In a sparse office on the 19th floor of the featureless tower block that houses the Venezuelan education ministry, a former guerrilla is planning a revolution. Thirty years ago, Carlos Lanz was in the mountains with a gun in his hand. Later, he spent seven years in jail for his part in the three-year kidnapping of an American businessman. Nowadays, he is one of several guerrilla veterans who work for the government of President Hugo Chavez. Mr Lanz is in charge of the National Educational Project (pen). This plan for a radical shake-up of Venezuela's schools is supposed to ensure the "irreversibil-ity" of Mr Chavez's "Bolivarian revolution", named in homage to the (Venezuelan-born) South American independence leader of the early 19th century.
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