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April 15, 2002
James
T. Phillips
"Homicide"
Bombers
April 14, 2002
William Blum
The CIA and Venezuela
David
Vest
A
Good Old-Fashion "Incursion"
Ralph Nader
General Motors:
Stuck in Reverse
M. Junaid
Alam
From
the Ashes: Palestinian Struggle for Freedom
Sam Bahour
Palestinians and Americans
April 13, 2002
Beth Daoud
Life
in the Ruins of Nablus
Patrick Cockburn
Bulldozing History:
The End Nears for Stalin's
Most Monstrous Hotel
Gregory
Wilpert
The
Coup in Venezuela:
an Eye-Witness Account
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Thoughts on Our War
Against Terrorism
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
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Sharonism and September
Wayne Madsen
Anthrax and the Agency:
Thinking the Unthinkable
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April 15, 2002
CounterCoup
Venezuela: the Nation that Refused
to Roll Over for the Oil Barons
By Gregory Wilpert
It looks like Venezuela is not just another banana-oil
republic after all. Many here feared that with the April 11 coup
attempt against President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela was being degraded
to being just another country that is forced to bend to the powerful
will of the United States. The successful counter-coup of April
14, though, which reinstated Chavez, proved that Venezuela is
a tougher cookie than the coup planners thought.
The coup leaders against President Chavez
made two fundamental miscalculations. First, they started having
delusions of grandeur, believing that the support for their coup
was so complete that they could simply ignore the other members
of their coup coalition and place only their own in the new government.
The labour union federation CTV, which saw itself as one of the
main actors of the opposition movement to President Chavez, and
nearly all moderate opposition parties were excluded from the
new "democratic unity" cabinet. The new transition
cabinet ended up including only the most conservative elements
of Venezuelan society. They then proceeded to dissolve the legislature,
the Supreme Court, the attorney general's office, the national
electoral commission, and the state governorships, among others.
Next, they decreed that the 1999 constitution, which had been
written by a constitutional assembly and ratified by vote, following
the procedures outlined in the pervious constitution, was to
be suspended. The new transition president would thus rule by
decree until next year, when new elections would be called. Generally,
this type of regime fits the textbook definition of dictatorship.
This first miscalculation led to several
generals' protest against the new regime, perhaps under pressure
from the excluded sectors of the opposition, or perhaps out of
a genuine sense of remorse, and resulted in their call for changes
to the sweeping "democratic transition" decree, lest
they withdraw their support from the new government. Transition
President Pedro Carmona, the chair of Venezuela's largest chamber
of commerce, immediately agreed to reinstate the Assembly and
to the rest of the generals' demands.
The second miscalculation was the belief
that Chavez was hopelessly unpopular in the population and among
the military and that no one except Cuba and Colombia's guerilla,
the FARC, would regret Chavez' departure. Following the initial
shock and demoralisation which the coup caused among Chavez-supporters,
this second miscalculation led to major upheavals and riots in
Caracas' sprawling slums, which make up nearly half of the city.
In practically all of the "barrios" of Caracas spontaneous
demonstrations and "cacerolazos" (pot-banging) broke
out on April 13 and 14. The police immediately rushed-in to suppress
these expressions of discontent and somewhere between 10 and
40 people were killed in these clashes with the police. Then,
in the early afternoon, purely by word-of-mouth and the use of
cell phones (Venezuela has one of the highest per capita rates
of cell phone use in the world), a demonstration in support of
Chavez was called at the Miraflores presidential palace. By 6
PM about 100,000 people had gathered in the streets surrounding
the presidential palace. At approximately the same time, the
paratrooper battalion, to which Chavez used to belong, decided
to remain loyal to Chavez and took over the presidential palace.
Next, as the awareness of the extent of Chavez' support spread,
major battalions in the interior of Venezuela began siding with
Chavez.
Eventually the support for the transition
regime evaporated among the military, so that transition president
Carmona resigned in the name of preventing bloodshed. As the
boldness of Chavez-supporters grew, they began taking over several
television stations, which had not reported a single word about
the uprisings and the demonstrations. Finally, late at night,
around midnight of April 14, it was announced that Chavez was
set free and that he would take over as president again. The
crowds outside of Miraflores were ecstatic. No one believed that
the coup could or would be reversed so rapidly. When Chavez appeared
on national TV around 4 AM, he too joked that he knew he would
be back, but he never imagined it would happen so fast. He did
not even have time to rest and write some poetry, as he had hoped
to do.
So how could this be? How could such
an impeccably planned and smoothly executed coup fall apart in
almost exactly 48 hours? Aside from the two miscalculations mentioned
above, it appears that the military's hearts were not fully into
the coup project. Once it became obvious that the coup was being
hijacked by the extreme right and that Chavez enjoyed much more
support than was imagined, large parts of the military decided
to reject the coup, which then had a snowball-effect of changing
military allegiances. Also, by announcing that one of the main
reasons for the coup was to avoid bloodshed and by stating that
the Venezuelan military would never turn its weapons against
its own people, Chavez supporters became more courageous to go
out and to protest against the coup without fear of reprisals.
Very important, though, was that the
coup planners seem to have believed their own propaganda: that
Chavez was an extremely unpopular leader. What they seem to have
forgotten is that Chavez was not a fluke, a phenomenon that appeared
in Venezuela as a result of political chaos, as some analysts
seem to believe. Rather, Chavez' movement has its roots in a
long history of Venezuelan community and leftist organising.
Also, it seems quite likely that although many people were unhappy
with Chavez' lack of rapid progress in implementing the reforms
he promised, he was still the most popular politician in the
country.
The media and the opposition movement
tried to create the impression that Chavez was completely isolated
and that no one supported him any longer. They did this by organising
massive demonstrations, with the extensive help of the television
stations, which regularly broadcast reports of the anti-Chavez
protests, but consistently ignored the pro-Chavez protests, which,
by all fair accounts, tended to be just as large. The television
channels claimed that they did not cover pro-Chavez demonstrations
because protestors threatened their lives. While this seems unlikely
since the demonstrators usually unequivocally want their demonstrations
covered by the media, they could have gotten protection, if they
had cared to.
The Media
Nearly the entire media is owned and
operated by Venezuela's oligarchy. There is only one neutral
newspaper, which is not an explicitly anti-Chavez newspaper and
one state-run television station. During the coup, the state-run
station was taken off the air completely and all of the other
media kept repeating the coup organiser's lies without question.
These lies included the claim that Chavez had resigned and had
dismissed his cabinet, that all of the demonstration's dead were
"martyrs of civil society" (i.e., of the opposition,
since the media does not consider Chavez supporters as part of
civil society), and that Chavez had ordered his supporters to
shoot into the unarmed crowd of anti-Chavez demonstrators.
The media never addressed the repeated
doubts that members of Chavez' cabinet raised about his resignation.
Also, the media did not release the names of those who were shot,
probably because this would have shown that most of the dead
were pro-Chavez demonstrators. Finally, the media edited the
video footage of the shootings in such a way as to avoid showing
where the Chavez supporters were shooting_namely, as eyewitnesses
reported, at police and individuals who were shooting back while
hidden in doorways. Also, they did not show the pro-Chavez crowd
repeatedly pointing at the snipers who were firing at them from
the rooftop of a nearby building.
These media distortions in the aftermath
of the coup drove home the point just how powerful the media
is at creating an alternate reality. Those Chavez supporters
who were at the demonstration and witnessed the events realised
more than ever that power needs a medium and that those who control
the media have much more power than they let on. This is why
the television stations became a key target in the hours leading
up to Chavez' reinstatement. The take-over of four of the eight
stations was essential to Chavez' comeback because it showed
the rest of the military and the rest of Venezuela that Chavez
still had strong support among the population and that if the
people really wanted to, they could fight for what was right
and win.
Quo Vadis Chavez?
An aspect of the rise of Chavez to power
that is often forgotten in Venezuela is that as far as Venezuelan
presidents are concerned, Chavez has actually been among the
least dictatorial. True, Chavez is a deeply flawed president
with many shortcomings, among which one of the most important
is his autocratic style. However, earlier presidencies, such
as that of Carlos Andres Perez (1989-1993), the killing of demonstrators
were nearly a monthly occurrence. Also, the outright censorship
of newspapers was quite common during the Perez presidency. None
of this has happened during the Chavez presidency.
President Hugo Chavez is an individual
who raises the passions of people, pro or con, unlike anyone
else. It almost seems that Venezuelans either love him or hate
him. A more balanced picture of the president, however, would
show, first, that he is someone who deeply believes in working
for social justice, for improving democracy, and believes in
international solidarity. Also, he is a gifted and charismatic
speaker, which makes him a natural choice as a leader.
However, one has to recognise that he
has some very serious shortcomings. Among the most important
is that while he truly believes in participatory democracy, as
is evidenced in his efforts to democratise the Venezuelan constitution,
his instincts are that of an autocrat. This has led to a serious
neglect of his natural base, which is the progressive and grassroots
civil society. Instead, he has tried to control this civil society
by organising "Bolivarian Circles" which are neighbourhood
groups that are to help organise communities and at the same
time to defend the revolution. The opposition easily stigmatised
these circles, however, as being nothing other than a kind of
SS for Chavez' political party. Another crucial flaw has been
his relatively poor personnel choices. Many of the ministries
and agencies suffer from mismanagement.
Finally and perhaps the most often mentioned
flaw, is his tendency for inflammatory rhetoric. Accusations
that Chavez divided Venezuelan society with his constant talk
about the rich and the poor are ridiculous, since Venezuelan
society was divided along these lines long before Chavez came
to power. However, by trying to belittle his opponents by calling
them names, such as "escualidos" (squalids), he made
it virtually impossible for real dialogue to take place between
himself and his opponents.
The crucial question that Chavez-supporters
and opponents alike are now asking is whether Chavez has grown
through the experience of this coup. In his initial statement
after being freed from his military captors, was, "I too
have to reflect on many things. And I have done that in these
hours. ... I am here and I am prepared to rectify, wherever I
have to rectify." Right now, however, it is too early to
see if he really is going to change his ways, so that he becomes
more productive in achieving the goals he has set for Venezuela.
While Chavez' many progressive achievements
should not be forgotten, neither should his failures be overlooked,
most of which have important lessons for progressives everywhere.
The first lesson is to keep the eyes on the prize. Chavez has
become so bogged-down with small day-to-day conflicts that many
people are no longer sure if he remembers his original platform,
which was to abolish corruption and to make Venezuelan society
more egalitarian. While greater social equality is extremely
difficult to achieve in a capitalist society, it is fair to say
that Chavez' plans have not had enough time to bear fruit. He
has a six-year social and economic development plan for 2001-2007,
of which only a small fraction has so far been implemented. However,
on the corruption front, he has fallen seriously behind.
The second lesson is that the neglect
of one's social base, which provides the cultural underpinnings
for desired changes, will provide an opening for opponents to
redefine the situation and to make policy implementation nearly
impossible. By not involving his natural base, the progressive
and grassroots civil society, Chavez allowed the conservative
civil society, the conservative unions, the business sector,
the church, and the media to determine the discourse as to what
the "Bolivarian revolution" was really all about.
The third lesson is that a good program
alone is not good enough if one does not have the skilful means
for implementing it. Chavez has some terrific plans, but through
his incendiary rhetoric he manages to draw all attention away
from his actual proposals and focuses attention on how he presents
them or how he cuts his critics down to size.
Finally, while it is tempting to streamline
policy-implementation by working only with individuals who will
not criticise the program, creates a dangerous ideological monoculture,
which will not be able to resist the diverse challenges even
the best plans eventually have to face. Chavez has consistently
dismissed from his inner circle those who criticised him, making
his leadership base, which used to be quite broad, smaller and
smaller. Such a narrow leadership base made it much easier for
the opposition to challenge Chavez and to mount the coup.
Whether Chavez and his opposition have
learned these lessons remains to be seen. Venezuelan society
is still deeply divided. One has to recognise that, at heart,
this conflict is also a class conflict. While there certainly
are many Chavez opponents who come from the lower classes and
numerous supporters from the upper classes, the division between
Chavez supporters who come from the lower light-skinned classes
and the opponents who come from the higher dark-skinned classes
cannot be denied. What Venezuela needs, if social peace is to
be preserved, is a class compromise, where social peace is maintained
at the expense of a more just distribution of Venezuela's immense
wealth. However, today's globalized world makes such a compromise
increasingly difficult to achieve because free market competition
militates against local solutions to this increasingly global
problem. But perhaps Venezuela is a special case because of its
oil wealth, which might allow it to be an exception. Such an
exception, though, will only be possible if power plays, such
as the recent coup attempt, come to an end.
Gregory Wilpert
lives in Caracas, is a former U.S. Fulbright scholar in Venezuela,
and is currently doing independent research on the sociology
of development. He can be reached at: Wilpert@cantv.net
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