Sergio Ciancaglini de La Vaca

Today we continue an interview with Sergio Ciancaglini, from La Vaca cooperative.  For the past decade Global Exchange Reality Tours have included La Vaca on our rich educational itineraries. Learn about the work and mission of La Vaca during this interview conducted by our summer assistant Kathleen Reynolds.

Kathleen: What has been your experience with groups that have come from Global Exchange?

Sergio: My experience with the people who have come has been very exciting. I noted that there had been very good communication because Delia Marx was always there doing very good translation. This allowed me to explain things, that in English I could not. The experience has been very good. There have been many people with an attitude that is very interested in living new experiences and I think these experiences are very beautiful.

Group members enjoying the Iguazu Falls

In terms of improving the experiences, I think in these places and with these people, having these types of encounters provide a person with the key to understanding this very important phenomenon. It is like when you go to a museum and see a piece of fabric that has a particular color, but you don’t know it until you see it and read the explanations. You come to better understand what you are seeing and see the value in something as if it were new. These experiences are new and original experiences and that’s why the people of Global Exchange come. The travelers were interested in these types of experiences that we try to replicate as journalists. They are new, original experiences from the point of view of human rights, the problem with the environment, the problem with production, but also from the point of citizenship and democracy. For me these new expressions that are portals to the future. Where citizens assemble and meet and discuss how they as citizens can preserve the environment; to discuss their plan of action so that the mining or petroleum companies don’t bombard the mountains, so that they don’t cut down the forests, to defend their life – this is democracy in a different way. No longer is it democracy like the one we know as a representative system, but rather, people taking on the responsibility of their own destiny and peacefully so. At the same time, they are intervening to be heard, but also taking into account how they are expressing themselves in a concrete place where the things are happening. For me, this is a new phenomenon. Twenty years ago, Mr. Francis Fukuyama said, that, ‘we are in the end of history’ and today we are seeing we aren’t. History continues with the possibility to democratize democracy.

Visiting a School in Buenos Aires

After the economic recession happened here in the United Sates, social movements have been forming and people are mobilizing and coming together to reform society, to create a new system.

Kathleen: After the crisis happened in Argentina and people mobilized together to create a new system of work like the workers taking over the factories, what recommendations could you give the people here in the US to mobilize and promote real democracy from a grass roots level?

Sergio: Yes, we just published the latest version of the MU.  Claudia Acuña, is a member here in the cooperative and did a great report in the latest version MU, and she was in New York talking on exactly this topic you’re talking about. This new movement of people in the streets, the problems with people getting evicted from their homes…the report will talk about this. It is in the current edition of MU magazine.

Kathleen: In the line of work in defending human rights, how can International Solidarity groups support the social movements of Argentina and South America?

Sergio: I think that these movements or experiences that happen with La Vaca itself are experiences that have already existed for many years and are going to continue existing. There are people who do their work looking for resources, looking for money. We do what we do, because we love our work and it gives us much pleasure to do it. In terms of determining what help that could be utilized for the movements in terms of resources, etc,… it is always important that this be determined with the greater aim that the movements continue doing what they are doing. I want to tell you this, for example, I know there are many international campaigns on different topics. It seems like there is a lot of money floating around in foundations and different institutions to promote issues. In our case, we are going to continue working on the topics of the environment, human rights, citizenship, communication, freedom and equality. They are topics that to us are central for the present and future. Those who want to help us and/or support these types of processes can always help us, but at the same time understanding that the most important is that these projects and productions continue maintaining autonomy of work and diffusion.

As I am very old, I realize that we are in the presence of a birth of, it seems to me, a new type of paradigm of social intervention, of political intervention. It is a new paradigm of thinking and new paradigms of action. It is exciting to be seeing how this exists and it is very important that it be able to flourish and I would say grow. As I said before, it is my intuition that we are being shown the paths of what is to come in the future.

For us, these experiences, this moment are very beautiful. It is an opportunity to always feel that what one is doing is having impact and is creating networks of new concepts for thinking about situations in our world. For us, our door will always be open for you.
Thank you Sergio for the years of effort and energy that you have put into organizing La Vaca and welcoming our Reality Tours delegates to La Vaca and Argentina!  Next week we will delve further into the power of those exchanges.

TAKE ACTION!
Experience for yourself: Join our “Building Economic Justice from Below” trip next March  and learn more about the 200 ‘recovered’ co-operative factories in Argentina.

Sergio Ciancaglini de La Vaca

Today we feature an interview with Sergio Ciancaglini, from La Vaca cooperative.  For the past decade Global Exchange Reality Tours have included La Vaca on our rich educational itineraries. Learn about the work and mission of La Vaca in this two part interview series conducted by our summer assistant Kathleen Reynolds.

Kathleen: Perhaps we can begin with a brief history of how La Vaca began and your work with La Vaca?

Sergio: La Vaca is a work cooperative that was born in the year 2001, which was a time of much crisis in Argentina where money disappeared and there were lots of social movements that had to take responsibility of their own life. They had to take on the responsibility to invent work and survival. In this year 2001, is when the La Vaca began as an information agency through Internet – it was one the first of its kind in Argentina that tried to reflect this new universe of actions we saw in large quantities of social experiences. From that moment, for example, we published on the Internet our reporting, our articles and later we began to work on books.

Our first book was, Sin Patron.  Sin Patron is about the recuperated factories in Argentina and it is available in the US. We presented it in Counter Union in New York with Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis. It is book that is written originally in Castellano Spanish by us, but later more versions were printed in English in the US, Italian and later in Portuguese in Brazil. We then wrote seven more books and the latest one is Argentina Originara. It is a book about native peoples of Argentina. With the passing of time, we started a newspaper, a monthly magazine called MU, which is a magazine published every month that we started five and half years ago. Out of the roots of the work we do, each piece of work gives us a new idea. From the work we had been doing, it occurred to us to do a radio program. You can listen to it via Internet at www.lavaca.org. It is a radio program that is broadcasted on 109 radios throughout Argentina. It is broadcasted through all university, community and local radio stations throughout the country.

It is a program created as an alternative form of social media and it is important to say that like many other commercial radio stations, this radio program also reaches all areas of the country. We do training courses for department chairs universities and high schools on social autonomy and we have a cultural center that is also a bar called MU Punto Encuentro Buenos Aires where there are conferences and sell leading independent editorial books. Here in Argentina, we drink el mate, our typical drink. Here it is made with herbs from cooperatives that are not sold in traditional supermarkets. The entire project of La Vaca is work of communication, of culture, of cooperativism and social economics.

Kathleen: What is the work you do in the cooperative and how did you begin to work with La Vaca?

Sergio: I have been a journalist for many years. I have always worked on the topics of human rights. For example, I covered the trials on the military junta in 1985, which was the first time in the democracy it was possible to try people who had raped, tortured and killed during the dictatorship. I have always worked with the most important media in Argentina for example, the newspaper Diaro Clarín, the newspaper la Razón and the newspaper Página Doce,… I worked as editor and reactor. In the year 2001, the experience of La Vaca began with all the people who were around me and so I joined. Now I work writing many articles of the monthly MU magazine. At the same time, I run the radio program that is broadcasted on 109 radios around the country and I am the President of the cooperative.

Thank you Sergio for the years of effort and energy that you have put into organizing La Vaca and welcoming our Reality Tours delegates to La Vaca and  Argentina!  Next week we will delve further into the power of those exchanges.

TAKE ACTION!

Experience for yourself: Join our “Building Economic Justice from Below” trip this November and learn more about the 200 ‘recovered’ co-operative factories in Argentina.

Walter Turner at the 2012 Global Exchange Open House

The following is a guest post by Walter Turner, President of the Global Exchange Board of Directors and appears in our Winter/Spring 2012/13 print newsletter. Become a member of Global Exchange and have articles like these delivered to your mailbox!
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New U.S. Regulations Slow Travel to Cuba

In 1989 Global Exchange took its first delegation of American citizens to Cuba. I remember being on that delegation and sitting on the top floor of the Hotel Presidente discussing how to begin the process of ending the decades old U.S. blockade against Cuba.

Enacted in 1962 during the Kennedy administration the economic, social, and political blockade (El Bloqueo) has long outlived its supposed usefulness.

Year after year U.S. government officials have developed new formats for strengthening the blockade and preventing two countries that have a shared history – and are only geographically 90 miles apart – from having normal political and economic relations.

Over the last 20 years Global Exchange has facilitated travel to Cuba for tens of thousands of U.S. citizens. Educational delegations have provided a big window for Americans to see and learn about Cuba which highlight the world recognized environmental, ecological, medical, and social accomplishments in this developing country of 12 million people. Many of these people traveled to Cuba under the Office of Foreign Assets and Control (OFAC) imposed General License.

In May 2012 the efforts of millions of Americans to normalize relations with Cuba took a step backward and to the side. In early 2011, when President Obama took office, People-to-People licenses (more liberal than the General License) were granted to over 100 organizations as part of a new “dialogue” with Cuba. However, this spring the U.S. State Department and OFAC began a “slow down“ policy on granting and renewing the People-to-People licenses.

In addition to affecting People-to-People licenses in May, and again in July, the administration has backslid on pronouncements that the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility would be closed. On the other hand, the U.S. government has implemented changes in travel guidelines for Cuban Americans and loosened constraints on the transfers of remittances.

The new regulations are confusing, complicated, and laden with bureaucracy. Applications for the renewal of People-to-People licenses have been backlogged with OFAC. New guidelines for People-to-People license holders, Travel Service Providers (TSPs) like Global Exchange and charter flight companies are now encumbered with more paperwork and process.

Many of the organizations that were given one-year People-to-People licenses have had to cancel dozens of educational travel delegations while waiting to hear whether or not their licenses will be renewed. These renewal applications are often cumbersome and convoluted, sometimes reaching 400 pages in length. Essentially, travel to Cuba by American citizens has been slowed for the next several months.  It’s clear that these are political decisions.

During the 1990s Global Exchange was among the leaders of the national Freedom to Travel Campaign. Several delegations of American citizens traveled to Cuba and risked arrest and heavy fines to fight the U.S. administration’s travel restrictions and stand up for the right to travel anywhere in the world without restrictions. Global Exchange along with other organizations and individuals are once again speaking out on the new more cumbersome regulations and urging citizen action.

The Cold War ended years ago. Its time for American policy to reflect the rights of its citizens to be able to travel to Cuba and engage – unrestricted – with the people of Cuba. Its time to normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba, end the 50 years blockade against Cuba, remove Cuba from the list of countries supporting terrorism, and free the Cuban 5.

As a Travel Service Provider (TSP) Global Exchange is authorized to take U.S. citizens to Cuba who qualify under the General License. We have also worked with hundreds of Americans who organized customized delegations with us, and were able to travel to Cuba during the last year under the People-to-People licenses.

TAKE ACTION!

For more information on the work of Global Exchange in Cuba and to learn how you may qualify to travel to Cuba please give us a call (415-255-7296 ext. 211) or email drea@globalexchange.org.

Photo Credit Global Exchange

New regulations by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) regarding legal travel to Cuba were released in July that contain a number of new guidelines and directives for organizations that are licensed to provide travel to Cuba, including Global Exchange.

While these new regulations are leaving people confused and unclear about what this means for future educational travel to Cuba, Global Exchange along with many other organizations are thoroughly reviewing the regulations so as to be in compliance.

So why are OFAC’s new guidelines problematic?  As Anya Landau French, Director of the New America Foundation’s U.S. – Cuba Policy Initiative and the editor of The Havana Note explains:

Restricting contacts in the first place is a bad idea, but this sort of ‘Big Brother is watching’ approach to people to people engagement is counterproductive (and more than a little ironic). Providing a full itinerary, explaining how contacts with the government helps to make people more independent of the government, and so on, is an odd way to try to open up what many consider a closed society. And therein lies the problem: the objective of such travel is to open up Cuba, instead of to foster mutual understanding, a principle that should stand on its own. In this way, the Obama administration has backed itself into a policy corner.

Ellen Creager of the Detroit Free Press also offers us a critical look at the challenges that may lie ahead despite the few positive changes that have come in the last year.

While here at Global Exchange we continue to review these new regulations, the Cuba section of our Reality Tours website will be “under construction.” Please feel welcome to contact us should you have questions, since we do retain our license as an authorized Travel Service Provider to Cuba.

TAKE ACTION!

1. Direct OFAC and the State Department to carry out President Obama’s Cuba policy - Sign this petition!
2. Keep updated about Cuba travel regulations, subscribe to our Reality Tours blog and sign up for the Reality Tours email list to receive regular updates.

Kids in Cuba. Photo Credit: Global Exchange

The following is a guest post by photographer Ron Herman, who has lead three customized Global Exchange Reality Tours to Cuba. But first, worth checking out are these articles about recent changes in the Cuba travel industry:

• DETROIT FREE PRESS: Is door slamming shut for travel to Cuba?
• THE HAVANA NOTE: Will OFAC Pull the Plug on People to People Travel to Cuba?
  

To keep up-to-date about Cuba travel news, subscribe via RSS to our Reality Tours blog for future updates.

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Photographer: Bill Scull

“The Universal Language of Photography” by Ron Herman

Looking back on the three customized reality tours I have led to Cuba thus far, one of the things I like most after arriving in José Marti Airport is watching the trip participants’ eyes light up on the bus ride into Havana Vieja. As the sights, sounds, and smells, that are so distinctively Cuban, whirl by the bus window, it hits them that they finally made it to Cuba. And with that realization, smiles emerge on their travel worn faces……and the camera shutters start to click.

Photographer: Don Wheatley

I have led photo workshops in various other countries, but it is the people that keep drawing me back to Cuba. Unlike any other destination I have traveled to before, I find the people in Cuba to be more warm, open, and willing to engage with the camera. Even though many trip participants weren’t able to speak Spanish with the Cuban people they photographed, they were able to communicate through the images that they shot and then showed them on their camera’s LCD screen.

Photographer: Ron Herman

Many of my alumni have commented that because of the embargo, they didn’t know how Cubans would greet Americans. They quickly realized that Cubans differentiate between American people and the politics between our two governments, and that they are as curious about us as we are about them. Often you can find American flags or other American symbols displayed in local shops.

Several photographers have returned with me on subsequent trips to Cuba. They too have fallen in love with Cuba. Over the course of multiple trips, we have developed relationships with the people we met and photographed. Many of the alumni and myself have returned to Cuba with prints of the images that we shot of them and their family, which are always warmly received.

Cuban friend receiving prints shot on a previous trip. Photographer: Mary Ellen Kaschub

After returning home, it is always great to share our travel stories with each other and relive our Cuban adventure through each other’s images. Even though we were photographing in the same locations together, it is always fun to see how differently each person saw and visually recorded the experience.

I am looking forward to returning to Cuba this Spring to lead another exciting customized reality tour for photographers (March 30 – April 13, 2013) in addition to a LGBT trip (May 9-19, 2013) centered on IDAHO (International Day Against Homophobia) and its related events in Havana and Cienfuegos.

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TAKE ACTION!

Check out this lively video about Ron Herman’s Cuba trips:

• For more information on Ron Herman’s trips to Cuba go to: www.hermanphotography.com/tours.html.
• Global Exchange is a licensed Travel Service Provider for Cuba trips. For more information on Customized Cuba delegations please visit our website for details or email leslie@globalexchange.org.

Ron Herman is a photographer and Chair of the Photography Department at Foothill College located in Los Altos Hills, CA.

Delia and Delegates, 2003

In the second of a 2-part series, Reality Tours Argentina program officer Delia Marx shares with us in an interview conducted by our intern Kathleen Reynolds, her impressions on the enriching impacts of educational exchange. You can read Part 1 here.

 
Kathleen: Looking back, what inspired you to facilitate Reality Tours?

Delia: People are so willing to share, obviously their successes but also their struggles. The little things that are going on and there are many of them. After that first experience I was totally hooked. That was when I decided to do it as soon and as often as possible and I did!

Kathleen: If you were to highlight a particular moment as a RT Leader what would that be?

Delia: I think people worry about having different views on things. Somehow I pride myself on not telling people what’s going on. I’m just an intermediate. I’m just a translator. We go straight to the source. We talk to people. I think that the experience is very transformational. I don’t give my point of view, aside from the fact that I create the program. I select what we are doing based on what we can learn.

I remember one comment that I was really struck by. It was with an assembly organization that makes decisions by consensus, so you have to get everybody on board before you go ahead with anything.  A man said to me, yes it was a long process, people were forever discussing and never coming to an agreement. It took a long time to trust one another but once there was trust, everything went much more smoothly.

“Haciendo Caras” at a Community Arts Project, 2003

One of the highlights of our tours is a visit with the Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo, grandparents who are still looking for their ‘disappeared’ grandchildren. There are several stories of success in finding these children whose identities were stolen. Can you imagine? These children sometimes were ‘adopted’ by the torturers of their parents! The case of the Abuelas was instrumental in the successful research for identification of blood relationship with a missing generation in between. Normally you can establish fatherhood of a child through blood analysis, but here the parents were missing and the research needed to be done to ascertain relationship through the blood of the grandparents instead. Now the Abuelas are dying. They are mostly in their 80′s but they created a blood bank for the future! One ‘Abuela’ that has recovered her grandson fairly recently said: “I got a new grandson, only that he is 30 years old!”

Kathleen:  What does make the difference, why do people choose to travel to Argentina with Global Exchange Reality Tours?

The Beautiful Iguazu Falls

Delia: First of all a big portion of the cost of a Reality Tour program is airfare. Some people take advantage of being there already and they combine some other tour agenda in Argentina of which there are many. So keep in mind that you can stay a few days before or after the tour and visit the scenic parts of Argentina, we could go on and on about that but the portion of the Reality Tour is what as the name says “Reality”. The cost of the tour also includes contributions to the organizations we visit. This enhances the sense of participation on the part of the travelers and supports the work the organizations are doing. Your vacation dollars are working for a good cause. What brings you closer to the people is the direct connection to people. You are there sitting with them and you’re listening. Listening to the stories and listening to their experience and most fortunately you’re learning from them.

We are now witness to the global economic crisis in the United States and in Europe and in many other places in the world, something that may be new to many of us. Argentineans found many of their solutions, many of their ways out. People come to the understanding that there are alternatives that can be implemented here and now without waiting for somebody else to come and rescue us. Finding that in your community, in your peers with the people that surround you is very enriching.

Thank you Delia for the years of effort and energy that you have put into organizing and facilitating our Reality Tours to Argentina.

TAKE ACTION!

Experience for yourself: Join our “Building Economic Justice from Below” trip this November and experience Argentina first-hand.

Delia and Delegates in Argentina

In the first of a two part series, Delia shares with us in an interview conducted by our intern Kathleen Reynolds, the significance of the 2001 financial crisis and what lessons it provides for us today.

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Kathleen: Can you explain the significance of the 2001 financial crisis in Argentina?  Grassroots worker-run cooperatives radically changed the debate. How did they shift the focus from the cost of labor to the cost of owners?

Recuperated Factories, “of the People”, 2003

Delia: Well I’m sure you are aware that in the end of 2001 the whole economy in Argentina collapsed. It was a true collapse in the sense that nothing was working. There was literally no more money. There was no pay, there were only empty promises. Different provinces in Argentina which are like states here (in the U.S.) started to make their own currency. There was no credit for individuals or for businesses.

Business works on credit. There was no credit to be had. Nothing. The banks literally closed. These are banks like Citibank, Bank of Boston… Supposedly they all had the backing of the United States, not so. When the time came they simply closed and that was devastating for everybody. It was impossible to do anything so people took to the streets!

At that point there was a lot of political turmoil. I think there were four central governments that wanted to default. It was a total collapse. People could not even withdraw their own money from the bank because the banks were all closed. Some people were banging literally with hammers, banging on the closed doors of the banks. Everybody took to the streets. People were trying to get anything that they could get their hands on to make noise, pots and pans, banging with their hands, just making noise and saying the words everybody needs to go!  Everybody meant everybody politically.

Exchanging with Community Organizations

When people realized that their place of work wouldn’t even give them the promise of payment they began to rise up. Bankruptcy was widespread. Workers recognized that they were not going to be able to do anything to feed their families. That’s when they began to realize that they needed to find a solution for themselves.

The solution did not depend on the big picture, not on the politicians, the rules, the laws or the economic situation. It was a local issue. It was the smaller community that needed to come together. We had the movements and the assemblies, which were simply people that were meeting on the street corner trying to figure out how to help one another in the smallest sense of the neighborhood. They were called neighborhood assemblies and some of them organized broader markets in the work place.

Workers realized that they were still there, the machinery was still there, only the bosses were missing because they had declared bankruptcy. They were gone. So people decided to keep the shop open. And that’s when they started to do this movement that was later called recuperated factories, recuperated from bankruptcy.  But that wasn’t so easy because of the police of course. People were literally occupying their workplaces. The word “occupy” now has a different meaning.

In Argentina, people were simply saying ok we’re going to stay. We are not going to allow our bosses to take away the machinery to sell it out. We are going to keep and protect the machinery as well as the work place and we are going to keep it going. Of course at first they realized, wait a moment we don’t know anything about administration because the administration was in the hands of the bosses. That’s when the whole society somehow found a way to come together. Students from the university of economics came around and taught the workers how to keep the books and they realized that they could run this themselves. There’s no magic in management. We can manage ourselves. We can do it. And that’s when they decided, we can keep on going, and we really don’t need the bosses.

Cooperative Factory-Struggle, Work and Culture

The big advantage was that suddenly all of  the surplus that usually went to pay the higher salaries of the management was brought back into the factories as actual production. Now I think there are about 300 occupied factories still functioning.

Factory is not the proper word. It’s workplaces. (There are many different types of businesses;) cooperative hotels, clinics, and alll kinds of factories. For instance, one of them is a hotel where we stay with Reality Tours. We had the firsthand experience of seeing how it’s run. It’s a big hotel in the middle of town. Of course there was no guarantee but it all came together in a very positive way.

Some (groups) like La Vacca, the journalism cooperative that we work with, started to regroup. They began to form networks so that cooperatives could organize and buy from one another. One of the things I find very interesting is going back to visit some of these places, I can see the progress. It’s incredible to see how things evolved. In some instances people wanted to maintain a true horizontal management or decision-making process. Decisions are made by consensus. Other people decided that it was too time consuming and they selected representatives to form a commission. The commission would make day-to-day decisions, consulting only now and then with the full assembly.

They all have pros and cons. It’s very interesting to talk with different people about their experiences. For instance people who organized committees said that it was amazing how very soon afterwards there were marked differences.

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Thank you Delia for the years of effort and energy that you have put into organizing and facilitating our Reality Tours to Argentina! 

TAKE ACTION!

Experience for yourself: Join our “Building Economic Justice from Below” trip this November and learn more about the 200 ‘recovered’ co-operative factories in Argentina.

Lea Murray (left) with fellow Reality Tours Venezuela delegation participants

The following post was written by Global Exchange Scholarship recipient Lea Murray who participated in a Reality Tours delegation to Venezuela last month. She shares her experience with us:

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Venezuela Vision: A Tale of Remembrance

I traveled to Venezuela for two reasons:  1) my friend and ESL student Lorena was going to be there at the same time that Global Exchange (GX) scheduled the Afro Venezuelan tour and 2) I was able to receive a generous scholarship from Global Exchange.

Had it not been for those two serendipitous events my life would be completely different from what it is today. I would have remained the same middle class American who is only concerned with those issues directly impacting my life.  Outside of my travels to Senegal and The Gambia in 2007, I hadn’t traveled to any place where it was obvious that people had financial need. I almost always traveled to resorts or timeshares in nice well-kept tourist areas.  I had forgotten my training in public health nutrition. I had forgotten how it felt to work with and be around people who are struggling to meet their basic needs.  I had forgotten my previous non-profit work with under-served communities.  This trip to Venezuela reminded me of my idealistic college days at UC Berkeley.

Many people in Venezuela love Chavez.  What a shocking revelation for someone like me who has only heard bad things about Chavez from some of the Venezuelans that I have met and taught in my English as a Second Language (ESL) classes.  Of course living in South Florida there is a very large Hispanic community mostly from South America and Cuba—mostly wealthy and white.  I heard stories from some of these people about how dangerous it is to live in Venezuela, and how Chavez is poisoning the minds of poor people so that it is unsafe for the hard working Venezuelan to travel in public places for fear of being attacked.

I heard stories of multiple kidnapping, theft, and political unrest.  That Chavez is bad for business and it is difficult to fire bad workers and employees who don’t have incentive to excel at work because they can’t be fired.  Chavez is crazy like Castro.

The many Venezuelans that I have met here in South Florida believe the USA is a refuge from the turmoil that they have endured in their homeland.  How was I to know any different?

But then I visited the missions, the university, the labor union, the farming coop, the black owned Cocoa plantation, and I heard and I saw what Chavez has done for the disenfranchised.  Chavez is making a difference in the lives of people who believed they were previously excluded from the benefits of living in an oil rich country.  Why didn’t I know this?

Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is Chavez in the eye of beholder.  It all depends on your perspective.  Now I know differently.

Now that I have seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears, what will I do? I will re-think my life. I have a new vision.  I want to see how other people live and experience life.  I want to travel to even more places where black Africans were dispersed during the slave trade. I will travel to Haiti and Cuba and examine the plight of my black brothers and sisters in these small island countries.  I will re-think my business.  Instead of solely working with those students who can afford to pay my hourly rate I will diversify and incorporate students with less financial means to pay for my services as an ESL instructor.  I will open my eyes—see the vision—and do something to make a difference.  I will participate.

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Lea Murray is a California native living in Florida and a part time ESL instructor with an interest in Latin American and Caribbean culture. Last month Lea participated in a Reality Tours Afro Venezuelan delegation, thanks to a Global Exchange scholarship.

TAKE ACTION!

• Travel to Venezuela: check out our list of upcoming trips to Venezuela
• Learn about Global Exchange Scholarships: visit this web page for scholarship application, fundraising advice and more!

During Global Exchange delegation visit to Venezuela. Photo Credit: Blair Redlin

A Glimpse of Venezuela: Part 1

Ten yearsafter the failed coup attempt of 2002, revenue from huge oil reserves and widespread popular mobilisation are supporting grassroots change for many parts of Venezuelan society. Despite media demonisation of the Venezuelan experiment here in Canada, the changes are significant and deserve to be better understood — especially given the increasing importance of oil revenue for our country too.

In order to get a glimpse of the Bolivarian Republic in 2012, I recently took part in a fascinating “reality tour” of Venezuela organised by San Francisco-based human rights group Global Exchange.

The 10-day tour featured meetings with activists from many sectors, as well as a visit to the San Juan tambores festival in the Afro-Venezuelan Barlovento region. We spent time in the sprawling capital of Caracas, in the small Andean community of Sanare, in the industrial city of Barquisimeto and the Afro-Venezuelan town of Curiepe.

My main takeaway was of a population deeply committed to social change within the context of historic inequality and class divisions. The country has numerous problems, including poverty and deadly gun crime, but it was inspiring to see the energy and enthusiasm that both local communities and the government are bringing to bear.

Particularly striking are the efforts to circumvent bureaucratic obstacles to change through community based initiatives. Whether it’s the numerous “misiones” (to tackle poverty, housing, adult literacy and more) or empowerment of communal councils and co-ops, a significant theme of development in Venezuela is local democratic control.

Our group met with a variety of locally based mission activists, in addition to actors in the women’s, students, co-op, community media and labour movements. Here are a few of my impressions:

Progress on Inequality – the focus on reducing inequality and poverty is producing results. The United Nation’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) reports that Venezuela now has the third lowest poverty rate in Latin America and is the least unequal country in the region. So-called “extreme poverty” rates have been reduced from 21 per cent of the population in 1999 (when Hugo Chavez first came to power) to 6.9 per cent by 2010. Venezuela had the second highest rate of poverty reduction in Latin America from 2002 to 2010, exceeded only by Ecuador.  Venezuela ranks 73rd out of 187 countries in the UN’s Human Development Index.

Gasoline Absurdly Cheap – given that the world price of oil is hovering above $85 a barrel, it seems incredible that the price of gasoline in Venezuela is approximately .05 cents/litre. You read that right. Less than one cent a litre. or pretty close to free. This represents a massive public subsidy of gasoline prices — an expensive policy that has to be making global warming worse. To an outsider, super cheap gasoline seems like a crazy way to spend scarce resources in a country with numerous social needs, but the historical and political context is important. In 1989, Venezuelans rebelled en masse against austerity policies imposed by the IMF that included a 100 per cent increase in consumer gasoline prices and a doubling of transit fares. That rebellion was dubbed the Caracazo. As a result of the Caracazo thousands were killed, former President Carlos Perez was removed from office, the IMF restraint policies were modified and Hugo Chavez began his political career. In light of all that, it is apparently politically challenging to raise gasoline prices today. Meanwhile, Venezuela is overwhelmingly dependent on oil revenues and its economy needs to diversify. Oil accounts for 90 per cent of export earnings, 50% of federal budget revenues and 30 per cent of GDP.

Women’s Rights a Priority (Except for One Key One) – in a region where the culture of machismo remains strongly embedded, it’s encouraging that women’s rights are a priority of the government. There is a Ministry of Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, a Mision Madres del Barrio for working and single mothers, a Women’s Bank and mass participation in International Women’s Day. But Venezuelan women are still denied the right to reproductive choice, as abortion remains illegal. The National Assembly has had a committee studying abortion reform since 2010, but no actual legislative change appears to be forthcoming. Our delegation met with representatives of the “Popular Feminist Circle” organisation in Barquisimeto, which provides a range of programs, including prevention of violence against women and children. They told us it has made a big difference that the President clearly identifies himself as a feminist, but until women gain improved rights to reproductive choice in Venezuela, full equality rights are a long way off.

Venezuela 2012 Photo Credit: Blair Redlin

A Glimpse of Venezuela: Part 2

Venezuela has been undergoing big changes since the failed coup attempt of a decade ago . The first part of this blog report discussed how the Chavez government is implementing change at the grassroots level through  “missions” and communal councils; the progress that has been made in reducing inequality and poverty; the context for Venezuela’s policy of  almost free gasoline; and efforts to promote the rights of women in a country where abortion remains illegal.

Here are some further reflections on my brief glimpse of Venezuela in 2012:

A new labour law for working people – on May 1 of this year, a new fundamental labour statute came into effect. Entitled the Organic Law of Work and Workers, the new law is the culmination of a major mobilizing effort by the National Worker’s Union (U.N.T.)  labour central that included over 657,000 signatures on a petition demanding a new labour law as well as the presentation of more than 20,000 specific legislative proposals to a 16 member special Presidential commission.

Important changes in the new law include: reduction of the work week to 40 hours from 44 and the requirement for a full two days off per week; 25 weeks of maternity leave for women, plus a guaranteed right to return to one’s job for up to two years after birth of the child; 6 weeks of paternity leave for men, plus the same employment guarantee for up to two years; a prohibition on out-sourcing; and restoration of a retirement bonus scheme which provides one month of pay for every year of service. The government has also instituted a 32 per cent increase in the minimum wage, taking it to approximately $700(U.S.) per month. This is now the highest minimum wage in Latin America.

The status of trade unions in Venezuela has been controversial and complex since Carlos Ortega, the former President of the Confederation of Workers of Venezuela (C.T.V.) worked closely with the U.S. in support of the 2002 coup attempt.

Ortega was sentenced to 16 years in jail for his role in the 2002 oil company lockout and coup attempt, but escaped in 2006 and was given asylum in Peru. Subsequent to the failed coup, the C.T.V. still exists and represents some 200,000 members, but it has been supplanted by the U.N.T. (with 1.2 million members) as the main labour central in the country. The U.N.T. is affiliated with the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (P.S.U.V.) which is currently the governing party.

During our visit to the industrial city of Barquisimeto, we met with trade union leaders in a large office building (the “Casa Sindical”) housing many unions. The local labour council they are part of represents 80 different union locals from most parts of the private sector economy. The unionists told us the story of how they took over the union building in 2009, occupying it due to alleged corruption and lack of representation by the C.T.V.. They said they had found a “chop shop” in the building where stolen cars were dismantled so parts could be sold. When asked how they had fended off armed members of the C.T.V. who tried to take the building back, they said they had discovered 100 cases of beer in the building so they threw beer bottles at them from the upper floors until the police came!

Adult education a big priority, but easier said than done – in the small Andean town of Sanare, our group met with activists with two missions related to adult education. “Mision Robinson”  is based on a Cuban methodology which uses volunteers to teach reading, writing and arithmetic to illiterate adults while “Mision Ribas” provides remedial high school classes to adults who have dropped out of high school. For those who complete Mision Ribas, the government has also organized “Mision Sucre” to provide free college and graduate level education.

All this focus on adult education is bearing fruit. UNESCO’s 2010 Education for All monitoring report  and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics report that Venezuela has a literacy rate of 95.5 per cent for adults and 98.5 per cent for youth. The reports project that adult literacy will reach 97 per cent by 2015. In terms of adult literacy, the country is 55 out of 128 countries, while its standing in the Education for All Development Index was 59 out of 128 countries, up from 64 three years previously. Venezuela scored better than 18 other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

It was moving to see the enthusiasm with which adult education is pursued at the grassroots. We were told that in the small town of Sanare alone, they have graduated people as old as 89 years and that one 65 year old is now studying medicine. It was also striking that a big part of the Mision Ribas program was the requirement for a written report on development of a concrete community improvement project such as reforestation, improving the electric grid, building a new school, etc. We also learned of integrated linkages between the education programs and “Gran Mision Vivienda” which is building badly needed public housing throughout the country. Workers taught construction skills through Mision Ribas are subsequently paid as apprentices in the construction of new housing.

But we also discussed amongst ourselves the challenges of keeping children and youth in the basic education system. Despite laws requiring school attendance and banning child labour, we had occasion to  meet 16 children from one family who are all required to work on the family farm. Only one of them can read or write. This anecdotal experience helped us realise that family and cultural issues make education policy extremely complicated in a developing country like Venezuela. Adult education is in part necessary because it is so challenging to keep children in school. Still, high school drop out rates fell by half in Venezuela between 1998 and 2011.

Bolivarian University – speaking of education, our delegation paid an interesting visit with student activists at the campus of the main Bolivarian University in Caracas. During the failed coup of 2002, the state oil company P.D.V.S.A. assisted the coup plotters by shutting down the oil industry and locking oil workers out. After the coup was thwarted one government response was to convert the former headquarters of P.D.V.S.A. in Caracas into the main campus of the new Bolivarian University.

As with the unionists we met in Barquisimeto, the student activists in Caracas were very militant. They view their own personal educations and the activities of the university as key parts of the Bolivarian project. The university is closely linked to “Mision Sucre.” There is a central campus in nine of the country’s main regions, combined with Mision Sucre university level classes in most major towns. There are therefore 4,000 students at the main Caracas campus, but 350,000 in the  wider “Bolivariana” taking university and college level courses nationwide.

The Bolivarian University has a unique entrance requirement process. As opposed to entrance exams or acceptance based on previous grades, applicants must take a three month long pre-university course. If they pass that, then they are eligible to enter the university.

Given the intense debate in Quebec and Canada about tuition and the costs of post-secondary education, it was interesting to learn that not only are there no tuition fees at the Bolivarian University but the government also covers three free meals at day at the cafeteria, student housing, free health and dental care, transportation, insurance and other student costs.

As with Mision Ribas, students are expected to complete projects that contribute to the development of the country.

Afro-Venezuelans – one focus of our trip was the Afro-Venezuelan community, descendants of slaves who were in the main brought from the Congo and Angola. Today, Afro-Venezuelans are mostly concentrated in the Barlovento region of Miranda state, which we visited.

Cacao is the main raw ingredient for chocolate and Venezuelan cacao is among the best in the world. Many slaves were brought to work in cacao plantations, so it was interesting to visit a modern-day cacao plantation which has been farmed by the same Afro-Venezuelan family for generations. A state owned chocolate processing plant (“Oderi”) is nearby, as well as six smaller co-operative chocolate factories for artisanal products.

The Marquez family told us of several recent government steps to improve the cacao economy. In April 2011, cacao was declared a national strategic project. Chocolate processing has been nationalised through the Venezuelan Cocoa Socialist Corporation and a “fair price” is paid to farmers that is 20 per cent above the market rate. Many new co-operatives have been assisted and through the A.L.B.A. alternative trade agreement, new international cooperation and trade measures have been put in place to improve cacao markets. The Marquez family told us none of this has been popular with international chocolate companies, but the quality of Venezuelan cacao is very high, so the higher prices are being paid.

Afro-Venezuelans continue to struggle against racism. The 1999 reform of the Venezuelan constitution included significant recognition of indigenous rights, particularly land, cultural and language rights. However, no similar recognition was provided for Afro-Venezuelans. Particularly since the 1999 inclusion of indigenous rights, Afro-Venezuelans have argued for their own constitutional inclusion though — as Canadians know well — the land rights of aboriginal peoples are in a different category than rights for settler communities. In 2007, Hugo Chavez proposed a series of constitutional amendments that, among others, included significant recognition of Afro-Venezuelans. Unfortunately, those proposals were defeated by citizens in the subsequent referendum so the campaign for better constitutional recognition continues.

In 2011, the National Assembly passed a new law against racial discrimination and the new basic education law of 2009 included specific recognition of afro-descendants.

Final observations – 21st century Venezuela is deeply involved in democratic change at many levels, as evidenced by the big push for communal councils, regional assemblies and co-operatives. Of course, intensive electoral democracy is also key. Venezuelans have voted repeatedly over the last 15 years, in both general elections and constitutional referenda, and the next national election for president will take place this October. Despite a spirited campaign by opposition leader Henriques Capriles Radonski, most polls show a commanding lead for Hugo Chavez. Certainly, most of the people we met were very enthusiastic about the changes Chavez has been leading. This enthusiasm and mass participation is in marked contrast to the disempowerment and low participation rates that too often characterise politics in Canada.

An interesting side note . . . just as the long-time popular Latin American (and farm worker) slogan of “si, se puede” was picked up by Barack Obama last election as “Yes, we can,” so this year the main slogan for Hugo Chavez is “Pa’lante” which in English means “Forward.” Barack Obama’s main slogan this time out? Also “Forward.”

The efforts in Venezuela to fight poverty, reduce inequality, develop the economy and provide social improvements are largely funded by the oil revenues that are unique to Venezuela. But other Bolivarian countries such as Ecuador and Bolivia are also using the specific resources available to them to make improvements at the local and community level. All three countries, are working with Cuba, Nicaragua, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (and soon Suriname and Saint Lucia) within the alternative trading bloc called A.L.B.A. (“Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas”).

Unlike in Canada, oil and other resource revenues  are not being squandered on tax cuts or royalty reductions. In Venezuela and the other Bolivarian countries, secondary processing of resources is a strategic priority as opposed to the focus here on export of raw resources. And rather than corporate rights deals like NAFTA or CETA, the priority in ALBA is international cooperation and the raising of standards.

The changes in Venezuela are big and they’re happening right now in the real world. They deserve a lot more attention and understanding from our part of the hemisphere.

• Our “reality tour” to Venezuela was put together by Global Exchange, which did a great job. For information on future tours to Venezuela, or many other countries in the world, go here.
• Global Exchange helped publish a very informative book on Venezuela called Venezuela Speaks!: Voices from the Grassroots by Carlos Martinez, Michael Fox and Jojo Farrell. Go here to get a copy.
• One of our hosts in Venezuela was Lisa Sullivan, who is involved with School of the Americas Watch, a group that is having great success at persuading Latin American governments to withdraw military personnel from the notorious School of the Americas in the U.S..For information about the work of S.O.A. Watch, go here.
• Another host was the Prout Centre in Caracas. “Prout” stands for Progressive Utilisation Theory. Developed by Indian philosopher Prabhat Ranjan Sarker, Prout makes a case for economic democracy and localised development. For information on the new edition of a book by Caracas author Dada Maheshvaranda called After Capitalism: Economic Democracy in Action, go here. 

—

Blair Redlin is a B.C. based trade union researcher, whose priorities have included privatization, trade agreements and local government. He’s vice-chair of the Board of Oxfam Canada. In the 1990s, he was a Deputy Minister in the B.C. public service.

Travel to Venezuela! To find out how you can travel to Venezuela with Global Exchange, we invite you to visit our website.

Many of our Reality Tours Costa Rica alumni will remember the brilliant educator and activist, Marta Sanchez.  Marta has organized and facilitated our Global Exchange open and customized groups since 2005. Today Marta shares her story with us.  Learn how she became part of our Global Exchange family!

I got involved with Global Exchange Reality Tours after my enrollment in the Palestine-Israel delegation  about 10 years ago.  That intense experience unveiled to me an excruciatingly painful reality I was short to imagine. Although far from attempting a comparison, this experience turned on many lights in my understanding concerning the reality of my own country and the “convenient blindness” we people use to suffer from.

By that time, Costa Rica was in the middle of a historical process: the eventual signing up of the  Central American Free Trade Agreement.  Like most of the population, I was unaware of  the serious implications of CAFTA against our Social State of Law  which we “Ticos” always took for granted!

Given this historical context, Andrea  my daughter, who happened to be the Central America RT coordinator at GX by that time, organized an RT program for Costa Rica.  I promised her to find someone who could trip lead the first delegation, but my best candidate failed the last minute, and I had to take up. Here began a series of living experiences that taught me a lot about the myths and realities of my own country. As an illustration, the first of these experiences came from a  meeting with Costa Rican former president Rodrigo Carazo. Carazo was a passionate anti-CAFTA fighter and, in his home, the GX delegates and myself received  first-hand information about the uncertain future of  Central American economies if Costa Rica ended up signing the treaty — Costa Rica was the last country in Central America to submit to CAFTA. This meeting was illuminating in unusual ways. For example, the delegates could not believe a politician of such an exceptional moral stature, like Carazo had displayed this special deference towards us by inviting us to his home!

GX delegations now visit Costa Rica from coast to coast. The living experiences our delegates can tell are many and varied, and the resonance of these encounters are still there. One of the tours, for instance, made it possible for a community to count on attractive alternatives for kids and  their mothers  to rescue both even from prostitution. Back home, one of our delegates pulled  the necessary strings to  provide funds, so that ASOMUFAQ, in the Central Pacific, could finish a theater project  and a  restaurant. Today that community has a theater group for kids that now participate in annual national contexts (and Global Exchange delegations can count on a delicious restaurant that serve typical dishes prepared by these women…)

I´m sure the living experiences GX Reality Tours have brought  to me and the many people involved have affected us one way or another. The reality of a tourism-dependent country such as Costa Rica can only be revealed by conscious tourism, and this only justifies  the meaning of this program.  Now I only organize the itineraries on a pro bonus basis but, from the comments by the delegates, I can say that the Mission and Vision of Global Exchange Reality Tours  is amply accomplished in Costa Rica.

Interested in meeting Marta and traveling beyond the normal ecotourist path in Costa Rica this year?  Join us and explore Ecotourism and Sustainability on the Northern Pacific Coast in November.

Thank you to Reality Tours staff alumni Andrea Valverde for sharing our mission and for introducing us to your mom. We have been blessed to have her host our members.

Special Thanks to our Reality Tours intern Kathleen Reynolds for conducting this interview.