Venezuela

Venezuela is located in South America. The country is located to the east of Colombia, south of the Caribbean, west of the Atlantic Ocean and Guayana Esequiba and north of Brazil.

República Bolivariana de Venezuela
Flag	Coat of Arms
Capital	Caracas
Government	Constitutional Republic
Language	Spanish (official)
President	Hugo Chavez
Area	916, 445 sq mi
Population July 2007 estimate	27,730,469
GDP 2006	$176.4 billion
GDP per capita	$8,900
Currency	Bolívar
International dialing code	+58
Internet top-level domain	.ve

Territorial division

Venezuela is divided in 23 states, a capital district and 72 federal dependencies. The capital city of Venezuela is Caracas.

National symbols

The national flag was created by the Venezuelan hero Francisco de Miranda in 1806. It has three stripes with these colors: red, blue and red. Through the years the flag suffered variations in relation to the position and number of the stars. Actually there are eight stars on the flag and they are located in its center. The white stars symbolize eight former Venezuelan provinces (Caracas, Valencia, Barinas, Cumaná, Barcelona, Margarita, Mérida and Guayana) which became independent of Spain.

Gloria al bravo pueblo (glory to the brave people) is the national anthem. It was an old patriotic song from the independence years written by Vicente Salias. Its music was composed by Juan José Landaeta. On 25th May 1881 Gloria al bravo pueblo was decreed as the anthem of Venezuela by the president Antonio Guzmán Blanco.

El Turpial (scientific name: Icterus icterus) is the national bird, el Araguaney (scientific name: Tabebuia chrysanta) the national tree and la Orquídea (scientific name: Cattleya mossiae) the national flower.

Population

Venezuela has around 23.232.553 of inhabitants (year 2001). The main cities are Caracas, Maracaibo, Valencia, Barquisimeto, Maracay.

Mestizos represent 67% of the population, Whites 21%, Blacks 10% and American Indians 2%. Inhabitants from Venezuela are referred as Venezuelans (adjective: Venezuelan).

Economy

The main resource of exportation is petroleum. Venezuela is a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Other mining products are iron, bauxite, gold and so on. Minor activities are the farming of coffee, cocoa, sugar and livestock.

There are many private and public banks in Venezuela, but El Banco Central de Venezuela (Central Bank of Venezuela), a state-run bank, is the only banking institute in charge of minting coins and bank notes. El Bolívar is the national currency.

History

Venezuela was discovered by Christopher Columbus during his third journey on 1st August 1498. Venezuela declared its independence of Spain on 5th July 1811. Venezuela separated from Great Colombia in 1830.

Religion

The majority of Venezuelan people are Christians. Catholic Church has the greater portion of followers. Other Christian churches in Venezuela are Lutherans, Anglicans, Pentecostals, Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Some Muslims and Jews live in Venezuela. A synagogue and a mosque are situated in Caracas.

Politics of Venezuela

Current president of Venezuela

Venezuelans under Chavez have suffered a loss of basic human rights.

Venezuela is presently under the rule of the leftist president Hugo Chavez who has shown a marked intolerance for fundamental human rights and is accused of funding insurgent activity outside of Venezuela's borders. Chavez has much control of oil revenues from Venezuela's state owned, state run oil monopoly. While Chavez in public criticizes capitalism, he has sought to manipulate oil prices above $60 per barrel for Venezuela's largest customer, the United States.

The U.S. State Department's Report on Global Antisemitism also recently cited Venezuela for statements by "senior government officials supporting Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Islamic extremist movements" which "raised tensions and intimidated the country's Jewish community. There were several reports of anti-Semitic graffiti at synagogues in Caracas and two reported threatening phone calls made to Jewish community centers. In August, President Chavez cautioned citizens against following the lead of Jewish citizens in the effort to overturn his referendum victory. Anti-Semitic leaflets also were available to the public in an Interior and Justice Ministry office waiting room."

Hugo Chavez

Political parties

Chavez’s government has been supported by political parties such as: Movimiento Quinta República/Fith Republic Movement (MVR), Patria para Todos/Homeland for All (PPT), PODEMOS, Partido Comunista de Venezuela/Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) and other minor parties.

In 2006 President Chávez has announced the building of the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela/United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), a new political group which will merge all pro-Chávez parties into a big one. The first members of the PSUV have been enrolled in 2007.

Un Nuevo Tiempo/A New Era (UNT), Primero Justicia/Justice First (PJ), Acción Democratica/Democratic Action (AD), COPEI, Movimiento al Socialismo/Movement for Socialism (MAS) are some of the political parties of opposition.

Membership of international organizations

Venezuela is member of the UN, the OAS and the OPEC. Recently the country has applied to the “Mercado Común del Sur/Southern Common Market” (MERCOSUR) for the admission to the group. MERCOSUR is a South American organisation which promotes free trade among Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay in a similar way to the EU and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Venezuela had belonged to the Andean Community of Nations since 1973. In 2006 the Venezuelan government withdrew the country from the bloc when two of its members (Colombia and Peru) signed free trade agreements with the United States.

Additionally President Chávez has proposed the creation of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), another international organization which would promote the cooperation between the Latin American and Caribbean republics. This bloc pretends to be the opposite to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the organization proposed by the United States. At the moment Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia are trying to apply the principles of the ALBA among themselves through an agreement called “Tratado de Comercio de los Pueblos/Peoples’ Trade Agreement” (TCP). Ecuador is thinking to join to the group.

Languages

Spanish and American Indian tongues are the official languages of Venezuela, according to the Venezuelan Constitution. Spanish is the most spoken language in Venezuela. Indian languages are spoken by American Indian tribes.

National holidays

Official Holidays

• Rebellion of Caracas, 19th April.
• Battle of Carabobo, 24th June.
• Declaration of Independence, 5th July.
• Simón Bolívar’s Birthday, 24th July.
• Discovery of the American continent (similar to the Columbus’ Day), 12th October.
• Simón Bolívar’s Death, 17th December.

Popular and Religious Holidays

• New Year’s Day, 1st January.
• Carnivals, between February and March.
• Holy Week (Easter), between March and April.
• Worker’s Day (similar to the Labour Day), 1st May.
• Christmas’ Eve, 24th December.
• Christmas’ Day, 25th December.
• New Year’s Eve, 31st December.

Sports

Baseball is considered the most popular sport in Venezuela. There are many Venezuelan baseball players who play in the American Big Leagues. Basketball is another sport which has many supporters.

Recently football soccer has attracted great attention from the Venezuelan media because of the good performance of the Venezuelan football Team in international matches. In 2007 the Cup America, the oldest football soccer competition of South America, is held in Venezuela.

Other sports like rugby and American football are mainly practiced at universities.

In some Venezuelan towns bullfighting and cockfighting are practiced.

Media

Venezuela has many newspapers, radio stations and TV channels, but the most important ones are located in Caracas.

Some newspapers of Caracas are: El Universal (founded in 1909, conservative); El Nacional (founded in 1945, leftist, but no pro-government); Últimas Noticias (founded in 1943, leftist and pro-government); The Daily Journal (founded in 1945, an English language newspaper); El Mundo (founded in 1958); 2001 (founded in 1973); Meridiano (founded in 1969, a sports newspaper); El Nuevo País (founded in 1988) and Tal Cual.

RCTV, Venevisión, Televén and Globovisión and Meridiano TV are private TV channels from Caracas. Venezolana de Televisión, VIVE, and TEVES are state-run TV stations.

Telesur is an international TV channel funded by the governments of Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil and Argentina. Its headquarters is located in Caracas. Its missions are to offer a new vision of Latin America (according to the viewpoint of those governments) to the rest of the world and to counteract the influence of US media in the American continent.

In 2004 the Venezuelan National Assembly passed the Law of Social Responsibility in Radio and Television. This law establishes ambiguous guidelines regulating broadcasting content. It further requires the stations to transmit the government’s educational, informative, or public safety broadcasts for up to 60 minutes a week. Finally, the law requires stations to transmit in full Chavez’s speeches and other political messages, some of which last up to five hours.

In today’s Venezuela, independent journalists are sometimes arrested and frequently fined and harassed in an effort to intimidate those who speak against the Chavez regime.

Mr. Chavez’s government has bullied the remaining independent media into self-censorship, and does not want the press to reveal the inefficiencies of his government. He has gone to great lengths to bar journalists of privately-owned, independent media from covering government hearings, and he now requires stations to use government producers for documentaries and programs.

Famous Venezuelans

• Andrés Bello (1781-1865); poet, grammarian, teacher, and vice-chancellor of the university of Chile.
• Simón Bolívar (1783-1830); military hero and politician. Liberator of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.
• Francisco de Miranda (1750-1816); military hero, politician and creator of the Venezuelan flag.
• Antonio José de Sucre (1795-1830); military hero and president of Bolivia.

External links

• El Universal English language site of the conservative Venezuelan newspaper.
• News-The Daily Journal Site of the English written newspaper.
• Venezuela - Useful links University of Texas at Austin.
• [1] Information about Venezuela in the BBC Country Profile.
• [2] Information about Venezuela in the CIA World Factbook.