WORLD AFFAIRS

On the brink again

JOHN CHERIAN

Venezuela appears to be heading for a period of turmoil as the elite, with the tacit support from Washington, intensifies its efforts to oust Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected President.

THE year 2002 has seen Venezuela lurching from one crisis to another. A greedy and corrupt elite, which remains unreconciled to the presidency of Hugo Chavez, has engineered the political chaos that has gripped the Latin American country. Those intent on ousting Chavez, who was elected in a landslide victory four years ago, have the tacit support of the United States, which has viewed Chavez with suspicion. Before becoming President, he was denied a visa by the Clinton administration to visit the U.S. Chavez is an outspoken admirer of Cuban President Fidel Castro and an opponent of U.S. hegemonism in the region.

KIMBERLY WHITE/ REUTERS

President Chavez at a rally in front of the presidential palace on December 7.

Chavez has been a trailblazer in Latin American politics. His election had signalled the re-emergence of the Left on the continent. Among the admirers of Fidel to assume office afer Chavez are the new Presidents of Brazil and Ecuador (however, they have reiterated that they do not plan to change radically with the exiting political and economic systems). In fact, the career graph of Ecudor President Colonel Lucio Guiterrez is remarkably similar to that of Chavez. As Chavez did in the mid-1990s, Guiterrez led an abortive coup in his country two years ago. He too speaks on behalf of Ecuador's underprivileged — the Andean Indians and the working class. In both Venezuela and Ecuador, this is also the first time that leaders with distinct non-white skin pigmentations have taken power. Hitherto power was the monopoly of the minority white elite in the two countries.

The elite in Venezuela initially tolerated Chavez in the hope that he could be co-opted. But Chavez was determined to go ahead with his radical agenda to reform the social and economic sectors. Chavez had made it clear that he intended to use Venezuela's huge oil wealth for the benefit of the poor, who constitute the vast majority of the population. Chavez had said in early 2002 that his country faced "a colossal challenge that pits the past, hatred, desperation and death against the future, love, hope and life". In pursuance of his vision, Chavez nationalised huge tracts of land and gave it to landless peasants. He brought in the much-needed industrial and labour law reforms, angering the entrenched white-collar trade union leadership. It was the passing of the rural land reform law in November 2001 that signalled the start of the Opposition protests. And it was Chavez's attempt to restructure Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the state-run oil company, and make it answerable to the state and the people, that set in motion the coup attempt in April 2002.

That attempt had the open support of the Bush administration. Chavez had infuriated Bush by questioning the rationale behind the U.S. anti-terror strategy after the events of September 11, 2001. The person in charge of the U.S. State Department's Latin American desk, Otto Reich, is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) man, who was deeply involved in the Iran-Contra scandal in which drug money was laundered. He is close to the Cuban exile mafia based in Miami. The Cuban-born Reich is said to have a plan for all Latin American countries that have elected left-wing governments. As U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela in the 1980s, he established a CIA network in the top echelons of the Venezuelan army and bureaucracy. This has stood the Americans in good stead as they set about destabilising the government of Venezuela after Chavez took over.

The key civilian conspirators in the coup attempt of April regularly met with the current U.S. Ambassador in Caracas, Charles Shapiro, a former head of the U.S. State Department's Cuba desk. Top Bush administration officials had welcomed the coup in April after having prematurely concluding that the putschists had succeeded. The Bush administration had started preparing the ground for an unconstitutional change of guard in Venezuela by planting stories in the American media about the "dangerous and precarious" situation prevailing in the country.

In the first week of February, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the U.S. Senate that Chavez had broken with democracy. He was backed by the CIA chief, George Tenet, who told the legislators that Venezuela was engulfed in a "climate of crisis". Dissident Venezuelan army officers were invited to the U.S. The Venezuelan media, under the grip of the elite and anti-Chavez forces, started a relentless campaign to demoralise and destabilise the government.

ANDREW ALVAREZ/AFP

At the offices of the state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) in Caracas. President Hugo Chavez ordered the armed forces to protect oil installations as a general strike called by the Opposition threw the economy into disarray.

AFTER the coup floundered, many people expected the Opposition to lie low and wait for Chavez's term to be over. The Bush administration, no doubt aware of the popular support Chavez enjoyed, did not want chaos to return to the world's fourth largest producer of oil, especially at a time when it was contemplating a war against Iraq. Chavez had also gone out of his way to accommodate his political foes. He signalled that he was ready for a compromise if his political enemies cooperated. He agreed to talk to the Opposition under the auspices of the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the Carter Centre. However, the Opposition has been unrelenting on its demand for a referendum on the presidency of Chavez, despite the illegality of the proposal. The Election Commission, despite the government's objections, said in late November that it wanted a "non-binding" referendum to be held in February next year. The government has appealed against the decision to the Supreme Court. New elections are constitutionally due only in four years' time.

But a few months after the April coup, events orchestrated by the Venezuelan elite have once again pushed the country to the edge of a precipice. The Supreme Court, in a shocking majority judgment, set the main coup plotters free. (The Supreme Court, the Election Commission and other important state organs are packed with appointees chosen by previous governments.) Following that, the Opposition, led by the union federation CTV, the Chamber of Commerce and the two parties that alternated in power earlier, organised a series of strikes.

The latest strike, which started in the first week of December, is threatening to go out of hand. Many senior PDVSA officials have supported the strike, seriously disrupting oil exports, the mainstay of the economy. The crews of seven PDVSA tankers carrying oil for export joined the strike. Chavez described this "as an act of piracy" and ordered the Navy to take over the ships. The government earns $9 billion from the PDVSA every year, which accounts for 15 per cent of the oil imported by the U.S.

Three anti-Chavez demonstrators were shot dead by unidentified persons in early December, further fuelling tensions. The Opposition blamed the government for the shootings. The country's capital is thick with rumours of another coup attempt, and the Bush administration has done nothing to discourage such talk. Leading U.S. newspapers, such as The Washington Post, routinely describe the Chavez government as a "dictatorship", preferring to forget that Chavez went to the Venezuelan people three times since coming to office in 1998.

The Venezuelan middle class, sections of whom previously supported Chavez, has been adversely affected by the deteriorating economy. The devaluation of the currency by 50 per cent and skyrocketing inflation have hit the middle class more than any other sector of society. The government's decision to collect income tax for the first time in the country's history was not appreciated by the middle class. The unemployment rate jumped from 12 per cent in 2001 to 35 per cent in 2002. The reason for the economic downturn was the fall in the international price of oil, the country's main source of income. The state budget for the year 2002 had to be reduced by 7 per cent. The April 11 coup only added to the economic problems, hastening capital flight out of the country.

On the other hand, despite the mounting economic problems, the poor have benefited a lot in the four years since Chavez came to power. For the first time the Venezuelan poor have access to free medical care and education. State-run schools provide children three full meals a day. It is unlikely that the poor will desert Chavez without a fight. Observers of the Venezuelan scene say that the deep racial divide that has always characterised Venezuelan society has crystallised into an ideological divide after the coming of Chavez. Half of Venezuela's 23 million people live in poverty.

The President, in an address to the nation in the second week of December, said that the Opposition was duplicating the same type of events that preceded the April coup and described the Opposition as "coup plotters" and "fascists". He said that "a plan was in progress to defeat the constitutional government". The right wing in Venezuela hopes to buck the leftward trend in the rest of the continent by resorting to unconstitutional means and taking the covert help of the U.S.

All the countries in the region had condemned the brief ouster of Chavez earlier this year. Chavez, while addressing a huge rally of his supporters in Caracas, vowed to defeat the "coup plotters". He said that his opponents continued "to play the coup card, they continue to play the fascist card, they continue to play the destabilisation card".

Chavez may have no alternative but to declare a nationwide state of emergency as the Opposition seems bent on disrupting all economic activities. With the PDVSA almost non-functional, Chavez has dispatched soldiers to protect oil installations. The Opposition has upped the ante by demanding Chavez's immediate resignation. All signs are that Venezuela is headed for an extended period of turmoil, which, if allowed to go out of control, could result in a civil war.

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