Roberto Jorquera, an activist from the Venezuelan Solidarity Network in Australia, is in Caracas to help prepare for the solidarity brigade the network is organising from July 25-August 15, and to report on the unfolding revolution there. Regular updates from Jorquera are being posted at <www.venezuelasolidarity.org>.
2 million army reservists to be signed up
On April 3, on his weekly TV program Alo Presidente, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that his government is aiming to establish a 2-million-strong army reserve. The plan comes after a series of threatening statements by senior US officials against the Venezuelan government.
Chavez declared on the program: "We are going to have 2 million army reservists, but we are also going to have a 25-million-strong population ready to defend every corner of the country. If someone came to take over this country, we would make them eat dirt!"
Chavez asked mayors and governors to work with General Quintero Viloria, who is to be in charge of both the army reserve to create a "national mobilisation". According to Chavez, the "national mobilisation" aims to includes the whole population in preparing for defence in case of an invasion.
Viloria told Chavez on the program that the army reserve is currently "very weak", comprising just 80,000 people, who have not yet received military training. Viloria said that the aim is to have 10% of the population participating in the army reserve.
Government confronts shortage of housing
"This is the socialism that we are building, one based on justice and equality and that constructs homes for people so that they can own them", declared the mayor of Caracas, Juan Barreta, at a ceremony at Plaza Bolivar on April 1. The ceremony was to hand over housing titles to more than 250 residents in Caracas who did not have the financial capability to own their own home.
The minister for housing, Julio Montes, explained at the ceremony that "we need more than 1 million new houses to solve the [housing problem for the poor] ... We need to eradicate the preferential treatment of the past where people received homes depending who they new rather than based on need".
Referring to the problems in making the promises of the revolution materialise, Montes insisted "We need a revolution within the revolution ... it needs to be based on more than just words....The Bolivarian revolution is one based on action and on an organized population".
The problem of providing decent housing for the poor has been a major issue for the government, especially in Caracas. A new housing law, recently passed by the National Assembly, sets out a new system to build and fund the construction of new homes, directly involving cooperatives made up of the poor who benefit from the housing program as well as the private sector.
According to the new law, government municipalities need to create a registry of who needs homes in their area. In response to recent comments made by US state department spokesperson Richard Boucher that Venezuela is a "destabilizing forcing in Latin America", Montes said to those gathered "'We have overcome a coup, what we have learnt is that when the people rise up nothing can stop them...You are the centre and the power of the revolution...No gringo will be able to enter No Pasaran!"
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From Green Left Weekly, April 13, 2005.
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