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CounterPunch
October
18, 2002
Venezuelan Democracy Under Siege
by MARK WEISBROT
Twelve years ago a populist priest named Jean-Bertrand
Aristide became President of Haiti, in the country's first democratic
elections. A businessman summed up the attitude of Haiti's small
but stubborn elite: "Everybody who is anybody is against
Aristide -- except for the people!"
The upper classes of Venezuela have adopted
a similar attitude as they seek to overthrow their own populist
president -- Hugo Chavez. They refuse to respect the results
of democratic elections, and have little regard for the majority
of their (mostly poor) compatriots. On Monday the nation's largest
business federation, joined by some leaders of organized labor,
will once again attempt a general strike with the stated purpose
of ousting the president.
The similarities do not end there: Aristide
was overthrown in a military coup led by officers who were later
discovered to be on the payroll of the CIA.
Chavez survived a similar challenge six
months ago, when a military coup removed his government for two
days. His presidency -- and Venezuelan democracy -- was rescued
not only by a rebellion within the armed  forces,
but by the thousands of people who risked their lives and took
to the streets to defend their government.
Venezuela is now edging closer to civil
war, and once again Washington is part of the problem. The Bush
Administration welcomed the April 11 coup at first, then backed
off in the face of international embarrassment when the coup
was reversed. A good deal of circumstantial evidence -- including
numerous meetings between administration officials and the coup
leaders -- indicates that our government's support for the coup
was more than just a nod and a wink.
What has the Bush Administration learned
in the six months since the failed coup in Venezuela? Not very
much, it appears. The US State Department investigated itself
and not surprisingly, found no evidence of wrongdoing -- although
the investigation concluded that our diplomats were not sufficiently
clear in communicating that they were against a coup.
In the build-up to this next attempt
at toppling the government, Washington has been strangely silent.
Venezuelan opposition leaders certainly have no reason to believe
that a coup government would suffer any rupture in diplomatic
or commercial relations with the United States.
Although not as openly prejudiced as
the Venezuelan press, the US media has also presented a distorted
view of the situation in Venezuela. Chavez is often portrayed
as some sort of dictator, when in fact his government is one
of the least repressive in Latin America. No one has even been
arrested for attempting to overthrow the government, a crime
that in most countries would carry a long prison term, and in
the United States, the death penalty.
The press here often repeats the opposition
charge that Chavez is installing "Cuban-style socialism."
This does not even pass the laugh test. Venezuela is as capitalist
a country as it has ever been, and there have been no moves toward
state ownership or control of the economy since Chavez was elected
in 1998.
The Venezuelan economy is currently in
a deep recession, worsened by billions of dollars of capital
flight and reduced investment due to political uncertainty. It
also suffers from a long-term economic decline considerably worse
than that of Latin America as a whole. Venezuela's income per
person has actually shrunk by more than 18 percent since 1980.
Although the Chavez government has registered
some significant gains for the poor in terms of school enrollment
and access to health care, it still faces both the short-term
hurdle of economic recovery and the problem of arresting the
country's long decline. But Venezuela is not alone in this regard:
income per person has hardly grown at all in Latin America over
the last 20 years, and it is projected to shrink this year.
The rise of populist and progressive
governments, such as Brazil's Workers Party -- whose candidate
Lula Da Silva is poised to win the presidency in a couple of
weeks -- will therefore continue. It is a logical response to
the failed economic experiment -- commonly known as the "Washington
Consensus" -- conducted at Latin America's expense over
the last 20 years. This trend will not be halted, as it has so
many times in the past with Washington's support, by means of
coups, violence, or economic pressures. Our government -- like
Venezuela's elite -- might just have to learn to accept the idea
of democracy, where the government and even some of its economic
policies are decided in elections, by a popular vote.
Mark Weisbrot
is Co-Director of the Center
for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington D.C.
and the co-author of Social
Security: the Phony Crisis.
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