Good Report from Venezuela Shows Elected Pres Chavez still has widespread support

This article is a good antidote to the one sided coverage of the the mainstream press in the US. It shows that the democratically elected leader still has widespread support despite the news stories in the US press that support the wealthier classes and the oil company executives. As you remember Bush and the gang got caught with their pants down supporting the unsuccessful coup against democracy in Venezuela. If you believe in democratic principles you must respect democracy in other countries even if it does piss off US oil companies and other corporate interests.

A Split Screen In Strike Torn Venezuela



by Mark Weisbrot
The Washington Post
January 13, 2003
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VENEZUELA
Walking around Caracas late last month during Venezuela's ongoing protests, I was surprised by what I saw. My expectations had been shaped by persistent U.S. media coverage of the nationwide strike called by the opposition, which seeks President Hugo Chavez's ouster. Yet in most of the city, where poor and working-class people live, there were few signs of the strike. Streets were crowded with holiday shoppers, metro trains and buses were running normally, and shops were open for business. Only in the eastern, wealthier neighborhoods of the capital were businesses mostly closed.

This is clearly an oil strike, not a "general strike," as it is often described. At the state-owned oil company, PDVSA, which controls the industry, management is leading the strike because it is at odds with the Chavez government. And while Venezuela depends on oil for 80 percent of its export earnings and half its national budget, the industry's workers represent a tiny fraction of the labor force. Outside the oil industry, it is hard to find workers who are actually on strike. Some have been locked out from their jobs, as business owners -- including big foreign corporations such as McDonald's and FedEx -- have closed their doors in support of the opposition.

Most Americans seem to believe that the Chavez government is a dictatorship, and one of the most repressive governments in Latin America. But these impressions are false.

Not only was Chavez democratically elected, his government is probably one of the least repressive in Latin America. This, too, is easy to see in Caracas. While army troops are deployed to protect Miraflores (the presidential compound), there is little military or police presence in most of the capital, which is particularly striking in such a tense and volatile political situation. No one seems the least bit afraid of the national government, and despite the seriousness of this latest effort to topple it, no one has been arrested for political activities.

Chavez has been reluctant to use state power to break the strike, despite the enormous damage to the economy. In the United States, a strike of this sort -- one that caused massive damage to the economy, or one where public or private workers were making political demands -- would be declared illegal. Its participants could be fired, and its leaders -- if they persisted in the strike -- imprisoned under a court injunction. In Venezuela, the issue has yet to be decided. The supreme court last month ordered PDVSA employees back to work until it rules on the strike's legality.

To anyone who has been in Venezuela lately, opposition charges that Chavez is "turning the country into a Castro-communist dictatorship" -- repeated so often that millions of Americans apparently now believe them -- are absurd on their face.

If any leaders have a penchant for dictatorship in Venezuela, it is the opposition's. On April 12 they carried out a military coup against the elected government. They installed the head of the business federation as president and dissolved the legislature and the supreme court, until mass protests and military officers reversed the coup two days later.

Military officers stand in Altamira Plaza and openly call for another coup. It is hard to think of another country where this could happen. The government's efforts to prosecute leaders of the coup were canceled when the court dismissed the charges in August. Despite the anger of his supporters, some of whom lost friends and relatives last year during the two days of the coup government, Chavez respected the decision of the court.

The opposition controls the private media, and to watch TV in Caracas is truly an Orwellian experience. The five private TV stations (there is one state-owned channel) that reach most Venezuelans play continuous anti-Chavez propaganda. But it is worse than that: They are also shamelessly dishonest. For example, on Dec. 6 an apparently deranged gunman fired on a crowd of opposition demonstrators, killing three and injuring dozens. Although there was no evidence linking the government to the crime, the television news creators -- armed with footage of bloody bodies and grieving relatives -- went to work immediately to convince the public that Chavez was responsible. Soon after the shooting, they were broadcasting grainy video clips allegedly showing the assailant attending a pro-Chavez rally.

Now consider how people in Caracas's barrios see the opposition, a view rarely heard in the United States: Led by representatives of the corrupt old order, the opposition is trying to overthrow a government that has won three elections and two referendums since 1998. Its coup failed partly because hundreds of thousands of people risked their lives by taking to the streets to defend democracy. So now it is crippling the economy with an oil strike. The upper classes are simply attempting to gain through economic sabotage what they could not and -- given the intense rivalry and hatred among opposition groups and leaders -- still cannot win at the ballot box.

From the other side of the class divide, the conflict is also seen as a struggle over who will control and benefit from the nation's oil riches. Over the last quarter-century PDVSA has swelled to a $50 billion a year enterprise, while the income of the average Venezuelan has declined and poverty has increased more than anywhere in Latin America. Billions of dollars of the oil company's revenue could instead be used to finance health care and education for millions of Venezuelans.

Now add Washington to the mix: The United States, alone in the Americas, supported the coup, and before then it increased its financial support of the opposition. Washington shares PDVSA executives' goals of increasing oil production, busting OPEC quotas and even selling off the company to private foreign investors. So it is not surprising that the whole conflict is seen in much of Latin America as just another case of Washington trying to overthrow an independent, democratically elected government.

This view from the barrios seems plausible. The polarization of Venezuelan society along class and racial lines is apparent in the demonstrations themselves. The pro-government marches are filled with poor and working-class people who are noticeably darker -- descendants of the country's indigenous people and African slaves -- than the more expensively dressed upper classes of the opposition. Supporters of the opposition that I spoke with dismissed these differences, insisting that Chavez's followers were simply "ignorant," and were being manipulated by a "demagogue."

But for many, Chavez is the best, and possibly last, hope not only for social and economic betterment, but for democracy itself. At the pro-government demonstrations, people carry pocket-size copies of the country's 1999 constitution, and vendors hawk them to the crowds. Leaders of the various non-governmental organizations that I met with, who helped draft the constitution, have different reasons for revering it: women's groups, for example, because of its anti-discrimination articles; and indigenous leaders because it is the first to recognize their people's rights. But all see themselves as defending constitutional democracy and civil liberties against what they describe as "the threat of fascism" from the opposition.

This threat is very real. Opposition leaders have made no apologies for the April coup, nor for the arrest and killing of scores of civilians during the two days of illegal government. They continue to stand up on television and appeal for another coup -- which, given the depth of Chavez's support, would have to be bloody in order to hold power.

Where does the U.S. government now stand on the question of democracy in Venezuela? The Bush administration joined the opposition in taking advantage of the Dec. 6 shootings to call for early elections, which would violate the Venezuelan constitution. The administration reversed itself the next week, but despite paying lip service to the negotiations mediated by the OAS, it has done nothing to encourage its allies in the opposition to seek a constitutional or even a peaceful solution.

Sixteen members of Congress sent a letter to Bush last month, asking him to state clearly that the United States would not have normal diplomatic relations with a coup-installed government in Venezuela. But despite its apprehension about disruption of Venezuelan oil supplies on the eve of a probable war against Iraq, the Bush administration is not yet ready to give up any of its options for "regime change" in Caracas. And -- not surprisingly -- neither is the Venezuelan opposition.
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Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, an independent nonpartisan think tank in Washington.

 

Mango, your reply is sort of silly. I don't respect Dubya. However, I don't advocate overthrowing him until the next scheduled election. This is true though the validity of Chavez's election is less controversial than that of Dubya's.

Do you advocate overthrowing Chavez prior to the next scheduled election?

 

Is this what goes for proof or argument on your side?

 

Chavez, was elected democratically in an election whose legitimacy has not been challenged. Stop the bs with Sadam Hussein.

Let's face it you guys think he is too liberal or leftist for your tastes, so to hell with democracy. You're in good company with Kissinger, Nixon and other Republicans. You continue in the tradition of Iran w. Mossadegh sp?, Guatemala with Arbenz, Chile with Allende? etc.

Why not be honest and just say you don't believe in democracy if liberals or leftists are elected. Kissinger at least said, at the time, something to the effect: "There is too much at stake there to let those irresponsible people (Chileans) decide who to elect."

Alternatively, you just come out as poor losers.

Are you going to do the same thing in Brazil, too? Has your side started it there, yet?

 

Sorry, I didn't realize Mr. Clutch actually had a question there.

I support Chavez for probably the same reason the democratic majority of the Venezuelan people did and probably still do. The country has made no advances since the 1960's. It is a famous economic basket case in which ,despite high oil revenues, the majority has made little or no economic progress. They are frustrated and they decided to take a chance on a guy who comes from their background, which is very different from their elected politicians in the past. They hope that he will take care of them, too, and not just basically the well off.

Was this wise, given the fact that the well off typically respond in these third world circumstqnces by taken their money out of their country and have as in Chile asked the Republicans in the White House to help overthrow the govenment? Perhaps not, but I understand their frustration and hopes for a more just economic system; it is their democratic right to elect who they choose.

Now Mango and others have a problem. In the US people are brought up to believe in democracy so they don't like to admit that they are for overthrowing democratically elected governments if they find them too liberal or leftist for their tastes.

Refman just puts commas around "election" when referring to Chavez. No need for arguments or research. Mango at least tries to justify his position. His reasoning. Chavez supported a coup in the past. I therefore find him ineligible ,and if I was making the law, legally barred from being elected democratically. Doesn't make any difference, therefore, if he was elected democratically by the people of Venezuela. I can support a coup against him and still be a believer in democratic government.

Mango misses the basic point that it is up to the Venezuelan people to decide who is eligible to run for president and who they want to democratically elect not him nor Bush nor Kissinger.

If you don't like the results, try to win the next election. It is the way of democracy. Note I'm certainly in favor of those who don't like Chavez protesting against him. After all just yesterday I protested agsinst Bush II who I don't support.