Saturday, June 30, 2007

THE ROLE OF SPOKANE, FAIRCHILD, AND THE SERE/JPRA PROGRAMS IN US TORTURE AND GENEVA CONVENTION VIOLATIONS

(Update from original version posted 6/27/07--
from original & source materials)

(All blue underlined words and phrases are links to
websites, documents, maps, etc).

Fairchild AFB
is home to a Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) Program. SERE Programs train soldiers, seaman, airmen, CIA operatives, and others--including foreign nationals--in resistance techniques. However, they also provide military and other government torturers, trainers, foreign nationals, contractors (aka US government mercenaries employed by corporations such as Blackwater, CACI International, and Titan Corp) and psychologists, among others, the opportunity to develop, refine, practice and polish their torture techniques.

In their must-read June 29, 2007 Spokesman-Review article, reporters Karen Dorn Steele and Bill Morlin reveal that "the SERE program is used by the Army at Fort Bragg, where Green Berets train, and at the U.S. Air Force Survival School near Spokane, where thousands of other trainees are instructed annually." Using first-hand reporting and research as well as reporting from sources such as the New Yorker and Salon.com, Dorn Steele and Morlin reveal the role of Spokane area psychologists and businesses in the U.S. government's reverse-engineering of torture resistance training.

These techniques of torture--witnessed at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and other U.S. facilities around the world--have been employed by the U.S. government, military, intelligence agencies, contractors and foreign agents with the express purpose of breaking human beings as part of the global U.S. "war on terror". That so-called "war on terror" has produced worldwide denunciations of U.S. preemptive attacks, massacres of civilians, torture, disappearances, use of "depleted" uranium, and other actions which are illegal under international standards and laws.

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Fairchild's SERE Program -- The premiere Air Force SERE program

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In fact, not only is Fairchild home to a SERE program, it is home to an even more exclusive and secret program, SERE/JPRA (Joint Personnel Recovery Agency). This unclassified Department of Defense (DOD) memo shows that the SERE/JPRA site at the PRA White Bluff Site at 11604 W. NEWKIRK ROAD, SPOKANE, WA 99224 was the host in May 2007 of the DOD SERE Conference and the DOD SERE Psychology Conference.

As the memo shows, foreign government representatives from the U.S. government's Iraq "coalition" partners participated in the two conferences as did three representatives from each of the FBI, DEA, and CIA. In point of fact, the facility has all the markings of a CIA facility such as those at Warrenton, VA and other locations in the U.S. (compare the similarity between the facility maps by clicking the respective links above).

On September 16, 2002, a prior SERE Psychologist Conference was hosted by the Army Special Operations Command and the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency at Fort Bragg for JTF-170 (the military component responsible for interrogations at Guantanamo) interrogation personnel. The Army's Behavioral Science Consultation Team from Guantanamo Bay also attended the conference. Joint Personnel Recovery Agency personnel briefed JTF-170 representatives on the exploitation and methods used in resistance (to interrogation) training at SERE schools. The purpose was the reverse engineering of interrogation resistance to design more "effective" torture techniques. (See "Shrinks and the SERE Techniques at Guantanamo")

Wording in the declassified memo indicates that topics dealt with at the SERE Psychology Conference include such topics as how to conduct psychological and other forms of torture in a way that is psychologically and morally palatable to the torturer as well as how to justify those actions under the law and in a way that can be argued to be "ethical" and "legal". The memo states, "The first two days will focus on sere/code of conduct issues and reintegration. The remaining three days involve discussion and training on ethic, research, and SERE Orientation training". (See conference agenda here).

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Torture, the Geneva Conventions and the School of the Americas

By Ann Wright, US Army Reserve Colonel

(quote) Do Special Operations Forces of the Army, Navy Marines and Air Force practice on detainees the interrogation techniques they are subjected to during their Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training at Ft. Bragg, NC, Fairchild, Air Force Base, WA and Naval Air Stations in Brunswick, ME and North Island, San Diego, CA? What are the limits of abusive interrogation techniques taught to CIA and CIA contract interrogators in the various CIA training areas around the Washington, DC and other locations in the US? (end quote)

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Report of the Department of Defense Inspector General, August 25, 2006
DOD Interrogation Techniques -- The Office of the DoD Inspector General produced a Review of DoD-Directed Investigations of Detainee Abuse (Report No. 06-INTEL-10) on August 25, 2006.

(excerpt) The report made three findings. One of them was
that SERE, a course designed to prepare selected American forces to withstand interrogations that did not abide by the Geneva Conventions, was turned into a program for harsh, coercive interrogation. In this way, a course of training to resist cruel, degrading, and inhumane treatment was transformed into a program to counter this very resistance. This program was carried out in the interrogation of Guantánamo prisoners before it "migrated" to Iraq. Officially, Guantánamo prisoners were not entitled to the protections afforded by the Geneva Conventions; Iraqi prisoners were. The finding in question is entitled "DoD Interrogation Techniques ..."

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(excerpt) The OIG additionally found that the SERE methods later became the standard operating procedure for interrogations conducted in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and had migrated from Guantanamo due, in part, to training and support from JPRA, BSCT, and Special Operations psychologists and others. (end excerpt)

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“Improving the Fighting Position”: A Practitioner’s Guide to Operational Law Support to the Interrogation Process (From the July 2005 edition of The Army Lawyer )

(quote) This balance between legitimate manipulation and inhumane treatment in the form of physical or mental abuse orcoercion is articulated as a key principle of interrogation operations in FM 34-52:
The GWS, GPW, GC, and US policy expressly prohibit acts of violence or intimidation, including physical or mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to inhumane treatment as a means of or aid to interrogation.

Experience indicates that the use of prohibited techniques is not necessary to gain the cooperation
of interrogation sources. Use of torture and other illegal methods is a poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say what he thinks the interrogator wants to hear. (end quote)

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Spokane Journal -- June 2007-- It's No Game at Base's Survival School

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The Torture Question Frontline Special Watch it online

Abu Ghraib photos

The Abu Ghraib files by Joan Walsh -- A 10-part evidentiary series from inside Abu Ghraib prison accompanied by 279 photographs and 19 videos based on the U.S. Army's own investigation of the three month period from October 17-December 30, 2003. Nine essays follow the photos and videos.


Public Affairs - KYRS Programmers Collective












Iraqi woman detainee in U.S. custody.
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http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/50191/
(excerpt) In fact, there are likely people being "tortured" in this manner as we speak at Fairchild Air Force base Washington as a part of their "Land Survival" program (the POW resistance training). The only difference is that those at Fairchild have in the back of their minds the fact that their "torture" is only going to last 2 days. Many different career fields go through that training. Most field intelligence, anyone who flies (pilots and aircrew), SERE naturally, special forces and a few others.

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http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?14+Duke+J.+Gender+L.+&+Pol'y+815
(Excerpt from Trip Report Summary of Commissioner Elaine Donnelly). During her two-day trip to Fairchild AFB, Washington, August 9-11, 1992, Donnelly talked to instructors about their realistic "rape scenario," in which male trainees are taught to manage more intense feelings when a female colleague is threatened with sexual assault or worse, so that enemy captors cannot exploit those emotions. Donnelly described parts of the SERE training that she saw at Fairchild Air Force Base during her visit:

Without knowing what to expect, I found myself locked in a cramped black box that was both physically and psychologically uncomfortable. I also participated in and witnessed interrogation exercises designed to suggest but not duplicate the physical and emotional stress of being a POW. As the night wore on, a sense of cultural dissonance began to overcome the camp's logic of equality in the simulation of brutality.

A woman I watched being interrogated was very capable, but she was totally in the power of a man much stronger than she. What I saw was an unmistakable element of inequality that-in the opinion of many Commission witnesses-cannot be overcome by peacetime training programs or psychological techniques. As the interrogation continued, it was easy to visualize the possibility of sexual abuse as well as physical harm at the hands of a menacing enemy. For reasons of survival, the SERE training for aircrew members makes sense. . . . However, the politically-correct unisex nature of the resistance training is very seductive; it is easy to become "desensitized," meaning accustomed, to the idea that men and women are interchangeable equals in a world of torture and abuse. The SERE trainers asserted that the entire nation must prepare itself for this very real possibility if women are assigned to combat positions.
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http://www.womanhonorthyself.com/?m=200605
(excerpt) An interview with trainers at the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training center at Fairchild Air Force Base uncovered a logical but disturbing consequence of assigning women to combat: “If a policy change is made, and women are allowed into combat positions, there must be a concerted effort to educate the American public on the increased likelihood that women will be raped, will come home in bodybags, and will be exploited..” (end excerpt)

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http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/06/1428250

http://www.neverinournames.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1551

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Robert Johnson, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A.r of Clinical Preventative Medicine Family Medicine proudly lists on his resume
USAF Survival, Escape, Evasion and Resistan


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http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/usaf/66trs.htm
Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape Training Instructor Course. The 66th Training Squadron based at Fairchild Air Force Base, Spokane, Washington, conducts the survival, evasion, resistance, and escape (SERE) training instructor course in select areas of Washington and Oregon. The course is a physically demanding six-month program designed to teach future SERE instructors how to teach aircrew members to survive in any environment. The course includes instruction in basic survival, medical, land navigation, evasion, arctic survival, teaching techniques, rough-land evacuation, coastal survival, tropics/river survival, and desert survival.

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http://www.thismodernworld.com/weblog/mtarchives/week_2005_07_03.html
(quote) The SERE program also uses waterboarding, continual bombardment by loud noise, and sexual humiliation. Several sources told Mayer that psychologists trained in SERE techniques had advised interrogators at Guantánamo and elsewhere. One of the most disturbing things about the article is its suggestion that what started out as a stupid means of getting information evolved into pure sadism. As a retired colonel who attended a SERE school as part of his Special Forces training said, "If you did too much of that stuff, you could really get to like it. You can manipulate people. And most people like power." (end quote)

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http://www.spokesmanreview.com/breaking/story.asp?ID=10496

Senate probe focuses on Spokane men

Karen Dorn Steele and Bill Morlin
Spokesman-Review Staff writers
June 29, 2007

Two Spokane psychologists are the focus of a congressional inquiry into the use of harsh techniques to interrogate terrorist suspects in Guantanamo, Iraq, Afghanistan and other secret military and CIA detention centers.

In an article published last week, the online magazine Salon.com identified psychologists James E. Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen as key developers of the interrogation program — which the magazine said was linked to the CIA and likely violated the Geneva Conventions against the torture and mistreatment of prisoners.

The interrogation methods, according to a recently declassified Pentagon report reviewed by The Spokesman-Review, are “reverse engineering” of techniques taught in the military’s SERE program, set up to train U.S. special forces and flight crews in the principles of Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape.

The SERE program is used by the Army at Fort Bragg, where Green Berets train, and at the U.S. Air Force Survival School near Spokane, where thousands of other trainees are instructed annually.
(cont'd at http://www.spokesmanreview.com/breaking/story.asp?ID=10496 )

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SERE SOLUTIONS, INC -- SERE Solutions, Inc., is owned by Spokane-based contractor Michael Lyons. In 2006 Lyons received a $47 million US Air Force grant with the 336th SERE Training Group at Fairchild AFB after 2 years of extensive assistance from the Washington State College of Business Small Business Development Center. Lyons operation employs at least 37 people in various locations.

SERE Solutions, Inc, lists an address of 6603 S. Shelby Ridge Rd., Spokane, WA. Interestingly, that same address was the site of the Democratic Party Sixth Legislative District Precinct No. 6151 meeting in 2004.

SERE SOLUTIONS INC (6603 S SHELBY RIDGE RD; small business): $2,161,904 in 2 contracts in 2006 $2,146,904 with Air Force for Training/Curriculum Development. Signed on 2006-03-20. Completion date: 2006-09-30. $15,000, same as above. Signed on 2006-06-28. Completion date: 2006-09-30.

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For more information, cut and paste the following lists of words into an internet search engine:

USAF Survival Escape Evasion and Resistance Training Fairchild AFB
SERE Fairchild torture
SERE JPRA Spokane
SERE Spokane

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http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_12.php
http://boards.billmaher.com/showthread.php?t=49981&page=17
Torture Teachers -- Salon article
Open Letter to President of American Psychological Association
More Waterboarding (video) -- not quite as sanitary as this military training video
Free Soul Jah--The CIA, Torture & George Tenet's Body Language (Video of a CIA director in action)
(See the Cryptome Eyeball Series at http://eyeball-series.org/ )


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For more on Blackwater:
Iraq for Sale (video excerpt)
Blackwater: America's Private Army (video)
Blackwater @ www.sourcewatch.org


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Unanswered questions for Spokane reporters, broadcasters, activists & citizens:

Have "high-value detainees" been flown into Fairchild, Felts Field, Spokane International Airport, the helicopter landing pad at Spokane's SERE/JPRA site at 11604 Newkirk Road or other Spokane locations to be subject to interrogation and torture?

What involvement exists between the Spokane Police Department and the Spokane County Sherriff's Department with the SERE/JPRA program? How many SPD and SCSD personnel are graduates of SERE/JPRA and other government or private coercive interrogation training programs?

What is the level of collaboration in surveillance of U.S. citizens, Spokane area activists, members of the media, and others by government agencies in the Spokane area--FBI, DEA, ATF, USCIS (formerly INS), Spokane Police Department, Spokane County Sherriff's and others--as well as involvement of contracted companies and organizations such as SERE Solutions, Inc.

Why has the 12th Special Forces Group--which supposedly hasn't existed for more than a decade--been listed in the DEX phone directory listing for the U.S. Army Mann Hall Army Reserve Center in Spokane, Washington? The specific listing is for Detachment B4 and B5 Co B 3rd BN 12th Special Forces Group. What is the non-existent 12th Special Forces Group and its personnel actually doing in Spokane?

Why is Ciber, Inc. at the same Mann Hall Army Reserve Center in Spokane? Ciber, you may know, is the same folks involved in, among many other things, in the electronic vote fraud scandal. Why when one calls the Mann Hall Army Reserve Center at 489-6441 does one get a message for Ray at Ciber, Inc.?

How many Spokane Police Officers are former U.S. military, what sort of training do they have, and how much of that training may help explain their attacks on protesters, killings of citizens, and other lawless behavior? (See bio of 27 year Spokane Police Department officer Skip Pahvlischak, an instructor for this Team One Network tactics and weapons training). http://www.teamonenetwork.com/TeamOneCatalog2007.pdf

Saturday, June 16, 2007

"Mariposa"--La Voz de Radio Venceremos

Marina "Mariposa" Manzanares
The Voice of Radio Venceremos



Mariposa....gran mujer salvadoreña..... Hasta La Victoria Siempre
tu junto a Santiago, fueron las voces del Fmln, en aquel tiempo en que el campesino salvadoreño tuvo que tomar las armas para defender su dignidad....

Mariposa valiente, has soportado la muerte de tu familia;
todo por decir la verdad,

la verdad de un pueblo oprimido por una democracia burguesa.
Viva Shafik, Viva Mauricio, Viva la Mariposa

Mariposa, voz con fúsil en mano, voz con huracan
que recorrió los rincones de El Salvador.

Fuistes la brisa de la esperanza. Te he escuchado otra vez (antes estaba pequeño
pero cuando escuchaba tu voz me alegraba, era un canto de amor
en la desesperanza de aquel Arcatao heroico).
Sólo que esta vez estoy mayor pero la piel se me derite al escucharte.
Mariposa mañanera, libre libertaría sigue animándonos en esta lucha hacia la victoria.

Mariposa insurgente...
Pajaro Rojo...
Dos hermanos, una familia de heroes y martires.

Mariposa--Una de las grandes heroinas de Cuzcatlan. Ahora mas que nunca
la juventud salvadoreña requiere de sus incaudicables compañeros
que hicieron grande al FMLN, en el 2009 se acaban 20 años de miseria.
Patria chiquita mia, mi mamasita chula, vas a ver
que linda vas a ser cuando seas libre,

bien peinadita, vestidito nuevo, cachetes chapuditos
vas a ser hermosa, vas a ser grandota, patria chiquita mia.



Worldpress.org

July 19, 2006

El Salvador

F.M.L.N. Resists Wave of Repression

Elderly Parents of Marina "Mariposa" Manzanares Assassinated

Lara Pullin, Green Left Weekly (radical newspaper), New South Wales, Australia,
Comunicación Popular - KYRS Programmers Collective

On July 5, secondary students organized a protest in San Salvador against bus fare hikes and increasing energy and food costs, which was met with violent repression by riot police. (Photo: Yuri Cortez / AFP-Getty Images)

"I'm letting you know they have killed my parents … I don't know exactly at what hour but it was early this morning … you are my only family now, and we can't rest until justice is done."

On the morning of July 1, members of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (F.M.L.N.) and solidarity activists around the world received this heartfelt plea from Marina "Mariposa" Manzanares, the well-known, brave, and inspiring voice of Radio Venceremos during El Salvador's protracted civil war.

Juana and Francisco Manzanares's family are well-known activists. Mariposa's brother "Paco Cutumay" was the lead singer of the popular band Cutumay Camones, which was part of the national liberation movement. He was one of the first political prisoners captured in the 1980-91 civil war and was assassinated by the National Civil Police in 1993.

Salvadorans are accustomed to violent military dictatorships and coups, as this tiny and very picturesque Central American nation was ruled by dictators for most of the 20th century. Today, the right-wing Arena party governs on behalf of El Salvador's elite, which includes the vast business interests of the former murderers granted impunity after the long and bloody civil war. Despite the negotiated end to the war and the F.M.L.N.'s transition from guerrilla struggle to mass political and parliamentary activity, the Arena party has again resorted to violent means to enforce its unpopular neoliberal economic policies.

El Salvador's usually bloodthirsty media barely reported the murder of Mariposa's parents. Most media made a small mention of a robbery-related killing, but failed to report the three hours of torture, the covering up of evidence with oil and lime, and that the only items missing were F.M.L.N.-related paraphernalia, T-shirts, and posters, memorabilia of the Manzanares's son and anything colored red. Yet thousands of people responded on the streets, rallying to support Mariposa, the local community of Suchitoto, and the F.M.L.N., and to denounce violence and the death squads and to call for an end to impunity.

Mariposa and her family had received many death threats prior to the murders, and she continues to be threatened and harassed. Twelve other F.M.L.N. militants have been murdered in the past three months in a resurgence of repression of the F.M.L.N. and popular movements. At the same time, the Arena government has encouraged the flourishing of criminal gangs and activities, which also serve as a cover for the government's failures to manage the economy in the interests of the majority of the population.

On July 5, secondary students organized a protest in San Salvador against bus fare hikes and increasing energy and food costs, which was met with violent repression by riot police. A large number of police as well as snipers and attack helicopters were deployed near the National University, where police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at students. Two police officers were killed in the clashes.

The police violated the university's legal autonomy by occupying the campus for four days, evacuating more than 700 people and capturing 30 students, who were released from jail after four days due to lack of evidence. A university administrator was gravely injured by police, with a bullet lodged near his heart.

Shortly after the violence broke out, President Tony Saca told the media, "I formally accuse the F.M.L.N. of being behind these actions."

At a press conference, the government tried to justify the use of force by police, falsely claiming that the students were armed with AK-47s.

According to Beatrice de Carrillo, head of El Salvador's Human Rights Office, the violence on July 5 was the worst human rights abuse documented since the signing of the Peace Accords in 1992. Trade union offices were raided under the pretext of looking for the students'/F.M.L.N.'s illegal arms caches and F.M.L.N. National Assembly deputies have been harassed. A visit to the home of F.M.L.N. deputy Blanca Flor Bonilla by police in riot gear and masks, who threatened her safety in front of her children, left the popular organizations fearing the worst from the Saca government's support for violent repression and death-squad tactics.

Saca has also pledged to shut down the F.M.L.N. by appealing to the United Nations to declare the F.M.L.N. an armed terrorist organization that should be proscribed from political participation. The F.M.L.N. is Arena's major opposition and governs more than half the population at the municipal and state level and has the single biggest number of deputies of any party in the National Assembly. During the unrest, Arena also tried to enact draconian new "anti-terrorism" laws, but failed to convince the assembly to pass them.

The F.M.L.N. has pledged to continue to operate as a party of the people and the social movements, committed to peaceful democratic processes and to continued disarmament in El Salvador, especially of the repressive forces of the state. The F.M.L.N. has called on all Salvadorans to express their opposition to the social and economic mismanagement of the Arena government and its latest repressive measures. Another mass demonstration was held in San Salvador on July 15 involving trade unions, student organizations, feminist collectives, the churches, and other movements united against the violence.

Comunicación Popular - KYRS Programmers Collective
From Green Left Weekly.

(From self-imposed exile in Eurpose following the July 1, 2006 assassination of her parents, Mariposa was interviewed on Los Caminos de la Vida on KYRS 92.3 FM in late 2006).

Comunicación Popular


~Comunicadores Populares para la Autonomia~
Cosechando la Voz de los Pueblos

A traves de la comunicacion popular,
participativa y democrata
Con comunidades indiginas y campesinas
de Mesoamerica


~Peoples' Broadcasters for Autonomy (COMPPA)~
Harvesting the Voice of the People

Via participatory and democratic community media
With the Indigenous Peoples and Campesinos of Mesoamerica


Saturday, June 2, 2007

ZNet -- Growing Movement of Community Radio in Venezuela




A community radio station in Venezuela







"Construyendo El Poder Popular"


ZNet | Activism


Growing Movement of Community Radio in Venezuela

by Sujatha Fernandes -- December 24, 2005

Four young people sit around a large table, writing furiously amid piles of notes, cans of soda, and scrunched up papers. They could be kids doing their homework or studying for exams. But these young women from the shantytowns, aged between 17 and 22 years, are preparing for their hour-long program, “Public Power,” on air in ten minutes on community radio station Radio Perola, 92.3FM, in the Caracas parish of Caricuao.

Caricuao is one of the outer western parishes of Caracas. As the subway train from the center of Caracas approaches the parish, we pass by precarious ranchos, or flimsy tin and board houses, nestled in the sides of the looming hills and large project-like buildings with bars across the windows. Radio Perola is located on the ground floor of one of these “projects” or popular blocks, known as Canagua. The broadcasting studio is a small room, painted bright yellow and covered with posters from the social justice movement and community radios. On one large corner table there is a mixer, microphone and computer, and at a round table in the center there are several mikes and chairs.

Like other community radio stations in Venezuela, Radio Perola began as a clandestine station nearly nine years ago, and activists have fought for it to be legally authorized by the state. Under the hip-hop inspired slogan, “Maximum Respect!,” community journalists at Radio Perola are creating spaces for new voices, such as those of the young women, to be heard.

The young women divide their program “Public Power,” into distinct segments. These include an invited guest to speak about a specific topic relevant to the community, a news segment, a roundtable discussion about a particular current event, and then a segment called, “Community Realities.” During this final segment, the women debate with each other, as well as with listeners, who call in or send text messages via their cell phones. Today the young women are addressing the theme, “Living in the Barrio.”

“A barrio is not just hills full of stairways, the barrio is the community,” says Lilibeth Marcano, a 20 year-old member of the collective, who opens the discussion during this segment of the program. “I live in a barrio, Santa Cruz de Las Adjuntas. It’s not like they’ve always told us, that if you live in a barrio you don’t have a future, that if you live in a barrio you’re nobody. It’s not like that.”

Young people, especially those from the barrios, are realizing that they do have a future and they can play important roles in their communities. All of the four young women from the “Public Power” collective say that they were inspired to become community journalists following the hijacking of information by the private media during the right-wing coup d’état against leftist President Hugo Chávez in April 2002.

One member of the collective, Gladys Romero, was 14 years old at the time of the coup. She recalls that, “There was a lot of misinformation, they took the alternative media off the air, and I as a student, as a young person, felt the need to promote the real information to inform the community about what was happening in the country.”

The private media has accumulated a large degree of power since the late seventies, due to the growing deregulation and commercialization of media in Venezuela. In 1979, the Venezuelan government sold Channel 5, a state-owned channel, to the private sector. Through the eighties and nineties, successive governments continued the expansion of concessions to media corporations, leading to the centralization of the media in a small number of conglomerates. Private television at a national level has been monopolized by the Cisneros group (Venevisión) and the 1BC group of Phelps-Granier (Radio Caracas Televisión). Out of 44 regional television networks, nearly all are linked by chain to private networks Venevisión, Radio Caracas Televisión, Televen, and Globovision. This small group of corporations also control radio-electric spaces and the national press.

Since Chávez was elected president in 1998, and especially in the tense days of the oil strikes by business sectors in December 2001 and during the lead-up to the coup in April 2002, this powerful private media has run a fierce campaign to discredit him. A few hours after Chávez was removed from office on April 11, 2002, opposition spokesperson Napoleón Bravo came on the air and falsely broadcast that Chávez had resigned. While opposition leaders were taking over the presidential palace and dissolving democratic institutions, the private media was running its regular broadcast of cooking shows, soap operas, and cartoons. Members of the community were deprived of access to information, as the government-owned television station, Channel 8, and several community radio and television stations were taken off the air.

During this time, it was mainly the alternative print media that was able to get the message out to the people about what was happening. According to Roberto, a worker at the Caracas Municipal Press, activists came to the press and labored to produce 100,000 copies of a bulletin, informing people about what was happening. Radio Fe y Alegría also came back on the air and began to make announcements about the coup. Through the bulletins, alternative radio, and the exchange of text messages through cell phones, people were able to pass on the news of the coup and come out onto the streets in massive demonstrations that would put Chávez back into power.

At the time of the coup, the alternative and community media broke through the silence and misinformation of the private media. The passing of information from mouth to mouth was a revival of Radio Bemba, an age-old tradition of gossip and communication in Caribbean countries, that has begun utilizing electronic technology such as radio to multiply messages.

Since Chávez was reinstated as President on April 13, 2002, two days after the coup, there has been an explosion of community radio stations. Activists across the country have sought to establish local control over the information reaching their communities. While in 2002, there were 13 licensed community radio stations nationally, as of June 2005, there are 170. In addition to these 170 legally recognized and funded stations, there have emerged over 300 unsanctioned community radio stations. These are created and operated by a range of local groups, including indigenous people in the Amazonian south of Venezuela, peasants in the Andean regions, Afro-Venezuelans in the coastal north of the country, and residents of the barrios in the major urban centers.

Technological advances have made radio broadcasting easy. For example, the community radio station Un Nuevo Día, located in a very poor barrio in the hills above the old highway out of Caracas, began in the bedroom of one of the women residents. The community journalists put a borrowed mixer, a cd player, and a microphone on the woman’s dresser. They transmitted through a small antenna. Invited guests would sit on the woman’s bed. Basic, accessible technology has allowed people in shantytowns and poor communities across the country the possibility to operate small-scale stations.

But community radio activists have had to fight a hard battle with the government to have their stations legalized. After Chávez was elected in 1998, community media activists began to raise issues of the right to communication. This led to the passing of a new law in 2000, entitled, “Regulation of Community Radio and Television.” This law gave communities the right to set up a station, but in order to gain authorization, or habilitación, the National Commission of Telecommunications (CONATEL) proposed that the stations meet requirements in four fields: social, legal, technical, and economic.

Carlos Carles, a journalist with Radio Perola, was involved in the process of drafting the authorization procedures. With his signature baseball cap, baggy clothing, and goofy grin, he looks like just another one of the chamos, or kids, at Radio Perola. But in several meetings with bureaucrats, Carles emerged as a key leader of the community media movement. In contrast to the bureaucrats, he put forth a strong, community based vision of what validates an alternative radio station. “They proposed techniques of demonstrating statistical data. Against this, we proposed local knowledge, oral narrative, historical memory, and the everyday work of the community,” said Carles. “As a result of this difference, we entered into a major debate, and we completely rejected the legal component of the proposal made by the Chávez government.”

Media activists were able to have their views incorporated into the authorization process. Nevertheless, the process remains heavily biased against poor community stations with few resources. During my visit to the CONATEL offices, in the spacious middle class suburb of Las Mercedes, I was shown a seventy page instructional guide that must be completed by community stations who attempt to obtain authorization.

Given the difficulties of complying with CONATEL’s regulations, community media activists decided to create a National Association of Alternative and Community Media, or ANMCLA. Carlos Lugo, one of the founders of ANMCLA and a community journalist with the station Radio Negro Primero in Pinto Salinas, sees the organization as based on the principle of the right to communication. “The community can themselves authorize a station and when the community recognizes the station, it is legal. There is no such thing as an illegal station – everyone has the right to communication.”

Ironically, the private media vilifies the community radio stations as propaganda vehicles of the government. An article published in the private daily, El Universal, on 26 June, 2005, refers to the community radio stations as “radio-electronic media of the state,” which are “employed for propaganda and political proselytism.” The writer laments what he sees as the lack of quality and cultural homogeneity of the community stations, and their bias towards the Chávez government.

But community radio stations have sought to retain their autonomy from the state, which is apparent not only in their struggles with state bureaucrats to ensure authorization, but in their willingness to criticize the Chávez government on important issues. In March 2005, activists of ANMCLA came together with social organizations and indigenous groups to protest the plan of the government to increase the extraction of coal in the oil-rich state of Zulia. The protesters pointed out that the plans would increase water contamination and health risks for the mostly indigenous population of the region who depend on scarce water supplies. They argued that the proposal violates the Kyoto Agreement and several articles of the Bolivarian Constitution that guarantee a clean and safe environment, and protection of indigenous resources. Although the outcome is still uncertain, community media activists have shown their willingness to criticize the government when community interests are at stake.

One of the crucial bases of autonomy for the radio stations is financing. The stations receive a limited amount of financing from the state. For those stations who are authorized, CONATEL or other state institutions such as the Ministry of Information (MINCI) might give direct financing for purchase of equipment or infrastructure. There is also some state publicity in community radio, for which the stations receive a small payment from the relevant institution.

However, what keeps the community stations on the air are the contributions of small businesses in the neighborhood. The state may give a one time contribution of 1 million bolivares ($US 470). But it is the regular monthly payments of one hundred thousand bolivares ($US 47) from the auto repair shop or one hundred and fifty thousand bolivares ($US 71) from the local bakery that maintain the activities of the stations in the long term. In this sense, community radio stations have become part of a vibrant informal economy in the barrios that exists at the margins of the formal economy.

“The idea is not that we should be community media sustained by the state, but rather we have the capacity to be self-sustaining,” said Carles. “Because if they give you money and they give you your daily bread, they begin to ask, why are you doing this, why are you doing that? We prefer autonomy in what we do.”

The community media gives voice to a range of groups and members of the community. There are talk shows, educational programs, cultural shows, sports segments, local history programs, children’s shows, cooking shows, and a variety of music programs, including salsa, bolero, hip-hop, rock, and llanero or country music. There are also social and political programs, which attempt to make visible certain issues such as race. Afro-Venezuelan radio journalist, Madera, has a program on Radio Negro Primero, which he says is “For black men and women.” These kinds of programs do not have space within the state-run media, and certainly have never been a possibility in the private media.

Community media broadcasts are a stark contrast to the stock fare of reality tv shows, soap operas, and game shows continually churned out by the private media. This latter programming nurtures a culture of consumerism that has grown along with globalization. Middle class youth compare expensive watches and brand name sneakers in the walkways of the prestigious Centro Sambil shopping mall in the eastern zone of Chacao. Wealthy parents hire companies to supply arcade video games to entertain their kids at children’s parties. Meanwhile, increasing numbers of barrio youth in the west of Caracas are creating their own forms of leisure that reflect much more closely the new community activism that has become a part of their lives.

With a shy smile, Gladys, the young student from Radio Perola, says that in the current political context, youth should not be so pitiyanqui, a derogatory slang term used to describe those who imitate Americans.

“With this revolution, we the young people are beginning to mature, and we are beginning to see the world from another point of view,” says Gladys. “I think that we are responsible people, we know where we’re going and we know that the future is in our hands.” And with this statement, Gladys packs her school books into her bag, and walks off giggling, arm in arm with one of her schoolmates.

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Sujatha Fernandes is a Wilson Cotsen fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts at Princeton University. She is currently working on a book, entitled, “In the Spirit of Negro Primero: Historical Memory and Culture in the Making of Urban Social Movements in Caracas.”

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