Use of force by Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Guard has become a regular sight in corporate media, and those actions are used by foreign powers as justification for intervention.
With very real possibilities of another US-backed coup, Abby Martin interviews the head of Venezuela’s Armed Forces and Minister of Defense, General Padrino López. They discuss the National Guard’s control of food and medicine, condemnations over use of force, and the threat of US military intervention.
Head of Venezuela National Guard on Insurgency & US Threats
Images of the Venezuelan National Guard using force against protesters have been plastered across the front pages of media outlets around the world for months, with the United States and its allies using these images as justification for foreign intervention in Venezuela. But absent from this constant media coverage are the violent attacks on civilians and state forces perpetrated by the opposition.
Most recently, on July 28th armed and masked opposition members issued a call via video for National Guard members to stage a coup against Venezuela’s democratically elected government. On July 30th there was a roadside bomb attack on a National Guard convoy. Through the lens of the corporate media the National Guard is oppressive and violent, but how much violence has the National Guard been responsible for and are they operating outside of the powers granted to them by their constitution?
While in Venezuela investigating the country’s economic and political struggles, Abby Martin met and spoke with the head of Venezuela’s Armed Forces and Minister of Defense, General Padrino López. They discussed demands for him to be tried for crimes against humanity, the National Guard’s control of food and medicine distribution, condemnations over use of force including protester deaths and the threat of U.S. military intervention.
According to General López, Venezuela’s constitution establishes three missions for the military which include military defense, maintaining order and, unique to Venezuela, engaging in active participation in the development of the country. He denies the accusation that military control of food and medicine distribution is evidence of a police state. The “control” is not via militarization or occupation, it is merely supervision. For example, the military supervises where medicine goes, confirming it is given to patients in hospitals rather than being hoarded to later be sold at exorbitant prices.
“The right to protest is printed in the constitution and we respect it very profoundly.”
The National Guard of Venezuela respects the right to peacefully protest. They are obligated, however, to become involved when the opposition engages in violence. There is a state duty to protect protesters and third parties. Unlike in the United States, where it has become commonplace for police and those in uniform to emerge unscathed from controversy involving death and violence against U.S. citizens, National Guard members in Venezuela engaging in violence or working outside of their given orders are held accountable.
“All we want is to be free, all we want is to be independent, all we want is to be a sovereign country. We just want to be a happy, united nation with it’s own national spirit. If that’s a threat to the United States, then we will be a threat.”
During Obama’s presidency, the U.S. government named Venezuela a top threat to U.S. national security. In fact, Venezuela has been referred to as the top threat to the U.S. in all of the Western hemisphere. The Trump administration is continuing the battle cries and has gone so far as to slap Maduro with sanctions on July 31st after a successful Constituent Assembly, referring to the process as a “sham.” How can a country like Venezuela possibly be a threat to a military and economic superpower to like the United States?
On July 30th, Venezuelans will elect a people’s body called the “Constituent Assembly” comprised of hundreds of representatives across the country with the power to redraft the constitution.
U.S. politicians, press and opposition in Venezuela are calling the process a “coup” that should be boycotted by all.
Abby Martin addresses the criticisms with Head of the Presidential Commission to oversee the Constituent Assembly process, Elias Jaua, speaks to supporters and participants of the Assembly, interviews historian Chris Gilbert and explains what is at stake in Venezuela if the social programs instated under Chavez are terminated by the opposition.
Constituent Assembly Dictatorship or Democracy in Venezuela?
On July 30th Venezuelans will elect a large citizen body called the Constituent Assembly. This group of 537 Venezuelans, representing multiple sectors and municipalities, will have the power to redraft the constitution. The main charge currently being levied at the government by the opposition is that it is a dictatorship, claiming the Constituent Assembly is a power grab while U.S. politicians and press allege it to be part of a coup attempt. In reality, the democratically elected assembly will only successfully draft constitutional amendments after all Venezuelans are presented a chance to vote on the changes.
What exactly is the Constituent Assembly and in what ways does it pose a threat to Venezuela’s democracy? Abby Martin traveled Venezuela to find out.
While in Venezuela, Abby witnessed numerous street actions held to generate support for the Assembly and attended two public mass meetings explaining how Venezuelans can be involved in the democratic process– Maduro calls it a peaceful solution to the recent violence. Those putting their hope in this democratic process are calling for a peaceful dialogue with the opposition. In stark contrast, opposition leaders are making charged statements, claiming that “Venezuela will be lost” if the Constituent Assembly is successful. Outside players are not hesitant to get involved. In fact, Marco Rubio, vocal in his threats of issuing sanctions on the country if the Assembly proceeds, claims the process is a theft of democracy.
Supporters of Venezuela’s current government are prepared to amend the constitution in a way that protects current programs that are vital to the well-being of numerous Venezuelans, especially those who are struggling. This massive movement places emphasis on the person and the well-being of the family– it is “a revolution of peace, revolution of love” according to one supporter interviewed.
The opposition has gone so far as to respond with additional violence by targeting participants in the Assembly. Recently, on July 10th, a Chavista running as a delegate was murdered when he was shot 8 times. They claim the assembly could rewrite the laws to exclude their preferred parties and instead of boosting their own candidates that support their platform, they are calling for all Venezuelans to boycott this constitutionally allowed political process.
The current constitution of Venezuela makes it possible to active the Constituent Assembly when necessary. All candidates are independent and not nominated by political parties. The election process is seemingly fair and encompasses a vast array of different cultural and economic sectors, with 50% of participants chosen based on location and 50% chosen by secret vote in 8 sectors that include workers, students, indigenous, employers, disabled, seniors, farmers and fisherfolk for a total of 6,120 candidates.
“Revolutionary men and women are invisible to foreign media.”
Despite this fact, the specifics of the process, and the large numbers of government supports eager to participate in the Assembly, are largely absent from the media. The fact that the current constitution emphasizes family and aims to provide a means for all families to live a dignified life is rarely addressed or acknowledged.
The programs that many Venezuelans are eager to protect via the Assembly are called “missions.” There are over two dozen of these missions that were created by Chavez and there is a valid fear the opposition will repeal these programs if they gain control of the government. The missions provide necessary tools and support for Venezuelans from all walks of life. For example, Mission Sucre provides free higher education, Mission Musica provides musical instruments and lessons to youth, there is a mission to provide free healthcare for the low income community and another mission that has provided 1.6 million homes for low income Venezuelans. These missions have sustained the revolutionary spirit of Venezuela for the past 18 years and they will not be given up on without a fight.
These programs have led to a dramatic drop in poverty in Venezuela. Poverty fell from 43% to 26%– with extreme poverty falling from 17% to less than 7%. In addition to the drops in poverty rates, college attendance more than quadrupled, grade school attendance doubled and infant mortality dropped a shocking 50%. Many Venezuelans are rightfully fearful that these statistics will shift under opposition control.
The opposition has vocalized their own plans for missions, some of which include privatizing the programs. While humans are at the center of the current government model laid out by Chavez, money is seemingly at the center of the opposition model. There are numerous examples the world over for why this is not a successful strategy. Despite frequent invitations to be a part of this political process, the opposition continues to reject the idea. If the majority of society supports the opposition, as they claim, there should be nothing to fear in the opposition’s participation.
So it seems the Constituent Assembly does not pose a threat to Venezuela’s democracy at all. What it does do is pose a threat to the increase in capitalism and privatization that the opposition, the bourgeois class, is seeking. Do not be mistaken– a class war has erupted in Venezuela and the opposition is on the wrong side of history.
In this two part series on the US/Philippines human trafficking epidemic, Abby Martin recalls the history of the colonization of the Philippines and how it has led to a dramatic rise in human trafficking of Philippine workers. She interviews the executive director of Damayan, the 8,000 member strong New York City based organization created and led by Filipino women domestic workers that provides legal assistance to migrant workers and human trafficking victims, as well as other victims of human trafficking who have experienced the dark side of migrant employment.
Part One: Buying a Slave – The Hidden World of US/Philippines Trafficking
Part Two: The Roots of the Philippines Trafficking Epidemic
The Philippines has suffered the consequences of occupation and colonization for hundreds of years with the effects still being seen today in the form of poverty, job shortages and a human trafficking epidemic. A shocking 10% of the Philippine population must leave the country in order to seek employment in hopes of sending money back to their families. An estimated 6,000 people, mostly women, leave the Philippines daily to seek work.
Human trafficking is a multi-billion dollar industry that entraps millions of people across the globe. The majority of victims are abused– living and working in shockingly inhumane conditions. Particularly horrifying is the fact that, in the Philippines, humans have become the number one export.
Most of these migrant workers leave the Philippines for the United States, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and Japan where they work in low-wage jobs. In fact, 21 million people are working in forced labor situations worldwide- many of them right under the noses of the average citizen of these countries.
There are currently 2 million migrant domestic workers working in the United States. According to the recent report The Human Trafficking of Domestic Workers in The United States, over 80% of these workers have experienced their pay being withheld or having been paid under minimum wage, 81% live in abusive conditions and 73% work excessive overtime.
Through this process, many of these migrant workers have become victims of human trafficking and have found themselves stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of abuse and neglect. But what has led to this disturbing trend? Why do so many Filipinos flee their home country for work and subject themselves to such harsh and inhumane conditions?
The Philippines was first claimed by the Spanish in 1525. The indigenous Filipino people engaged in over 300 armed revolts over the next three hundred years, eventually securing their independence after a two year long war of independence. At the time, Spain was also engaged in the Spanish-American war. Upon losing that war, Spain negotiated the sale of the Philippines to the United States, behind the backs of the Filipino people, for a total sum of $20 million in the Treaty of Paris.
This began a many decade-long hostile relationship between the Filipino people and their new occupiers from the United States. With such a volatile relationship, conflicts occurred frequently resulting in the deaths of numerous Filipinos. In one such conflict, the Moro Crater Massacre, only six out of 1,000 Filipinos survived. Shockingly, in the first 15 years of colonization, more Filipinos were killed by the U.S. than during the entire three hundred years of Spanish occupation.
As the violence decreased, the occupation took on a new form– economic destruction and experiments in neocolonialism. There quickly became a dependence on U.S. patronage for survival of the now fragile Philippine economy and the U.S. began focusing it’s efforts and attention on the elite of the Filipino people– training and educating them to be vehicles of U.S. colonization.
This led to the granting of Philippine independence in 1946 but that independence was only in name. With the puppets of neocolonialism now in charge of the country, the U.S. continued to have a direct line of control, only now it was slightly obscured. Also in 1946, the United States Congress passed the Rescission Act, stripping Filipinos who fought in defense of the U.S. against the Japanese during World War II of the benefits they were promised for doing so, yet another damaging blow to the Philippine people.
“Our country was ruined primarily by the U.S.” –Linda Oalican
Tensions between the Filipino people and the U.S. backed ruling class have continued to this day, with the Philippine economy continuing to suffer and a successful government propaganda campaign encouraging workers to seek employment elsewhere via the Philippine Labor Migration Policy continuing to grow. In this episode, Abby Martin details the history of the colonization of the Philippines, starting with the Spanish in 1525 and ending with the present day situation, leading to an exodus of able-bodied workers from the Philippines to all corners of the globe– often ripping families apart and damaging relationships for years to come.
“The history of the Philippine resistance is an unbroken chain– from it’s first hand-to-hand battles against colonizers wearing armor and swords to it’s organizing against today’s exploiters who wear three piece suits, the poor and oppressed of the Philippines are much more than victims of the system, but are indeed the force that will change it.”
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Part One Transcript
Abby Martin: The Philippines, among the many nations whose history is one of being colonized and subjugated by the world’s empires, today suffers the consequences of that legacy, underdevelopment, high unemployment, and deepening poverty. This has led to a phenomenon that dominates the lives of millions of Filipinos. The fact that over 10% of the population, mostly women, must leave the country to seek work in order to send money back to their families. Six thousand people leave the Philippines as migrant workers every single day. Imagine children, often too young to understand, watching their mother leave, and knowing they will not see them again for a decade or more. This is now a shared experience for countless families in the island nation. Most go to work low-waged jobs in the United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Japan. They send back over $20 billion a year into the Philippine economy. Despite its dramatically smaller population, the Philippines ranks alongside India and China as the top countries receiving such remittances, But when these people leave their homes, they enter into a dark, cruel industry. Human trafficking is mostly absent in US consciousness. Most don’t think of trafficking when it comes to jobs like nannies, maids at big hotel chains, and other domestic work, but millions of migrant workers are trafficked into these jobs every year. It’s defined as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons by improper means for an improper purpose including forced labor, or sexual exploitation. This global black market ensnares 21 million people around the world, making $150 billion a year in illegal profits for traffickers. According to the recent report, the human trafficking of domestic workers in the United States, there are currently two million migrant domestic workers that live in the US. Around 300,000 of whom are Philippina, and doing legally with work visas. The overwhelming majority are placed by agencies in a shockingly inhumane conditions. Over 80% have had their pay withheld or are paid below minimum wage, live in abusive conditions, and have been tricked or false or deceptive contracts. Over 70% work excessive overtime, and have had their movements restricted or monitored by employers. A New York City based organization called Damayan, which means to help each other, is one group fighting this web of exploitation. It is led by Filipino women domestic workers, and with 8,000 members, organizes and provides legal assistance to other migrant workers, and trafficking victims. I visited their bustling headquarters to understand more about the situation. Linda, a co-founder at Damayan who came to the US as a migrant worker, explains the sacrifice experienced by these women.
Linda: In 1994, I made a fateful decision to come here. When I first came here, I left my children. They were in elementary. A boy and a girl, and it wasn’t easy. It’s always hard for a mother to leave her children, but I thought that I did not have a choice. I had no enough source of income to send my two children to college, and I really need to go abroad. My thing, my difficulties in being away from my children, those were all collateral damage. I was very young then. I’m now 65. Life is different for me now. I also have a granddaughter. Having the chance to raise my granddaughter, now I realize how precious the moments that I’ve lost. That really cost my relationship to my children. Women, Filipino women, who come here, they don’t talk about the family and the social cost of migration, but it is real.
Abby Martin: One of Linda’s children, her daughter, Ria, also came to the US as an adult. She recalls what it was like to lose her mother so young.
Ria: Yeah, it was really difficult. I consider myself a product of forced migration. When I was eight, I found myself crying my eyes out at the Manila International Airport because my father, brother, and I were saying goodbye to my mother. She was about to board her flight to work as a domestic worker in the US. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew that I was about to lose my mother, and our family was about to get separated. After that, things changed. I was diagnosed with Complex PTSD. When I got older, and I know it was because of the family separation or the impacts of family separation on my family. That’s why I’m very invested in this work.
Abby Martin: Human trafficking survivor, Sally, also came to the US at great personal cost.
Sally: I have three children, and my husband suffered a stroke, so I need to work to provide their living. My youngest child is a special child, so it’s hard for me to leave, but I need to go abroad to support them. The worst that I experienced when I’m not with them is when my husband died, and I didn’t go home. I have no money, so it’s hard to see that. I cannot see the last breath of my husband. My kids is, they are living without parents, so it’s hard for me.
Abby Martin: Yeah.
Linda: It’s really sad for these women, me included, that you pay a very high price to support your family, and you grow old, and you realize you’re still sacrificing. Many of our members are broken. Not just brokenhearted, well they’re also penniless. They sent all the money home. No money to take care of themselves when they go home, and they’re heartbroken. There was a time when it was more men who are leaving the country, working in Saudi, in the United States, and other countries for manufacturing, construction jobs. That era was disappearing by 1980s and beginning 1990s, so from the 1990s the migration has become feminized. Now the challenge is on the women, and the women took it. Although 6,000 Filipinos who leave every day, I could say that maybe 80% are women, and 70% of those women become domestic workers. In the Philippines, one out of four have a family member that is abroad. Now, it’s mostly women.
Abby Martin: I can’t imagine what that does to a country when that many women are leaving their family behind.
Linda: A generation of this function of families and children, with a lot of emotional and psychological problems.
Abby Martin: These women endure such personal hardships only to become victims of human trafficking and subjected to criminal working conditions.
Ria: In 2007, we met our first trafficking survivor. She was the domestic worker for the Philippine Ambassador to the UN. She worked as a nurse in the Philippines, and she was promised that she would be able to work as a nurse when she comes here, so she was asked to sign a contract basically that she would pay $5,000, and she would be able to come here and work.Then when she came here, she didn’t know that she would come here as a domestic worker for the diplomat, so she ended up cleaning three floors, house with three floors. She was serving the diplomat, his family, including his children. Her passport was taken. She was not allowed to leave the house. The house was locked from the inside.She had no phone. She had no contact with her family, to the point that she was suicidal. We met her because I think the landline, they wouldn’t even give her access to that landline. One time it rang. She picked it up. There was a Filipino on the other line. She said, “Help me. Help me.” The other woman ended up knowing the Damayan, that’s how she was connected to us.
Abby Martin: How common is that for diplomats to completely abuse the system like that?
Ria: Oh yeah, very, very common. Like what I said, we’ve been doing this work since 2007, and until recently, most of the cases we’re handling are domestic workers of diplomats. We’ve handled cases from diplomats from Japan, from Peru, from Germany. The UN is just right here. It’s like buying a slave for them. You would think this people, with their degrees and their titles, would treat another human being with dignity and respect, right? They’re supposed to be human rights defenders, but they’re the very ones who are abusing this workers, who are taking care of their homes and their children, and them. It’s mind boggling.
Abby Martin: It is. The level of dehumanization is totally mind boggling. Let’s talk about the passports being removed, and the lack of communication because people watching this may think, “Well, why can’t you just call your family? Why can’t you just warn people and say don’t do this and help me?” A lot of these people have all these things completely cut off from them.
Ria: The first thing that they do when they get a domestic worker in their homes is to take away their passport. One of the main elements of labor trafficking is control. It’s creating that climate of fear, so it’s either the control has grew physical, meaning their passport is taken, or other important documents are taken, the house is locked. I’ve never heard of houses that gets locked from the inside, but apparently that’s where diplomats set up their houses that way.
Abby Martin: It’s insane.
Ria: I know right. Who does that, really? It’s like premeditated crime, right? We’ve had a worker who worked for a diplomat in West Chester, where there’s an alarm system, so every time she stepped out to bring out the trash or get the newspaper, the alarm would beep. It would keep beeping until she enters the house again. The consulates or the embassies in the Philippines or in other countries, they’re actually aware that there is trafficking happening in the US because they would tell the workers, “If anything happens to you, call this number.” Then we’ve consistently heard of this pamphlet that was given to our members, but we’ve never seen a copy. Then yesterday, I just received a copy from our members, so it’s this one. This is the pamphlet that they would receive from the consulate from their home countries, and then usually as soon as they come here, the passport and this pamphlet would be taken away from them.Isn’t that ironic, right? It’s like, “Okay, call this number if you’re getting trafficked,” and as soon as you come here like, “Okay, I guess I can’t call them because they’re taking this. I’m actually getting trafficked right now. That’s just the irony of the situation.
Abby Martin: Ria, let’s talk about the conditions, the abusive conditions, that some of these people are living in, and the slave-like conditions essentially. Let’s start with just the pay. You said that there’s instances where you can sign up on a contract, and say you’re contracting to have this many hours for this much pay. Of course, that is violated. What about when you’re not paid at all, and you’re essentially trapped in these situations? Talk about that.
Ria: We’ve had one of our worker organizers, Lydia, she was brought here by a church. She was supposed to come here as a missionary, but she ended up working as a domestic worker for some of the top church leaders. She worked for free for three years, like zero pay. Lydia: When I was invited to come here, I was very excited and happy to have this opportunity, so in that opportunity to coming here as a missionary I get five years visa, just visa. In that contract I was told that in two years, being full time in the church, doing a fund raising in supporting the church, they would adjust my status into Green Card, but that didn’t happen to me. I ended up became domestic worker for three years, no salary. I was taking care of the three young kids for three years, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, no days off, no salary. I always hungry. I have no … I can’t talk to my friends. I can’t communicate with my family. I was told because my Green Card didn’t come, so I was told they’re going to send me back to Philippines, but then I realized I was used by this family. The reason I cannot escape in this situation, I cannot live in this situation, I don’t know anyone. I’m scared. I came as a missionary. I know people around that group. Then I was told not making a friend in the outside of that group is not safe for me. I can’t imagine going back for nothing, and then going to start from zero. What will happen to my future and my family?
Abby Martin: When they found out you were gone, they tried to contact you, and threaten you, and deport you.
Lydia: Yes. I have to hide. I don’t have anyone. Even like went to my family in Philippines looking for me.
Abby Martin: What?
Lydia: Yes. “Is Lydia here?” It was kind of scary. They’re treating me like a criminal.
AM: The placement agencies running this scam, register workers in the US, primarily through their H-2B visas for low-skilled seasonal workers, and A-3G5 visas for domestic workers of diplomats. Foreign diplomats are actually the top clients for traffickers.
Ria: For A-3G5 or domestic workers of diplomats, that means that they were recruited even from the Philippines, they were promised on paper they would earn this much, work for 40 hours a week, get paid $8 an hour, have benefits, have transportation, lodging, days off, but when they come here, they realize that it’s all a fraud. Everything that they were shown, was just for show so that their visa would be approved, and they would be able to come here. Same thing with domestic workers who go through the H-2B program. The H-2B program that’s actually low-skilled seasonal workers. The US governments quota for that is $60,000 a year or around $60,000 a year. The strategy of the placement agencies is to fill the quota. They would go to third-world countries, like Mexico, India, and the Philippines, recruit workers who are not really middle-class…with the promise of being able to come to the US. They would be forced to pay anywhere between $3,000 to $9,000. Of course these are not rich people in the Philippines. It’s a third-world country, so they would like loan the house, mortgage the house, borrow money from loan sharks. It becomes a community affair. Everyone in the family pitches in. Then when they get the money, the required as a processing fee, they’re able to come here, only to find out that there are no jobs for them, or they were promised 40 hours a week, but they’re only working anywhere from between five to ten hours.Then, of course, by that time, panic would set it because they were already expecting that they would be able to pay their debts back home. The kids would be able to go to school. It’s money for the medical bills. Then when they come here, none of that happens, so they get into like a spiral of depression and also just abuse at the hands of the placement agencies. They usually find themselves living in cramped living situations. We’re talking about like a two bedroom apartment with like three or four people in each room with no furnishings. They were earning like $50 a week. Then they still had to pay for their apartment, meanwhile they’re not earning. They were not earning. They would, when they’re cleaning the resorts, or the hotels, they would gather food that the guests had left, and they would get food in the trash. They would recook it, and then eat it.We’ve had an instance of a worker who was brought to a container van, and then they opened the van. It was filled with cockroaches. They said, “No, we’re not going in there.” The workers refused to go in there, so they bombed it with poison. Then they had to clean up the cockroaches. Imagine moving halfway around the world, and then being confronted by situation like that. You don’t know the country. You don’t know the culture. You don’t know anyone. Then you’re totally alone and desperate. A lot of the workers, like I said, are either working poor, or peasants, or middle class professionals, but even the middle class professionals, they would apply for an H-2B visa because there are no jobs back home. It’s like living in a third-world country like the Philippines, it’s like living in a burning building. You’re living in a burning building, and of course, you’re forced to jump out of the windows. In the Philippines case, you’re not just jumping out of the windows, someone is actually profiting from you, from jumping out of the windows. These are the placement agencies that are approved by the Philippine government. Then on the US side, of course there’s collaborations between the placement agencies. These agencies are tied to big hotels, and big resorts in Florida, or in other cities. Instead of hiring US born or American workers, where they have to pay minimum wage, full benefits, and other things, they will skip all of that and just hire a worker from a third-world country like the Philippines, and pay $7.50 an hour, no benefits at all. Of course, they would go with the worker, with the migrant worker.
Abby Martin: Another way these placement agencies profit from those trapped in this fraud is by charging them around seven times the amount for visa renewals, a process required every six to nine months. Even more treacherous is when the agencies refuse to renew their worker’s visas at all, trapping them in a situation where they must work illegally under threat from their employer.Ria: It’s a very desperate situation for them because now they found themselves becoming undocumented. It’s not the typical narrative that we know when we talk about undocumented people, workers, migrant workers, coming here, and then their visas not being renewed. It’s either because that placement agencies are abusive, or diplomats who are abusive and they have to run away. It’s not the typical narrative that we know.
Lydia: So they mess up my papers, but they force me to work without proper documents.
Abby Martin: The contract was being violated that you signed. Your visa wasn’t renewed. Talk about when they forced you to keep working without proper documentation. How did you make that work?
Lydia: Yeah. I feel so bad because I’m very scared to get out of my house and going to work when the manager, we will talk to the manager. They just said, “If you do not stop, you will be deported. I will called the police. Then they will put you in the chamber.” They said like that. We talk about our situation with my co-workers. We decided to escape.
Linda: Many have overstayed. It is true, Mr. Trump, many have overstayed. Why? Because there’s no other option for these women to support their children except to continue working in their receiving countries like the US. If I am a just remind, the government of the United States, our country was ruined primarily by the United States. If Mr. Trump, and [inaudible 00:23:04] are trying to think what will make immigrants go home, just create jobs in the sending country. Why is that not happening? Because the interest of the elite in the Philippines, and the interest of the corporations here are very tightly intertwined. That’s really the story. We are just your creations. If we’re going to solve this, we have to solve it on [inaudible 00:23:35] level.
Abby Martin: For Damayan, these deeper issues are at the core of their fight. They’re in a two-front battle. On one side, fighting for the rights of their workers. On the other, fighting to change the system that created this tragic crisis.Ria: There’s this quote that I really like. The workers are the true makers of history.
[foreign language 00:23:53] We’re creating this entire process, not just to help them adjust their status, or win their wage stuff, their stolen wages, but it’s also so that we can raise their consciousness. It was sad that this happened to me. It was heartbreaking that they suffered, but also that a lot of people are suffering. Trafficking survivors as a collective are suffering. The children of domestic workers are suffering. The suffering will not end if we just stop with adjusting our status and winning our cases. We can end that vicious cycle if we put the leadership of trafficking survivors at the center.
Part Two Transcript
Abby Martin: Human trafficking is a multi-billion dollar industry that entraps millions of people across the world. The majority of victims are abused and living in inhumane conditions. Many caught in this dark web originate from the Philippines, where human beings have become the number one export. In our last episode I visited Damayan, a Filipino domestic worker led group that organizes trafficking victims. It’s founder, Linda Oalican, explained these high numbers.
Linda Oalican: There’s no other option for these women to support their children except to continue working in their receiving countries, like the U.S. If I may just remind you, the government of the United States, our country was ruined primarily by the United States.
AM: Of course the economic crisis can’t be looked at in vacuum and all the root causes began long ago. The Philippine Islands have been choked by colonial powers for the past five centuries. Its mosaic of over 7,000 culturally distinct islands were first claimed by the Spanish Empire in 1525. Spain occupied and rules the Philippines for the next three centuries. This long history of colonial domination is, at its heart, a history of resistance. At least 300 large scale armed revolts were carried out by indigenous Filipinos against the Spanish Empire. One of the fiercest independence fighters was a woman known as Gabriela Silang, born in 1731.She rose to General in the indigenous Army and personally lead the longest lasting revolt against the colonizers all by the age of only 31 years old when she was captured and executed by Spanish troops. In 1896, Andrés Bonifacio and his underground organization, The Katipunan, declared the beginning of the Philippine revolution with an uprising against colonial forces in Manila. The revolution quickly spread through the constellation of islands. After two years of sustained rebellion and with Spain distracted by a war with the U.S., independence was imminent.
LO: About the independence from Spain, we fought our national war over independence against Spain. We already won, but then it was already, at the time, that capitalist America was rising and it was looking for other markets abroad where they could get raw materials for the industries and find new market for their products. They found the Philippines. They connived and so they negotiated with Spain at our backs to say that, “Okay, they’re about to win. You might as well want to sell this country to me. I’ll pay you and we’ll take care of them.” That was The Treaty of Paris.
AM: In 1898 the Philippines declared itself independent for the very first time, but true to the logic of empires, this was not recognized by western powers. Instead, the defeated Spanish Empire drew up an imaginary deed and signed over ownership to the United States. The U.S. also claimed Cuba, Guam and Puerto Rico in the conquest and even paid a hefty compensation for their lost colony. As one Senator said in celebration, “The Philippines are ours forever and just beyond The Philippines are China’s illimitable markets. The power that rules the Pacific is the power that rules the world.”
LO: That did not happen without a fight. The resistance of The Philippine people continued. There was a time, I think it was in 1904 or 1905, where the United States has to kill all the male population in the big island named Samar from 10 years old and above. Why? Because they were outmaneuvered by the Filipino guerrillas and many Americans were killed. The U.S. commander ordered the killing of all male inhabitants of the island from 10 years old and above.
AM: Tactics like these embodied the war on the Philippine people. As one of the American commanders said openly to the Manila Times in 1901, his orders to the troops were clear. “I want no prisoners. I wish to kill and burn. The more you kill and burn, the better you will please me. Make it a howling wilderness.” The Filipinos strongly resisted this pacification in both conventional and guerrilla tactics. They were outmatched militarily. Only about one in four Filipinos were armed with a gun, the rest with nothing but bolos and spears. Repulsed by this war, over a dozen U.S. soldiers, many of them African American, abandoned their posts to join the native resistance. One of them, David Fagen, even became a Captain in the revolutionary army, nicknamed General Fagen by Filipino freedom fighters. The U.S. rounded up tens of thousands of peasants into concentration camps and designated battle zones that made no distinction between combatants and civilians. The war was officially declared over in 1902, but a guerrilla war by the revolutionary army raged on for another decade and the atrocities continued.In 1906, U.S. forces sought to wipe out the stubborn resistance of the indigenous Moro people. When 1,000 of them, including many women and children, retreated to hide together in a nearby crater, they were mercilessly gunned down. Only six out of the 1,000 survived the massacre. The first 15 years of colonization were so brutal that the U.S. had already killed more Filipinos than the Spanish had over the previous 300 years. In that short time, over 1 million Filipinos from a population that barely numbered 6 million. While American politicians waged their pacification campaign with mass killings, they built the structure of their new colony. U.S. Army generals were installed as dictator of different regions. A series of colonial laws sought to smash any dreams of national independence. Dissidents were either given lengthy prison sentences or executed in unspeakably cruel ways. English only policies were enforced. It even became illegal to display the flag of The Philippines Republic. New trade laws and tariffs made it so that U.S. monopolies were nearly unchallenged. The islands were forced to develop as simply an export economy for a few goods like hemp, sugar and tobacco. Much of the population was subjugated as plantation workers who also served as a reserve labor force the U.S. exported to Hawaii, California and beyond to replace higher paid or striking workers.Huge logging and commercial mining projects stripped the land of raw materials and decimated the environment. Development centered on producing for U.S. capitalists, not for the Filipino people and dependence on U.S. patronage for survival. This elevated a tiny class of Filipinos. Big landlords and owners of mills and factories accumulated lavish wealth. Knowing the era of colonial rule was cracking, a comprador class was groomed to take over the formal rule from the United States.
LO: These stories were not even written in official history books of The Philippines. They are trying to cover up the ugly relationship of American and The Philippines. There was a period where The Philippines was a direct colony of the United States. The United States also experimented something very new in The Philippines, Neocolonialism. Controlling a country not by direct force, not by having Americans rule the country, but by training the elite in the country, training them, educating them, about how American wants and needs The Philippines to be to support their imperial design around the globe. That’s what happened to The Philippines beginning 1946. We were so-called given our independence after the United States has controlled the economy, the military and then the foreign relations, the education, everything that is critical and is strategic for the country, they control.
AM: That era came with the end of World War II, during which the Japanese empire attacked and occupied The Philippines. The political elite in the country dutifully switched to administrators of Japan’s occupation. Quick to show its imperials face in just one massacre, known as the Baton Death March, an estimated 18,000 captured Filipinos were killed in shootings, beatings and beheadings by Japanese soldiers. President Roosevelt made an appeal to Filipinos, “Join our Army to fight Japan and we’ll give you all the benefits of American veterans.” Over 200,000 Filipinos answered that call, but as soon as the war ended, Congress revoked all benefits for Filipinos in the U.S. military. To this day, Congress refuses to grant those benefits to the 50,000 surviving Filipino veterans.Many thousands of Filipinos organized themselves to fight the Japanese empire. The People’s Anti-Japaneses Army was born led by socialists and with over 100,000 peasants. They not only fought the occupation, but liberated large areas of the country, set up communal governments and redistributed farmland to the peasantry. Scared of this growing liberation movements, the U.S. promised to grant The Philippines independence when the warm was over; but before granting it independence it had to reconquer it. They quickly attacked the peasant movement and returned the lands to the futile landlords. With the trusted circle of elites at the helm, the U.S. granted supposed independence in 1946.While the American flag over Manila was lowered, only the form of rule had changed. The U.S. still kept a watchful eye over its colonial project. When the revolutionary army resurfaced in the late 1940s demanding land reform, the U.S. provided military aid and intelligence to help The Philippine government destroy the movement. Its investment wasn’t just for cheap labor and resources. The U.S. empire used The Philippines as its central base for imperial control of Asia, in particular during it’s wars in Korea and Vietnam. Elite after elite traded places as U.S. puppets until one of them, President Ferdinand Marcos, didn’t want to bother with the mask of democracy anymore. In 1972, Marco declared Marshall Law and ruled through a military dictatorship for the next 14 years. A socialist movement was surging, recruiting everyone from college students in the cities to farmers in the countryside. A Moro Separatist movement dominated an entire region of the country. These groups took up arms to fight Marcos’ dictatorship with the new People’s Army and the Moro National Liberation Front. Again, the U.S. empire provided millions in military training and weapons to the Filipino Army to partner in its global warm on communism. During this repression, Marcos cracked down on all political opponents. The regime jailed more than 70,000 people. As estimated 35,000 were tortured and at least 3,000 killed. For the U.S., killing communists deserved total support.When President H.W. Bush visited The Philippines in 1981, he honored Marcos with a toast saying, “We love your adherence to democracy,” but a mass movement of people who refused to give in to the dictatorship was growing. Widespread opposition forced Marcos to hold elections, which he lost. Like the pampered dictator he was, Marcos refused to step down until millions of Filipinos poured into the streets demanding his removal in 1986. While the U.S. government supported his overthrow, it still gave the Dictator sanctuary and protection in the United States for his years of loyal service, even after he fled with a billion stolen from the National Treasury. The U.S. backed successor, President Aquino, was just a cosmetic change. Although Marcos was gone, the fascist repression of the left remained and the neoliberal order deepened.I want you to elaborate more on after 1946 and the era of neocolonialism and what’s happened since. Then, of course, you have the era of neoliberalism where you had these international banking institutions, like you said, imposing these restrictions on these countries and mandating certain things to remove social welfare, etc. Talk about how that shaped The Philippines.
LO: You see how The Philippines is primarily an agricultural country. Like 70% of our people are farmers. Not all own the lands. Many are landless and only maybe about 15% are workers. Yeah and dwindling. The number of workers are going down. Why? Also, the number of farmers are going down, too. Why? Because the economy has been undermined. We have a vibrant agricultural economy in the Sixties and early on, but it was destroyed by capitalist agriculture. What the U.S. agriculture did was to deepen the problems and the contradictions in the agricultural sector. Like the small workers became smaller, they lost the opportunity even to support themselves from the wages that they were making before and the middle farmers who owned small lands lost their lands, because they became poorer, they sold their lands, right?Those that are big, became bigger. The landlords became collaborators, I would say. They work hand in hand with the agribusiness in the U.S. and other capitalist countries, because right now The Philippines is not producing all the rice that it needs. We’re very dependent on rice. We even have rice for desserts. We eat rice three times a day and we use rice for dessert. That’s how bad Filipinos want rice, but now we import rice.
AM: That’s insane.
LO: We import rice right now. The Dictator Marcos, he was the President when I was in high school and college in the 1960s and in the 1970s. When he became President, he embraced with open arms the policies of privatization, deregulation, and neo-liberalization of the IMF. What does that mean? Smaller government. Meaning get the money out of the government, which translates to lesser services for the people so that’s what happened. I was an activist in The Philippines in the 1970s at the time the impact of American economic interests in The Philippines is already well known especially to the students in the academia. I was part of the student body trying to educate our people that a big part of our problem, poverty and the unemployment in the country, is the subservience of our government to the neoliberal policies of the United States in the country. As a result of those impositions by the International Monetary Fund, many of the government services were really cut down and the people did not just have enough to access basic services for themselves. Water and electricity, those were very prohibitive. If you own a refrigerator in the country you would really worry about paying the electric bills. It was bad. You can just imagine how during the time of Marcos in the 1970s how they the young people, the unemployed and the students, were really up in arms. Their families do not have the basic services, the tuitions are high, there are no jobs. What will they do? They organized and they were really calling for the government to push back on the IMF conditionalities, but Marcos did not do that.What he did was he invented the Labor Export Policy of The Philippines. The Labor Export Policy means the government programmatically and systematically convinced the people that the right way to go to support your family is to find work abroad. That’s the Labor Export Policy. That was in the 1970s. It’s an invention of Marcos. He was so brilliant, he told the young people, especially the male ones, “Okay, you’re looking for work. The work is abroad. I’m happy to help you.” That was also a strategy to diffuse the student movement and the youth movement, because there were so may rallies in the street. What now? There is no agriculture, there is no industrialization in The Philippines. All you have the driving economy in The Philippines is the export of labor. That’s why over 10% of the people are abroad.
AM: This is the story behind thousands of families with the heartbreaking burden of being ripped across oceans only to find super exploitation and abuse in the same country that shaped their fates for the past century. Today the U.S. empire has no willingness to lose hold on the geostrategic Philippine islands and the cast of western backed autocrats continue their role. Decades of neoliberal ravaging and a war on the left has given rise to right wing populist Duterte, promising national sovereignty along with a new era of law and order. Since winning the presidency, Duterte has carried out a murderous war on drugs defined by extra judicial assassinations that have left thousands dead.Once again, Filipinos find themselves under Marshal Law in another extreme measure imposed by Duterte in May. He came to power with rhetoric against U.S. imperialism, but it will take a lot to sever the deep ties with the empire. The Philippines is still tens of billions in debt to the IMF and with development projects like USAID, the U.S. continues to push through Philippine laws and policies that benefit U.S. corporations. Although a mass movement forced the closure of major American bases in 1992, the U.S. still maintains a major military presence, conducts joint war games and has built up a proxy force in the Filipino Army. Already allies, Trump and Duterte have signaled they will strengthen their military relationship under the banner of fighting terrorism. In fact, just this month the U.S. gifted Duterte’s government a weapon shipment of hundreds of machine guns and grenade launchers, but there’s a force more powerful than these two strong men that can change all of this.
LO: My understanding of change is truly learning and respecting the value of the poor people for change. The people that are directly effected by problems, those are the people that you need if you want to make fundamental change. Not the senators or the congress people. Not them, because if you look at the interests of these people in the government, what interests will you see? In The Philippines, we know the interests of the bourgeoisie where an export-import country so families, people who are running that industry, those are the people that are running our country too. I’m really unsatisfied. I look at things from a long perspective. It’s very sad. I was an activist when I was 18 years old. How many more years so that the country can do the right thing? How many more presidents?
AM: Meeting the courageous fighters in Damayan, I was reminded that the history of Philippine resistance is an unbroken chain. From its first hand-to-hand battles against colonizers wearing armor and swords to organizing against today’s exploiters who wear three piece suits. The poor and oppressed in The Philippines are much more than victims of the system, but are indeed the force that will change it.
Abby Martin talks to Venezuelans on the streets of Caracas and investigates the main claim that there’s no free press, and that there is no food in the supermarkets.
Using hidden cameras, she takes you through local grocery stores and the underground black market currency exchange, the main source of inflation in the country.
Abby sits down with economist Pasqualina Curzio to learn more about the nature of the black market and chronic shortages of goods. Knowing that world leaders are calling for foreign intervention, Abby finds out if locals agree.
Abby Martin Venezuela – Supermarkets to Black Markets
The Venezuelan opposition, their protests and their related conflicts receive significant press in the corporate media across the globe. But what about the other side? Supporters of the Venezuelan government engage in large protests that the media largely ignores. The atmosphere of these peaceful protests is noticeably different than those of the opposition movement and those present seem to have much to say. Why do the millions of voices standing up peacefully in support of their government have no presence in the media’s portrayal of the struggle in Venezuela?
The picture of a widely hated Venezuelan government is absolutely false and is a distraction from the actual struggles that Venezuelans face. While supporters of the opposition claim that there are few jobs, few rights, little food and no freedom of the press, supporters of the government counter with evidence of a free press, uncensored internet access and full restaurants and grocery store shelves.
“What media has done is distort all the information.”
On the streets of Caracas, where a majority of the large opposition protests take place, multiple newspapers fill newsstands, stores and cafes with new editions appearing daily. Not only are headlines supportive of the government found on the front pages of these papers, but more than half of the available papers blatantly support the opposition, their pages filled with images and opinions supporting the protestors and bewailing the government. In addition to newspapers, Venezuelans are free to consume news and entertainment via the internet and television with unobstructed access to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and non-state-owned television stations. In fact, state-run television in Venezuela only reaches 8.4% of viewers. The censorship, if there is any, must be extremely hard to find and discern as it appears the press in Venezuela has much of the same freedoms found in many other countries, socialist or not.
“Not everything is as it seems in mainstream media.”
Another attention grabbing claim regarding the unrest in Venezuela is the significant and extreme lack of food. Wild claims such as zoo animals being stolen to be used as food and talk of lines in which Venezuelans wait for hours for food fill the corporate media coupled with shocking images of empty store shelves and physical struggles for food. The hours long lines portrayed as a grueling, everyday experience for most Venezuelans are not for food in general, they are mostly for bread and other common goods unique to Venezuela.
On a recent trip to Venezuela, Abby Martin explored this claim by visiting multiple supermarkets where she found aisles of fully stocked shelves and captured it on hidden camera footage. The only item missing being toilet paper, despite other paper products such as napkins and paper towels, being readily available. While it is true that high demand and commonly used products, such as toilet paper and pre-cooked corn flour, can be hard to find, it is not due to an economic crisis. Rather it is an economic war influencing the availability and cost of certain items. Despite the overall picture the media shares with the world, Venezuela has maintained a GDP per capita 9% higher during the last four years than in the last 30 years and the country’s unemployment rate is currently 6.6%, almost 3% lower than in neighboring Colombia.
Why are only certain mass produced goods affected and why is it that fruits and vegetables in the markets are fresh and readily available? It appears the market is being manipulated and sabotaged by the major corporations that are responsible for production and distribution. The CEO of Polar, one of the largest manufacturers of common food products in Venezuela, is a vocal opposition supporter who has been accused of hoarding goods.
These goods, that are seemingly absent in markets and stores of all sizes, can often be found in the illegal black market. If an economic crisis were prohibiting the manufacturing of these goods they would not exist within the black market. Instead these items are making their way into the illegal market often with a high price tag. The unusually high and variable exchange rate on the black market is seemingly inexplicable, inspired by DolarToday, a website based in the U.S. and run by a Venezuelan named Gustavo Díaz, who was granted political asylum and now resides in Texas, where he works at the local Home Depot.
The Venezuelan economy is indeed suffering and the people of Venezuela do have hurdles to overcome in this economic and political war, but the struggle is not cut and dry and mainstream media is certainly not shedding light on the full story. Despite calls for it by western media, when asked if Venezuela was in need of U.S. assistance, one supporter of the democratically-elected government stated simply, “We do not need any personality, nor some politician, much less a businessman, to come save us,” with others echoing similar sentiments.
Abby Martin goes on the deadly front lines of the anti government protests in Venezuela and follows the evolution of a typical guarimba—or opposition barricade.
She explains what the targets from the opposition reveal about the nature of the movement and breaks down the reality of the death toll that has rocked the nation since the unrest began, and how a lynch mob campaign came after her and the Empire Files team for reporting these facts.
Hearing from peaceful opposition marchers, to Chavistas to violent protesters at the guarimbas, this must-watch episode exposes the dark reality on-the-ground that is completely obscured from Western media.
Abby Martin Meets the Venezuelan Opposition
Venezuela has been painted as a failed state by both politicians and corporate media for years. With three months of intense protests in the country, this propaganda has only increased, with much of it romanticized and celebrated by U.S. mass media. To get an accurate glimpse of the situation and hear from Venezuelans engaged in and affected by these protests and the current political climate, Abby Martin spent three weeks on the ground in Venezuela.
Since Chavez was elected in 1998, the United States has paid over $50 million to the opposition movement, with Marco Rubio recently proposing an additional $20 million in aid to “defend human rights.” Donald Trump has referred to the current situation in Venezuela as a “very very horrible problem.” With millions of dollars in aid from the U.S., protesters in the streets calling for the ousting of their democratically elected president and the opinions of Venezuelans in the barrios being ignored, who are the players in this game and which, if any, narrative can be trusted?
Mass media is filled with images of violent protests, large crowds and data on deaths caused by government forces in Venezuela. To get to the bottom of this complicated political puzzle, Abby met with both protesters and the opposition forces responsible for violent confrontations. A common theme being that Venezuelans are living under an oppressive dictatorship- crying out for assistance from the U.S. and demanding a fair election.
As the sun sets on city streets packed with largely peaceful protesters donning yellow, blue and red, the scene quickly becomes more tense and volatile. In Caracas, the opposition sets up strategic roadblocks to interrupt the functioning of the area, burning wood and trash in the streets, using vehicles to block and shutdown highways and instigating violence with security forces. In fact, the opposition repeatedly pushes as far as they can until security forces are forced to respond. While the media shares a picture of a Venezuela in which free speech and protesting comes at a cost and is not widely accepted, there were no arrests the night Abby followed the guarimbas. Could this mean that there is, in fact, a right to protest in Venezuela?
Surprisingly, low income Venezuelans residing in the country’s barrios, are not the ones protesting their government and their stories and their opinions are rarely shared. It was in these places where Abby encountered many Chavistas, eager to dispel the opposition’s narrative that Venezuela is a dictatorship in which Venezuelans are oppressed, struggling and living in fear. Also, the protesting is not countrywide– the most volatile protests are taking place in the upper and middle class states, far from the barrios.
While in Venezuela Abby uncovered a shocking truth surrounding statistics being pushed by the corporate media. In a period of three months, 95 deaths and over one thousand injuries were attributed to the violent protests. Abby worked to unpack these numbers and investigate the real causes of these deaths.
Of those 95 deaths, 11 were of unknown cause. According to the Attorney General only 23 of those deaths can be attributed to state security forces. Assuming that number is correct, what can the additional 61 deaths be attributed to? Abby’s investigation, detailed in this episode, concludes that 23 of the 95 deaths from that three month period can be attributed to state forces while the other 61 can be linked to the opposition– including violent murders and the hindering of access to lifesaving services.
Because Abby questioned these statistics and reported her findings, opposition spokespeople quickly created a campaign of false hysteria surrounding her trip, her research and her career. A wave of social media propaganda claimed that Abby and Empire Files producer, Mike Prysner, were not, in fact, journalists but were contracted by the state to gather sensitive intel– taking photos for police rather than interviewing protestors in the streets. This campaign resulted in a virtual lynch mob, culminating in protestors gathering at an event where Mike was scheduled to speak, after publicly sharing the event’s location.
As Abby has clearly documented, the tumultuous situation in Venezuela is just that. It is not cut and dry– there are multiple players on multiple sides utilizing the streets, social media and corporate media to further their narratives in an effort to reach an end goal without much compromise or cohesion when it seems that may be what is needed most.
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Abby Martin: Venezuela, a country painted as a failed state by U.S. politicians and corporate media. One that is under a total dictatorship, brutally repressing free speech and the right to protest. The protests, which have been going on for three months, are across the board uncritically romanticized and celebrated by the mass media. Many outlets are openly calling for regime change.Since President Chavez was elected in 1998, the U.S. government has paid over $50 million to the opposition movement. Now, Senator Marco Rubio just spearheaded a bill pledging another $20 million to “defend human rights,” among other types of aid. Long wanting to overthrow the democratically elected socialist government, U.S. politicians are seizing the moment of unrest for regime change.
Donald Trump: The stable and peaceful Venezuela is in the best interest of the entire hemisphere. We will be working with Colombia and other countries on the Venezuelan problem. It is a very, very horrible problem, and from a humanitarian standpoint it is like nothing we’ve seen in quite a long time.
Abby Martin: With new U.S. sanctions, direct threats from the Trump administration to overthrow another sovereign government, and corporate media painting a one-sided narrative, I wanted to go see the reality on the group for myself. During my investigation in Venezuela, spending nearly three weeks in Caracas, one thing was a constant: traffic jams from guarimbas, or protest barricades, intended to disrupt life in the city. While most things carried on like normal, some parts of the city were always inaccessible, with police and military constantly scurrying to whatever streets were shut down that day.Knowing how much mass protests define life in Venezuela, as well as the media coverage, I attended an opposition protest in Miranda State near Caracas. The demonstration, which consists of thousands of people, was a peaceful gathering, with typical speeches and chants.What is your biggest problem with what’s happening right now?
Speaker 3: I think right, the biggest problem is, that the president don’t want us to go to election, because if we go he knows he’s going to lose.
Speaker 4: [In Spanish] There is no constitution, the rule of law does not exist. This is an absolute dictatorship in Venezuela. There’s repression, there’s a constant and severe tyranny. Out with the dictator in Venezuela; we don’t want him.
Speaker 5: [In Spanish] We’re suffering from hunger, misery, anxiety and desperation. We want this regime to get out, along with all of their followers, so that peace and tranquility is reinstated in this country.
Speaker 6: Seventeen years and some months, the country is every day falling down, down, down. It doesn’t work if you have money. Because if you have money, you need medicine, you don’t have work to buy.
Speaker 7: I have 27 years old and I’m married. And my wife, she doesn’t buy anything that she wants to.
Abby Martin: You said you’ve been fighting since 2002. What happened? Why have you been fighting so long in the streets?
Speaker 7: Because I’ve never been Chavista because I knew that, [inaudible 00:03:53], everything. Okay? Because they have a wrong idea what revolution is. My father took me to one riot, take me another, and it [inaudible 00:04:10] years.
Speaker 8: [In Spanish] They just want to plant communism, another Cuba, that’s all. Cuba won’t release us, because if they do, they can’t eat any longer.
Abby Martin: Is the United States doing enough to help Venezuela?
Speaker 3: No, I don’t think so. I mean like, a lot of Venezuelans live in the States, so we send like, the Green Cross, the one who help with medicine, like the ones who help with the protestors that get hit, they get a lot of help from the States.
Speaker 5: [In Spanish] I wish it was so, that the United States and the rest of the countries in the world would help us.
Abby Martin: Is the United States doing enough to help Venezuela?
Speaker 4: [In Spanish] Yes, they are doing fine, along with Luis Almagro [Sec. General, Organization of American states], but we need an outcome, we need a happy ending. We want international support from the United States. It is very important that they help us from New York. They need to help us, to help us non-stop. We need the United States to turn up their power towards us.
Abby Martin: We are very near Plaza Altamira right now, where the opposition looks like it’s setting up a barricade. This is a tactic that the opposition does to deter traffic, to cause a lot of problems here in Caracas. We’re going to go follow them right now and see what’s going on.As the sun started to set, things began to change. Smaller groups donning masks and shields starting forming up. While the majority of the crowd held a candlelight vigil to commemorate those killed in the protests, the others lit flames of their own. They poured incendiary liquid in the streets and began stopping traffic.We’re here in the middle of the plaza. There are thousands of protestors down there for the march of the torches. Right now, there are a couple dozen protestors right here with shields, helmets, masks. They’re lighting fires; they’re doing a blockade. They say their tactic is to get as many people out in the street as they possibly can.
Speaker 10: [in Spanish] Well, up to what we know, we are protesting because we want a better Venezuela like the one that existed before. Well, look, I…to our knowledge, there is a dictatorship. And we can’t live with the Cubans here in Venezuela because it’s bad.If you see the dictatorship we are going through, there’s scarcity of food and all that, we only want to retake how things were before.
Abby Martin: And how many people have the government killed, security forces, military police, so far?
Speaker 10: [In Spanish] There have been more than 200, or less, about 180 dead.
Abby Martin: And what are the demands, right now, for protestors?
Speaker 10: [In Spanish] What we want is mostly, well, ousting the president. We want elections. We fight for elections because we want to change everything and we need a new president.
Speaker 11: [In Spanish] The only message we can send from the resistance to the rest of the world is help us, that’s the first thing we ask for. Because, when you look at it we go to the streets and the first to repress you is the government. At the moment we cannot show you the bullets they shoot, these are large marbles, of iron. They have killed several in this way. The guy killed in Los Teques yesterday was shot with a marble. And it’s a lie, they don’t shoot tear gas or pellets. They’re shooting live rounds.
Speaker 12: [In Spanish] Gun shots! That’s a bullet and this is true. And Maduro says it’s a lie. This is true. They only shoot and shoot.
Abby Martin: Several times we were aggressively surrounded by masked protestors demanding to see what media outlet we worked for. Only when they heard that we were from the United States did they back down. But told me to only film repression against them, not their actions. As the crowd grew, they announced they would be marching a blocked major freeway. Protestors and squadrons of motorbikes began mobbing through the streets, setting fires and creating roadblocks along the way.So, we’re here at the highway right now. We just talked to some protestors who said that they’re blocking the highway. They just set up a barricade of fire. They’re doing it down there. The national guard is about to come, which they say they want us to see how they oppress them when they do come. Stopping cars leaving the highway, they trap drivers on the off-ramp. I talked to several in the heat of the offensive.
Speaker 13: [In Spanish] At the moment they have done nothing but we came to represent today, we won’t stay still, we are still fighting. Fighting for freedom, and fighting against this 17-year dictatorship.
Abby Martin: How hard is it to live under a dictatorship?
Speaker 13: [In Spanish] It is very hard, because as an entrepreneur, you don’t work for yourself, but for the government. You cannot be independent, all of your work and effort is for the government, and that’s what we don’t want here.
Abby Martin: What is this? What are you carrying?
Speaker 12: [In Spanish] This is what they attack us with. With this they have killed our fellow fighters in the chest. And all those corrupt people and government officials, they have to go. They must go to prison. It is unbearable that people are killing each other, to buy corn meal or a packet of rice, when the government should provide all of this, because this is a human right, being able to work, and have food, and freedom of speech.
Crowd: [In Spanish] Venezuela, freedom, active resistance!
Abby Martin: Then the protest moved onto the highway itself, shutting down all lanes in both directions. Most surprising is how they did this, taking over two large trucks. So right now we’re on the highway. Every single entrance to the highway has been blockaded, lit on fire, and now we’re looking at two enormous trucks that have been somehow taken over and maneuvered in order to block the main thoroughfare of the highway right now.Protestors held the freeway like this for some time. According to them, waiting for state forces to respond. Then they commandeered a third truck, pushing it towards the edge of the freeway. Below is Miranda Air Force Base. They started hurling rocks and chunks of concrete at the base below. And that’s when soldiers guarding the base responded.
Crowd: [Spanish 00:11:29][inaudible 00:11:35] More, more, more.[inaudible 00:11:44] Right here. Right here.[inaudible 00:11:55][Spanish 00:11:59] Go back, go back, go back.
Abby Martin: They fired several tear-gas canisters that landed directly in front of me and my team. And the protestors quickly retreated from the freeway back to the streets above. Apparently there was an air force base there and they were throwing rocks.
Speaker 16: Yeah.
Abby Martin: And a big blockade. And then they hurled tear-gas canisters over the side and we got hit. But not really hard because it wasn’t that close. The protest regrouped at their fallback position. When national guard soldiers I couldn’t see fired more tear gas. This time, staying on the front lines hurt a bit more.
Crowd: Go this way.[inaudible 00:13:02][Spanish 00:13:14]Watch the holes.
Abby Martin: So yeah, right after I said I didn’t get hit hard with tear gas, we’re running away and, you know, there’s all these provocations with the police and the protestors and they just started hurling tear-gas canisters at us and we were just caught in a huge plume of tear gas. It’s extremely painful. My ears are really, really burning. I felt like I was blind for like, five minutes, so, that just happened.While soldiers had cleared the freeway, protestors continued to block several intersections in the area, with more trucks and barricades. What I had experienced was a typical guarimba, a few hundred or less semi-armed protestors ruling the streets, shutting down as much as they can. Using largely violent tactics. They push as far as they can go until security forces respond, then flee with new photos of repression. Given what the media has been saying, I was shocked to learn that there were no arrests that night. It seems like there certainly is a right to protest in Venezuela. And the curated images we see in the news are obscuring a much darker, deadlier reality. Since the beginning of the protest on April 6, through July 1, we found 95 deaths attributed to the protests, with over 1,000 injured. Of that 95, 11 have unknown or undetermined connections to the protests, and are murders that took place in the vicinity of a protest. So let’s look at the remaining 84 deaths. It is true that many protestors have been killed by police and the national guard. Several have been killed in shootings, and two killed by tear gas. According to Venezuela’s attorney general, one of the most outspoken critics of the government’s response, 23 deaths are attributed to state forces. Many investigations into alleged killings by state forces are still ongoing. In several cases, people were first reported in the media to have been killed by state forces, but evidence later revealed that they were actually killed by opposition weapons. But let’s assume that number is correct, 23. So if only 23 out of the 84 are attributed to state forces, what has caused the majority of the deaths? The remaining 61? Those 61 actually have been caused by opposition protestors. Many of those killed directly in murders and political assassinations. Let’s look at those numbers that so many unquestioningly attribute to state repression. We found 23 to have been indirectly killed by opposition violence, in a variety of ways. For example, six people have died in vehicle accidents while trying to escape opposition barricades. Three are civilians who died because opposition barricades prevented lifesaving ambulances from reaching them. Nine of those 23 are opposition protestors who accidentally killed themselves. One in an explosion from an opposition mortar. And eight electrocuted themselves to death while looting a bakery. In addition to these indirect deaths from opposition violence, 38 people have been directly killed by opposition violence. Sixteen of those 38 are seemingly random killings of civilians at opposition barricades or near a protest. Seven of the 38 are police and national guard members killed by protestors. Six of them were shot by protestors, and one national guard member was beaten to death by a mob of protestors. One would think these facts would be included in a fair report of force used by the state. But more heinously, 14 deaths are political murders and assassinations of Chavistas and government supporters by the opposition. Most were targeted for attending a pro-government demonstration or for being identified as Chavistas. Two were socialist figures who were kidnapped, tortured, and executed. Most chilling was the lynching of 21-year-old Orlando Figuera, who was brutally beaten, stabbed, and burned alive by opposition protestors. According to an interview with Orlando in the hospital, they yelled, “Hey black guy, see what happens to Chavistas” before throwing a Molotov cocktail on him and lighting him aflame. Orlando died from his injuries just days later. At least four other people have set on fire but lived, allegedly for being Chavistas. And many others brutally beaten by opposition mobs. So of those 84 fatalities associated with the protest movement, 23 deaths are allegedly from state repression, and 61 deaths from opposition violence. As surprised as I was to see that the reality of these numbers is so warped, I was completely unprepared for what would happen to me for simply reporting these facts. Because I questioned the validity of the fatality count being 100% due to state forces, prominent opposition spokespeople created a false hysteria over an outrageous lie, that myself and Empire Files producer Mike Prysner were not journalists, but in fact working directly for the government intelligence forces. And that we weren’t actually conducting interviews of protestors, but taking their pictures to turn in to police forces. And not only that, but the police had then arrested protestors based on our intelligence.The life-threatening lie was first promoted by a professor at Venezuela’s Simon Bolivar University and opposition activist, Jose Vicente Carrasquero. The rumors were echoed and exaggerated by several prominent opposition journalists, like Manuel Malaver, and Miami reporter Angie Perez. The disinformation campaign incited a virtual lynch mob against us for days, which translated into real-life stalking and threats, calls to find and kill us, doxxing of personal information, and more. Revealing their character, scores of opposition Twitter accounts specifically used the word “lynch” when calling for violence against us. More than that, this opposition hate campaign also posted the address of an event Mike was speaking at, inciting people to come confront us. And worse. Dozens of Venezuelans ex-pats actually showed up, chanting against socialism, and tried to physically force their way into the event to disrupt it. But the threats of violence were not empty. Just days later, a TeleSUR journalist was actually shot in the back by opposition protestors, when her and her team were viciously attacked with Molotov cocktails, bullets and explosives. Many other journalists have also been called infiltrators and attacked, like when a Globalvision crew was doused with gasoline by protestors at a recent demonstration, and told to leave or they would get burned. Amazingly, international human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists have been silent on the attacks on journalists from the opposition, and have only condemned the government for press repression. For as much as Venezuela’s poor is used as the basis of the international media campaign to oust the government, the poor people from the barrios of Venezuela are not the ones protesting. The marches and violent guarimbas are concentrated in only a few states, where the middle and upper class areas are, most of them run by opposition governors or mayors. And the targets of the protestors speak volumes about the nature of the opposition: factories, public transportation, Socialist Party offices, hospitals, and clinics have all been attacked. Even the childhood home of Chavez was set on fire. They have also set fire to the government’s housing ministry, the supreme court, and more.In one case, a maternity clinic was raided and the facility besieged by opposition forces for two days. A cultural center I visited, which gave free music lessons to youth and provided space for art collectives, had also recently been attacked and vandalized by opposition protestors. Ironically, even though protestors use food shortages as one of their main grievances, they frequently attack food distribution centers. Most recently they burned a warehouse containing 50 tons of food intended for schoolchildren.The representatives of the opposition don’t denounce the violent guarimbas sustained by the small contingent of protestors. In fact, top opposition leaders have directly called for violence. But there is another side of this story: the millions of Venezuelan voices who are rendered invisible to the Western media.
Speaker 17: [In Spanish] There has been a very strong economic war on the part of the sectors of the bourgeois elite, and the entrepreneurs, towards the people, those who produce food, those who produce staple goods and have been hoarding them. Much like what they did to Salvador Allende in Chile.
Speaker 18: [In Spanish] Look, really for a process of polarization in which we are living in Venezuela, we’re reached a point of zero tolerance. Where to identify someone as a member of the Revolution or something that has to do, for example, with Comandante Chavez, they point us out, beat us, burn us, kill us. We are categorized by our skin color, by our hair, there are a number of factors that have caused us revolutionaries to be concerned about going to the streets. Because they identify us easily, because we are not afraid to wear clothing that identifies us with Chavistas. The situation in the streets is quite tense, quite complicated by the situation, by a group of people who don’t believe in tolerance and does not respect the other for thinking differently.
Abby Martin: And what do they do to you if they see that you’re a Chavista? I mean, what have they done to people who identify themselves as this?
Speaker 18: [In Spanish] Look, they point us out, corner us, threaten us. At least to me, in my house, in my building. I was given a car from the Revolution, and they threw human excrement on the hood. They scratched the car. They wrote things to my mother for being a spokesperson for the communal council, and for the new system of distributing food. My mom was pointed out and trapped in an elevator. So that is what happens to us Chavistas, for wanting to help others they point us out and mistreat us.
Speaker 17: [In Spanish] There are some people who are filled with hatred, and they want to divert it towards the people, hurting people, they want trouble. But they are a minority if we go to the statistics.
Abby Martin: Do you think that you live in a dictatorship?
Speaker 17: [In Spanish] No, not at all. Here you can see that the people have free transit, people do what they want, to participate, talk, even though the country is burning from the sectors of the fascist right. They are burning the country and have committed acts of vandalism, terrorist acts, and the full strength of the law has not been applied to them, like is done in the United States or Europe. These people are going around doing whatever they want. Here a person has free will, freedom to think, to believe in the political, the economic, the social, the cultural, the religious arenas. Whoever says that this is a dictatorship is completely mad. So in what kind of dictatorship are there elections, where people participate, where people do what they want? That is completely illogical.
Speaker 19: [In Spanish] I am 100 percent revolutionary, Chavista, and I think what the right-wing factions are doing is wrong. The problems can’t be solved in the way they propose, with violence and chaos in the streets of Venezuela, in Caracas, by attacking the police, the National Guard. I think things should be discussed in a dialogue to solve problems. And as long as they don’t have a plan and a leader, they won’t be able to oust a government as revolutionary as the one we have today.
Speaker 17: [In Spanish] They are violent people who tend to show only violence by screaming and hitting, all these characteristics. But no one is scared here. Actually here there are many people who are restrained from falling into the same violent game as the others do. Because we think that’s no way to solve problems. Dialogue and the achievement of a peaceful solution, as rational people within philosophy and the human Aristotelian though, but nobody is scared. Here there are groups on the left who are really radical and they would like to respond, but we have not done it, since the solution must be rational. We can’t fall for that reptilian behavior and hurt people, that’s their game.
