California college invites Venezuelan officials to promote ‘economics that serve people not profits

Scripps College is hosting two officials from the Venezuelan government this week to promote “economics that serve people not profits.”

Consuls General Antonio Cordero and Jesus Chucho Garcia will deliver two lectures and participate in a joint panel discussion through Wednesday at the women’s college in Claremont, California.

An April 6 email sent to Scripps students advertising the lecture series, which was first reported by the Claremont Independent, praises the Venezuelan government’s housing, health care and education policies.

“Despite the increase in economic sanctions from powers such as the United States, Canada and the European Union, the Bolivarian Revolution has built 2 million homes across the country for working class families in the last five years,” the email reads. “Victims of natural disasters are prioritized among the new homeowners. Health care and education are universal and free.”

Once the wealthiest nation in South America, Venezuela has seen its economy contract nearly 50 percent since 2013 under the socialist policies of President Nicolas Maduro.

Hyperinflation has led to shortages of basic goods like toilet paper, diapers and aspirin, and staples of the Venezuelan diet including milk, eggs, rice, coffee and sugar have been similarly hard to come by. At one point, the bolivar weakened so dramatically that the government could not afford to print new money.

In a survey published last year, about one-third of Venezuelans said they had skipped meals in the last 12 months, and nearly three-fourths reported losing weight, dropping 19 pounds on average.

More than 600,000 Venezuelans have fled the country in search of economic opportunity elsewhere.

The economic crisis in Venezuela had also precipitated a political one.

President Maduro has taken steps to consolidate power and weaken the opposition-dominated national assembly. The strongman is poised to win another six-year term after abruptly moving elections to this year, catching the opposition party off guard.

A crackdown on anti-government protests last year led to the deaths of more than 120 and the arbitrary detainment of more than 5,000.

This week’s events at Scripps College are titled, “Venezuela’s Challenge: Against War and a Unipolar World,” “Venezuelans’ Exercise of Popular Democracy from the Streets to the Polls” and “Maroon Legacies and Afro-Venezuelan Organizing in Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution.”

The first lecture, delivered by Mr. Cordero on Monday, was advertised to students who are “interested in economics that serve people not profits.” The second lecture, delivered jointly on Tuesday, will address the themes of “economic sovereignty, African solidarities, and a different way of doing democracy.” The third lecture will be delivered Wednesday by Mr. Garcia, who is billed as “an organizer who hails from the grassroots of Venezuela’s Black working-class struggles.”

The April 6 email frames the Scripps lecture series by pointing to recent international gatherings convened to show “unwavering solidarity” with the Venezuelan government.

“These gatherings and grassroots initiatives, absent from mainstream corporate media coverage of Venezuela, encompass the people’s vision for a new society rooted in political participation, communal economies and democracy,” the email reads.

The speaker series is sponsored by the Scripps College Latin American & Caribbean Studies department, the Latin American Studies Draper Fund at neighboring Pomona College and the Chiapas Support Committee, an Oakland-based nonprofit.

It is also being hosted by Scripps College history professor Cindy Forster. Her areas of expertise are listed as “Race relations and gender; organizing; Guatemala; Indigenous and Black perspectives on national histories in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

This is the second consecutive semester that Scripps has hosted Mr. Cordero for a three-day summit on Venezuela. He participated in a panel discussion last October titled, “In Search of Truth in Today’s Venezuela.”

A poster advertising the October speaker series, as reported by the Claremont Independent, touted Venezuela’s electoral system as “the most transparent in the world.”

Other lectures were titled, “Paramilitarism from the Right versus Building the Communal State from Below,” “Black Liberation and Reparations at the Heart of Venezuela’s Revolution” and “PEOPLE’S POWER in Venezuela, the Highest Power in the Land.”