Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on May 4th, 2010

[Stéphanie Vaudry]

I would like to say a word about power concentration and the shrinking of the democratic space. Concerning power concentration, as I said earlier, community councils have been set up under the new 1999 Constitution. The goal is to give the power to the people.

Well, it seems you already made up your mind, so I am not--

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Go ahead.

[Stéphanie Vaudry]

I made serious research. In villages, people are involved in community councils, and they are elected to do that. They get participatory budgets similar to those who became popular in Brazil to develop their own projects in their community. As I said earlier, water projects have been developed, community media have been set up along with other community initiatives.

As concerns the shrinking of the democratic space, like I just said, community media are taking a lot of room. People are preparing and broadcasting information. It is not broadcasted by media with a closed neo-liberal ideology. So it is not something from outside the people that is being broadcasted and ingested. Is it democracy when you have somebody telling you what you should think?

In Venezuela, people are thinking, they are promoting different things and they make that known. Not a single television station was ever closed. The licence of the RCTV Internacional was suspended, because it did not abide by the law on social responsibility on the radio and television, la Ley Resorte. It is similar to our CRTC. Recently, somebody on this network said on the air that the solution for Venezuela was military and he suggested an immediate insurrection. Would that be allowed here?

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

I am sorry, but the eight minutes are over.

Ms. Deschamps, you have the floor.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You are representing two organizations that are exposing what is happening in Venezuela. You are there to collect information. You can witness the progress being made. Ms. Vaudry, you told us about several social and economic advances since Mr. Chávez is in power.

Since the coup in 2002, the international community gets the impression the society in Venezuela is becoming more and more polarized. You said among other things that 80% of the media are private. On the other hand, we are told that there are few independent media in that country, and that the vision of the Venezuelan reality is rather confused. Human Rights Watch, for example, has profound apprehensions about governmental control over the content of the media in Venezuela. We are also told corruption is pervasive and that the judicial system is subservient to the government.

You are working there, and you are on the ground. Tell us where this image we get of the Venezuela government is coming from.

[Dr. Maria Páez Victor]

First of all, about the media, I can give you the actual numbers so that you can judge for yourselves. There are 656 privately owned radio stations, 243 community stations, and only 79 are state-owned throughout the country.

As for TV stations, there are 65 TV stations, which are 60%; 37 community stations, which are 35%; and only 6 state TV stations across the nation.

By the way, the community TV and radio is not state. The government isn't there. It's the actual communities, not the state telling the community what to do. So if people say that there isn't private media, there are the numbers to see.

But the judicial system is important, because the Venezuelan judicial system has been called the Cinderella of the powers of the country because it had the worst reputation because of systemic corruption, and, as I mentioned before, the previous governments refused to reform it.

It is very hard to eradicate corruption in the judicial system, but when the government tries to reform it then the opposition cries foul and says it's intervening and politicizing. All this has changed. There is now wide access to justice, basically. Things are never as perfect as they can be, and it will probably take a new generation of lawyers and judges to fully control the thing, but, for example, before, the judges were elected by who you knew, through the party or through your friends. Now there is a parliamentary committee composed of civil society members and parliamentary members, and after several screenings and processes they then choose a judge. Before, no one even knew how judges were chosen.

The judicial system--

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I certainly will not have enough time.

[Dr. Maria Páez Victor]

I'm sorry.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I have a question. Who is benefiting from the fact we get the impression the Venezuela society did not improve since Mr. Chávez came to power.

[Dr. Maria Páez Victor]

The opposition. The opposition, which controlled the media for so many years, not just now, have international connections, so they all know the other owners and they are the ones who lead out the information that comes to Canada. Did you know that Canada doesn't have reporters from any of the main newspapers or CBC on the scene in Venezuela? They all get information through the United States through these international media.

Then of course you have the magic word, which we've just spoken about: oil. If all that Venezuela had were potatoes or carrots, no one would care at all what happened in Venezuela.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

No.

[Dr. Maria Páez Victor]

And Venezuela is right next to the United States. It's very easy to get the oil, but Venezuela has always sold the oil to the United States. You can't eat oil. It's in the interest of Venezuela to sell oil to whoever pays money for it, but it's a question of control.

I have to tell you and warn you that the United States has created 14 military and naval bases in Colombia and 11 bases in Panama. In the last five years there have been 71 military and naval bases in Latin America. I warn you, very esteemed and noble members of Parliament, what we fear most, and one of the reasons I am here, is that we believe there could be a war in the region because of those military bases. We wonder what they are doing there. If they are for narco-traffic, what you need for that are helicopters that can go very easily from one place to the other. These are bases for enormous C-17 planes that can cross the region without refueling. You wonder what they are for.

I am no military expert, but these kinds of things have very much frightened not just Venezuela but the whole of UNASUR. As we are talking, the presidents of UNASUR, which is the organization of all the presidents of Latin America, are sitting down to talk. They are unanimously very worried about the presence of foreign troops and foreign bases in a region where we did not have them before.

So when things are a bit puzzling, I ask you to please think of oil and what interests could be passing on this misinformation out of a country that is struggling but trying very hard to cope with the ordinary problems of underdevelopment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you, Dr. Victor.

We turn now to Mr. Marston, please.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

From both of your presentations I got a sense of fear. It was so palpable in this room when you were talking to us. At first I misunderstood that somehow you were fearful of us--the noble ones, as you called us.

[Dr. Maria Páez Victor]

A little bit.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Now I realize that you are fearful for the advances that have been made in this country.

I was very troubled here, because I got a sense from our committee that a lot of minds had already been predisposed against you before you started talking. I observed people on their BlackBerrys, people not listening to your presentations, and a variety of things. I found it shocking, and I am very disappointed. I just wish this were a public meeting on television so people could have seen that.

I know that a lot of the information that comes into Canada via the media is planned misinformation. As president of the Hamilton and District Labour Council, on many occasions I met with people through the Latin American Working Group who would come from Colombia, from Honduras, from South America, and their stories, in some senses, were worse than yours, in the sense that yours now seems to have turned that corner and has started on the road to democratization in a level that, if it's accurate, is something to really consider.

I think that the councils you are talking about are a parallel to what is happening in Cuba as well. We did a study of Cuba over a period of time. So I was taken aback.

I had a series of questions I wanted to ask you. You have been very comprehensive in what you have been trying to deliver to us. We had media problems in this country too. We had Lord Thomson of Fleet and Conrad Black owning the media, the predominance of the media in this country, and I will be polite: they were not pro-worker in their philosophies either. It was nowhere near what you faced, and thank goodness it wasn't. Democracy is a very, very fragile thing, no matter where it is. We saw how close, with the coup attempt in Venezuela and the international blackening of the name of Chávez... That is a prescribed plan from somebody. As soon as you hear the word “oil”, it tends to...

In 1979, when I was in Saudi Arabia, I met Americans who were at a secret military base there, which came to light once we had the Gulf War. So I'm not surprised. I'm really horrified to hear about the number of bases, if that is accurate. That's a development that's really striking. One of the things that has happened here, which causes me concern too, is our government's shift away from a focus on funding activities in Africa and funding into South America. I hope that has nothing to do with what we are hearing here today.

One of the things I am curious about is you talk about a variety of organizations and you mentioned the Venezuelan army delivering medicines and building schools. Is that a primary role of what they are doing these days? Is that what they're there for? It's extraordinary. We're familiar with our armies coming in to help in times of disaster, but is this an ongoing function of their army?

[Alex Grant, Bolivarian Circle Louis Riel / Hands Off Venezuela]

I think Camilo and I can answer this one.

In terms of the Venezuelan media, I personally got involved in the Venezuela solidarity movement after the coup in 2001, and I don't know if people remember from the time. If you watched CNN, there was this classic picture of Chávez supporters supposedly firing on an unarmed demonstration. There is an award-winning documentary called The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, produced by two Irish journalists. I think everybody in this committee should watch that documentary, because that footage was completely fabricated--completely fabricated--by RCTV. If you pulled the camera back, you could see it was fabricated. This is the type of media manipulation that is going on. That is why we have given a defence of the Venezuelan revolution, the Venezuelan people.

Camilo Cahis, my comrade here, was recently at a demonstration where the Venezuelan military were present, and I think he can speak to that.

[Camilo Cahis, Bolivarian Circle Louis Riel / Hands Off Venezuela]

As a Canadian, this was my first trip to Venezuela. I just returned about a week ago. Coming from a country like Canada, the role of the military in Venezuela is absolutely astonishing. In Latin American countries or countries in Africa or anywhere else in the developing world, the military is a very scary thing that's used to repress people.

I was at a rally to celebrate the bicentennial of Venezuelan independence on April 19, a rally that attracted over half a million people. Part of the display was a military procession, and the most astonishing thing happened after the rally when all the soldiers got out of their tanks, got out of the planes, and started mingling with the people, talking and hugging the people. I, as a foreigner, obviously a foreigner in Venezuela, was able to speak to two, three, four different soldiers about what they think about the revolution, what they think about the processes going on in Venezuela. This was astonishing, talking to ordinary soldiers about the political conditions in their country, and they were talking very freely. They were bringing the children onto the tanks. There was absolutely no fear. It's a sense that the army and the people are one.

To answer your question, Mr. Marston, the army has a very interesting role in Venezuela: it is felt that it is an army of the people; that it is made up of the people; that there's no disconnect between the masses of Venezuela and the armed forces. The military certainly provides aid, especially in the barrios in Venezuela, and there's been a new development whereby the army is even providing arms training and military training to ordinary workers. I talked to one worker who's the president of the valve factory about how every person is being encouraged to take part in the revolutionary process, to be able to defend themselves in the event of an invasion of Colombia. As the fellow speakers have said, this is a very real threat.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Of Colombia?

[Camilo Cahis]

From Colombia.

This is a very real threat. The 14 military bases in Colombia, the base in Curaçao, the bases in Panama are a very real threat, and the masses feel this. Ordinary working people feel they are being threatened and surrounded, but they want to defend it; they're not going to lie down. This is something the people of Venezuela feel to their very soul, this process, this revolution. It's theirs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

I'm going to have to cut you off at that point. It seems like a natural break. We were up to a little over eight minutes on that seven-minute question.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Before you start the clock with another member, can you indulge me on a point of clarification? Mr. Grant was referring to an incident where a documentary was fabricated by some news media. I heard him say who was responsible, but I didn't catch it exactly.

Could you just verify who was responsible for that falsification?

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Mr. Grant.

[Alex Grant]

My understanding was it was through RCTV, wasn't it?

[Dr. Maria Páez Victor]

Radio Caracas Televisión.