[News] Interview with Venezuelan Interior and Justice Minister

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  *Interview with Interior and Justice Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres, 
Part One
(Part 2 Follows)
*

September 20, 2013

By *Miguel Rodriguez Torres*
and *Michael Albert*


Miguel Rodriguez Torres's ZSpace Page 
<http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/migueltorres>

/In late August Michael Albert interviewed Interior and Justice Minister 
of Venezuela, Miguel Rodriguez Torres, a close confidant and long time 
ally of President Maduro now, and of President Chavez earlier, on many 
matters critical to current events and prospects in Venezuela. Part One 
appears below. Part Two can be found here 
<http://www.zcommunications.org/interview-with-interior-and-justice-minister-miguel-rodriguez-torres-part-two-by-miguel-rodriguez-torres.html>. 
Translation and aid regarding all aspects provided by Gregory Wilpert of 
Venezuela Analysis <http://venezuelanalysis.com/>./

/*Michael Albert:* According to an often quoted 2008 Latinobarometro 
poll, Venezuelans reported that crime and corruption is a very serious 
problem in Venezuela, more so than citizens of almost any other country 
in Latin america reported. However, according to the same poll, 
Venezuelans experienced crime and corruption at more or less the average 
rate compared to the rest of Latin America. As a result, the gap between 
the perception and the incidence of crime and corruption was far higher 
in Venezuela than in any other country in the region. To what do you 
attribute the gap and what would you say is the true scale of the problem? /

*Miguel Rodriguez Torres: *Addressing the gap between the perception and 
incidence of crime, I believe that Venezuela is suffering through a 
problem of the mediatization of politics. The intervention of the 
communication media functions not to inform, but to create public 
opinion, which converts them into a sort of political party. It thereby 
de-natures the informative function of the mass media. In the year 1998, 
when President Chávez won the elections in Venezuela, enjoyed, at first, 
a sort of honeymoon with regard to the mass media. If you review the 
written press in this period, for example, of the first months of 1999, 
they praised president Chávez a lot because they thought he was a 
right-wing politician. They believed that his military background would 
no doubt lead to a right-wing government. The Venezuelan right and the 
rich thought he would favor their interests. But, to the extent that the 
president began to demonstrate that his government would not protect the 
powers that be, particularly the mass media, that's when an enormous 
rupture began to take place, which came to head with the enabling law of 
2001. That's when Chávez began to hit the interests of the country's 
oligarchy, who had dominated the political system for many years. For 
example, the hydrocarbons law, the fishing law, the land law, all of 
these were a direct hit to the heart of the country's most powerful. In 
the course of this rupture the mass media converted themselves into 
something more than mass media, into centers of conspiracy and into 
political parties.  And in this context they initiated a very tough 
media war, which increased the crime statistics, so that everything that 
happened, they would magnify. They even went so far as to commit crimes 
that they would then blame the government for and people on the right 
believed that these stories were true. It is this that caused the 
perception of crime to be higher than the reality of crime.

Why does insecurity continue to be a problem? In the first place, I 
believe that what we are seeing is a coming together of accumulated 
social exclusion. In the last 40 or 30 years, a generation that today is 
20, 25, 30 years old, who for a while passed through a period of serious 
social exclusion and a lot of poverty. In addition to this, we cannot 
forget that we are neighbors of Colombia. There is an effect that is 
easily observable from the moment that self-defense forces [the 
right-wing paramilitary forces] of Colombia are demobilized, in which 
15-20,000 people are demobilized, people who are used to warfare, 
assassinations, kidnappings, drug trafficking. All of these people are 
demobilized and many of them were left without work. That is, Colombia 
demobilized them, but it does not have a structure in place to put these 
people to work. So many of them moved to Venezuela. The statistics speak 
for themselves in this regard. You can see that from the moment the 
paramilitary are demobilized, how the influx of Colombians increases 
into Venezuela, and how crime starts to increase. It not only increases, 
but crime is also transformed. New modalities of crime begin to take 
place. For example, here you always had robberies and kidnappings. These 
types of crime always took place here. However, assassins [sicarios] 
were unknown here in Venezuela. Now we see cases where they kill someone 
with 20 shots. Also, the form in which kidnappings are carried out now 
are modalities that are copied and brought from Colombia to Venezuela. 
So why don't we control the influx? Well, the border between Colombia 
and Venezuela immense and very permeable, with jungle, rivers, canyons 
-- it is very easy to get into Venezuela from Colombia. If we add to 
this the accumulated poverty, which president Chávez fought with great 
effort, and managed to lower the poverty rate, all of these kids, who 
before the revolution did not go to school, who did not have access to 
the universities -- it was very difficult here to get into the 
university, it was a very exclusionary educational system -- all of this 
put together with the transfer of crime from Colombia to Venezuela, 
brought about the situation that we are currently going through. A third 
important element is that there was no well-structured policy to direct 
the country towards a state of peace; this did not exist, a policy of 
citizen security. Also, the police forces of Venezuela were very corrupt.

For example, in addition to being minister, I am also director of the 
national intelligence service. This service has been completely 
transformed. Previously it was called DISIP [National Directorate of 
Intelligence and Prevention Services], now it is called SEBIN [National 
Bolivarian Intelligence Service]. But the DISIP was a kind of political 
police that had a tremendous scope of action and could act outside of 
the law and no one said anything.  This DISIP had a long history of 
disappearances, torture, dismembering the bodies of leftist leaders -- 
it was an incredibly brutal police force. Fro example, Luis Posada 
Carriles rose to be director of intelligence of the DISIP and from this 
directorship he managed to commit a wide variety of human rights 
violations in Venezuela. This was a police force in which the training 
of the officer did not count, but rather their commitment to the 
government of the time. I even met commissars, the maximum level in the 
hierarchy, who were illiterate, but they were specialists in killing 
people. This has been completely transformed now. Now this intelligence 
service is a technical service, using a lot of technology, with a lot of 
capability, completely professionalized. There was another security 
force that used to exist, which was the metropolitan police [of 
Caracas], which had multiple accusations against it for human rights 
violations, excessive use of force, and many other things. We had to 
completely dissolve this force. And so we created the National 
Bolivarian Police under a new schema.

With regard to citizen security we created a new "great mission", thanks 
to President Chávez. What did he do? Knowing the problems of the public 
administration, he knew that many times it is quite difficult to tackle 
reality, which is why he created a new type of institution, the 
"mission." The first mission that he launched was Mission Robinson. This 
mission, against illiteracy, was not within any ministry. So he began 
creating new missions in order to address each problem. Once the 
structure of the ministries had been changed, the missions were 
transferred into the corresponding ministries.

For the problem of insecurity, the mission "For All Life" ["A toda 
vida"] was created. This mission has six principal dimensions.

/MA: If we return to the beginning, when we brought up the difference 
between the perception and the reality of crime and corruption, and a 
large part of the explanation was of course the media, and while this 
wasn't on the agenda of questions initially, it raises a really 
important one, which is why did you put up with it? Why has the media 
policy allowed the behavior they exhibited for so long? /

MRT: I believe, even though it might appear to be a weakness, I think it 
was one of the great strengths of President Chávez, to have always 
respected the constitution and the laws. The revolutionary government 
passed through several distinct phases, some of which were marked by 
great weaknesses and others by strength, and so the government's 
decisions have been shaped by the conjuncture, the circumstances of 
governability. Decisions have been made at different times to create new 
mass media, for example -- not government media, but media with balanced 
views. In another opportunity the license of a TV station was not 
renewed, of RCTV, one of the most radical opposition channels, which 
allowed for the creation of another type of TV channel. The other TV 
radical opposition channel, Globovision, is currently going through a 
change because it has been bought by new owners, who are respectful of 
the law. So the policies have always been within the framework of the 
law. Nonetheless, they accuse of all kinds of things, of violating human 
rights, of freedom of speech.

/MA: Do you worry that their effectiveness is having a very substantial 
cost for you, so that even though it is impressive, and it is very 
positive that you respect the law, that you respect the prior norms, 
still, the damage that they are doing is so great./

MRT: Before I respond to that, I need to emphasize the nature and 
origins of the revolution. One of the differences to other revolutions 
in the world is that it did not come to be through war and armed 
uprising. Also, it did not use violence as a catalyst, no did we 
exacerbate class struggle. The fact that the revolution came about via 
elections meant that we had to respect elections and laws, even while we 
gradually transformed these from a representative democracy to a 
participatory democracy. Regarding the topic of perceptions, we believe 
that now, compared to our initial situation, we are in a much better 
situation now. We have been taking polls in the past three or four 
months and we can tell that the perception of crime as a problem has 
dropped. We have also met with all of the owners of the private mass 
media, and we have addressed the topic of insecurity as an issue for all 
Venezuelans, regardless of their political affiliation. In this same 
sense we have also involve the Catholic Church, the Protestants, the 
Muslims, Jews, in order to deal with the problem of insecurity as a 
problem of all Venezuelans. I think that this, all of the measures we 
have been taking, in the area of prevention, we are improving the 
perception of insecurity. All of these measures that we are taking, in 
the area of prevention and in punishment. If we see that the next 
strategic actions that we will be taking, in one year, we will have a 
very high perception of security.

We are also developing a new model of policing, of contact with the 
people, of community policing. We are also in the process of installing 
video surveillance in sixteen cities of the country that can be used for 
many things. And we are also acquiring advanced technology for crime 
investigations. What is important is that people join in this effort in 
the struggle against crime.

/MA: How would you respond if someone tells you, well, in the United 
States, they use surveillance, they talk about police interaction with 
the community, use new technologies, but what they don't have is a 
national police force -- well, except for the FBI, but it's not like 
what you are creating here. How would you respond to someone who says 
that the steps that you describe could also become part of a more 
repressive apparatus, laying the groundwork for more police 
surveillance, more police control -- presumably all things that you do 
not want -- but a critic could say, it looks like that. Why should 
people believe that what you are talking about is different? /

MRT: This is why it is important to know the whole program [a toda 
vida], because what I have mentioned falls in the area of prevention, 
and not repression. It is important not to confuse the two. I am not 
familiar with the system in the United States because they haven't let 
me enter the country. I am prohibited from entering. They have denied me 
the visa twice and I never wanted to apply again. The issue, though, 
goes beyond the technological aspects, which is just a particular tool. 
But the mission goes beyond that, to include the struggle against 
poverty, the expansion of sports, expansion of cultural activities, that 
all children have access to a safe school, that the nutritional system 
functions, because crime is a social problem. In other words, the issue 
of technology is simply another instrument that is part of a larger 
security policy. The national police that we are developing is a police 
that has the characteristic of a community police, which is close to the 
people. I don't know if it's like that in the U.S., where the police 
goes from home to home and gets to know everyone and develops an empathy 
with them. Security is a holistic concept, not just one of repression. 
Also, this is how we present it. I, as interior minister, go into the 
communities and talk to community assemblies, where people say to me, 
look, even if we put a cop in every street corner, this won't work 
towards a solution of the problem. The problem is that the people need 
to develop a consciousness about security and that the organized 
communities take over some responsibility for security.

/MA: I want to ask you a question about something that was very 
disturbing to us. It's not so much crime in the sense of violent crime, 
but rather corruption. The story we heard is that in the Land Institute 
people receive a document when they get land, and this document is 
supposed to be free. But we were told that often, people who provide the 
document often ask for a bribe from the people who are supposed to 
receive the document. Of course, this does not happen always, but we are 
told that there are 30,000 of those letters that have not been given 
out. What is troubling about this is what you have said about 
consciousness. It is hard to understand how someone whose job is to 
literally to help people, would be taking advantage of their position in 
such a way. That is, what their mindset is and how it could exist among 
employees after so many years of political activism and what could be 
done about it. /

MRT: The topic of corruption, which actually is something I was still 
going to address, is one of the most complex and degrading topics that 
we currently confront. In fact, the call of president Maduro against 
corruption was quite dramatic. This problem of corruption neither 
started with the revolution, nor did it increase during the revolution. 
Rather, it began when the republic began. I believe, that we should see 
corruption as part of en effort to dominate sectors of the public 
administration. I am 49 years old, and for as long as I can remember, 
corruption has always been a major issue. There was a saying in 
Venezuela, "Don't give to me, but place me where there is." Whenever 
someone wanted to get their ID card or a passport or driver's license, 
one would ask "How much do you have to pay for this?" In all public 
institutions there were parallel institutions. The public institutions 
did not work. There always was someone who you would hire, to take care 
of the procedures. This created a culture. If we add to this the culture 
of capitalism, consumerism... three things that we were taught in 
Venezuela, that everything should quick, easy, and without effort. This 
is something that people have imbedded in their heads. These are values 
of over 100 years and it is very difficult to overcome this in just 14 
years. Now, what have we done? We have used, for example, technology in 
order to reduce corruption. Previously, in order to acquire an ID card, 
you had to stand in line from 3am, for the entire day, and at the end 
you would still not get the card. Or someone would come and say, "Give 
me X and I'll get it for you." This problem we managed to resolve with 
much hard effort and today Venezuelans are able to acquire their citizen 
ID card very quickly, with the help of new technology, and without and 
intermediaries. Any Venezuelan who now tells me, "I paid so and so much 
for the ID card," I tell them that they are stupid. Because it is very 
easy to acquire the ID card now. It is very easy to get it now. Also, 
for the passports today, you don't need to go to the office, but enter 
the website, apply for it, and get an appointment, and then go to the 
office to pick it up. And this is how we have been taking action in all 
of the institutions, so that the activities of the citizenry are cleared 
of corruption. We have also done work in raising consciousness about 
this topic in a variety of ways, with communities, with people, with 
mass media. And even thought the right wing denies it, we have also 
repressed corruption with the use of force.

In the Fourth Republic [before Chávez] a politician was never touched 
for being involved in corruption. The only case that was taken to court, 
and became famous, had to do with RECADI (Differentiated Currency 
Exchange Regime), which brought us to the extreme situation of zero 
dollars in foreign currency reserves. Some experts who have studied this 
say that this was the greatest fraud in the history of the world, and 
for this there was only one person who was convicted, and he happened to 
be Chinese. He became famous for being the "RICADI Chinaman."

If you review the record of the last 14 years, here we have prisoners 
[for corruption] who are former governors, National Assembly deputies, 
ministers, generals -- previously generals were untouchable -- and 
generals who appeared to be revolutionaries, in prison for corruption, 
more than ten of them. This includes General Baduel, who was a great 
friend of Chávez, a founder of the movement. He caught wind of the 
corruption investigation and then he began to take positions in 
opposition to the government. Because, here a trend was started, which 
said that all those who are accused of corruption are opposition 
politicians. And General Baduel is someone who used to be defense minister.

The system of providing the ID cards, the SAIME, there are no less than 
37 in prison, from regional directors on down. A special unit has been 
created to fight corruption, the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN).

/MA: I understand the repression and arrests as a means, and I 
understand that fighting poverty is a means, and I understand the idea 
of trying to prevent it with technological innovations and the like. But 
I am also wondering about the mindset. I get that it arises from a long 
history, but still, how do you create socialism if the mindset of a 
large part of the population is still to look for ways to cheat and 
extort from other people? When we asked some other people this, I asked 
them, "Does Julio Chávez cheat or steal? Is he corrupt?" Of course, the 
answer was no. And I asked the same thing about the Supreme Court Judge 
Fernando Vegas and of course the answer was also no. And so I asked 
"Why?" And the answer was that these people went through a long 
revolutionary process. So these people's values, ethics, norms, were 
formed in a long process and they were committed and were no 
corruptible. The thing that is troubling me, is how after the election 
of Chávez, when you are now in that non-violent context, how do you 
instill that kind of devotion and that kind of incorruptibility. The 
process of struggling against capitalism somehow created people who were 
incorruptible, but the broader population did not go through that 
process and still has those old values and inclinations. Have you 
thought about how to change that mindset and values? And why hasn't that 
happened? /

MRT: I don't have such a fatalistic vision of the situation. I do think 
that there have been some important changes. But this is a problem for 
which we need patience. It's not something that we are going to resolve 
quickly. Not a contemplative patience, but an active patience. We need 
to confront this from a variety of angles. For example, from the angle 
of education, to get it out of people's heads that every thing ought to 
be easy, fast, and without effort. This is something that we are working 
on a lot in community workshops, with all of the communal councils. At 
the same time, though, we continue to battle the private mass media. 
It's not because they are against the government, but that they are 
deeply imbedded in capitalism, supporting particular values. All that 
they teach in the media, and the children that see this, such as, "You 
want to lose weight? Take a little pill." It's quick, easy, and without 
effort. But we know that things are not that easy. You need to go on a 
diet, you need to do exercise, etc. "Do you want to learn English? 
Quickly? In this academy you can learn it in three weeks." That's a lie. 
But that's how they learn that life is supposed to be like this. This is 
a struggle for a new social ethic, which cannot be constructed in one 
year or even in five, but it requires a constant effort, the formation 
of new leaders, a cadre school, strengthening the revolutionary 
universities. This last is one of the great achievements of President 
Chávez, to have managed to open the universities to everyone. This is 
not just a matter of political formation, but also one of ethics. It is 
a long struggle, but the element of repression also enters. It is a big 
challenge. I like challenges.

/MA: What I think is really incredible is what Venezuela is trying to do 
is rather unique. There is no comparison between what Venezuela is doing 
and what Cuba did, for example, much less other revolutions. One thing 
that's frustrating in some sense, is that it seems to me that Venezuela 
is a school for the world in the difficulties and tasks that are needed 
to build a better society without violence, without civil war. It often 
seems, though, that Venezuela doesn't see it as a priority to 
communicate with other leftists around the world to communicate what 
Venezuela is trying to do. The understanding that leftists have around 
the world is really poor. And I don't think you can only blame them for 
that. It seems that the Venezuela process hasn't seen it as a priority 
to simultaneously explain what is going on. What do you think? /

MRT: I am in complete agreement. It's one of the great weaknesses of our 
process. Always from the different positions I have had, I have always 
desperate tried to spread the word, to create alliances with the left, 
in order to have opinion generators all around the world. I still think 
that it's a need for us. Also because Venezuela has achieved quite a bit 
in 14 years. For example, what we have done on the issue of illiteracy. 
This is something that representative democracy in Venezuela could not 
do in 50 years. Comandante Chávez, with the help of Cuba, achieved in 
two years.

/MA: I have a question about that. I know a number of literacy teachers 
in the United States, and in the U.S. there is a lot of illiteracy. It's 
defined as when you are unable to read sufficiently for carrying out 
daily life tasks. Their response to Venezuela's announcement that 
Venezuela had achieved full literacy was that it was impossible, that it 
could not possibly have been done so quickly. I have two questions. One, 
in your experience, does it really mean that all Venezuela can pick up a 
newspaper and read it and understand it. And second, how do you think it 
could be communicated with the world, so that it would be convincing and 
not considered propaganda? /

MRT: I understand that you might not believe it. I realize that the 
methodology that is used in other countries is very slow. Here we did it 
very quickly because we used a mission that dedicated itself just to 
this task. One of the main pillars was the armed forces. They are 
deployed in the entire country. This allowed us to take up the issue in 
all corners of the country. One of the main pillars of this mission was 
to train the teachers within the armed forces, and with this deployment 
to implement the program. The method, "Yo si puedo" [Yes I can] is truly 
extraordinary. There are many stories of people, including up to 80 
years of age, who not only learned to read and write, but they also 
continued their education up to sixth grade. I believe that Chávez's 
leadership was one of the fundamental things for this. Because the work 
that he dedicated to this, the spiritual force, and the motivation that 
this provided, caused people to participate. I think living in 
illiteracy is like living in darkness. When you want to catch a bus, you 
have to pay attention to the bus's color, and when you follow the news 
you are limited to the television.  For any task, you need to ask 
someone to write something for you. So, for anyone who had the 
opportunity to get out of this, they took it on gladly. We even have 
people who started in Mission Robinson 1 and who have no graduated from 
the University. This is exactly the path, to struggle against exclusion, 
struggle against poverty.

Returning to the topic of crime, there is an issue that I would like to 
propose to the president, which we are developing in a team, which is to 
return to a school of two shifts and that education in schools be much 
more holistic, so that each child that attends school would have food, 
education, health, culture, and sports. Perhaps because I come from the 
military academy, but the academy had classes in the morning, sports in 
the afternoon, and then more classes and cultural activities. We had 
constant activities. If a child enters school in the morning, they have 
classes until 1pm, and in the afternoon do some sports or cultural or 
other activities, returning to their home around 5pm or 6pm in the 
evening, they would have very little time for dangerous leisure. But 
what happens nowadays? The great majority of kids pass the afternoons on 
their own. Parents are working and the kids return around 1pm and they 
pass their time either in front of the TV or go out on the streets and 
get involved in delinquency. The kids are being exposed to disturbing 
factors.

/MA: Continuing the crime issue, but a different part of it, the 
Venezuelan prison system, like so many others all over the world, 
doesn't actually serve as a deterrent to crime and is often actually a 
school for crime. This is very true of the United States. The prisons 
are full of drugs, often governed by gangs, you have to defend yourself 
with violent techniques. Is there a plan in Venezuela for changing the 
prisons as dramatically as has been done in other areas of society? /

MRT: First of all, you have to understand that there never has been a 
penitentiary system in Venezuela. The prisons were depositories of human 
beings, where people who are being processed and those who were already 
sentenced were in the same prison. Also, in the same prison you would 
have murderers with someone who hit someone with their car. This was the 
situation until recently. As I mentioned earlier, the mission "A Toda 
Vida" has six dimensions or lines of action and number four says, 
"modernization of the penal system." This is currently being applied. 
Within this there are various strategic lines in order to achieve this 
objective and I think we have advanced quite a bit with this. There are 
something like 36 prisons in Venezuela, 14 of which are under the direct 
control of the state and the rest we are currently working on. The 
judicial system, which is also a part of this mission, has many problems 
with regard to the delay of trials, which is also something we are 
working on resolving. It would be very interesting for you to interview 
Minister Iris Varela, who is in charge of the prison system. We have 
given the problem such a high level of importance that a new ministry 
was created to take of this issue. Right now we are constructing, I 
believe, over 14 new prisons, so that we can place prisoners according 
to the crime and according to the punishment that they committed.

/MA: I still want to ask you one more prison question. What would you 
think of a program where those who were sentenced to prison could choose 
to go either to a typical but reformed prison of the old sort or could 
choose to go to a different prison, of a new sort, where they would live 
in something like personal rooms, could take courses in order to reenter 
society and where to a large extent would self-manage their own 
environment, still isolated from the outside community, completely 
drug-free and violations would mean being returned to a more typical 
prison. /

MRT: This kind of thing is actually currently being done. The judicial 
reform would allow punishments that don't involve going to typical 
prisons. Also, the de-concentration of the prison system, such as what 
you can see in the socialist city of Caribia. For example, for those who 
commit minor crimes people are punished with community service, along 
with training workshops and behavioral follow-up, which would avoid what 
has been happening, which is that for any crime, no matter how small, 
they would be taken to a prison. In the existing prisons we are 
beginning to activate productive units and training centers. For 
example, work for adolescents is being focused on a lot because these 
are kids that could return to society. So in those special prisons there 
are psychologists and psychiatrists, working on helping them return into 
the larger society.

Beyond that, an extraordinary experience has been the process of 
disarmament, which we also haven't told that well. We are seeing boys 
who are involved in crime, who approach the police authorities and turn 
in their weapons, saying, here I am, I would like to work. Just a little 
while ago I had an experience in the state of Vargas, where a policeman 
and seven boys turned over their weapons. We examined the weapons, so a 
to make sure none of them had been used in a crime, in murders or in 
drug-trafficking, When we completed the revision, we took the weapons. 
And they [the boys] and now participating in tourism courses. We donated 
a boat, with motors, and they organized a cooperative, where they use 
the boat to transport tourists from one beach to another. These are 
seven boys where we believe is a proper follow-up they will be involved 
in productive work and their weapons have been taken out of circulation. 
We have already destroyed over 16,000 weapons, which we are turning into 
rebar for home construction projects. This is another experience that 
shows how we are advancing on many fronts.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: 	Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: 
http://www.zcommunications.org/interview-with-interior-and-justice-minister-miguel-rodriguez-torres-part-one-by-miguel-rodriguez-torres 



*_Part II_*

*/Michael Albert/*/: Even while we have been there, there was, in the 
news -- and you were on the TV a lot -- that there was an assassination 
plot against President Maduro. Not the first. From where do you think 
this particular plot originated and what do you think is the general 
motivation of such plots?/

*Miguel Rodriguez Torres*: As director of the intelligence service, I 
have publicly spoken about assassination attempts in three 
opportunities. The intention always was not only to try to kill the 
president, but to put an end to the revolutionary process. In the case 
of President Chávez, there was also the effort to have one of his 
bodyguards kill him, so that not only would he be killed, but to also 
put an end to his leadership, with this image of the president being 
killed by his own bodyguard.

The first assassination plot that I investigated was directed from 
Caracas. They wanted to kill him with a sniper. This sniper was in 
prison in the state of Guarico. He had asked for $5 million to kill the 
president. On the one hand, he asked for the money, on the other hand, 
he himself communicated to me that he did not want to do it. He was one 
of Venezuela's most famous robbers and he was an expert with a 
particular type of sniper rifle. This is someone who has committed 
serious crimes in Venezuela. For example, he robbed armored cash 
transports -- something from the movies. He was captured in Mexico and 
the DISIP transported him to Venezuela 20 years ago. During this time he 
made friends in the DISIP. So, via the old friends he had made in the 
DISIP, he passed the information on to me about how he would assassinate 
the president. I called him to find out the details and he told me that 
his strategy was to escape from prison, kill the president, and then 
return to the prison, so that he would have an alibi. Some time later 
then, his plan was to leave the prison for good and to leave the 
country. He proved all of this to me. I asked him, "How are you going to 
manage to leave the prison?" and he responded, "That's already 
organized." I even met him outside of prison, while he still was a 
prisoner, in a town Aragua state, with two girlfriends. He already could 
come and go as he pleased. All of this I told President Chávez. The 
mastermind of the whole plan was a great friend of Chávez's. I prefer 
not to say who it was, in memory of the friendship that Chávez had with 
him. This plan fell apart because the prisoner's trial was going to be 
in the state of Bolivar, in the south of Venezuela, so they transported 
him there and left him there. In the end, we could not arrest anyone for 
this plan because all of it remained on the level of intelligence work.

The second occasion in which there was an assassination attempt was May 
2004, when they brought 150 paramilitary forces from Colombia. They gave 
them Venezuelan military uniforms and came with the intention of killing 
President Chávez. I think this was one of my best intelligence 
operations. If we had not been able to neutralize this plan, I think 
Venezuela today would be a different country. We managed to capture 150 
Colombians and more or less 15 members of the national armed forces. 
This was the famous "Daktari" case. Another participant was Roberto 
Alonso, of Miami, and Orlando Urdaneta, also in Miami. Alonso has always 
been an ally of Luis Posada Carriles. Another participant was the former 
mayor of Caracas [Alfredo Peña], who, when the plan was uncovered, left 
the country, to Uruguay, I think. I have information that he is very ill 
now. Part of this plan was to steal two F-16 fighter jets; two officers 
of the Venezuelan military were going to do that, in order to bomb 
Chávez's talk show, "Alo Presidente." And during this bombing the 150 
paramilitaries from Colombia were going to attack strategic points in 
Caracas. The boss of the Colombians was commander Lucas, who was a very 
trusted friend of Salvatore Mancuso, who was the second-in-command of 
the AUC (Auto-Defense Forces of Colombia). Commander Lucas was well 
known for how blood-thirsty he was. He even told me that he was going to 
cut off President Chávez's head and smoke a cigar. This guy was 
deranged. This was the plan to kill Commandante Chávez.

Now, this third plan, which is against President Maduro, we found out 
through information that came to us from Miami. One of the first 
meetings for this plan had the participation of people who are tied to 
Luis Posada Carriles, who then traveled to Colombia. There they 
recruited Venezuelan agents. We found out everything that they were 
planning to do. I can't tell you the method we used. We then determined 
that they traveled to Costa Rica and discovered that ten individuals, 
assassins, who were going to travel from Colombia to Venezuela, with the 
intention of killing President Maduro in one of his community meetings. 
The president exposes himself quite a lot. We knew of the movements of 
two of these assassins, who we followed with the use of telephone 
technology. When they traveled to Caracas and spent one night near the 
city, we managed to arrest them, two Colombian assassins [sicarios]. We 
got all of their data, their passports, boarding passes. The surprise 
factor helped us a lot. Once we obtained this information, I personally 
traveled to Bogotá, where I met with the Colombian director of 
intelligence and he provided us with all of the information about this 
particular group of assassins. They are directed by a certain individual 
with the alias "David," who is the boss of a cartel of assassins. The 
two that we arrested admitted that they were in Venezuela to assassinate 
someone. Also, there is a witness, who said that a Venezuelan provided 
them with uniforms, rifles, etc. we still haven't managed to capture 
this individual, though. All of the information that we got from 
different sources coincides. We were told that there were ten assassins 
and we found ten uniforms. When we went to Colombia to get information 
about the group of assassins, we found out that they are a group of ten. 
This is how intelligence work works, putting together various pieces of 
evidence. This is where we are at right now in this investigation.

/MA: So this means that eight assassins are still lose in Venezuela? Or 
do you think they went back to Colombia?/

MRT: We believe they have not come to Venezuela yet. The first two were 
the first to come here. Nevertheless, we are alert to their possible 
presence.

/MA: In the case of Cuba over the years, there have been a great many of 
such plots, as well as outright terror tactics, coming from the U.S. 
There is a possible motivation for such policies, even if they don't 
succeed in assassinating the president. They can force or abet or 
justify a kind of centralization of the state and a siege mentality that 
interferes with efforts to achieve greater democracy and 
self-management, instead generating repressiveness. Indeed, the effect 
of 9/11 in the U.S. and the emergence of homeland security, for example. 
So the question becomes, do you think you can protect President Maduro 
and the country and yet avoid that kind of siege mentality and 
centralization?/

MRT: I believe that in Venezuela we have had to learn to live with a 
right wing that includes terrorist elements. And, despite the attacks of 
this right wing, we have never generalized repression. Instead, we have 
generalized action. In addition to this, our intelligence service has 
been able to reach very important level of operation capacity, so that 
it can focus on just that one objective. This is why I think we did not 
fall into a massive wave of repression. Also, we have a sufficient 
capacity to protect the life of the president. These are events we have 
had to live through because of the Venezuelan right wing [holds up 
posters with images of different terrorist attacks against the government].

Look, this was in the year 2003, the group of military officers who 
occupied Plaza Altamira [in Caracas], established a constant focus of 
disturbances in an important plaza of Caracas. They placed bombs at the 
Spanish and at the Colombian consulates. The perpetrators were processed 
and some of them escaped to Miami. They placed these bombs and destroyed 
the offices of the consulates.

Here's another one, where they placed a bomb in a demonstration for the 
president. They placed the bomb in a garbage can on the route of the 
march. At that time I was already director of the intelligence service. 
We knew that they had placed an explosive somewhere along the route of 
the march. We first wanted to cancel the march, but then we decided to 
change the route of the march. We changed it, but nonetheless, one 
citizen was killed in the explosion.

In another incident, in the same plaza where they had placed the bombs 
[Altamira], they got this Portuguese mister, who first fired shots into 
the air and then started shooting people in the plaza. There were deaths 
and many injuries.

Again, in the same plaza, the right-wing politicians who were 
proselytizing with active duty officers, believed that these three 
soldiers were informers of the intelligence service and so they killed 
them. They killed the three and the girlfriend of one of them. This was 
investigated and the perpetrators were imprisoned. And some of the 
masterminds of the crime, one of them was Capitan Colina, now lives in 
Miami, speaking badly about Venezuela every day and has political asylum.

/MA: All of this is exactly the kind of behavior, I think, which could 
be explained as trying to cause you, the government, to move toward far 
more centralized and repressive behavior./

MRT: This is not something that they managed to do. We have defeated 
them with intelligence and not with violence. And the mobilization of 
the public has been a fundamental factor, as well as the civil-military 
unity, and without a doubt intelligence work.

/MA: There is a strange confluence of two themes emerging here. On the 
one the population has this long history of corruption and crime and it 
is very hard to overcome. On the other side, you, Chávez, and various 
other people, who exercising power from the government, you tell us, you 
aren't corrupted and don't become corrupted and don't seek more power 
and don't seek to centralize, even though you have a perfect excuse to 
do so, because of the terrorism of the right. There is a gigantic gap 
there, between your consciousness and what most people expect to find in 
such a government, and what is widespread in Venezuela as well. I know 
something like this is very hard to explain, but can you?/

MRT: The situation in Venezuela is not easy to explain. The revolution 
has passed through many periods of strength and of weakness. When these 
things were happening we were just coming out of an oil industry 
shutdown. Venezuela went from 3 million barrels per day in exports, to 
3,000, there was no gasoline, there were shortages of food, a type of 
collapse and many street mobilizations in early 2003. There was a great 
confrontation between two opposing models. The only way were able to 
overcome this confrontation was through more intelligence than violence. 
There was a temptation to use violence. There was a meeting in 2003, by 
this group of military officers and politicians, who had taken over this 
plaza, Plaza Altamira, and they set up a stage where active duty 
officers called for a military rebellion. We were confronted with the 
possibility that entire barracks would join this call. The defense 
minister at the time, in a meeting with President Chávez, proposed to 
take over the plaza by force, using tanks. The military sector was 
inclined to such an action. As director of the intelligence service, I 
was also a military officer, and I evaluated in what condition of 
governability the government was. The situation was one of great 
fragility, which also led to a recall referendum in 2004. I was one of 
the people at the time to recommend to the president that we should use 
a strategy of wearing them out and not through a confrontation. We 
succeeded with this. I think this even backfired for them. Even in the 
U.S. they condemned military officers involved in political activism. 
This allowed us to wear them out and defeat them. Now they are dispersed 
all over the place.

The president was able to re-take the situation and, in a daring action, 
we heading towards the referendum. I was one of the individuals who 
liked the idea of a recall referendum. I was one of the few in the 
government who liked it. I always believed firmly in the president. The 
triumph of winning the recall referendum gave Chávez great strength and 
legitimacy, nationally and internationally, and allowed him to pursue 
changes with even greater vigor. In any other government, in the U.S. or 
in Venezuela, this plaza occupation would have ended with repression 
because they would not have cared about killing these people. We always 
tried to protect lives.

/MA: Do you think the same kind of mentality and priorities help explain 
the pace of nationalizations? That is, it isn't done very abruptly, 
rapidly, at once. It's a slow, long process, waiting for moments when it 
can be done, avoiding confrontations./

MRT: Yes, because this is a democratic revolution. We cannot say, "Ok, 
we won the election and will make a revolution and will execute all 
those who do not obey." The nationalizations are conducted in a 
strategic manner, depending on the situation, based on the support that 
they provide to the process. I think the most important one was of the 
[state oil company] PDVSA, of assuming true control over it, cost us a 
lot of blood, sweat, and tears.

/MA: Now I have a few questions about your background? First, how did 
you become politicized?/

MRT: I entered the military academy in the year 1984, and in 1985 I was 
transferred to a paratrooper battalion. Once there, I began making 
contact with members of the MBR [Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement, 
Chávez's clandestine military group]. This group was an embryo for the 
formation of the MBR -- in fact one of the individuals that I worked 
with for many years was one of the founders of the MBR, Commander 
Urdaneta Hernandez. He was my boss for several years. This is how I was 
influenced. Also, my older brother had always been a part of the left 
and entered the university in Maracay. I always discussed with him.

I was then transferred to the Presidential Guard. I thus began to 
distance myself a little from my companions in the MBR, but my 
experience in the presidential palace allowed me to open my eyes more to 
what was going on in Venezuela. The famous RECADI case, how the powerful 
managed the women of the president, the business deals they conducted, 
and how they repressed the population. The social explosion of 1989 I 
experienced from there; how they wantonly killed people [during the 
Caracazo of February 1989]. I saw large holes in the ground, in the 
cemetery, full of dead bodies, which were the result of the repression. 
This affected me greatly. Although I remained silent, I discussed this 
with my buddies. At night there was a curfew and we took advantage of 
that to discuss at night what was going on. We didn't only discuss it, 
but repudiated it. This is how we generated consciousness. Also, when 
masses of people went out to engage in looting, what we did was to 
organize them, without repressing, because we understood the reality of 
the people and it hurt us, how we were ordered us to kill them. 
Silently, we did not follow those orders.

>From there, I returned to the paratrooper battalion and began to 
reestablish closer contacts to the conspiracy, until we got to February 
4 [of 1992]. Until that time I was merely a soldier, with a conscience. 
I had been trained in the Special Forces. Later [after Feb. 4], I was 
imprisoned and I dedicated myself to studying, intensively, for the two 
years that I was in jail. History, politics, economics. We had 
discussion groups. From there we also started to organize civil-military 
Bolivarian committees. This was one of the most intense forms of work I 
did while imprisoned. We began to organize Bolivarian committees in all 
of the cities, which later turned into the Bolivarian Circles. This is 
where I developed more political consciousness.

We had contacts with people from the extreme left to people of the 
extreme right. We were also contacted by someone who was in prison in 
the U.S., from the Ibero-American solidarity committee, which was a part 
of the extreme right, who was trying to promote coup d'états in all of 
Latin America. And these people met with us a few times. They were, for 
example, supporting the "Carapintadas", a group that was led by a 
right-wing military colonel of Argentina. They supported various 
projects of the extreme right in Latin America. Of course, when they 
realized that we did not support their ideas, they withdrew. Their top 
representative in Venezuela is Peña Esclusa, who three years ago we 
imprisoned for possessing explosives. He was the contact person for 
Chávez Abarca -- a Central American, who we imprisoned here. He is one 
of the people who planted bomb in Cuba and in other places. We captured 
him while trying to enter Venezuela and sent him to Cuba. He's one of 
Luis Posada Carriles's men.

I got out of prison and I was stubborn and I did not want to ask for a 
discharge. I did not ask for it because I wanted to annoy the military, 
more than that I wanted to remain in the military. And so, from 1994 to 
1998 I passed through all of Venezuela, all of the border regions. They 
invented border posts and placed me there. I was in places where I lost 
25 kilograms of weight, far in the south of Venezuela. Even through I 
was completely isolated, I had my books and my contacts and made contact 
with local communities. Also, I had clandestine meetings with Hugo Chávez.

In 1997, I met with Chávez in the city of Coro. He had sent me a 
message, asking to meet with me. At the time I was still an active duty 
officer. I couldn't command or speak to troops, though because they had 
me segregated. We met in the middle of Los Medanos, which is a dune 
desert. Commandante Chávez was wearing a wig and a hat. To find him, I 
had circled 200 hundred times, also because I was being followed by the 
DISIP [intelligence service] and we met below a plant. Chávez said to 
me, "Miguel, ask for a discharge and come with me. We will create a 
great movement in the streets." My response was, "My Commandante, 
honestly, I believe that you will be president of the Venezuelan 
republic." At that time he hadn't launched his presidential campaign 
yet. He said to me, that this still has not been decided, whether to 
run. I responded, "You will decide to run and you will win." I also 
said, "With this power of conviction that you have, it is impossible for 
you to lose the election. And when you win the election, you will need 
active duty officers who support you from within the armed forces. I 
will leave the military when you decide not to run for president."

He ran, won, and I was in the armed forces. That same night when he won, 
he called for me. I presented myself to him in Caracas. At the time I 
was in Tumeremo, in the far south of Venezuela, Bolivar state. I then 
asked him, "Do you remember that I said you would win? Now we have to 
start the work within the armed forces because if we don't have their 
support, our process is not going to last more than a year." That's why 
I stayed in the armed forces.

Before the 1998 elections I was imprisoned eight times. They followed 
me, isolated me, imprisoned me for one week or three days. That's how I 
came into the government with Chávez. All these years, studying, 
learning about politics. In addition, our military education also 
includes a lot of political science and philosophy. My family background 
is in the working to middle class. After that I dedicated myself to 
studying a lot. I have post-graduate degrees in finance, conflict 
negotiation, master's in logistical management, administrative science, 
as well as the normal military education.

/MA: In your mind, first, what is the goal for socialism of the 21^st 
century and, second, do you think that many Venezuelans could express 
Venezuela's goals the way you would? And if they can't, why do you think 
they can't?/

MRT: I believe that first of all we have a great deficit in defining 
what is socialism of the 21^st century.  Because, this Bolivarian 
Socialism -- a term that I prefer -- needs to be a socialism that is 
adequate to our reality. It must be a socialism that is not an exact 
copy of other socialist experiences in the world. But it must be 
centered in various key issues. First, in the issue of social justice, 
which has to do with a new model for the distribution of wealth. This is 
one of the richest countries in the world, in my opinion, and it cannot 
justify the existence of poverty in any way. We can construct a country 
with a people that are dignified and prosperous. We have to define an 
economy that will is needed for this. If it is via an state-based 
economy or some other system, but I think the most important riches and 
resources of the country should be in the hands of the state, which is 
what President Chávez did when he got control over the oil industry. Our 
entire economy, our entire society turn around what happens with the oil 
industry.

But we need to define what kind of society and economy are needed to 
achieve social justice. We have advanced in this. President Maduro has a 
team that is in the process of defining this. President Chávez also left 
us many writings and thoughts and work that is useful for this. Based on 
this we can construct a theory. Our socialism has many differences from 
other experiences. For example, on the topic of religion, compared to 
the Soviet Union they put an end to the Church. They turned churches 
into public restrooms. Venezuela is a very Christian country.  This is a 
reality that we have to work with. Even those of us who are in positions 
of power are Christians. Before, Soviet socialism promoted immanence, 
values that are internal to the human, that they are good because of 
their human nature. Christians, though, believe in transcendence. This 
difference defines two distinct models for life. This obliges us to 
think about our socialism according to our reality.

So, first, our country needs to be one where there is no poverty, where 
the concept of the family is strengthened, and where the productive 
model is defined. We need to covert the whole oil potential that we 
have, downstream, into productive industries that generate work. Our 
wealth should also be directed towards agriculture, for the production 
of food. When we manage to become self-sufficient with regard to food 
and manage to produce downstream goods from the oil industry, for our 
consumption, then the revolution will be undefeatable. I would focus on 
ten main food products that are particularly needed, for example.

We need to understand that Venezuela is not an isolated island. The 
forces of capitalism are still surrounding us. This reality obliges us 
to pay attention this reality. It is very complicated to have a 
socialist production models and then to commercialize their products 
within a capitalist framework. There is the Chinese example, which is 
one possibility. It is a mixed model. And then there are other experiences.

What is your opinion on this?

/MA: I do spend a lot of time working on economic vision: what is the 
alternative to capitalism and what is the alternative to what has been 
called socialism. The thing that we favor can be called either 
participatory economics or participatory socialism./

MRT: This is exactly an issue that I have been studying for the past few 
months, about an economic alternative to capitalism. Also, for the past 
three years I have been developing a model for humanist participatory 
management, looking at the question of how you can be an effective 
manager, with a capitalist philosophy and formation, while trying to 
build socialism.

/Transcribed and translated by Gregory Wilpert/

------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: 	Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: 
http://www.zcommunications.org/interview-with-interior-and-justice-minister-miguel-rodriguez-torres-part-two-by-miguel-rodriguez-torres 



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