Trade Unionists against Injustice

Human rights groups are condemning a Venezuelan court ruling this week which ordered trade union leader Ruben Gonzalez to seven-and-a-half years in prison for organizing a two-week, 2009 strike at a state-run iron-ore company in Ciudad Guyana. The BBC reported Monday that the crimes for which Mr. Gonzalez was convicted include “unlawful assembly, incitement, and violation of a government security zone.”

The 2009 strike was launched in protest against what seems to be a very legitimate grievance: unpaid wages. The AP this morning adds that more than 100 other trade unionists could face similar charges for participating in similar demonstrations.

One of the strongest criticisms of the Venezuelan court’s ruling has come from the rights group Provea. The group has been protesting the case against Mr. Gonzalez for some time [Gonazlez has been held in prison for over a year already], and Provea’s director Marino Alvarado this week calls the case “emblematic” of the increased “criminalization” of social protest in the country. Provea’s 2010 annual human rights report, released in Dec. 2010, included a special section on the issue. Lawyer Mariana Belalba, a lead author of the study, told IPS at that time that “more than 2,400 people are facing prosecution for exercising their right to peaceful protest” in Venezuela. Alvarado tells the AP yesterday that about 125 of those individuals are trade union members.

The Venezuelan rights coalition, Foro por la Vida (which includes Provea, among others), expressed similar concerns in Thursday, saying the Gonzalez case illustrates government fears about an independent labor movement.

Already the issue has uncovered a few significant fault lines in Venezuelan political life. The Chavez-leaning Aporrea came out in condemnation of the conviction against Ruben Gonzalez in an article yesterday, calling the case a “terrible paradox in the advance of 21^st century socialism.” The alternative media outlet also criticizes a “climate of impunity” in the country which, Aporrea says, has left the murders of numerous peasant and labor movement leaders unresolved. Aporrea also posts an interview with union leader, José Melendez of the Alianza Sindical, who echoes similar concerns from inside one sector of the labor movement. Melendez:

“If the government does not reverse this situation, if the Judicial System acts against those who today conspire against our revolutionary process, we will have the clearest of evidence that Ruben Gonzalez is a political prisoner.”

El Nuevo Herald seems to suggest Gonzalez is or at least was still a PSUV party member at the time of his arrest. I’ve read in other places that he is an ex-PSUV member.

The opposition paper Tal Cual reports today that worker protests began yesterday in support of Ruben Gonzalez. Tal Cual says the protest brought together a “multicolored” group of labor leaders, among them members of the democratic opposition, independent trade unionists, former chavistas, as well as “a significant number of PSUV labor activists.” (Other PSUV-aligned sectors of the labor movement have remained quiet about the Gonzalez case).

Also issuing a statement against the Gonzalez ruling this week was the anti-Chavista business lobby Fedecámaras. In a polarized society, perhaps the unjust nature of the Gonzalez conviction is one thing most Venezuelans can agree on?

Gonzalez's defense lawyer, Italo Atencio, says the decision against his client is in the process of being appealed.

To other stories:

· Also on Venezuela, El Universal reports on the final round of hearings at the Inter-American Human Rights Court in the case of former Chacao mayor, Leopoldo Lopez. Lopez is protesting his exclusion from 2008 regional elections in Venezuela saying, his inhabilitación by the Chavez government violated the American Convention on Human Rights. Lopez lays out his case for an American audience in the Huffington Post this week as well.

· Venezuela’s National Journalism Guild (CNP) is calling for an investigation into the murder of Venezuelan journalist Clara Fernandez, shot and killed in late February, apparently during a gun fight between armed groups.

· More on the arrival of Felipe Calderon to Washington today from the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. The former backgrounds the strained environment in which the meeting will occur today, while adding some new information about US aid deliveries to Mexico, or the lack thereof, that came out of a Wednesday press briefing:

“While about $1.6 billion in aid has been approved under the Merida Initiative, only about $400 million has been spent in more than three years, according to a senior U.S. official who briefed reporters Wednesday. The official, who spoke under ground rules of not being identified, said the administration would deliver $500 million worth of aid this year.”

The Journal quotes former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castaneda, who says he cannot remember a time when there has been so much “bad blood” between the two countries.

Other opinions and statements on the Calderon visit from John Ackerman at the Daily Beast; Human Rights Watch which is calling on President Obama to raise growing worries about human rights abuses with his Mexican counterpart today; and the LA Times which says the “stakes are too high” for Mexico and the US to not set aside their differences and use today’s meeting to “get bi-national relations back on track.” The Council on Foreign Relations also released a new report this week (“The Drug War in Mexico”), authored by David Shirk of the Trans-Border Institute. According to CFR, the report looks at what interest the US has in preventing a “further deterioration Mexico’s security situation.”

· Meanwhile, in Mexico itself, journalist Kristin Bricker at Upside Down World and Fernando León and Erin Rosa at Narco News both have pieces worth reading about the Reyes Salazar family. The latter speaks with Marisela Reyes Salazar whose sister, brother, and sister-in-law were the most recent members of the family to be found murdered late last week. “Please know that militarization is largely to blame for so much extortion, so many kidnappings, and so many murders that we’re seeing in Ciudad Juarez,” Marisela Reyes tells Narco News.

· In Mexico City, the Federal Police have released a report contending that at least seven cartels now operate at locations inside Mexico’s capital. According to the police, La Familia Michoacana, Sinaloa, Los Zetas, Juárez, Golfo, Pacífico Sur, and the remnants of the now imprisoned Édgar Valdez Villarreal’s (aka La Barbie) trafficking organization all now have Mexico City operations of one form or another. More from El Universal while Gancho comments.

· Gary Moore, for World Affairs, examines what it means when we talk about drug cartels “controlling territory” or not.

· Insight Crime on the expanding influence of Sinaloa into Colombia, perhaps now as a partner of the FARC. This after recent reports of Sinaloa cells in both Peru and Ecuador.

· The New York Times magazine this weekend is running a long feature on Lori Berenson in Peru.

· Reuters, meanwhile, on clashes between Peruvian police and wildcat miners Tuesday in the Amazon basin. The news service says about 1,000 Peruvian police and infantrymen are taking part in an operation to destroy wildcat mining equipment. The Tuesday clash is reported to have left at least one dead and 14 others injured.

· In economic news, Bloomberg writes that overall cuts to spending in Brazil will not affect the state’s social spending. In fact, Dilma Rousseff’s government plans to increase social spending through the country’s Bolsa Familia program by $1.26 billion (2.1 billion reais) in 2011. The Wall Street Journal reports on the Brazilian central bank’s decision to raise interest rates for the second time in three months – an attempt to cool off what some see as an “overheating” economy. Rates now stand at 11.75% per year – currently one of the world’s highest, according to the paper. El Nuevo Herald, meanwhile, looks at future worries about debt in Venezuela, should oil prices suddenly decline. As BBC Mundo reports this week, record high oil prices – as are being experienced currently – are often followed by precipitate crashes.

· On the international front, Peter Hakim in Foreign Affairs: Latinoamérica on US-Brazil relations – a relationship he believes will continue to be fraught with tensions in the coming period. Martin Khor, for the Third World Network, looks at one of those issues which has, for some time, had Brazil and the US on opposite sides: WTO Doha Round trade talks. The Miami Herald with an interesting piece earlier in the week on the role of Cuban doctors in rural Haiti. And finally, Venezuela and Hugo Chavez. The AP and Al-Jazeera report this morning on the Venezuelan leaders push for mediation in the Libya crisis. Chavez spoke with Libyan leader and old friend Muammar Gadaffi on Tuesday, according to Venezuelan Information Minister Andres Izarra, with the former proposing that a “friendly bloc of nations” — what’s being called a “Committee of Peace” — enter into the country’s current crisis to mediate some sort of solution. Al-Jazeera takes the story from there, reporting this morning that Gadaffi has “accepted” Chavez’s offer which would apparently also include the Arab League. Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro says details of the plan could be announced by the Arab League in Cairo on Thursday. But Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of the opposition National Libyan Council, tells Al Jazeera that he does not support the idea of talks with Gaddafi, adding that nobody has yet contacted him about the Venezuelan initiative. Stay tuned.