Bush Administration Stumbles Again in Venezuela

Special to washingtonpost.com

Thursday, December 19, 2002

WASHINGTON--With so many in the Bush administration able to speak Spanish, the phrase "No aprende ni a palos"should have a familiar ring. If not, one need only examine the White House's recent actions regarding Venezuela to understand that the words refer to someone who never learns--just doesn't seem to get it--even when hit upside the head with a stick.

How else to explain why for the second time in eight months, the administration recklessly threw its weight behind the political opposition in that very volatile country at a moment when choosing sides threatened to trigger an explosive reaction.

By forcefully calling on Friday for early--and therefore unconstitutional--presidential elections, the administration jeopardized the delicate balance developing in Caracas after weeks of negotiations between President Hugo Chavez's government and its democratic opponents. Facilitated by Cesar Gaviria, the secretary general of the Organization of American States, the talks have been the best hope for a peaceful solution to a long-simmering crisis.

Within 72 hours the Bush administration modified its stance, calling for a referendum, something the constitution does allow. By then, however, Washington had cast again doubt on its commitment to uncensored democracy in the region.

The United States behaved similarly and with apparent impunity in April, when it prematurely recognized a short-lived government that ousted Chavez in a coup d'etat. This reprise was unnecesary and not helpful.

Latin America would be better off if Washington could learn from its mistakes. The region needs the leader of the free world to be more patient and less willing to publicly air his likes and dislikes. It needs a White House that better understands that in situations like the one in Venezuela, its actions--or lack thereof--send signals to either or both sides in the dispute.

Now, more than ever, such patience with evolving democracies is essential. Newly elected leaders in countries like Brazil or Ecuador need assurances that the United States will stand up for democracy regardless of ideological differences.

That clearly has not been the case with Venezuela, where a striking lack of diplomatic finesse at a critical moment could have darkened the storm clouds still gathering over the presidential palace at Miraflores.

The call for early elections took many by surprise, including some at the State Department, where one official said the White House had gotten a "little in front of the curve." That was understandable, however, the official said, a case of human error. Nothing more.

Another State Department official said the action was deliberate, a conscious "refinement" of the U.S. position that was warranted by a "heightened state of crisis" in Venezuela that Chavez persistently dismisses as "normal." Washington, according to this line of thought, was simply expressing what so many others in the hemisphere were thinking but were reluctant to say. Perhaps.

The White House statement, issued Friday and shamelessly revised on Monday, came just hours before representatives of the 34 OAS member states met to consider Chavez's request for full support. That coincidence prompted some diplomats here to conclude that Washington was throwing its weight around, a scare tactic designed to pre-emptively quash pro-Chavez sentiments. If such was the intent, it is unclear how effective the strategy was.

Late Monday night, after nearly 30 hours of debate, the OAS issued a resolution backing Chavez only by inference. It called for supporting democracy in Venezuela, "whose government is headed by ... Chavez." With that oblique endorsement of Chavez as the coincidental status quo, the organization seemed to be hoping that neither side in Venezuela would interpret the resolution as a victory and use it against the other. Indeed, the risks were so high that for some time during the deliberations, some advocated that the organization say nothing rather than something it later would regret.

At the end of the debate, Washington advised Venezuela to look to others in the region for guidance. The exact reference was unmentioned but obvious: Argentina. Faced earlier this year with the prospect of an increasingly violent situation getting completely out of hand, Argentinian President Eduardo Duhalde turned to an electoral solution. That move, perfectly legal under Argentina's constitution, helped reduce tension in that financially, politically and socially strapped nation, many here this week said.

There is a key difference in these two cases. Duhalde's call in Argentina came from someone who had no direct stake in the election outcome, since he is not a candidate. The U.S. call echoed the position of Chavez's opponents, whose open agenda is to oust him. The Bush administration was harshly criticized for a nearly identical mistake eight months ago. Sometimes even the mighty fail to learn from the stick.

© 2002 Washington Post Newsweek Interactive

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VENEZUELAN WORKERS DEFY RIGHTIST OIL BLOCKADE

By Andy McInerney

Via Workers World News Service - Reprinted from the Jan. 9, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper

Since Dec. 2, Venezuela's economic elite have tried desperately to bring the popular government of President Hugo Chavez to its knees. The same forces that launched a failed coup attempt against Chavez in April--the bosses' Fedecameras federation, some corrupt union leaders connected to the old political elite, and some sectors of the military, with the support of the U.S. government--are now trying to force Chavez to resign. Their main target has been the state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, the government's largest source of revenue.

They call the action a "strike." In reality, it is the bosses' attempt to blockade the Chavez government and the millions of poor and working people it represents. It is the same policy that U.S. imperialism has tried to dictate against Iraq and Cuba.

Chavez has vowed from the outset to weather the crisis. Thanks to popular support and mass mobilization of workers around the country, along with solidarity from across Latin America, the popular government has managed to resist the blockade and sabotage as the New Year arrives.

Big business news media in the U.S. have mainly served as cheerleaders for the right wing opposition, wildly inflating numbers for opposition demonstrations and not reporting pro-Chavez demonstrations at all. But some reports on the class character of the misnamed "strike" have begun to surface.

A Dec. 24 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer had the headline, "Venezuela strike splits capital into haves and have-nots." "Thousands of holiday shoppers throng the streets of working-class western Caracas, where a general strike designed to oust President Hugo Chavez seems a figment of the imagination," the article states. "Meanwhile, in well-to-do eastern Caracas, the work stoppage is very real, with shops and restaurants closed, the sidewalks mostly devoid of pedestrians."

In the critical oil industry, managers and executives organize the "strike." But the Chavez government has won over the support of many oil workers, according to a Dec. 29 New York Times report.

Of a visit to an oil refinery at Puerto La Cruz, a New York Times reporter wrote: "Nearly a month into Venezuela's devastating national strike, all systems were back up and running close to normal this week at the refinery here that supplies gasoline to the eastern half of the country.

"Night shift workers were bursting with pride."

"We are prouder now than ever," said 17-year veteran oil worker Wilfredo Bastardo. "We have shown our supervisors that we can run this plant without them."

Speaking at a rally of pro-Chavez oil workers in Yaguas, Chavez declared, "We will move heaven and earth, but we will never leave the people in the hands of this savage and treacherous oligarchy."

Chavez is also benefiting from his foreign policy goal of promoting Latin American solidarity. Both Brazil and Trinidad and Tobago have sent shipments of gasoline to help Venezuela weather the protests. The Dominican Republic has sent rice.

Oil workers in Colombia and Ecuador have volunteered their expertise in keeping the refineries open.

MASSES MOBILIZE TO DEFEND CHAVEZ

Chavez's opponents accuse him of being a dictator. But his government has shown a degree of tolerance toward the plotters that would be unheard of by any of the capitalist "democracies" if they were facing such disruption from the organized working class. The rich elite in Venezuela use their control over the media to broadcast anti-Chavez propaganda. Rebellious military officers--so far a small minority of the armed forces--meet openly in the wealthy areas of the capital.

But demands are growing on the part of the millions of Chavez supporters--overwhelmingly poor and working people--to meet the opposition head on.

Over 300,000 Venezuelans have signed petitions calling for a referendum on suspending government concessions to private television stations "that have violated their code of ethics by blatantly slanting news events in an anti-patriotic manner, and are openly conspiring against the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela."

Thousands of others have signed petitions in support of Petroleos de Venezuela director of oil production Felix Rodriguez, who filed a motion asking the Supreme Court to declare the oil stoppage illegal. The Supreme Court did so on Dec. 19, but oil managers have continued their stoppage.

The oil executives' defiance of the Supreme Court order prompted Chavez to fire over 90 of them. The government is also considering arresting them for damages done to the economy.

The Bolivarian Circles, neighborhood-based organizations organized to defend Chavez's "Bolivarian revolution," have been the core of popular mobilizations against the counterrevolutionary mobilization. The circles have organized daily demonstrations in support of Chavez.

Some sectors of the Bolivarian Circle movement are openly preparing to defend against the next attempt to oust Chavez. On Nov. 9, the Associated Press interviewed Comandante Lina Ron, one of the most militant leaders of the Bolivarian Circle movement.

Describing the greed of Venezuela's rich ruling class, Ron said, "If that's the way things are, I am preparing for war. We will wage a scorched-earth campaign."

Ron organized a Christmas party in Caracas on Dec. 25, distributing gifts to poor children. Vice President Jose Vincent Rangel attended the event.

"Tonight is a night of understanding," he said. But the loudest cheers came with his next sentence: "But this doesn't rule out a firm hand."

- END -

(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@wwpublish.com. Subscribe wwnews-on@wwpublish.com. Unsubscribe wwnews-off@wwpublish.com. Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
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