag, a resident of Barangay Salat, was killed as a result of the aerial bombardments. Several other residents, Norhamin Dataya, Cocoy Dataya, Alex Dataya, Nasordin Maman and Nor Taligapin have suffered severe injuries. At least 1,600 residents of the affected barangays were forced to evacuate their communities. Human rights organizations and relief workers are being prevented by the military forces from extending assistance to the residents.

The civil and political rights of the people in Mindanao are gravely being curtailed and trampled on by the all-out attacks against the people. Hundreds of people are being rounded up. People are being detained or stopped from travelling for having no identification cards. The military are threatening people against issuing statements or posting information on social media that may be deemed anti-government. Military and bureaucrats have issued guidelines restricting peoples rights to assemble and prohibiting them from staging protest actions. A martial law crackdown hangs over the heads of social activists.

The state of human rights is set to go from dismal to worse as Duterte himself has assured soldier that he has their backs as he urged them to rape and carry out abuses all they want against the people.

In light of these out and out attacks against the people and their revolutionary forces, NPA units are being left with little option but to undertake more and more tactical offensives in order to defend the masses and the peoples army by stopping the reactionary state armed forces from carrying out their onslaught.

It is in this spirit of defending the peoples rights against the AFPs unmitigated fascist attacks that the CPP issued its May 24 declaration calling on the NPA to carry out more tactical offensives and urging the people to heighten their resistance against the imposition of martial law in Mindanao and demand its immediate lifting.

The Party has long declared its policy of fighting terrorism. The Party has consistently condemned groups that attack civilians. The revolutionary forces have long been against the Abu Sayyaf (and by implication, its supposed breakaway ISIS-linked or -inspired Maute Group) whose leaders collaborate with military officers in criminal activities. These groups use religious symbols to foment bigotry and violence against civilians in order to divide the Moro people and weaken their struggle for self-determination.

We must consider, however, the thick fog of disinformation which blankets the imposition of martial law in Mindanao. The AFP, andeven Duterte himself, has been spreading a lot of false information and fake news. Claims made by the AFP that the Amai Pakpak Hospital and the LaSureco (Lanao del Sur Electric Cooperative) were taken over by the Maute Group were exposed to be false. Even Dutertes claim that a police officer was decapitated was also exposed as fake news. Information about the so-called Maute Group is largely based on the public speculations by the police, the military and Malacaang.

Beyond the information supplied by the AFP fake news mill, people no longer know who the real terrorists in Marawi City are. At this point, it would seem that it is the AFP and its intense aerial bombings and martial law policies are the bigger terrorists in the city, causing the people of Marawi grave sufferings and hardships.

Continued here:

GRP, NDF panels scramble to save peace talks from collapse - InterAksyon

Every civilisation has its own distinctiveness. People of some civilisations were physically strong. Some were experts in building temples, beautiful houses and palaces and others earned acclaim in medical science and many other particular fields. Those civilisations were also limited in some particular geographical locations. But starting from the Middle Ages, being nourished throughout a couple of centuries, the world witnessed renaissance, industrial revolution and eventually IT-based, electro-mechanical and paperless civilisation. Cyber attack has now become a highly sophisticated, cheaper and more effective weapon for many countries. Robot technology, bio-technology, artificial intelligence and many other technological attainments are changing the world very rapidly. People are not being able to keep pace with the fastest changing technology. The world is entering a fully digitised version. Almost all activities are being reduced to be paperless. And this has made this world much more vulnerable in all respects. Cyber crimes and rapid changes in IT could bring a disastrous setback for this sophisticated human civilisation. We are now always in a great tension over when our various crucial passwords are going to be hacked while bank account and credit/debit card will become empty. Servers of all social communication sites are being collapsed by hackers or malware halting fully even the global communication. All satellites will be disconnected and even the control of nuclear bombs may go to the hands of terrorists or will be under the control of robots with artificial intelligence and many other unprecedented occurrences. The recent large-scale Ransomware attack is indicative of what the scale of future cyber attacks might be.

Almost everything is based on information technology in this 21st century. Without information and database technology, this world would stand still. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and many other cloud-computing facility-providers are setting up hundreds of data centres investing billions of dollars where human history, culture, business, commerce, financial transactions and daily activities are being stored. Many multinational companies, governmental and non-governmental organisations are taking facilities where all information are being stored in servers of some cloud-computing service-providers without setting up any server or data centre of individual companies. Every day millions of bits of data are being uploaded to the servers of Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and many other social and professional networks. All those data contain daily activities, past memories, ideas, achievements and various expressions of human beings.

The centralisation of data has both advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, preventing digital Dark Age might be comparatively easy through centralisation, but on the other, huge disaster might be caused by a single cyber attack, terrorist attack or natural calamities. This may be compared to keeping all eggs in a single basket.

So how much secure are those data? Is there any strong disaster recovery plan? Of course, there has been a strong disaster recovery plan of each organisation. But simultaneously cyber crimes are also increasing day by day and hackers are also becoming very much desperate. Cyber attack could bring no less severe consequences than an explosion of atom bomb. Moreover, natural calamities like tsunami and earthquake are taking an unprecedented shape and bringing huge disasters. Natural disasters are floods, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes/cyclones, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, heat waves, and landslides. Man-made disasters include the more cosmic scenarios of catastrophic global warming, nuclear war, and bio-terrorism. In the realm of information technology, disasters may also be the result of a computer security hazard. Some of these are computer viruses, cyber attacks, denial-of-service attacks, hacking, and malware exploits. They are causing huge infrastructural disaster as we have seen in the Tsunami in Japan and the collapse of Twin Tower by terrorist attack. Much other acts of sabotage are also taking place.

Another type of digital Dark Age is the perception of a possible future situation where it will be difficult or impossible to read historical electronic documents and multimedia because they have been recorded in an obsolete and obscure file format. The name derives from the term Dark Ages in the sense that there would be a relative lack of written records as documents are transferred to digital formats and original copies lost.

One concern leading to the use of the term is that documents are stored on physical media which require special hardware in order to be read and that this hardware will not be available in a few decades from the time the document was created. For example, it is already the case that disk drives capable of reading 5 1?4 inch floppy disks are not readily available. The Digital Dark Age also applies to the problems which arise due to obsolete file formats. In such a case, it is the lack of the necessary software which causes problems when retrieving stored documents. This is especially problematic when proprietary formats are used, in which case it might be impossible to write appropriate software to read the file.

A famous real example is with NASA, whose early space records have suffered from a Dark Age issue more than once. For over a decade, magnetic tapes from the 1976 Viking Mars landing were unprocessed. When later analysed, the data was unreadable as it was in an unknown format and the original programmers had either died or left NASA. The images were eventually extracted following many months of going through the data and examining how the recording machines functioned.

Organisations cannot always avoid disasters, but with careful planning, the effects of a disaster can be minimised. In order to overcome any disaster or damage, an organisation must have a strong Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP). We know that DRP is a set of documented procedures to recover and protect a business IT infrastructure in the event of a disaster. It is a comprehensive statement of consistent actions to be taken before, during and after a disaster -- natural, environmental or man-made. Given organisations' increasing dependency on information technology to run their operations, a disaster recovery plan, sometimes erroneously called a Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP), is increasingly associated with the recovery of information technology data, assets, and facilities. The plan minimises the disruption of operations and ensures that some level of organisational stability and an orderly recovery after a disaster will prevail.

Recently we are observing that hackers are being encouraged and trained in hacking activities. They are also being rewarded as brilliant software engineers. But unfortunately many hackers are not upholding their morality. They are taking part in many unethical and criminal hacking activities. But we should keep in mind that the greatest robber of the world may be the greatest in terms of his or her robbery, but can never deserve reward or appreciation. All hackers should apply their talent in defending all illegal hacking.

In today's global technological advancement, socio-economic changes, political changes, shifting of power and changes in international relations are absolutely unpredictable. None can predict what types of changes are going to take place in the near future. The most alarming would be artificial intelligence. Many scientists, especially Stephen Hawkins, always express their concern over advancement of artificial intelligence where machine or robot itself would take and implement many crucial decisions out of the knowledge of human beings. Then what might be the consequences is totally unimaginable.

proxima7507@gmail.com

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Cyber attack and digital disaster - Financial Express Bangladesh

Michelle Pfeiffer as Ruth Madoff and Robert De Niro as Bernie Madoff in The Wizard of Lies. (Photo: Craig Blankenhorn/HBO)

Back in 1990 director Barry Levinson gave us Avalon, his epic masterpiece on the American Jewish community. In that classic film Levinson skillfully examined the Eastern European Jewish immigrants and their often tumultuous encounter with the complexities of American culture and the assimilation process. It presented the fraught confrontation of Old World values with the brash and exhilarating world of 1950s America and its fast-paced lifestyle and Suburban sprawl.

We were able to see the generational clash and the shock of the new, but in a way that warmly remembered the struggles and disappointments of the immigrants and showed how their children moved on from the past.

It is this debilitating process which becomes the underlying subject of Levinsons chilling examination of the Bernie Madoff story.

In The Wizard of Lieswe see the pitfalls of Making It in America and how the Jewish community has reconfigured itself at the end of a very tumultuous century. The film is currently being screened on the HBO network

Expertly played by Robert De Niro in a dazzling performance that hearkens back to the iconic roles of his 1970s and 80s peak, Madoff is a reckless nihilist whose debased Long Island/Palm Beach 1%-er values mirror the excesses that we continue to see in the disaster that is Donald Trump.

Madoff is a truly nasty piece of work who relentlessly browbeats his family and associates as he remains completely oblivious to what it is that he is actually doing to his clients.

The movie notes the many ways in which Madoff ascended to the very apex of the financial services industry and became the idol of not only his investors, but of the institutional system itself.

He was held in awe by SEC and NASDAQ officials as a pioneering leader who helped to craft the laws regulating the industry. This idol-worship blinded regulators to the malfeasance that he perpetrated under their collective watch.

His insider knowledge of the system helped him commit his shocking fraud which parasitically shifted massive amounts of money from one place to the other as he eventually ran out of cash to continue to generate unrealistic returns for his clients.

While massively enriching himself and his unsuspecting family, Madoff was bilking his clients out of their life savings, eventually leaving many of them penniless.

Central to the story is the 2008 Wall Street collapse which was the beginning of the end of his demonic Ponzi scheme.

We will recall the process which began with the vile Ronald Reagan and ended with George W. Bush that sought to empower a feckless financial services industry at the expense of the internal coherence and stability of our economic system.

Prior to this collapse the movie shows us the Madoff world in full debauchery: expensive houses, vacations, lavish social gatherings, the very best shopping sprees, and the fast lane of American elite society.

The Wizard of Lies, brilliantly written by Sam Levinson, Sam Baum, and John Burnham Schwartz, is based on New York Times reporter Diana Henriques book (she also plays herself in the movie), and is structured using her prison-house interviews with Madoff as the framework of a series of intense flashbacks which present the sorry tale in revealing fragments; a similar structure to the one used in Avalon.

The film poster for Avalon.

Levinsons presentation focuses on the most basic human elements of the story which reminds us of the Avalon immigrants and their own complex dealings with the American economic system and the pluralistic social universe of their new homeland.

After many decades of engagement with America, Jews like Madoff felt entitled to game the system in a way that displayed a shocking lack of basic moral values.

Exploitation became the key to Madoffs scheme to enrich himself by bilking the unsuspecting investors.

But as De Niro/Madoff says in the movie, those investors including prominent Jewish figures like Elie Wiesel and many religious charities chose not to examine the suspiciously secretive way in which Madoff worked, and never questioned why it was that their returns were consistent as the market continued to fluctuate so wildly.

The Wizard of Lies is an implicit indictment not only of the American economic system, which has since the 1980s become an out-of-control train careening from one crisis to another, but also a critical examination of the debased mores of the 1% with a strong Jewish component in the social process.

The Krichinsky family in Avalon famously sits down to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with the full Turkey and trimmings, while the Madoffs entertain lavishly on the ritzy Long Island shore with Steak, Lobster, and Champagne.

The physical contrast between the humble Baltimore row houses in Avalon with the often obscene wealth of Madoffworld could not be more telling as we process the dramatic changes in the American Jewish community over the course of time.

Avalon sought to question the base materialism of the new generation by juxtaposing it to the thrift and humility of the immigrants.

The Wizard of Lies shows us the process completed in a way that removes the moral values of the Old Country and replaces them with degenerate greed and smug elitism; a process that manifests a revolutionary shift in values.

The Madoffs live high on the proverbial hog and have forgotten the most basic elements of life and of the essential dignity of the human being.

The film poster for Wizard of Lies

Bernie Madoff is a man who only sees his own well-being and remains oblivious to the pain he is causing others. He surrounds himself with yes-men and sycophants who cater to his every wish and desire. In one of the movies critical scenes he is shown tyrannically berating a group of workers setting up a meal at one of his lavish social affairs, showing no respect for their essential human dignity.

Madoff saw human beings as inert instruments to exclusively serve him and his interests. He showed no respect or consideration to his own family and to those who trusted him as their financial counselor.

The cruelty that he exhibited to his wife and children is often harrowing and truly unspeakable; their suffering is the manifestation of an inhumanity that represents evil in its most primal manifestation.

We have seen a similar narcissism and megalomania in Donald Trump whose own financial malfeasance also speaks to the explosion of ego and a blatant disregard of socio-political norms.

The connection between Madoff, a very uncaring Jew who thought nothing of using his elevated financial status to exploit his own community, and the larger institutional Jewish world is an important element in the story. The Madoff scandal prompted much soul-searching and hand-wringing in the Jewish world, as we see in a 2009 article by Jonathan Tobin from Commentary magazine. A 2008 New York Times piece by Robin Pogrebin quotes numerous rabbis and Jewish leaders attacking Madoff as a shanda, which is a Yiddish word that means shame or disgrace.

But the current Jewish embrace of Trump and his degenerate values shows that perceived financial self-interest continues to overshadow morality and ethics. In spite of the rise of Alt-Right Trumpworld Anti-Semitism and the numerous ethical violations coming from the White House, the institutional Jewish community continues to strongly back the president.

The Madoff personality-type remains central to contemporary Jewish identity. We have seen the ascendance of an Ashkenazi Jewish culture which has rejected the values of Religious Humanism and adopted a cynical, alienated stance that is deeply rooted in selfishness, materialism, and cruelty.

The Jewish community today is all about getting the upper hand and stomping out the little guy. Our leadership presents a smug superiority which revels in its economic success and assumes that wealth engenders honorific status and socio-political control.

The Wizard of Lies presents indelible scenes of the elites in their native habitat, reveling in their luxurious lifestyle which in turn has served to eviscerate their humanity.

In this toxic context there is little if any room for the most elementary religious concerns, as it is money and the things it can buy that have become the central defining factor in American Jewish life.

We have seen how this nefarious process works in David Brooks New York Times column The Orthodox Surge. Five years after the Wall Street collapse and in the looming shadow of Madoff, Brooks vigorously applauds Orthodox Jewish materialistic values and the lavish lifestyles that he saw in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Midwood. Brooks does not once refer to Madoff and his shenanigans, but he does proudly mention his tour guide Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, an individual who is at the forefront of Republican-Conservative Jewish politics and who is a committed enemy of the Sephardic tradition. We should recall that Madoff was beloved in the Modern Orthodox community where he was seen as a veritable Messiah. As Elie Wiesel put it: We thought he was God, we trusted everything in his hands.

It is of course said that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, and we have seen how Jews continue to engage in dubious financial behavior.

The 2016 Platinum Partners scandal extends the Madoff legacy to the present and speaks to a continuing culture of excess and corruption inside the Jewish community, which is so expertly detailed by Levinson in The Wizard of Lies with its many scenes of revelry and carnival-esque celebrations.

As we saw in Avalon, there was a dark side to the rampant assimilation and its attendant materialism: The abandonment of traditional values as understood within the framework of Religious Humanism produced an internal corruption that has led to the rot of The Wizard of Lies and a system that lionizes degenerates like Bernie Madoff and Donald Trump.

And so it is that we continue to see the collateral human damage that has been generated by a socio-economic system that famously produces people like Bernie Madoff.

In the masterful Wizard of Lies, a deeply striking work of historical reconstruction, we are able to process how all this works: the cheating, the arrogance, the cruel barbarity, and the materialistic excess all function as markers of a debasement of humanity that has untethered contemporary Jewish culture from its most important ethical values. It is a transformational motion picture which forces us to confront the demons among us.

It is thus critical that we again look carefully at the life of Bernie Madoff and rethink what is happening in our Jewish community before it is too late.

Our lives truly hang in the balance.

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From 'Avalon' to Madoff: What 'The Wizard of Lies' reveals about contemporary American Jewish identity - Mondoweiss

Opposition activists holding candles protest against the deaths of 43 people in clashes with the police during weeks of demonstrations against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Caracas,May 17. VWPics/SIPA USA/PA Images. All rights reserved.

Francesc Badia: The accelerating deterioration of the situation in Venezuela is a matter of global concern. We are witnessing extreme political polarization, and it is important to know what hope is left of finding a common ground, for preparing a solution to this situation - whether it be an orderly transition, or an agreed electoral calendar -: a solution that can bring some hope in these difficult moments. Meanwhile, the economy has gone down...

Orlando Ochoa: Yes, indeed. Whatever form a political way out takes (an election timetable, President Maduros resignation, an agreed transition), we must leave all doors open. We have been experiencing a period of very rapid economic deterioration over the last four years, but particularly in the last three. Gross Domestic Product, total and per capita, has fallen from 4% and 7% in 2014 and 2015, according to the official figures which are unreliable, because of political pressures on the board of the Central Bank to 18% and 21% last year (2016), according to unofficial figures provided by the same Central Bank. The accumulated GDP fall over the last three years is at least 30%. An economic collapse such as this happens only in countries at war. In the case of Venezuela, two things not war - are currently happening. One, runaway inflation, which is in the hundreds (again, it is hard to check the figures): estimates range from 500% to 800% last year, with salary adjustments by presidential decree lagging behind and covering less than half at the very best. There is thus an impoverishment of the population, basically due to the fall in purchasing power. On the supply side, moreover, Venezuelan industry and agriculture are not getting supplies - imported or from basic state-owned companies. They do not get supplies because there is no foreign currency to pay for them. And there is no foreign currency because there are exchange controls, because the price and the volume of oil exports have fallen, foreign currency reserves are exhausted, and exports other than oil have been disappearing because of the economic distortions and expropriations of the Hugo Chvez governments.

What we have had in the last three years is a very fast impoverishment process.

In this context of deterioration, where agricultural and industrial production are falling due to lack of supplies, there is the added problem of the distortion of the exchange rates, which are controlled by some ministers and are affected by extensive corruption. This has led to large public imports, basically of foodstuffs, medical drugs and some other items, leaving out all other elements of modern life, which the private sector has been able to import sometimes, at risk of being persecuted for price fixing at black market exchange rates, and therefore repressed. Hence, the intermittent supplies of basic goods and black market prices rising to levels even higher than the average inflation. In short, what we have had in the last three years is a very fast impoverishment process.

FB: How does this fast impoverishment affect the search for a political way out? What impact does time pressure have?

OO: The time to look for a political solution could indeed be calmer, notwithstanding the pressures of the politicians. But the speed of the socioeconomic deterioration, the fact that it is linked to macroeconomic problems, to the rate of inflation, to the way in which the fiscal deficit is financed (through the Central Bank), to the existence of a dysfunctional exchange rate, high corruption, and a declining private sector, produces a situation where time is not on our side, and therefore the search for a solution to this problem has to do with timely political change - a political solution. For there are strong ideological and populist elements embedded in the causes of all these socio-economic problems.

The radical left ideological element, and the classic - left or right-wing - populist element, which consist in subsidizing the voters to include them in a state patronage network, and in having an argument to defend national sovereignty before the traitors of the motherland, with its strong polarizing effect, always tend to present the situation as a battle in the class struggle, in the traditional 20th century Marxist-Leninist sense. So, the economic problem is first and foremost contingent on a political solution and the abandonment of an anti-market and de facto undemocratic ideology.

There are strong ideological and populist elements embedded in the causes of all these socio-economic problems.

FB: Let me then ask you about the attitude of the opposition. We know that the government is on the defensive, isolated, trying to weather the storm, but the opposition has a very determined agenda and is trying to unlock the situation. The opposition is made up of several parties the so-called G-4, or G-4 + 5, or G-9 -, which have adopted a strategy of street protests that, on the one hand, weakens the government, but on the other hand introduces an element of additional tension which is not only quite unbearable, but also quite dangerous stability-wise, and makes things even more complicated. What do you think the opposition should do?

OO: The opposition is aware of the difficult situation generated by the socioeconomic deterioration, and one of the main points it is demanding in order to proceed with the agenda the country needs is for the government to acknowledge this emergency situation. This could lead to the establishment of a humanitarian channel, to opening the door to humanitarian aid, which has already been offered for special medical drugs and nutritional support. It is a painful situation. On the other hand, the opposition - which consists of what you have rightly called the G-4 (four major parties) and the G-9, including five other small parties - has an essential coordinating task to do, and this means that sometimes some differences arise, and so they should - it is quite normal. The opposition has tried to negotiate with the government when the national and international perception was that they should be talking to each other and, today, it tries to reach an agreement on an electoral timetable - in short, it is saying: we are going to comply with the gubernatorial elections, then the mayoral elections, and finally, if possible, early presidential elections.

FB: Why?

OO: Because this is an unheard-of crisis situation, at least since the beginning of the 20th century. In more than a century of data on Venezuela, you cannot find anything like it. This is a crisis that we can define as endogenous, produced from within, for self-inflicted political and economic reasons - no external conflict and no civil war. Faced with this situation, the oppositions task is a complex one: it must focus on finding a political solution in order to be able to focus, then, on how to deal with the critical socio-economic situation. On the other hand, the international community has discussed how to approach the situation in Venezuela from the OAS and the UN, which has already adopted a more active position in several fields, to Mercosur and the European Union.

This is a crisis that we can define as endogenous, produced from within, for self-inflicted political and economic reasons.

FB: We are clearly facing a multidimensional conflict, the way out of which will have to be worked out on different fronts, right?

OO: Yes. I think we can talk about three dimensions to the conflict: one, in the streets (the oppositions mobilization); another, in the international community; and the third in the economic-financial sphere (where the critical situation is, unfortunately, self-inflicted). The government, by ignoring the National Assembly, has been left without a budget and a public credit law, and without them there is a real risk that financial operations in the future will be unknown. In this, the constitution is categorical: it states, as in practically all parliamentary systems, that the budget laws must be approved by parliament. So, in the financial field, the government has an added problem: debt servicing on government bonds and the state-owned oil company (PDVSA), in addition to the servicing on other important debt, including debt contracted with China, which is heavy, particularly after 2018. It lacks liquidity to guarantee basic imports, equipment supplies for the oil industry, gasoline (Venezuelan refineries are not currently working well), and thinner for extra-heavy oil, which is very expensive. So, this is a government harassed on several fronts.

FB: You have already mentioned it, but I would like to dwell on the role of the international community in the current conflict. Do you think the multilateral actors have a role to play, considering the positions adopted by different countries?

OO: The discussions on Venezuela, the international resolutions of the different agencies, the exhortation messages of the different governments, the messages of the heads of state in direct talks with the Venezuelan head of state, all this has created a climate in which Nicols Maduro's government feels pressured. They are being scrutinized on questions which, when Chavismo came to power, were very dear to them: interest in social issues; respect for human rights; democratic legitimacy; and international recognition of Venezuelas very active role and influence, in Hugo Chvezs first years, on politics and sectors on the left in several countries. The effect of international pressure has been twofold. On the one hand, it has encouraged the protests in the streets: international recognition and following-up of these protests, along with their tragic dimension, has spread through all the means technologically available, which have made it possible to witness, practically live, young men falling during confrontations with the police, to see the symbols of both sides in the conflict, and let them be known globally. But international pressure has also hit public finance. When a government with a public credit law has problems with debt maturities, it can do a so-called rollover - it can re-finance the debt. But Nicols Maduro's government cannot, for it lacks that law. Financial institutions, seeing that agencies such as the OAS have defined the situation in Venezuela as a breach of the democratic order, have been falling back on financial agreements. They have also felt that this not only entails a reputation problem for the financial institutions involved, but poses also a serious risk of non-payment all of which has meant a good deal of anxiety on the part of the government, an anxiety which it does not show in public, but which economists are well aware of. Faced with these three dimensions - confrontation in the streets, international pressure, and financial realities -, what we have is a besieged government.

We are talking here about a deficit of gigantic proportions. And yet, what we are thinking of is redesigning institutions, in the midst of a crisis and with a totally polarized country.

FB: But this pressure does not seem to be giving results in terms of progress or openings.

OO: What happens is that the governments ideology leads it to entrench itself. And now it is proposing to convene a National Constituent Assembly, which not only seems a mechanism to elude the electoral timetable, but is something like a "nuclear bomb" for the existing institutions, to the extent that it opens the way, through a procedure that has been questioned by both the opposition and several countries, to redesign all public powers, suspend the existing powers and put together something new - all of which entails economic costs. And this at a time when the Venezuelan public sector deficit, measured as a percentage of the size of the economy, has been in the last five years between 15 and 21/22 percent of the GDP. We are talking here about a deficit of gigantic proportions. And yet, what we are thinking of is redesigning institutions, in the midst of a crisis and with a totally polarized country.

FB: I would like to ask you a question about the day after.Let us imagine that the political crisis has been left behind and that the conditions for macroeconomic stabilization and the carrying out of the necessary social measures are finally there. What is the roadmap for a stabilization plan to move forward?

OO: We can scarcely fathom the political solution to this crisis. But whatever it is - elections, resignation of the president, transitional government, whatever... -, immediately after finding a way out, the very next day, the problem will be how to stop the economic downfall, the social mess and the suffering related to it. How to recover the huge fall in oil production, how to reset Venezuela's financial obligations and be able to answer the question of how we are going to pay back our creditors. And then, also, how we are going to set up and carry out a stimulus and - literally - reconstruction plan of the private sector of the economy (industry, agriculture, services, infrastructures) and the big public enterprises (steel, aluminium, electricity, petrochemicals and the companies that were nationalized by the governments of Hugo Chvez. Some are currently in a state of near paralysis or, in some cases, are operating at between 5 or 10% of their productive capacity and a maximum of 30 to 40%. The deterioration of social conditions requires, in addition, a social emergency plan. Of course, we are now thinking and weighing ideas to see what can be done. But it should not be a plan designed exclusively by the opposition: it should be a national plan, it should be inclusive - even the political way out could be, and should be inclusive. A country still in conflict would find it so much harder to have a credible economic emergency plan.

A country still in conflict would find it so much harder to have a credible economic emergency plan.

FB: So, what should be done?

OO: Start with a stabilization plan. Lower inflation, stabilize the exchange market, order it with a single rate - which requires ordering public finances -, and devise a plan to gradually close the public sector deficit. But we also need a plan for Venezuela's core activity, oil production, since the private sector has virtually disappeared from exports. Twenty years ago, non oil-related companies, public and private, accounted for almost 25% of the country's exports; now it is down to only about 4%.

A macroeconomic plan and an oil plan, and a financial plan to cover the needs of the macroeconomic plan and the oil plan - that is, our export activity to generate foreign exchange. To this must be added a social plan, which has to be financed and which should therefore be part of the plan to reduce the fiscal deficit. Finally, we need a sectoral incentives plan for the recovery of the private sector.

In order to work, however, these plans must be simultaneous. Venezuela would require funding to carry them out and, for that, the first thing that comes to mind are, of course, multilateral mechanisms. There are institutions which exist to help stabilize, others to finance infrastructures, and others to help with projects for the private sector.

FB: But Venezuela possesses a strategic resource that will necessarily be part of the financing solution: hydrocarbons. How should it be used?

OO: Venezuela has an obvious special muscle: oil. Practically half of the oil production is in the hands of joint ventures between Petrleos de Venezuela and foreign partners; the other half is entirely in the hands of Petrleos de Venezuela: it is our own production. Addressing oil production would require an effort to reorganize this relation and to get the necessary financing to get on with production. But for producing oil and stimulating investment on the part of our partners who are already here, and the new ones who could be coming in, you need the foreign exchange market to work, because the costs of producing oil at the official (overvalued) exchange rate are enormous. But for the foreign exchange market to work, we must have a fiscal, monetary and financial plan. There is clearly an interaction in all of this, which means that Venezuela's recovery plan is going to be the most complex one in our history: it has to be simultaneous, and it must also have all the political support possible, for it is actually the country's central short term objective. Everything is intertwined: economic recovery, social plan, oil plan, financial plan, and also sectoral policies, which begin to make sense once stabilization gets going.

It will be a complex challenge of coordination and execution, but it can, and should, be done.

FB: So, you are optimistic?

OO: I am optimistic to the extent that I believe we can do it. There are interdisciplinary teams working on it. But this is a task that will really begin the day after and, of course, getting the right political climate would be most convenient. Not a divided, in-fighting country, not what we are currently witnessing. It will be a complex challenge of coordination and execution, but it can, and should, be done.

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Venezuela, the day after - Open Democracy

Venezuelas treatment by the international media is certainly special. Undoubtedly there are too many distortions, too much Manichaeism, too many slogans, too many manipulations and omissions.

Beyond the stupefying versions of media newspeak that interprets everything that happens in the country in the key of humanitarian crisis, dictatorship or political prisoners, or the heroic narrative of the Venezuela of socialism and revolution that interprets everything that happens in the country in terms of economic war or imperialist attack, there are many topics, subjects and processes that are invisible and that essentially constitute the national political scene. It is not possible to understand the current crisis in Venezuela without analysing the factors that develop from within.

The criterion of action and interpretation based on the logic of friend-enemy responds more to a dispute between the elites of the political parties and economic groups than the fundamental interests of the working classes and the defence of common goods Common goods In economics, common goods are characterized by being collectively owned, as opposed to either privately or publicly owned. In philosophy, the term denotes what is shared by the members of one community, whether a town or indeed all humanity, from a juridical, political or moral standpoint. . It is necessary to provide a comprehensive overview of the process of crisis and national conflict, which helps us plot the coordinates to transcend or deal with the current situation.

We present seven keys to your understanding, analysing not only the dispute between government and opposition, but also the processes that are developing in the political institutions, the social fabric, and the economic networks, while highlighting the complexities of neoliberalism and the forms of government and governance in the country. 1/ It is not possible to understand what is happening in Venezuela without taking foreign intervention into account

The rich and vast array of the countrys so-called natural resources; its geo-strategic position; its initial challenge to the policies of the Washington Consensus; its regional influence for integration; as well as its alliances with China, Russia and Iran, all give a considerable geopolitical significance to Venezuela. However, there are intellectual and media sectors that continually seek to avoid the very fluid international dynamics that impact on and determine the political future of the country, which highlights the persistent interventionist actions of the government and the power of the United States.

In this sense, these sectors are responsible for ridiculing the critique of imperialism, and present the national government as the sole actor of power at play in Venezuela, and therefore the sole object of political interrogation.

However, since the inauguration of the Bolivarian Revolution there has been much US interventionism in Venezuela, which has intensified and become more aggressive since the death of president Chavez (2013) and the context of the exhaustion of the progressive cycle and conservative restoration in Latin America. It is worth remembering the executive order signed by President Barack Obama in March 2015 which stated that Venezuela was an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. We already know what has happened to countries that are categorized in this way by the power to the north.

Now, we have the threatening statement of the head of the Southern Command, Admiral Kurt W. Tidd (April 6, 2017), arguing that The growing humanitarian crisis in Venezuela could eventually compel a regional response. This is combined with the evidence of the aggressive nature of the foreign policy of Donald Trump with the recent bombing of Syria, while the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, together with other countries in the region, intends to apply the Democratic Charter to open a process of restoration of democracy in the country.

The ideologues and the media operators of the conservative restoration in the region are very concerned about the state of human rights in Venezuela, but fail to explain in their analysis why, strangely, there is no supranational effort of the same type in the face of the appalling crisis of human rights in countries such as Mexico and Colombia.

In this sense it seems that the moral indignation is relative and they remain silent. It is because, for reasons of political intent or analytical naivety these sectors depoliticize the role of the supranational bodies and are unaware of the geopolitical relations of power that constitute them, that are part of their own nature. While a paranoid reading of all the operations driven by these global bodies is one thing, another very different approach is a purely procedural interpretation of their actions, ignoring the international mechanisms of domination and control of markets and natural resources that have been channelled through these institutions of global and regional governance.

But there is something important to add. If we talk of intervention, we cannot just talk about the US. In Venezuela there are growing forms of Chinese interventionism in the political and economic measures that have been taken, which points to a loss of sovereignty, an increase in dependency on the Asian power and processes of greater economic flexibility.

A part of the left has preferred to remain silent on these dynamics, since it seems that the only intervention that deserves to be mentioned is that of the USA. But both streams of foreign interference are being developed to promote transnational capitalist accumulation, the appropriation of natural resources and have nothing to do with popular demands. 2/ The concept of dictatorship does not explain the Venezuelan case

From almost the beginning of the Bolivarian Revolution Venezuela has been branded a dictatorship. This concept remains the subject of extensive discussions in political theory because it has been challenged by the transformations and complexity of contemporary regimes and exercises of power, especially in the current globalized era, which raises serious gaps and imprecisions in its definition.

Dictatorship is usually associated with political regimes or types of government in which all power is concentrated, without limitation, into a single person or group; there is a lack of separation of powers; the absence of individual freedoms, freedom of political parties, freedom of expression; and sometimes the concept has even been vaguely defined as the opposite of democracy.

The term dictatorship has been used in relation to Venezuela in media jargon of a fairly superficial, visceral and moralizing kind, practically to raise it as a kind of specificity in Venezuela, distinct from the other countries of the region, where in theory there would be democratic regimes.

The thing is that in Venezuela at the present time it is difficult to say that all power is concentrated in one person or group, due to the fact that in this country we are faced with a map of actors, which, although hierarchical, is fragmented and volatile, especially after the death of President Chvez, with the existence of various power blocs that can link up or be at odds among themselves and that goes beyond the dichotomy between government and opposition.

Although there is a government with a significant military component, with increasing expressions of authoritarianism and with some capacity for centralization, the scenario is highly unstable. There is no total domination from top to bottom, and there is some parity between the disputing power groups. On the other hand, the conflict could spill over, making the situation even more chaotic.

The fact that the Venezuelan opposition controls the National Assembly, winning convincingly by the electoral path, also indicates that rather than a pure absence of separation of powers, there is a dispute between them, until now favourable to the executive-judicial combination. Rather than a homogeneous political regime, we are faced with a wide and conflicting network of forces. The metastasis of corruption means the exercise of power is decentralized even more, making its centralization by the constituted power difficult.

What is relevant to the old Roman concept of dictatorship, is that, in this context, the national government is governing through decrees and special measures in the framework of a declared state of emergency, which has officially existed since the beginning of 2016. In the name of the struggle against the economic war, the advance of criminality and para-militarism, and the subversive advances of the opposition, many institutional mediations and democratic procedures are being omitted.

Security policies stand out for their severity, exemplified by the Operacin de Liberacin del Pueblo (OLP Peoples Liberation Organization); there are direct interventions by the state security bodies in different parts of the country (rural, urban, suburbs), to fight the underworld, which tend to lead to a controversial number of deaths; there is the paralysis of the referendum; gubernatorial elections were suspended in 2016 and it is not yet clear when they will be held; there is increasing repression and police brutality in response to the social unrest resulting of the situation in the country; and there is an increase in processes of militarization, especially in the border areas and those declared to contain strategic natural resources.

This is the political map, which, together with the various forms of foreign intervention, sets the stage for a low-intensity war that runs through virtually all the spheres of everyday life for Venezuelans. This is the framework within which individual freedoms, party opposition and pluralism, the convening and realization of marches, expressions of dissent and criticism in the media, among other forms of so-called democracy in Venezuela, are developing. 3/ In Venezuela the social contract, institutions and frameworks of the formal economy are being overwhelmed

If there is something that could be defined as a specificity of the Venezuelan case, it is that the current socio-political scenario is torn, deeply corrupted and highly chaotic. We have argued that in this country we are facing one of the most severe institutional crises in all of Latin America, with reference to the set of legal, social, economic and political institutions, among others, that make up the Venezuelan Republic.

The historic crisis of oil rentier model of accumulation, the metastasis of corruption in the country, severe violations to the social fabric from the neoliberal period and in particular since 2013, and the intensity of the attacks and political disputes, have overflowed the frameworks of the formal institutions of all areas of society, channelling a good part of the social dynamics by means of informal mechanisms, often underground and illegal.

In the economic sphere, corruption has become a transversal mechanism for distribution of oil revenues, diverting enormous amounts of foreign exchange at the discretion of a few, and undermining the foundations of the formal rentier economy. This occurs in a decisive manner with PDVSA, the main industry of the country, as well as with key funds like the Sino-Venezuelan Fund or a number of nationalized companies.

The collapse of the formal economy has made informality practically one of the drivers of the national economy as a whole. The sources of social opportunities, whether for social ascent or the possibility of higher profits, are often in the so-called bachaqueo in foodstuffs (illegal trade, at extremely high prices, on the black market) or other forms of trade in the various parallel markets, exchange, medicines, gasoline, and so on.

In the political-legal order, the rule of law lacks respect and recognition on the part of the main political actors, who not only mutually repudiate each other but are willing to do anything to overcome each other.

The national government faces what it considers the enemy forces with emergency measures, while the most reactionary opposition groups deploy violent operations of vandalism, confrontation and attacks on infrastructure. In this scenario the rule of law has been greatly eroded, making the Venezuelan people very vulnerable.

Impunity is ever greater, and has spread to all sectors of the population. This leads to corruption becoming even more rooted and impossible to prevent, and means the people expect nothing from the legal system, increasingly taking the law into their own hands.

The collapse of the social contract generates trends of everybody for themselves among the people. The fragmentation of power has also helped to generate, grow and strengthen various territorial powers, like the so-called miners unions that control gold mines in Bolivar state by force of arms, or the criminal gangs that dominate sectors of Caracas like El Cementerio or La Cota 905.

The framework presented implies nothing more and nothing less than the future and political definitions of the current situation in the country being developed to a great extent by force. 4/ The long-term crisis of Venezuelan rentier capitalism (1983-2017)

The collapse of the international price of crude oil has been instrumental in the development of the Venezuelan crisis, but it is not the only factor that explains this process. Since the 1980s there are growing signs of exhaustion of the model of accumulation based on the extraction of oil and the distribution of income that it generates. The current phase of increasing chaos in the national economy (2013-present) is also a product of the trends of the last 30 years in the countrys economy. Why?

For several reasons. About 60% of Venezuelan crude is heavy or extra-heavy. This crude is economically more costly and requires greater use of energy and the use of further processing for marketing. The profitability of the business that feeds the country is declining with respect to earlier times, when conventional crude prevailed. This is happening as the model requires ever more rentier profits and increased social investment to deal with the needs of a population that is still growing.

The hyper-concentration of the population in the cities (over 90%) promotes the use of profits directed primarily towards consumption (imported goods) rather than production. The boom years promoted the strengthening of the extractive (primary) sector - the effects of the so-called Dutch Disease - while significantly weakening the already weak productive sectors. After the end of the boom (as happened at the end of the 70s and now from 2014), the economy was more dependent and even weaker in the face of a new crisis.

The socio-political corruption in the system also makes it possible for leakages and fraudulent diversion of profits, which prevents the development of coherent distribution policies to alleviate the crisis.

The increasing volatility of international prices of crude oil, as well as changes in the global power balances in oil (such as the progressive loss of influence of OPEC OPEC Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries OPEP is a group of 11 DC which produce petroleum: Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela. These 11 countries represent 41% of oil-production in the world and own more than 75% of known reserves. Founded in September 1960and based in Vienna (Austria), OPEC is in charge of co-ordinating and unifying the petroleum-related policies of its members, with the aim of guaranteeing them all stable revenues. To this end, production is organized on a quota system. Each country, represented by its Minister of Energy and Petroleum, takes a turn in running the organization. Since 1st July 2002, the Venezuelan Alvaro Silva-Calderon is the Secretary General of OPEC.

OPEC : http://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/ ) also has significant impacts on the national economy.

While all these economic shocks are affecting the country, ecological resources will continue to be undermined and depleted, which threatens the livelihood of millions of Venezuelans for the present and future.

The governments current solution has been to greatly increase external indebtedness, distribute income more regressively, expand extractivism and favour transnational capital.

To sum up, any of the elites who rule in the coming years will have to face the historic limits that have been reached with the old oil-based model. It is not enough just await a stroke of luck and a rise in oil prices. Momentous changes are taking place and it is necessary to be prepared to deal with them. 5/ Socialism? Venezuela is carrying out a process of progressive economic flexibility and adjustment

Venezuela is developing a process of progressive and sectoralized adjustment of the economy, with more flexibility in comparison with prior regulations and restrictions on capital, and the gradual dismantling of social advances achieved in earlier times in the Bolivarian Revolution. These changes are masked by the name of socialism and revolution, although they represent policies increasingly rejected by the population.

This includes policies such as the creation of Special Economic Zones, which represents a comprehensive liberalisation of parts of the national territory, with sovereignty being delivered to foreign capital which administers practically without limitations in these regions. This is one of the most neoliberal measures of Agenda Venezuela, implemented by the government of Rafael Caldera in the 1990s, under the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund IMF International Monetary Fund Along with the World Bank, the IMF was founded on the day the Bretton Woods Agreements were signed. Its first mission was to support the new system of standard exchange rates.

When the Bretton Wood fixed rates system came to an end in 1971, the main function of the IMF became that of being both policeman and fireman for global capital: it acts as policeman when it enforces its Structural Adjustment Policies and as fireman when it steps in to help out governments in risk of defaulting on debt repayments.

As for the World Bank, a weighted voting system operates: depending on the amount paid as contribution by each member state. 85% of the votes is required to modify the IMF Charter (which means that the USA with 17,68% % of the votes has a de facto veto on any change).

The institution is dominated by five countries: the United States (16,74%), Japan (6,23%), Germany (5,81%), France (4,29%) and the UK (4,29%). The other 183 member countries are divided into groups led by one country. The most important one (6,57% of the votes) is led by Belgium. The least important group of countries (1,55% of the votes) is led by Gabon and brings together African countries.

http://imf.org .

Also we should highlight the gradual relaxation of the agreements with foreign corporations in the Orinoco; liberalization of prices of some commodities Commodities The goods exchanged on the commodities market, traditionally raw materials such as metals and fuels, and cereals. ; growing issuance of sovereign bonds; devaluation Devaluation A lowering of the exchange rate of one currency as regards others. of the currency, creating a floating exchange rate (Simadi); acceptance of some trade procedures directly in dollars, for example, in the tourism sector; or the faithful fulfilment of payment of the external debt and its servicing, which implies a reduction in imports and consequent problems of shortages of basic consumer goods.

A renewed and more flexible extractivism is being adopted, aimed mainly at the new frontiers of extraction, such as the mega-project of the Mining Arc of the Orinoco, which proposes to install mega-mining on an unprecedented scale in a territory of an area of 111,800 km2, threatening key resources of life for Venezuelans, especially for indigenous people. These projects add to long-term relations of dependency that are produced by extractivism.

It should be noted that these reforms are combined with the maintenance of some social assistance policies, continuous increase in nominal wages, some concessions to the demands of the popular organizations and the use of a revolutionary and anti-imperialist narrative. This obviously has as one of its main objectives the maintenance of the electoral support that remains.

We are witnessing what we have called a mutant neo-liberalism, to the extent that forms of commodification, financialisation and deregulation are combined with mechanisms of state intervention and social assistance.

Parts of the left have been very focused on preventing conservative governments coming to power so as to avoid the return of neo-liberalism. But they forget to mention how progressive governments have also made progress in a number of measures reflecting a mutant and hybrid neo-liberalism profile, which ultimately have an impact on the people and on nature. 6/ What alternative? The project of the parties of the Mesa de la Unidad Democrtica (MUD) is neo-liberal

The right-wing Mesa de la Unidad Democrtica (MUD Table of Democratic Unity) is the predominant bloc of party-based opposition to the national government, although a left opposition has been growing slowly and is very likely to continue growing. This critical left, at least in its more defined elements, is not identified with the MUD so does not link with it politically.

The MUD is not a homogeneous block, and there are sectors ranging from influential radical groups of the extreme right - which we could call Uribistas - as well as some sectors of moderate conservatism, and elitist liberalism with a certain distributionist tendency. These various groups have a mutually conflictual relationship characterized by possible confrontation and mutual insults.

Despite their differences, the various groups of the MUD agree on at least three key factors: its ideological matrix, the bases of its economic program and its reactionary agenda in relation to the national government and the possibility of a profound transformation of popular emancipation.

We will refer to the first two. Their ideological matrix is deeply determined by neoclassical theory and conservative liberalism, honouring obsessively private property, the end of the ideology on the part of the state and corporate and individual freedoms.

These ideological pillars are clearer in the program of this bloc than in its media discourse, where the rhetoric is simplistic, superficial and full of slogans. The synthesis of its economic model is in the Guidelines for the Program of Government of National Unity (2013-2019). It is a more orthodox neo-liberal version of oil extractivism, in relation to the project of the current Venezuelan government.

In spite of the slogans of change and productive Venezuela, what stands out is its proposal to extract up to six million barrels of oil per day, placing an emphasis on increasing the quotas of the Orinoco Oil Belt. Although they dispute publicly, the oil proposals of Henrique Capriles Radonski (Petrleo para tu Progreso) and Leopoldo Lpez (Petrleo en la Mejor Venezuela) are twins, and accord with the governments Plan de la Patria of 2013-2019. The change demanded is no more than another ratcheting up of extractivism, more profit Profit The positive gain yielded from a companys activity. Net profit is profit after tax. Distributable profit is the part of the net profit which can be distributed to the shareholders. and development oriented, with the economic and socio-environmental consequences and cultural features associated with this model. 7/The fragmentation of the people and the progressive undermining of the social fabric

In all these processes of low-intensity warfare and systemic chaos, working people are the most affected. The powerful socio-political cohesion set up in the early years of the Bolivarian Revolution has suffered not only from erosion but a gradual disintegration. But these effects have reached the very core of the tissues of the community in the country. The difficulty in covering the basic requirements of daily life; incentives for the individual and competitive resolution of the socio-economic problems of the people; the metastasis of corruption; the channelling of social conflicts and disputes by force; the loss of ethical-political references and polarization due to the discredit of the political parties; the direct aggression against strong or important community experiences and community leaders from various political and territorial actors; they are part of this process of erosion of the social fabric that aims to undermine the true pillars of a potential process of popular-emancipatory transformation or of the capacities of resistance of the people to the advancement of regressive forces in the country.

Meanwhile, various grassroots organizations and social movements across the country are building an alternative. Time will tell what their capacity for resistance, adaptation and above all their collective ability to articulate among themselves and to exert greater strength on the course of the national political project will be.

If there is an irreplaceable solidarity that should be promoted from the left in Latin America and the world, it must be with this struggling people, which has historically borne the burden of exploitation and the costs of the crisis. Which has frequently risen up and taken to the streets so that its demands are listened to and met. Which is currently facing the complex dilemmas posed by the current times of reflux and regression. This seems to be the true point of honour of the left. The cost of turning away from these popular counter-hegemonies in the name of a strategy of power conservation could be very high.

Source: Europe Solidaire Sans Frontires->http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spi...]

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Venezuela: Seven keys for understanding the current crisis - CADTM.org