The War On Democracy

Guatemala is going to enter a new era
In which there will be prosperity for the people,
together with liberty for the people.

The question is, why are we supporting El Salvador?
No, the question was, why are we killing priests in El Slvardo?
The answer is, we're not, now, you be quiet.
Prisident Christiani is trying to do a job for democracy
and the lelf-wing guerrillas must not take over El Salvador.

(George W Bush) America will not impose our own style of governement on the unwilling,
our goal instead is to help others to find their own voice,
attain their own freedom, and make their own way.

This film is about the struggle of people to free themelves,
from a morden form of slavery.
Richard Nixon, president of the United States,
once said of Latin America,"People don't give a shit about the place,"
He was wrong,
The grand design of the United States as a morden empire,
was drawn on the hopes of an entire continent
known contemptously as "the back yard"
The extraordinary witnesses in this film
describe a world not as American presidents like to see it,
as useful or expendable,
they describe the power of courage and humanity,
among people with next to noghing.
They reclaim noble words like democracy, freedom, liberation, justice,
and in doing so, they're definding the most basic human rights of all of us
in a war being waged against all of us.



THE WAR ON DEMOCRACY
A FILM BY JOHN PILGER


This is Caracas, capital of Venezuela
one of the richest countries in Latin America
thanks to huge deposits of oil
The rich in Venezuela live in leafy suburbs
with names like Country Club
Their spiritual homes are Miami and Washington

The majority live in what are known as barrios
on hillsides in breeze-block houses that defy gravity
In the past these people had been invisible-
excluded from their own soceity
Today they display the confidence of those
who know an extraordinary change has come to their lives

This is Hugo Chavez president of Venezuela the voice of the barrios
Chavez and his supporters have won ten elections in eight years
(cheering)
He's the symbol of an awakening of people powerdriven by great popular movenments that are unique to Latin America

The days of the old bosses and barons are over,That false, elite democracy is over in Venezuela,


It's no surprise that Chavez, with the help of an aggressive media coverage
has become a hate figure in the United States
because what he represents is another way
and a threat to Amecrican domination

(# Rock music)
……

(Speaking Spanish)
……

-Let me ask about you, personally,
I mean, travelling with you for the last couple of days,
I've seen a man who's clearly deeply committed
to what you want for the Venezuelan people,
Could you describe where that came from?
-I was born in a very poor home,a peasant home, so I experienced poverty,
I was a poor child, barefoot,
My father was a teacher at a rural school, and my mother too,
I had a beautiful grandmother, She was Indian, She filled me with love,
My grandmother taught me a lot,
and I learned from her about solidarity with other people,
about sharing the bread even when there's little to eat,
Later,I went into the army, the military academy, and I became a soldier,
And there I found out about Bolivar and started to realise what the truth was,

Simon Bolivar is venerated in Latin America
as the liberator from Spanish colonialism
Bolivar believed that freedom only came
when people united against all invaders no matter their disguise

Today the people of Latin America are again rising up
against an empire built on an extreme form of capitalism
know as the Washington Consensus
Whole countries have been privatized put up for sale
their natural wealth sold to foreign companies, for peanuts
In Venezuela they said "No more"

This is La Vega a barrio of a million people
Mariela Machadoo has lived here most of her life
She knows what it's like to be excluded in her own country

I can give you a very specific example on the maps,
All these hills and houses did not figure-they were shown as green spaces,
That was before Chavez's government,
Before Chavez, we did not feel a part of this society.

This is called a mission
It's a kind of parellel government
designed to bypass the old bureaucracy
and deliver real benefits to ordinary people
This is raw democracy- a triumph of the grass roots

Today they're discussing the dream of owning their own homes for the first time

We don't want the deeds just for their own sake,
More important the deeds themselves
is that we own the property in order to develop our cities,
and obtain the rights that have been denied us for so long,
This is the most important thing,
This is not a matter of getting the deeds and saying,"I'm sorted now, I can go,"
and stop coming to the parish assemblies,
because after the deeds, there are better things to come,
Like the development of our barrios.

Soon after Chavez was elected in 1999 Venezuelans voted on a constitutiong
and this little blue book has become a bestseller ever since


This is one of a chain of supermarkets set up in the barrios
funded by proceeds of oil
Here prices are kept low
and on the back of every rice and soap powder packet
are printed people's rights under the constitution

-Does it really mean somthing to you to see it there？
-Of course, because I didn't know we had rights like everyone else,
but this one, article 23,
tells us about national politics, and this makes us feel included.

Democracy, as I said recently, before our people,
as Lincoln said, has a simple definition- the difficulty is making it a reality,
We are making it a reality-
government of people, by the people and for the people,
A society where people are included and equal, where there is no exclusion,
there is no poverty, where human values reign.

For some of his supporters Chavez has not gone far enough
Familiar obstacles remain from the past
a stifling bureaucracy and widespread corruption
And although poverty has fallen dramatically in recent years, it's far from eradicated

-When you drive in from the airport and Caracas,
the one thing that shocks a first-visitor
are the barrios, the numbers of poor people,
Why is it, in Venezuela, which earns so many billions of dollars in oil money,
that there still is this poverty, in spite of all the changes you've made?
-The poor of Venezuela carry on being poor, yes,
I always say that we don't want to be rich, our aim is not material wealth,
It is to live with dignity, of course to come out of poverty,
and to come out of extreme poverty above all,
and to live, to live with dignity, this is the objective,
not to become millionaires, the Amecrican way of life, no that is stupid.
I'm teling you this because the issue of poverty affects us deeply,
It's most of our daliy struggle.

……
to be continued..