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April 13, 2002
Anne Winkler-Morey
Why
I Didn't Organize
a Passover Seder This Year
April 12, 2002
Nancy Stohlman
Live from East Jerusalem:
International Nonviolence
Brian
J. Foley
Defeating
Evil
Olivier Audeoud
Did the US Break
the Laws of War?
Rep. Ron
Paul
The
Middle East Quagmire
Michael Colby
Republican Porn:
Oiling Up the Caribou
John Chuckman
Tom
Friedman's Fabrications
April 11, 2002
Patrick Cockburn
Battle of St. Petersburg Zoo
Jeff Halper
After
the Invasion:
Now What?
Falk / Krieger
Taming the Nuclear Monster
Steve
Perry
The
Good Life of
Nellie Stone Johnson
Nick Ring
Efficiency and Occupation:
Terrorism vs. Taylorism
Alexander
Cockburn
From
the West Bank to BBQ
to Old Sparky, And Beyond
April 10, 2002
M. Junaid Alam
Blaming the Victims:
Hating the Palestinians
George
Monbiot
World
Bank to West Bank
Fran Schor
US-Sponsored State Terror
David
Vest
Political
Color Schemes
Jack McCarthy
Florida State Radicals:
The Berkeley of the South
Rises Again
Doreen
Miller
A
Tale of Two Warring Tribes
Michael Neumann
Israelis and Indians
April 9, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
Colin
Powell's Table Talk
Matt Vidal
Thomas Friedman,
Another Wasted Pulitzer
Ron Jacobs
Buyer
Beware
Robert Jensen
I Helped Kill a Palestinian
Vijay
Prashad
Memories
of Barbarity:
Sharonism and September
Wayne Madsen
Anthrax and the Agency:
Thinking the Unthinkable
Resources:
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Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
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April 13, 2002
Coup in Venezuela:
An Eyewitness
Account
by Gregory Wilpert
The orchestration of the coup was impeccable and,
in all likelihood, planned a long time ago. Hugo Chavez, the
fascist communist dictator of Venezuela could not stand the
truth and thus censored the media relentlessly. For his own
personal gain and that of his henchmen (and henchwomen, since
his cabinet had more women than any previous Venezuelan government's),
he drove the country to the brink of economic ruin. In the end
he proceeded to murder those who opposed him. So as to reestablish
democracy, liberty, justice, and prosperity in Venezuela and
so as to avoid more bloodshed, the chamber of commerce, the
union federation, the church, the media, and the management
of Venezuela's oil company, in short: civil society and the
military decided that enough is enough_that Chavez had his chance
and that his experiment of a "peaceful democratic Bolivarian
revolution" had to come to an immediate end.
This is, of course, the version of events
that the officials now in charge and thus also of the media,
would like everyone to believe. So what really happened? Of
course I don't know, but I'll try to represent the facts as
I witnessed them.
First of all, the military is saying
that the main reason for the coup is what happened today, April
11. "Civil society," as the opposition here refers
to itself, organized a massive demonstration of perhaps 100,000
to 200,000 people to march to the headquarters of Venezuela's
oil company, PDVSA, in defense of its fired management. The
day leading up to the march all private television stations
broadcast advertisements for the demonstration, approximately
once every ten minutes. It was a successful march, peaceful,
and without government interference of any kind, even though
the march illegally blocked the entire freeway, which is Caracas'
main artery of transportation, for several hours.
Supposedly at the spur of the moment,
the organizers decided to re-route the march to Miraflores,
the president's office building, so as to confront the pro-government
demonstration, which was called in the last minute. About 5,000
Chavez-supporters had gathered there by the time the anti-government
demonstrators got there. In-between the two demonstrations were
the city police, under the control of the oppositional mayor
of Caracas, and the National Guard, under control of the president.
All sides claim that they were there peacefully and did not
want to provoke anyone. I got there just when the opposition
demonstration and the National Guard began fighting each other.
Who started the fight, which involved mostly stones and tear
gas, is, as is so often the case in such situations, nearly
impossible to tell. A little later, shots were fired into the
crowds and I clearly saw that there were three parties involved
in the shooting, the city police, Chavez supporters, and snipers
from buildings above. Again, who shot first has become a moot
and probably impossible to resolve question. At least ten people
were killed and nearly 100 wounded in this gun battle_almost
all of them demonstrators.
One of the Television stations managed
to film one of the three sides in this battle and broadcast
the footage over and over again, making it look like the only
ones shooting were Chavez supporters from within the demonstration
at people beyond the view of the camera. The media over and
over again showed the footage of the Chavez supporters and
implied that they were shooting at an unarmed crowd. As it turns
out, and as will probably never be reported by the media, most
of the dead are Chavez supporters. Also, as will probably never
be told, the snipers were members of an extreme opposition party,
known as Bandera Roja.
These last two facts, crucial as they
are, will not be known because they do not fit with the new
mythology, which is that Chavez armed and then ordered his supporters
to shoot at the opposition demonstration. Perhaps my information
is incorrect, but what is certain is that the local media here
will never bother to investigate this information. And the
international media will probably simply ape what the local
media reports (which they are already doing).
Chavez' biggest and perhaps only mistake
of the day, which provided the last remaining proof his opposition
needed for his anti-democratic credentials, was to order the
black-out of the private television stations. They had been
broadcasting the confrontations all afternoon and Chavez argued
that these broadcasts were exacerbating the situation and should,
in the name of public safety, be temporarily shut-down.
Now, all of "civil society,"
the media, and the military are saying that Chavez has to go
because he turned against his own people. Aside from the lie
this is, what is conveniently forgotten are all of the achievements
of the Chavez administration: a new democratic constitution
which broke the power monopoly of the two hopelessly corrupt
and discredited main parties and put Venezuela at the forefront
in terms of progressive constitutions; introduced fundamental
land reform; financed numerous progressive ecological community
development projects; cracked-down on corruption; promoted educational
reform which schooled over 1 million children for the first
time and doubled investment in education; regulated the informal
economy so as to reduce the insecurity of the poor; achieved
a fairer price for oil through OPEC and which significantly
increased government income; internationally campaigned tirelessly
against neo-liberalism; reduced official unemployment from 18%
to 13%; introduced a large-scale micro-credit program for the
poor and for women; reformed the tax system which dramatically
reduced tax evasion and increased government revenue; lowered
infant mortality from 21% to 17%; tripled literacy courses;
modernized the legal system, etc., etc.
Chavez' opposition, which primarily consisted
of Venezuela's old guard in the media, the union federation,
the business sector, the church, and the traditionally conservative
military, never cared about any of these achievements. Instead,
they took advantage of their media monopoly to turn public opinion
against him and managed to turn his biggest liability, his autocratic
and inflammatory style, against him. Progressive civil society
had either been silenced or demonized as violent Chavez fanatics.
At this point, it is impossible to know
what will happen to Chavez' "Bolivarian Revolution"_whether
it will be completely abandoned and whether things will return
to Venezuela's 40-year tradition of patronage, corruption, and
rentierism for the rich. What one can say without a doubt,
is that by abandoning constitutional democracy, no matter how
unpopular and supposedly inept the elected president, Venezuela's
ruling class and its military show just how politically immature
they are and deal a tremendous blow to political culture throughout
Latin America, just as the coup against Salvador Allende did
in 1973. This coup shows once again that democracy in Latin
America is a matter of ruling class preference, not a matter
of law.
If the United States and the democratic
international community have the courage to practice what they
preach, then they should not recognize this new government.
Democrats around the world should pressure their governments
to deny recognition to Venezuela's new military junta or any
president they happen to choose. According to the Charter of
the Organization of American States (OAS), this would mean
expelling Venezuela from the OAS, as a U.S. state department
official recently threatened to do. Please call the U.S. state
department or your foreign ministry and tell them to withdraw
their ambassadors from Venezuela.
Gregory Wilpert
lives in Caracas, is a former Fulbright scholar in Venezuela,
and is currently doing independent research on the sociology
of development.
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