To: Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development

Re: Investigation on Human Rights in Venezuela

Dear Committee Members

I am writing on behalf of Barrio Nuevo, an independent, political, grassroots organization working with the Latin American community in Canada. We organize with the aim of building a movement of people working towards the goal of long-term societal and economic change. We work with Latin American community organizations as well as labour unions, student groups, community groups, community centres as well as agencies such as Toronto Community Housing. Our work includes community media where we assist in running a Latin American radio station and newspaper; community building projects and services including murals and recreation programmes; as well as, educational initiatives that mobilize Canadians of Latin American origin around issues that impact our community.

However, as a diasporic community we retain interest in the affairs of our places of origin and as such do considerable amount of work with communities in Latin America. Among the nations where we have done the most work is Venezuela. Barrio Nuevo have sent numerous groups of Canadians to learn and educate us on the social reality of our Venezuelan counterparts.

Foremost, we all need to acknowledge that there is no place on our beleaguered planet that can claim to have permanently conquered all social, political and economic problems. Venezuela certainly has its share and any Venezuelan citizen will be more than happy to share their perspectives on the problems of their community and country. In fact, these types of conversations are not only common but also the norm in Venezuela. An honest appraisal will confirm that there is an active citizenry among the Venezuelan populace that is actively engaging in often spontaneous debate and demonstration around any number of different issues. Critiques of the government and government officials come as often, if not more, from Left organizations than from the Right.

Our submission to your committee is based on our insights on the topic of your investigation - Human Rights in Venezuela. We submit this as an organization that not only has Venezuelan-Canadians as members, but also one that has spent considerable amounts of time in Venezuela and in areas that are seldom visited. For the sake of expediency we will assume that you have a historical and social contextualization of modern day Venezuela and expound on the areas, which we feel most accurately reflect our observations.

Description of our work in Venezuela

Since 2005, our organization and its predecessors have organized groups of Canadians to visit Venezuela ranging from 150 people to 10. These groups have stayed for periods ranging from 2 weeks to 3 months, visiting a range of organizations and individuals in Venezuela including

• mainstream media

• alternative and community media

• textile cooperatives

• community arts projects

• municipal councillors

• communal councils

• communes

• Ministers and Ministerial staff

• 'occupied' residential buildings

• farms and farming cooperatives

• social programs

• schools

• universities

Our delegates have been present at conferences, concerts, festivals and many other forms of meetings and gatherings. Also, our delegates have been witness to political demonstrations both in support and against the Venezuelan government or its functionaries.

We have spent much of this time in densely populated areas in Caracas including La Vega, Catia, Antimano, Catedral and Curicuao, as well as in Charallave (Sucre state), Sanare and Barquisimeto (Lara state) and San Felipe (Yaracuy). All of these trips have been completely self-financed without the monetary support of any government institution either here or in Venezuela.

Political Participation and De-centralization of Governance

As you may be aware, since 2006 the Venezuelan government has begun a programme of de-centralization of local governance functions. The Law of Communal Councils, which acts to re-distribute decision-making and resources to local communities, has recently been expanded to contemplate larger scales of popular participation in governance. It relies on the initiative of citizens to get together with their neighbours and form community organizations that can diagnose their particular needs. From this, they are guaranteed resources from various government sources to address a variety of local needs and aspirations; ranging from infrastructural improvement to social or cultural programming.

Our delegates which have included community health workers, urban planning professors and students as well as municipal government employees in Canada have seen first hand how pro and anti-government residents work together in these councils in order to address the problems inherited in their communities. In many areas of Caracas, for example, there has been a desperate need for storm and water run-off management as well as safe stairs to the hillside settlements where a significant number of the 5 million residents of Caracas reside. It hasn't been until the formation of these communal councils that residents have been able to address these and other issues by utilizing the resources dedicated to these local organs of participation. We have spoken with municipal councillors as well as the President of the Venezuelan equivalent to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) who proudly told us how these councils were going to replace the function of municipal government within the next decade. In other parts of the Country such as in Sanare, Lara we witnessed participatory democracy translated to a larger scale where some 50 communal councils from a rural setting were working with public officials in an organized and democratic way to re-organize their region – everything from municipal works down to the names of villages, hamlets and the region itself.

This form of participatory planning, budgeting and decision-making of course also has it set backs. Nonetheless, it is widely accepted as a means of addressing the democratic deficit that Venezuela experienced even before the 1990s. There are over 30 000 of these councils all over the country, which encompasses millions of citizens and where billions of dollars have been allocated by the people themselves. Similar, although smaller scale projects are also present in other parts of Latin America such as Brazil and Uruguay and have even been adopted by Toronto Community Housing as well as an increasing number of municipal jurisdictions in the United States. Moreover, it should be noted that Canada is on record in supporting 'governance de-centralization' models such as those in the Philippines where the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has been funding projects since the mid 1990's.

These types of initiatives, especially considering their relative success should be celebrated and emulated in Canada. We submit this as a demonstration that seen through the lens of human rights, political participation has been promoted in word and deed in Venezuela.

Media and Freedom of Expression

As previously stated, one of Barrio Nuevo’s most active areas of work in Canada is community media. Particularly with our experience in community radio, we are familiar with the regulations of the Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC), which licenses any form of broadcasting over the 'air-waves'. In Canada, there are Canadian content quotas that have very specific parameters. Our government and broadcaster regulator would not permit advocacy for a particular political party let alone for the overthrow of the government. Any TV or radio broadcaster would be immediately sanctioned for racist or pornographic content. Furthermore, any broadcaster that isn't registered with the CRTC, would be removed. Yet in spite of this, there has been criticism of Venezuela applying very similar laws to its broadcasters. In fact, they have been even more permissive than our own regulators, as they have not limited access through cable as the CRTC has done in the past with Al Jazeera for example.

Nonetheless, we are confident that you have heard from a number of different organizations on the background and general context on media in Venezuela and the antagonistic relationship between the majority of privately owned media and the government. We will only reiterate the point that all media complying with Venezuelan law are broadcasting in spite of their vitriolic and often racist and bigoted characterizations of President Hugo Chavez and Venezuela's majority poor population. Any sanctions endured by broadcasters have been due to their persistent and wilful negligence of the rule of law, which would not be tolerated in by any state, let alone ours.

Moreover, we witnessed how media itself became a focus of democratization as numerous community radio and television projects have emerged all over the country. In numerous and often densely populated neighbourhoods, we visited volunteer-run radio stations that have been registered and set up through small government grants. Not only are these stations providing a voice for sections of the population that were previously excluded, but they are also actively promoting local culture.

In addition, we visited other community television projects including VIVE TV and AVILA TV. The latter is operated by- and catered to- urban youth who have constructed a very professional programming that promotes local talent and encourages social and political participation of youth. AVILA TV also runs a free school of journalism that teaches young, unemployed youth the mechanics of audio-visual production over the span of several months. Many graduates go on to be employed by the station.

Contrary to what is often reported in Canada, an accurate, on the ground appraisal of media freedoms in Venezuela would demonstrate the existence of a transparent and inclusive system of regulating media similar to that in Canada. There is active participation and dialogue among the population and there is a wide range of opinions and mediums for people to expound and promote their views and agendas.

Conclusions

While we could continue to address numerous other areas where social issues could be analyzed from a human rights perspective, we chose to limit our submission to our observations of human rights through our experiences with media and local governance. From our numerous experiences in various parts of Venezuela with countless people and organizations we have to conclude that in Venezuela there is an undeniable trend towards democratization of the state and society. Never have the basic rights of Venezuelan citizens and minorities – their cultural rights, rights to services and state provisions, political and social rights – been more institutionalized and respected than they are now. Venezuelans are actively participating unimpeded by the government in the transformation of their society and while there is no consensus, there is a democratic will that has a structure. This will must be respected by political and social actors in Venezuela, as well as in Canada. Our organization and members have been to other Latin American countries where this is not the case. Take Honduras, for example where our organizers have spent time with community organizations and have seen the repression and violation of human rights. We encourage your committee to fully investigate the human rights situation in that country along with other Latin American nations with well documented cases of Human Rights violations such as Colombia well as the complicity of Canadian-based companies in human rights violations that have been widely reported yet have not been adequately addressed by our government. As an organization, Barrio Nuevo is at your disposal if you would liek further documentation on our experiences or if you would like to visit any of the places in Venezuela where we have fraternal organizations.

Sincerely,

Pablo Vivanco

Communications Committee Director

Barrio Nuevo