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Today's
Stories
March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
March 5, 2004
Chris Floyd
Uncle
Sugar: How the WMD Scam Put Money in Bush Family Pockets
Ron Jacobs
Chaos
Reigns: Haiti and Iraq
Lisa Viscidi
Guatemalan
Refugees: a Difficult Return
Yves Engler
Canada and the Coup in Haiti
Mike Legro
Those Bush Ads: Some Dead Bodies Are Worth More Than Others
Javier Armas
A Night of Inspiration: Oakland Benefit for Grocery Workers Strike
Bennett Hoffman
"Who Cares About Haiti, Anyway?"
Bill Christison
Faltering Neo-Cons Still Dangerous
Website of the Day
Haiti Support Group
March 4, 2004
Diane Christian
Sex
and Ideals
Sen. Robert Byrd
Stop the Stonewalling, Mr. President: Fairy Tales, Bush and the
9/11 Commission
Norman Solomon
Assuming the Right to Intervene: The US Press and Haiti
Jack Brown
A Fragrant Saga of Mexico's Greens
Hal Cranmer
The
John Kerry Experience
David Lindorff
Greenspan's Pension
Sam Smith
The Election is Over, We Lost
Christopher Brauchli
Goin'
to the Chapel: The Gay and the Dead
Brian D. Barry
The "Perfect" World of E-Voting: A Computer Scientist
Reports from the Polling Booth
Richard Oxman
Arsonists for Haiti?
Peter Phillips
Haitian
Fantasies: Mainstream Media Fails Itself, Again
Tariq Ali
Notes on Anti-Semitism, Zionism and
Palestine
Website of the Day
What If Boeing Ads Told the Truth?
March 3, 2004
Heather Williams / Karl
Laraque
Marines
Retake Haiti
Jack McCarthy
Guy's
Our Guy: "I am the Chief. My Hero is Pinochet."
Robert Sandels
The
Purloined Label: The Struggle Over the Havana Club Trademark
Juliana Fredman / James Davis
Israeli Organized Crime
JG
The Yuppie Silence on Haiti
Emilio Sardi
The
Colombia/US Free Trade Deal: It's About More Than Trade
Alan Farago
Swimming in Sewage
Mike Whitney
"Blood
Will Have Blood": 143 Murdered in Liberated Iraq
CounterPunch Wire
Nader's Legislative Record in the 1960s
Steve Perry
Kerry
Advisory: Remember Lena Guerrero
Nelson George/ Marcus Miller
Miles Davis & Hip Hop: a Conversation
Website of the Day
$10,000 Is Yours for the Taking: The USS Liberty Challenge
March 2, 2004
William Blum
If Kerry's
the Answer, What's the Question?
Conn Hallinan
Haiti:
the Dangerous Muddle
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Bravo
H-Bomb Test: One WMD They Couldn't Hide
Mike Whitney
Regime Change in Haiti: the Bush Dominos Keep Falling
Ra Ravishankar
Afghanistan, the Liberation That Isn't: an Interview with Mariam
from RAWA
Dan Bacher
Merle Haggard & the Politics of Salmon: "Clearcutting
is Rape"
Greg Moses
Oscar White
Brandy Baker
Mel Gibson's Minstrelsy Show
Little Tucker Carlson
What I Did on My Vacation
Robert Fisk
All This
Talk of Civil War, Now This
Merle Haggard
Kern River
Website of the Day
Rebel Edit
March 1, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Morris
Thanks War Criminal in Front of Billions
Richard Oxman
Oscar's
Obit: Thanking Bob McNamara
Elaine Cassel
Writing and Reading as "Terrorism"
Mickey Z
Thomas Friedman's Education
Mike Whitney
George Will and Anti-Semitism: a Cul-de-Sac of Prejudice
Heather Williams
Haiti
as Target Practice: How the US Press Missed the Story
Cathy Crosson
Chanson d'amour haïtienne
Website of the Day
God Hates Shrimp
February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
February 27, 2004
Thomas C. Mountain
A
White Jesus During Black History Month?
Laura Carlsen
Americans
Abroad: Bush is Persona Non Grata
John B. Anderson
Nader's Campaign Brings Back Memories: Creating an Open Electoral
Process
Jason Leopold
Spying
on Kofi Annan
John Chuckman
Nader,
Risk and Hope
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Putin's Russia
Ray McGovern
Punished
for Honest Intelligence
Saul Landau
The
Haiti Redux
Website of the Day
Bush: Why I'm Running for Re-election
February 26, 2004
Brandy Baker
Is Nader
on to Something?
Jacques Kinau
AEI
to Colombia: "Can't Give You Anything But Guns, Baby"
Norman Solomon
Bugging Kofi Annan: UN Spying
and the Evasions of US Journalism
Greg Weiher
A Purloined Letter: the Zarqawi Gambit
Walt Brasch
Janet Jackson, Bush & No. 542: There are No Halftime Shows
in War
Shadi Hamid
The Music World Explodes in Anger
Norman Madarasz
As Canadian as Corruption
Chris Floyd
Bullets and Ballots
Virginia Tilly
The
Deeper Meaning of the Wall
Amy Goodman / Jeremy
Scahill
Haiti's
Lawyer Says US is Arming Haiti's Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries
Website of the Day
Clear Channel Sucks
February 25, 2004
Dr. Susan Block
Saddam's
Sex Therapist and the Rape of Free Speech
Bruce Anderson
Treacherous Bastards: The Greens and the Dems and Nader
Ron Jacobs
Our Power is on the Streets and
in Our Hearts
Mike Whitney
Bush
and Gay America: the Politics of Duplicity
Sam Husseini
Jesus in 100 Words
John L. Hess
Kick Off or Flub?
Sam Hamod
Bush's Newest Red Herring
Cockburn / St. Clair
Winning
with Nader
Website of the Day
VotePact
February 24, 2004
Ralph Nader
Why
I'm Running for President
Greg Moses
Rally
the Mob! Bush, Gay Marriage and the Constitution
Douglas O'Hara
The
Merchants of Fear: Smearing Nader
Phillip Cryan
Frozen in Time: The WSJ's Paranoid
Lens on Latin America
David Lindorff
John Kerry's China Connection
Jason Leopold
Cheney's Shame: Halliburton Faces New Charges
Gary Younge
Haiti: Throttled by History
Kromm, Masri & Purohit
Why No Democracy in Iraq?
Steve Perry
Tangled Up in Red and Blue: Beware the Electoral College
February 23, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israel's Apartheid Wall on Trial
at The Hague
Kurt Nimmo
Richard Perle, Executioner: "Heads Should Roll"
Jonathan Franklin
US Soldier Seeks Refugee Status in Canada
Al Krebs
The Liberal "Intelligentsia" v. Nader
Josh Frank
Nader's Nadir? Not a Chance
Bruce Jackson
Nader, Another View: "He's as Evil as Bush"
Gary Leupp
A Misguided
Attack, The Passion, Rabbi Lerner and the Gospels
February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
February 19, 2004
Cecilie Surasky
Anti-Semitism
at the World Social Forum? That's Not What I Saw
Ray McGovern
Iraq
Hawks and Deceptive Intelligence: Did They Really Think They'd
Get Away With It?
Tariq Ali
How Far
Will Bush Go in Iraq?
Ralph Nader
Whither
the Nation?
Wayne Madsen
Would Kerry Purge the Neo-Cons?
Norman Solomon
The Collapse of Dean's Cyber-Bubble
Christopher Brauchli
Cheney, Halliburton and the NYT
Mike Whitney
Bush's Iraq Strategy: "I Hope They Kill Each Other"
Lewis Carroll
Bush the Mighty Helmsman from Yale
Website of the Day
Sex Toy Horoscope
February 18, 2004
William Wilgus
Bush:
AWOL and Dereliction of Duty
William Blum
Mush-Minded
Liberals
Dave Lindorff
Bush's China Syndrome
Greg Weiher
Why
is Kerry Getting a Pass?
Mike Griffin
Killing the Messenger: the AFL-CIO's Attack on Harry Kelber
Mark Hand
Kerry Tells Peace Movement to "Move On"
February 17, 2004
Mike Ferner
The
Countryside Murders in Iraq
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation
as Psychopath
Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate:
a Victory for Free Speech
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's
Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"
Steve Perry
Kerry
1, Drudge 0
February 16, 2004
James Johnston
Huddling
with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World
Sara Eltantawi
To
Wear the Hijab or Not
Bruce Anderson
Kevin
Cooper and the Midnight Needle
Elaine Cassel
Feds
on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas
Rahul Mahajan
Bush,
Is the Tide Finally Turning?
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean
Larry David
My War
Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing
Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
Weekend
Edtion
March 6 / 7, 2004
A Report from Caracas
Venezuela
Equals Haiti?
By ALAN CISCO
Venezuela will be the next Haiti, or at least
that's the hope of the desperate Venezuelan opposition, whose
"leaders" and media try to draw the analogy. Their
fury is nominally based around signatures for a recall referendum
on President Hugo Chavez. In the 1999 constitution, product of
the constituent assembly fostered by Chavez, there is an unprecedented
measure allowing for a recall vote on any elected official after
half their term of office has expired, if it is petitioned by
20% of the electorate. Half of the Chavez's six year term ended
last August 19, 2003.
The controversy is based around the decisions
of the National Election Committee (CNE) on signatures collected
for the referendum. The commission has five members, two from
the Chavez side, and two from the opposition, but it took months
to find a consensus candidate choice for the president, who would
have the deciding vote.. Finally the nod was given to Chavez
sympathizer Francisco Carrasquero, a grey haired law professor
of indigenous heritage with a reputation for impeccable integrity.
The petition drives for the recall elections
were held at the end of November 2003. In the first round the
Chavez supporters collected about six million signatures to recall
some 37 opposition Congressional deputies. Then, from Nov 28
to Dec. 1, the opposition claimed to have collected the required
20% signatures for about 2/3 of the 30 deputies they tried to
recall, and 3.4 million signatures against Chavez, more than
the 2.4 million, or 20% of the electorate needed to solicit the
recall vote.
The Chavez supporters, who had observers
at every petition table to tally the signatures, alleged that
the opposition had only collected 1.9 million signatures, and
that the remaining 1.5 million were the result of a "megafraud".
Recently obtained FOIA documents have documented that SUMATE,
the main opposition group organizing their collection of signatures,
received tens of thousands of dollars from the Republican Institute
and the Endowment for Democracy.
The CNE was originally to announce the
preliminary results on February 13, but the work of verifying
the total of over 10 million signatures and compare them to the
electoral rolls, termed a "superhuman" effort by the
Jimmy Carter Center, could not be completed until Feb 28. Announcement
of the preliminary results were then delayed to consult with
both sides, in the presence of representatives of the Carter
Center and the OAS as facilitators.
On March 2, the CNE finally reported
the preliminary results. It turned out that there were only slightly
more than three million possibly valid signatures delivered,
of which 143,000 were declared invalid because the supposed signers
were either dead, under age, foreign born or otherwise ineligible.
The main debate, however, is over some 876,000 signatures on
sheets where the signers' data, except for the signatures, are
filled out in the same handwriting. The instructions for filling
out the forms, agreed upon by the CNE, and disseminated in the
information provided by the CNE and the opposition SUMATE, stated
that each person had to fill out their own data, unless physically
incapable of doing so. The opposition claims that these were
done to save time, and all must be accepted as signatures in
"good faith."
After much debate the CNE, in a 3 to
2 vote, decided not to invalidate these signatures, but rather
to have a 5 day period of "repair", when those with
questioned signatures would reaffirm their intentions in any
of the 2700 centers to be set up around the country for this
purpose. The "repair" process, publishing the identity
card numbers of all those who signed and allowing for corrections
was always planned so that the electors could confirm that they
did or did not sign, and thus prevent mistakes or fraud. A total
of about one million signatures will be subject to revalidation
in the repair process, and if the just over 600,000 people confirm
their signatures, the referendum will go forward. This appears
to be feasible, as the all the centers used to collect signatures
during the original petition drive will also be used for the
repair process, and the CNE appears to be willing to accommodate
suggestions from the opposition on how to improve the process.
The indignant opposition has insisted
that all the signatures on the forms with the same handwriting
must be accepted, and claims that Chavez is simply dictating
to the members of the CNE in order to avoid the referendum. For
the several weeks the radio, TV and newspapers, almost all controlled
by radical elements of the opposition, have been full of quotes
to the effect that there will either be a referendum or a rebellion,
and that they would create chaos and anarchy and make the country
ungovernable unless the recall referendum was approved.
The threat was realized on Friday, February
27. The opposition called a march to protest the biased decisions
of the electoral commission and planned to go to the site where
the G-15 group was meeting to deliver a protest letter. As the
meeting included the presidents or prime ministers of Argentina,
Brasil, Colombia, Iran, Jamaica and 10 other high-level delegations,
the government told the opposition that the march could get no
closer than about 1000 yards from the site of the meeting. The
opposition insisted that they were going to march to where the
G-15 was meeting. When they got to the point where the large
contingent of National Guard had put up barriers, they began
to throw stones, bottles, fireworks and homemade rockets, and
sling-shot marbles at the Guard, and some fired guns. One guardsman
is still alive because his helmet partially stopped a bullet.
The battle raged for hours, with the National Guard firing clouds
of teargas and buckshot to keep the stone and bottle throwers
away, but they kept advancing. Some opposition leaders were
on TV egging on their protesters, while others were seen in the
thick of the conflict, later boasting of the rocks they'd thrown.
Another was seen leading the destruction of house belonging to
a Chavez supporting political party. After the events the opposition
leaders praised their valiant heroes and the private media, in
unison, condemned and repudiated the actions of the National
Guard. Some 30 people were injured, and many more were treated
for teargas inhalation. One 65 year old protester was shot and
killed far from the site of the battle by a bullet from an unknown
gun, but not the type used by the National Guard. There were
several other gunshot wounds, but these were not caused by the
National Guard, who are armed only with teargas and rubber buckshot.
This six hour battle on Friday afternoon
initiated the opposition's strategy of urban guerilla disruptions.
Small opposition groups, generally 5- 25 people, set up barricades
of burning tires and garbage in the streets, blocking traffic
in their own upper middle class neighborhoods. . Cars not respecting
the blockades can be scraped, fired upon, or have bricks thrown
through their windows. Most of these disturbances are occurring
in the middle class neighborhoods, where the mayors belong to
the opposition. Their police forces do nothing to impede the
barricades, and even protect the protesters. There are reports
that they also distribute the tires and gasoline. Some kids detained
admitted that they were imported from the poorer barrios and
paid to make trouble.
On Saturday night, February 28, trucks
were stopped on the main highway through Caracas, their drivers
held by heavily armed opposition bands, and their tires slashed.
In a few areas somewhat larger groups have running battles with
the National Guard, who try to keep traffic moving. They throw
bottles, stones, and Molotovs, burn cars, trucks and buses, and
increasingly, fire high powered weapons at the Guard. They also
frequently have shooters in adjacent buildings. The tendency
of the opposition now seems to be towards the use of guns. When
opposition leaders or adherents are detained with high powered
weapons, the media discredits the arrest and repeats reports
that the guns were planted. The media, maintains a live coverage
of the skirmishes, and at the same time criticizes the government
for their violent repression and detention of the peaceful protestors.
They repeatedly show footage of the national guard manhandling
the demonstrators or shooting, but never show what the demonstrators
did, or who what's in the building they are shooting at. Their
news tries to present two contradictory elements: 1) that the
whole country is in violent rebellion against the government,
and 2) that the government is showing its brutal totalitarian
and repressive nature by abusing the human rights of the populace
to peacefully protest. As shown in the movie on the April 2002
coup, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," deceptions,
manipulations and outright lies are no problem for the Venezuelan
media. The opposition leaders urge their faithful to increase
the resistance to a full-scaled rebellion, and the most virulent
commentators insult the military for not staging a coup, something
that seems very unlikely. This week many streets and neighborhoods
were blocked, children couldn't go to school, and businesses
were closed. The middle class of Caracas is held captive in their
neighborhoods by the barricades of these small violent groups,
and there have been deaths when people couldn't get to a hospital
The opposition has good reason to be
desperate. If it can be shown that they didn't obtain enough
valid signatures for the referendum, they'll have no constitutional
way to get rid of Chavez until 2006. Further, if their own deputies
are revoked, which is likely, the Chavistas will have much more
than their current slim majority in the National Assembly. The
opposition could also lose several of their most prominent governors
and mayors in the upcoming July and August elections. From recent
polls, and the number of petition signatures obtained support
for the opposition appears at less than 25%, and six months from
now they could be considerably weakened as an effective political
grouping, so this may be their last best chance.
The real problem for the opposition is
that they've been losing support, partly because they have yet
to propose any serious plans, except that that by simply ousting
Chavez they will somehow fulfill their promises of full employment
and the elimination of poverty. The marches they call have been
drawing less and less people. The march on February 27 that started
the violence had less than 30,000 participants. A supposedly
megamarch two weeks earlier, extensively promoted by their media
was clocked by international media at about 30,000, a figure
confirmed by local observers, yet the organizers said they had
264,000, and one, claimed there were over 500,000. The all-news,
all-opposition TV station, Globovision, showed supposedly live
coverage of a massive march, which unfortunately appears to have
been footage from a big demonstration that occurred over a year
ago, before the strike, when the opposition really had popular
support. Their two month strike in December 2002 through 2003
turned out to be a political disaster as they bankrupt many of
their supporters, and got their 18,000 striking oil company employees
fired. The oil company is now much more efficient after eliminating
a bloated managerial class, and is producing and expanding. Besides,
the price of oil is up, and therefore the economy, which, owing
to the strike, contracted severely in the first semester of 2003,
grew at a rate of greater than 9% in the last quarter. A recent
report from First Boston/Credit Suisse predicted a 9.8% growth
rate in 2004. In 2003 the Chavez government also began an extensive
series of social programs directed at developing the 80% of the
population that live in poverty: campaigns to eradicate illiteracy,
get people studying for high school diplomas, new and urgently
needed public universities, and paying thousands of Cuban doctors
to live and serve in the poor barrios. It is also giving out
many micro-credits, especially to increase agricultural production.
Unemployment has gone down, and most sectors of the economy,
except private construction are growing. There are many public
construction works in progress though, including several rail
lines connecting strategic commercial points in the country,
and ambitious new railroads that will connect Caracas with relatively
distant surrounding poorer bedroom communities. Venezuela may
already have built the best sports facilities in South America.
This vigorous attempt, after 40 years of corrupt, incompetent
and squalid governments, to confront Venezuela's problems has
even earned the begrudging and cautious respect of many former
opposition supporters.
The strategy of the Chavez government
in dealing with this "urban guerilla" seems to be to
use the National Guard very cautiously to keep the main traffic
routes open, arresting only those carrying guns or being especially
obstructive, and just keep things under control and wait for
the tire burners and stone throwers to exhaust themselves. People
caught on camera in illegal acts or inciting violence, including
opposition leaders, may be prosecuted. However, there is an increasing
tendency of all kinds of guns being used against the National
Guard who only teargas and buckshot. . Two police from the Caracas
borough controlled by an opposition mayor were arrested at the
Friday demonstration carrying guns and the gun powder on their
hands showed they were recently fired. Because most of the barricades
are in upper middle class neighborhoods, where opposition mayors
have instructed their police forces to do nothing, the people
are essentially held captive, and will likely take out their
frustrations on their mayors in upcoming elections. An overnight
poll by a US firm found that 89% of the people in these neighborhoods
were opposed to the barriers, and 56% were in favor of the armed
forces forcibly removing them. The violent groups are small,
and with a word from Chavez, the armed multitudes from the barrios
could sweep down and have done with the rebellion, but unlike
in Haiti, the Venezuelan masses are politically mature, and Chavez
appears to have forbade violent responses of any kind from his
people. Chavez has, besides the armed forces and all that petroleum,
the support of about 50% of the populace, a large part of whom
are politicized, organized and disciplined. On Sunday, Feb 29,
the Chavistas had a march with the theme "Venezuela is to
be respected." Although none of the private TV stations
gave it much attention, and it didn't make the front page of
the major dailies on Monday, it was likely one of the biggest
demonstrations ever seen in the Americas. Hundreds of thousands,
three million by some estimates, were singing and marching for
peace and sovereignty, and the chance to develop the country.
Not a single disturbance occurred. In his fiery speech Chavez
openly called for opposition to US intervention, and extensively
quoted Simon Bolivar admonitions on the same topic. Other leaders
linked the Bush administration to the local "rebellion."
Chavez also challenged Bush to a bet to see who would remain
in the presidency longer. The radical opposition news station
Globovision didn't bother to put a camera on this massive demonstration,
but for a few minutes on Sunday afternoon they showed coverage
from the cameras of the government TV station, over the caption,
"Hellow Sheeps."
The opposition threatened that if the
CNE announced anything but approval of the recall referendum,
the real rebellion would begin, but after the announcement on
March 2, with the extensive process to permit the reconfirmation
of the signatures, some opposition leaders instead stated that
they never instigated the violence, and were only for peaceful
and democratic means of removing Chavez.. A few foci of disturbances
remain, and some blockades may be there for a few days, but at
this point it appears that the rebellion will be controlled.
However, there has been a national university student strike
called for this week, and the government talks of paid instigators,
including foreign mercenaries and Colombian paramilitaries. If
the opposition will now mobilize for the reconfirmation process,
what was the need for all the violence, or do they have a two
sided strategy? One interpretation could be that the opposition
leaders thought they could use the referendum and the recent
events in Haiti to mobilize all the opposition that supported
them before the strike into a generalized revolt, in which everyone
would follow their foci into the streets. This would be much
easier if they could get some decent martyrs, even if they have
to kill some of their own supporters if it could be blamed on
the Chavistas, or provoke a more vigorous repressive response
from the government. It is still possible that with some strategic
deaths and the increasing campaign by the media, the revolt could
grow. One problem, however, is that they didn't dare do anything
in the Chavista poorer barrios, so had no choice but to set up
their blockades and skirmishes in the middle class neighborhoods,
which only alienated most of their potential base. This has further
discredited them so that they now only have the support the most
violent, radical elements of the opposition, and are unlikely
to be supported by more than 20 - 25% of the population. The
opposition may yet get enough signatures for referendum, but
there is every indication that Chavez would survive the vote.
This may not really matter, as the people in the streets, who
don't stop screaming that Chavez is antidemocratic, apparently
don't respect the democracy that brought Chavez to power. It
is also possible that the opposition will try to convince the
populace that, even though they don't like the opposition leaders,
the violence will continue until Chavez leaves, which would make
it similar to Haiti. The opposition leaders currently in front
of the cameras seem simply disposable flunkies. The real power
of the opposition is the media, especially the tv. The leaders
for the post-Chavez phase are being kept out of the current fray
so they won't be discredited for their later roles. The problem
for the Chavez government is how to react to neutralize the media
and the violent foci without drawing criticism for censorship
and repression.
The current coup attempt began on February
27, the fifteen anniversary of the Caracas uprising in 1989 against
IMF measures instituted by President Carlos Andres Perez of the
Democratic Action party, recently elected with a platform that
specifically rejected the same measures. For two days there was
a spontaneous and general uprising of the poor in the country
against the increase in the price of gasoline and public transport.
After ignoring it for the first day, Perez sent out the troops,
who killed hundreds as they violently suppressed the riots and
looting. Chavez tells of how affected he was by the armed forces
firing on their own people, and that this was a big impetus to
organize the 1992 coup attempt, and the subsequent political
project. Although opposition commentators have tried to say that
the current uprising is of the same character, they fail to mention
that the alignment of forces is the same, but the Democratic
Action party and the elite and the neoliberals are now the ones
rebelling against Chavez and great majority of this rich but
impoverished country, who are in power, democratically elected,
with a progressive constitution, and torrents of energy to develop
the country for all its citizens, including those in the opposition.
The author would like to thank his
dear neighbors sympathetic to the opposition. Were it not for
their blocking the entrance to his development with burning tires,
and preventing his going to work, this article would not have
been possible.
Alan Cisco
is an America living and working in Caracas.
Weekend
Edition Features for February 28 / 29, 2004
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