Bolivarian Missions

The Bolivarian Missions are a series of social justice, social welfare, anti-poverty, educational, electoral and military recruiting programs implemented under the administration of the current Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. They draw their name from the historical South American hero, Simón Bolívar.

Bolivarian Missions
The "Bolivarian Missions" have entailed the launching of massive government anti-poverty initiatives, the construction of thousands of free medical clinics for the poor, the institution of educational campaigns that have reportedly made more than one million adult Venezuelans literate,  and the enactment of food and housing subsidies. There have been marked improvements in the infant mortality rate between 1998 and 2005.

The Missions have overseen widespread experimentation in what Chávez supporters term citizen- and worker-managed governance, as well as the granting of thousands of free land titles, reportedly to formerly landless poor and indigenous communities. In contrast, several large landed estates and factories have been, or are in the process of being, expropriated.

Education

 * Mission Robinson (launched July 2003) – uses volunteers to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic to Venezuelan adults.
 * Mission Ribas (launched November 2003) – provides remedial high school level classes to Venezeulan high school dropouts; named after independence hero José Felix Ribas.
 * Mission Sucre (launched in late 2003) – provides free and ongoing basic education courses to adult Venezuelans who had not completed their elementary-level education.

Electoral

 * Mission Florentino (launched June 2004) – organized by Hugo Chávez to coordinate the population to vote "No" in the Venezuelan recall referendum of 2004. The organizational centers of the Mission were named "Comando Maisanta" and were the ideological central headquarters for those who wished to keep Chávez as the President of Venezuela for the remainder of his presidential period.

Environmental

 * Mission Energía (launched November 2006) – has begun a campaign to reduce environmental degradation by replacing incandescent lightbulbs with more energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs.

Food and nutrition

 * Mission Mercal – seeks to provide access to high-quality produce, grains, dairy, and meat at discounted prices. Seeks to provide Venezuela's poor increased access to nutritious, safe, and organic locally- and nationally-grown foodstuffs. Seeks also to increase Venezuela's food sovereignty.

Healthcare

 * Mission Barrio Adentro ("Mission Inside the Neighborhood") – a series of initiatives (deployed in three distinct stages) to provide free, comprehensive, and community health care (at both the primary (Consultorios y Clínicas Populares or popular clinics) and secondary (hospital) levels), in addition to preventative medical counsel to Venezuela's medically under-served and impoverished barrios.

Housing

 * Mission Hábitat – has as its goal the construction of new housing units for the poor. The program also seeks to develop agreeable and integrated housing zones that make available a full range of social services &mdash; from education to healthcare &mdash; which likens its vision to that of new urbanism. Critics have denounced the slow rate of construction (less than 10,000 housing units built over the last six years).

Identification

 * Mission Identidad – provides Venezuelan national identity cards to facilitate access to the social services provided by other Missions.

Indigenous rights

 * Mission Guaicaipuro (launched October 2003) – carried out by the Venezuelan Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, this program seeks to restore communal land titles and human rights to Venezuela's numerous indigenous communities, in addition to defending their rights against resource and financial speculation by the dominant culture.

Land reform

 * Mission Zamora – provides a comprehensive land expropriation and redistribution program that mainly benefits poor Venezuelans. Several large landed estates and factories have been, or are in the process of, being expropriated.

Rural development

 * Mission Vuelta al Campo ("Return to the Countryside"; announced mid– 2005) – seeks to encourage impoverished and unemployed urban Venezuelans to willingly return to the countryside.


 * Mission Arbol (Mission Tree, announced June 2006) – seeks to recover Venezuelan forests, with plans to plant 100,000 trees in 5 years. The project is also to involve the rural population, in an effort to stop harm to forests through from slash/burn practices by promoting more sustainable agriculture, such as growing coffee or cocoa. The projects aim to achieve this through self organization of the local populations.

Science

 * Mission Ciencia ("Mission Science" launched February 2006) – includes a project to train 400,000 people in open source software, and scholarships for graduate studies and the creation of laboratories in different universities.

Socioeconomic transformation

 * Mission Vuelvan Caras ("Mission Turn Faces") – has as its objective the transformation of the present Venezuelan economy to one that is oriented towards social, rather than fiscal and remunerative, goals. It seeks to facilitate increased involvement of ordinary citizens in programs of endogenous and sustainable social development, emphasizing in particular the involvement of traditionally marginalized or excluded Venezuelan social and economic sectors, including those participating in Venezuela's significant "informal" economy. The mission's ultimate goal, according to Hugo Chávez, is to foster an economy that brings "a quality and dignified life for all". In January 2006, Chávez declared that, after fulfilling the first stage of the mission, the goal of the second stage will be to turn every "endogenous nuclei of development" into "military nuclei of resistance against American imperialism" as part of a continuous program to create "citizen militias".

Civilian militia

 * Mission Miranda – establishes a Venezuelan military reserve composed of civilians who could participate in the defense of the Venezuelan territory.

Cuban expertise
Many of these programs involve importing expertise from abroad; Venezuela is providing Cuba with 53,000 barrels (8,000 m³) of below-market-rate oil a day in exchange for the service of thousands of physicians, teachers, sports trainers, and other skilled professionals.

Impact
The literacy programs that comprise Mission Sucre are centered on fostering universal literacy among Venezuela's adult populace; an adjunct to this is the facilitation of their comprehension of the Venezuelan Constitution of 1999 and the inherent rights that they, as Venezuelan citizens, are guaranteed under this document.

Mission Barrio Adentro, one of the flagship Bolivarian Missions of widest social impact, has drawn international praise from the Latin American branch of the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the UN, and Saudi representatives who have visited Venezuela in order to study the Barrio Adentro public free clinics: Saudi officials are considering implementing a similar government program in Saudi Arabia. The Venezuelan government reports that 18 million people, or nearly 70% of the population, have been treated free of charge through Mission Barrio Adentro clinics, CDIs, and hospitals.

Under Chávez's presidency, significant social and economic transformation has swept through Venezuela. Chávez's policies most clearly defy neoliberal principles by expressly bolstering heavily state-supported anti-poverty, educational, and health initiatives. Chávez's policies are designed to mostly benefit Venezuela's poor majority.

Oil profits, being about US$25 billion in 2004, have allowed the Chávez administration to carry out what he calls a "new socialist revolution." The leftist platform involves a remarkable increase in spending on social programs. The Chávez administration has thus built free health care clinics, subsidized food and created small manufacturing cooperatives. Between them, these programs have constructed and modernized thousands of public medical and dental clinics, launched massive literacy and education initiatives, subsidized food, gasoline, and other consumer goods, and established numerous worker-managed manufacturing and industrial cooperatives. Critics allege that these programs are corrupt and inefficient, while a number of international organizations &mdash; including the UN, UNICEF, and the WHO &mdash; have praised the programs as positive models for bringing about social development.

Bolivarianism
On 30 January 2005 at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Chávez declared his support for democratic socialism as integral to Bolivarianism. Chávez proclaimed support for "a new type of socialism, a humanist one, which puts humans and not machines or the state ahead of everything." He later reiterated this in a February 26 speech at the 4th Summit on the Social Debt held in Caracas. To charges from business leaders that Chávez is eroding private property rights, and from the Roman Catholic cardinal that he was becoming a dictator, he said that Venezuelans must choose between "capitalism, which is the road to hell, or socialism, for those who want to build the kingdom of God here on earth."

Economic policy, unemployment and poverty
Chávez was first elected on an anti-corruption platform and on promises of redistributing wealth to the poor, but Michael Shifter of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service says that "despite record oil profits that are funding social spending, his initiatives have yielded only very modest gains", and The Economist reports that his policies are most vulnerable in the areas of corruption, jobs and crime.

During Chávez's presidency from 1999 to 2004, per-capita GDP dropped 1–2%, but with the help of rising oil prices, the end of the oil strike, and strong consumption growth, recent economic activity under Chávez has been robust. GDP growth rates were 18% in 2004, 9% in 2005, and 9.6% in the first half of 2006, with the private sector growing at a 10.3% clip. From 2004 to the first half of 2006, non-petroleum sectors of the economy showed growth rates greater than 10%. Most of that growth was in the poorest sectors of society, with real income growth of 55% reported between 2003 and 2005. Some economists argue that this subsidized growth could stop if oil prices decline, and some social scientists and economists claim that the government's reported poverty figures have not fallen in proportion to the country's vast oil revenues in the last two years. The president of the private Venezuelan research firm which documented 55% real income growth among the poorest sectors of society said that, although his surveys showed rising incomes because of subsidies and grants, the number of people in the worst living conditions has grown. "The poor of Venezuela are living much better lately and have increased their purchasing power . . . [but] without being able to improve their housing, education level, and social mobility," he said. "Rather than help [the poor] become stakeholders in the economic system, what [the government has] done is distribute as much oil wealth as possible in missions and social programs."

According to government figures, unemployment has dropped by 6.9% since the start of Chávez's presidency. Despite high oil revenues, Venezuela's rate of unemployment remains at 10% in February 2006 from the 2003 high of 20%, which occurred during a two-month strike and business lockout that shut down the country's oil industry. However, some economists argue that recent job creation may not be permanent, for it relies on an expanded public payroll that will become unaffordable if oil prices fall. With the help of an expanded public payroll, unemployment has been reduced from the 2003 high under Chávez of 20%, but some economists argue that the jobs may not be permanent, and critics question the government's reported poverty figures, based on contradictory statistics and definitions, which they say have not fallen enough considering the country's vast oil revenues in the last two years. The Economist reports that both poverty and unemployment figures under Chávez have not seen significant improvement and that official corruption under his government continues to be rampant, and point to the 1-2% drop in Venezuela's per-capita GDP early in Chávez's term, before the 2004 surge in oil prices. According to The Boston Globe, critics say the government defines "informal workers, such as street vendors, as employed, and exclud[es] adults who are studying in missions from unemployment numbers." When the president of the Venezuelan National Statistics Institute released numbers in 2005 which showed that poverty had actually risen by more than 10 points under Chávez (to 53% in 2004), Chávez called for a new measure of poverty, defining a "social well-being index". Under this new definition, poverty registers at 40 percent. The minimum wage in Venezuela in July 2006 covered only 65 percent of the cost of the basic food basket.

The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom ranked Venezuela 152 out of 157 countries, among the 12 economies of the world labelled "repressed".

The government and independent observers refute the charges of economic decline by pointing out that the renewed economic growth of the last two years has brought rapid reductions in poverty, especially when one considers the vast expansion of non-cash income represented by subsidized food distribution and other social programs.

Decaying infrastructure
At the same time, The Economist opines that the administration's unwillingness to utilize private sector resources has resulted in a crumbling public infrastructure and a deficit in housing. Critics cite the many public hospitals that lack basic medicine and hygienic supplies. They also question the motives behind the Bolivarian Missions' regular cash and in-kind payments to the millions of poor Venezuelans enrolling in their social programs. With many enrollees participating in more than one Mission simultaneously, receiving a steady and unearned income, critics worry that work ethic will be corrupted and enrollees will be predisposed to support and vote for Chávez. There have been marked improvements in the infant mortality rate between 1998 and 2005.

Housing construction
According to Venezuela's El Universal, one of the Chávez administration's outstanding weaknesses is the failure to meet its goals of construction of housing. Chávez promised to build 150,000 houses in 2006, but in the first half of the year, completed only 24 percent of that target, with 35,000 houses.

Standard of living
According to The Boston Globe, the head of Mission Sucre, a program to provide free and ongoing education, says that “investments in education, health, and infrastructure will have a lasting effect on standard of living”. Data from a private Venezuelan research firm shows the incomes of the “poorest Venezuelans have risen because of subsidies and grants”. The Globe reports that the government has “subsidized markets in poor neighborhoods that sell staple foods up to 40 percent cheaper than elsewhere.” Low income residents are reportedly living better because of subsidies that boost household income, decrease food costs, and provide access to free schooling and basic medical care. Chavez’s “missions” offer education, aid to the needy, soup kitchens, and medical care.

Crime
Since he took office, The Economist reports that the murder rate has almost tripled, and that Venezuela's capital – Caracas – has become South America's most violent, with police implicated in some of the crimes. The United Nations reported in 2005 that Venezuela had the highest number of deaths by gunfire per capita in the world, garnering for Venezuela claim to the title of the world's most violent crime capital.

Critics claim that Chávez's policies are responsible for some of these declines. and the U.S. State Department says there is unchecked concentration of power in the executive.

Critics accuse the Bolivarian Circles Chávez founded of furthering violence, and say Chávez's new civil reserve defense force is intended to intimidate domestic opponents and repress internal dissent.Chávez government officials respond that the reserve is similar to civilian reserves and forces in many nations, including the United States. According to a study by Brigham Young University scholars, the "Bolivarian circles" also help the government identify opponents, who are then denied services.

Other
Some criticism has come from Chávez's supporters. Chávez's own political party, Fifth Republic Movement (MVR), has been criticized as being riddled with the same cronyism, political patronage, and corruption that Chávez alleged were characteristic of the old "Fourth Republic" political parties. Venezuela's trade unionists and indigenous communities have participated in peaceful demonstrations intended to impel the government to speed up labor and land reforms. These communities, while largely expressing their sympathy and support for Chávez, criticize what they see as Chávez's slow progress in protecting their interests against managers and mining concerns, respectively.

Farmers have protested about the lack of a consistent policy addressing prices, smuggling, insecurity and crime.

According to an article in The Washington Post a program called "Mission Identity", to fast track voter registration of immigrants to Venezuela &mdash; including Chávez supporters benefiting from his subsidies &mdash; has been put in place prior to the upcoming 2006 presidential elections.

Articles

 * Barrio Adentro II: Victim of its Own Success &mdash; Interview the Director of a Barrio Adentro II Hospital
 * An Oil-for-Aid Deal that Really Works
 * Free Neighborhood Clinics Spread Across Venezuela
 * Inside The Barrio: Venezuelan Health Care Takes Off
 * Saudi Minister affirms his country wants to apply Venezuelan missions
 * Venezuela's Cooperative Revolution from Dollars & Sense magazine

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