Executive Vice President, Ramon Carrizalez has announced the nationalization of the Sidor steel company. The government says it will negotiate with the company and pay full compensation after reaching an agreement. Basic Industry & Mining Minister Rodolfo Sanz will lead the negotiations. The announcement comes after the president of the Techint group that runs the company sent a letter to President Chavez asking for his intervention in the long-running conflict between the company and trade unions. Techint, an Italian-Argentinean group, is accused by the Sutiss trade union of acting like a colonizer. Carrizalez has sided with workers, alleging that the company has been arrogant towards the workers, submitting them to semi-slavery. The company, Carrizalez points out, receives subsidies for raw material and electricity, so he argues, there is no reason why they should not pay workers a better wage. Whether the measure will affect relations with Argentina remains to be seen, since the company is based in that country. However, Carrizalez says the decision is an internal one and relations with Argentina will remain on a solid footing.
Confederation of Industry (Conindustria) president, Eduardo Gomez Sigala claims that the government will be less efficient than private companies in managing cement production. Gomez Sigala queries why the government does not complete the building of a cement plant with the Iranians that it has talked so much about. Resuming government intervention in other companies, such as CANTV, electricity and the La Marquesena and El Charcote farms, the businessmen says the only thing they have in common is that they have lost the greater part of their operative capacity and efficiency. The cement companies, on the hand, he proclaims, have been successful and represent the three most important world groups technologically and investment wise. Conindustria also criticizes the exchange control system, arguing that no economy can survive years of price and exchange controls, calling the policy "erroneous." Current government overtures to productive national sectors, Gomez Sigala claims, is because of the economic deterioration in Venezuela. He complains of the difficulty in setting up meetings with the nine Ministers that the sector has had to deal with ... "the bridges the government is building is basically to take the heat off the situation."
The Venezuelan government through its Foreign Ministry has issued a communique expressing its unrestricted solidarity towards the government and people of the Popular Republic of China vis-a-vis the "systematic campaign of infamies thrown at it by the private world mass media." The document accuses the mass media of manipulating the demonstrations of violent groups in Tibet as a product of psychological war laboratories in the USA. The communique proclaims that the campaign comes a moment when China is preparing for the " best organized Olympic Games in modern history" and shows the meanness of sectors of the US elite that refuse to accept that countries like China have reached high levels of development "following their own models and being faithful to their own cultural peculiarities."
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) Secretariat has issued a communique that effectively rules out any success of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's humanitarian mission to bring Colombia-French citizen, Ingrid Betancourt back to France. The group says the medical mission is not a result of a consultation but of bad faith on the part of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe vis-a-vis the French government and mocks the hopes of the prisoners' families. The FARC, the document states, does not act on the blackmail nor under pressure from media campaigns. If at the beginning of the year President Uribe had cleared the Pradera and Florida zones for 45 days as requested, Ingrid Betancourt, as well as military officers and imprisoned guerrillas, would have recovered their freedom and everybody would have gained.
Although the medical mission has stalled and apparently will return to France empty-handed, French Foreign Minister Bernhard Kouchner says another way will have to be found to get Betancourt out. A medical team sent by France with the participation of Spain and Switzerland will return to base sometime today and it would appear that the focus will fall once again on President Chavez who announced at the weekend that he is actively following negotiations.
Former Attorney General, Isaias Rodriguez states that the USA is planning a series of "shock 'n awe" tactics to cause commotion during what remains of the electorate year to favor the opposition. According to Rodriguez, there is a secret FBI document outlining the policy. The former Attorney General argues that the US is using the Danilo Anderson case to confuse people and highlight alleged corruption and government intervention. Anderson was assassinated on November 18, 2004 and yesterday one of the key witnesses, Giovanni Vasquez de Armas arrived at the Attorney General's Office to declare after state prosecutor, Hernando Contreras accused Rodriguez of alleged fiddling with acts. Vasquez' lawyer, Morly Uzcategui has stated that his client presented proofs of alleged intervention of state prosecutors investigating the assassination. The lawyer accuses Rodriguez of stage-managing the whole affair involving former state security agents, the Guevara brothers, editor/publisher Patricia Poleo and others. According to the witness, Rodriguez handed him a script which later appeared among the acts. The problem is that the witness has changed his tune and the whole affair is in danger of becoming entangled with plots, false trails and spin.
Patrick J. O'Donoghue
patrick.vheadline@gmail.com
Comment o SIDOR:
ReplyDeleteWhen the word nationalization is used towards companies that states are in the process of recovering the full ownership from the private sector it gives most people the impression that these companies were always private.
People must understand that these institutions always belonged to the state and were taken by the private sector by some form of illegitimate or illegal business agrements to make them private corporations at the expenses of the ignorance of the mayority of the population or nationals. These institutions as well as strategic resources are shield and protected from any form fo FTAs or private deals by constitutional laws that prevent them from being transferred, owned or controlled by nationals or transnationals private corporations , individuals, groups that the only purpose is to deal with particular interests disregarding the social and national integrity and security of a nation and their nationals.
This contitutional protection is extremely important and crucial for the security of its natural resources such as energy, minerals and other strategic resources which always will be at risk and threaten by industrialized or imperial nations.