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[Translation of an opinion piece from La Jornada of Mexico City for May 5, 2013. See original here.]

By Guillermo Almeyra

From the point of view of governments and institutions, the changes in Latin America brought about by the death of Hugo Chávez are important but not fundamental. The Venezuelan revolutionary process is weaker and its adversaries are therefore stronger, but if the leadership of the state and of the PSUV (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela) are determined, with the support of their bases, to radicalize and deepen transformation of the country, if they reduce waste and improve somewhat the distribution of food and goods, social change could take a new leap forward, since the current moderate recovery in consumption and production in the United States, Venezuela’s principal market, gives certain stability to the price of oil.

This is the basis, on the other hand, of the security offered by the Maduro administration to Cuba, ALBA (Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América — Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) and the Caribbean against the uproar of the Venezuelan Right about the “giveaway” of oil and financial support to Venezuela’s allies and against the same concessions of this kind that the right-wing Chavistas want to make to the anti-Chavista Right. At the same time, in Brazil, with next year’s elections impending, the Right does not seem to have either a clear candidate or the possibility of winning; the economy is somewhat better and the government enjoys the support of the transnationals, agribusiness and domestic large-scale capital, to which it has made considerable concessions, and it does not face strong social protests. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Carta Maior of Brazil for May 3, 2013.  See original here.]

By Marcel Gomes

Rio de Janeiro – The strengthening of relations between Brazil and Venezuela during the administrations of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Hugo Chávez will allow Brasilia and Caracas to maintain close political and economic ties, even after the death of the Venezuelan.

Those who hold this view are supported by the high degree of institutionalization of the bilateral relations. The new president, Nicolás Maduro, has at his disposal UNASUR (Unión de Naciones Suramericanas – Union of South American Nations) and MERCOSUR (Mercado Común del Sur – Southern Common Market), energy projects, local branches of IPEA (Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada – Institute of Applied Economic Research), EMBRAPA (Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária – Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation) and Caixa (Caixa Econômica Federal – Brazilian publicly owned bank), as well as a commercial exchange that has jumped from 800 million US dollars to six billion reais [about three billion dollars] in a decade – 80 percent of it, keep in mind, to Brazil’s benefit. (more…)

((A worker walks past opposition graffiti.))

[Translation of an article from Opera Mundi of São Paulo, Brazil, for April 19, 2013. See original here.]

by Breno Altman

The script being followed by Henrique Capriles, the defeated candidate in Sunday’s elections, should be watched closely. Beyond revealing the nature of the local Right, the events taking place help to understand the package of efforts already being made against leftist governments in Latin America.

Taking advantage of the narrow margins by which Nicolás Maduro won the contest, the conservative camp yells “Fraud.” So far, no serious evidence of any kind that this actually took place has been offered. On the contrary, the overwhelming majority of international observers attest to the integrity of the electoral process. But the relative weakening of the Chavista base is taken as an opportunity to escalate the confrontation. (more…)

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for March 19. See original here and related article here.]

By Luis Hernández Navarro

Nicolás Maduro is a large, robust man, 1.90 meters tall, with a thick black mustache, who drove a city bus in Caracas for more than seven years, was foreign minister another six and is now acting president of Venezuela and a candidate for that office. He is part of the new generation of Latin American presidents who, like the metal worker Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva or the coca union activist Evo Morales, came into politics from the trenches of opposition social struggles.

Maduro is a revolutionary socialist who altered his original orthodox development to join the heterodox hurricane of the Bolivarian revolution. He is a man of the Left who came to power without giving up his principles. A faithful collaborator with Hugo Chávez who has made himself and is now at the helm of one of the most profound transformational processes in Latin America. (more…)

[Translation of an article by the Spanish news agency EFE as published in Semana of Bogotá, Colombia, on March 11. See original here and related article here.]

Who is the man who began at the steering wheel of a bus and went on to the presidency of a country?

“Nicolás, Nicolás. You are the best proof of the achievements of our revolution. A few years ago you were driving a bus and now you are foreign minister.” The words are those of Hugo Chávez and although he broke out in laughter after he said them the feeling remained that the then president of Venezuela was speaking very seriously and that Maduro’s change of jobs was a demonstration that there had been a historical social turnabout in the country.

And something else remained clear in this account and that is the mutual loyalty. The designated president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, anointed by Chávez as his heir and since last Monday the candidate of the ruling party for the April 14 elections, is a staunch Chavista who swears loyalty even beyond the death of his mentor. (more…)

With no evidence, Capriles claims Caracas contributed millions of dollars to the Zelaya administration

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for October 13.  See original here.]

by Arturo Cano

Caracas, October 12 – “And when was the 100-million dollar contribution?”  Henrique Capriles Radonski shuffled his papers.  “In 2010,” he said.  “What?  He gave the money to (Roberto) Micheletti?” was heard in the auditorium.  “Well, I’ll clear it up later and let you know.”

One of the lines of attack by the opposition candidate when he took part in public events during the recent campaign was to repeat a list of “contributions” that the Hugo Chávez government had made all over the world.

The initial exchange took place on October 1 in a press conference presented by  Capriles, who only four days after his defeat in the presidential race registered again as a candidate, this time for re-election as governor of the state of Miranda, to say to  foreign correspondents that he would not give away Venezuelan money and to accuse Chávez of being a mono-exporter:  “The only thing he exports is his political agenda.” (more…)

[Translation of an article from Brasil de Fato of São Paulo for July 21. See original here.]

By Manuela Sisa

After Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s surprise return to the country, the political future is still fraught with uncertainty: will the Venezuelan leader’s health allow him to take on the campaign for the presidential election of 2012?

Chávez had to undergo emergency surgery for the removal of a cancerous tumor in the pelvic area. He was in the intensive care unit of a Cuban hospital for four days and in treatment on the island for almost a month. During this period, the government and the opposition lost their way, revealing the dependence on Chávez that is predominant in Venezuelan politics.

The illness that attacked the president’s health, assumed by allies and adversaries to be incurable, revealed the degree of dependence of the Venezuelan political process on the presidential figure. “The dependence of a revolutionary process on a single person is in itself a contradictory element,” sociologist Nicmer Evans, a professor at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, declared to Brasil de Fato. “The revolutionary process had not bothered to think, in the medium and long term. about the future of the revolution in a post-Chávez era,” he stressed. (more…)

[Translations of two articles, both from April 16, the first from the web site of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular, based on a news conference carried by Venezolana de Televisión, the second from Diario Tiempo of San Pedro Sula, based on an Agence France Press dispatch. See first article here and second here, a related article from Honduras Weekly here and go here for link to video news conference.]

Frente de Resistencia has confidence in President Chávez as mediator in Honduran crisis

“We are very happy to be able to contribute to the reestablishment of peace and democracy in Honduras. We are here struggling to consolidate, not only in Venezuela, but throughout this land, Latin America, in Central America, in South America, a grand area of peace,” the head of state declared on Saturday. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Revistazo of Tegucigalpa for April 12. See original here and "First Part" here.]

by Tomás Andino Mancía

Second part

As for President Hugo Chávez, we can reject the hypothesis that he was taken by surprise, like a naïve dove, by the cold and calculating Colombian president, since Chávez has confirmed in his statements that he has been making efforts for some time, and that he will continue making them, to advocate Honduras’ return to the OAS. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Revistazo of Tegucigalpa for April 11. See original here,  "Second Part" here and related article here.]

by Tomás Andino Mencía

First Part

The Honduran population in resistance has still not gotten over its surprise at the unexpected turn in international politics concerning the coup d’état in our country, not so much because of the well known cynicism of the Honduran oligarchy in blessing today whom it demonized yesterday as the worst monster in the world, but because of the political recognition and support the regime of President Hugo Chávez offered to the coup’s successor regime, as much for the sake of its return to the OAS as to enable it to receive the benefits of PetroCaribe. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Listín Diario of Santo Domingo for January 19. See original here.]

Santo Domingo – Hundreds of drivers gathered in front of the Venezuelan embassy on Wednesday to denounce the lack of transparency on the part of Dominican authorities in the management of resources resulting from the agreement on petroleum between the two countries.

“Since we have been in Petrocaribe, fuel prices have never fallen,” said Ramón Pérez Figuereo, leader of the Central de Transportistas Unificados (United Transportation Workers Union) after delivering a statement to Venezuelan ambassador Alfredo Murga. (more…)

[Three articles. Under newly elected President Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia renewed diplomatic relations with Venezuela last August after ties had been broken over accusations by former President Álvaro Uribe that Venezuela was harboring guerrillas of the FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and Santos and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez have since made a show of harmony. In the meantime, Colombia has been hit with serious flooding in recent weeks, resulting in some 138 people dead, 208 injured, 22 missing and 1.3 million homeless. The United States has pledged $150,000 in relief funds, in sharp contrast to the seven billion dollars the US has spent on Plan Colombia in the ten years since the US began participating in the effort, most of it directed to financing the Colombian military in its pursuit of the FARC.]

Venezuela and Brazil to send aid after winter storms

[Translation of an article from Vanguardia Liberal of Bucaramanga, Colombia, for November 28. See original here.]

The president of the republic, Juan Manuel Santos, reported yesterday that his counterparts in Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, and in Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, have made a commitment to provide aid in response to the harsh winter weather the country is experiencing, as they informed him during the UNASUR (Union of South American States) heads of state summit held last Friday in Georgetown, Guyana. (more…)