..[[democracy_development]]..







VENEZUELA: DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD June 2003 By Dozthor Zurlent THE VENEZUELAN PROCESS The Venezuelan conflict has to be understood in the frame of a historical, political and social crisis that reached catastrophic economic proportions. But it is not exclusively a Venezuelan situation. It is part of a trend wherein the United States is looking to oxygenate its economy by appropriating more and more resources from the Latin American region, while the region is in no condition to endure this leeching. Contrary to the ideas of Venezuelan media mogul Gustavo Cisneros and others, Latin America is neither committed nor ready for free trade and globalization, because our economies are weak and have never been structured to benefit our people but to please the interest of foreign corporations and their local intermediaries. The economic meltdown in Argentina, the war in Colombia, the emergence of violent confrontations in Bolivia, and the deep economic and social conflicts that have plagued most Latin American countries are not the result of certain presidential actions, or the result of corruption or a bad political decision on the part of Latin American governments. They have been the result of a system that is flawed by design, a system that needs corruption and a certain style of political decision-making in order to guarantee that certain people or businesses benefit, not the average citizen. The system that prevails in most Latin American countries can be characterized as the dictatorship of money. Latin American countries are being forced to assassinate their future in order to obtain loans to pay for previous loans. It is absurd. So it is not happenstance that we have people such as Inacio "Lula" Da Silva in Brazil, Evo Morales emerging in Bolivia and finally Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. The realities of each one of these countries are different but there are numerous commonalities as well. That is why it is so important to understand the Venezuelan process, the most mature of them all. URIBE SPEAKS "Before, we wanted to overcome the crisis, today we need to. The truth is, the Venezuelan crisis has stopped being a Venezuelan problem. It is a problem of all of Venezuelan's brothers and it is a problem of the democratic world. We will never resign to the discretion I have wanted to keep, but today we insist in the need to speed up a solution [to the Venezuelan problem]. For the well-being of the sister Nation's democracy, for the well-being of the Venezuelan people." These words came from Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, in a speech before foreign diplomats in Bogotá in January. I must confess that the first time I read Mr. Uribe's speech I was shocked. After all, it is not the Dalai Lama speaking about the problems in other countries. It is Alvaro Uribe, a man with known ties to paramilitary forces from the time he was Governor of Antioquia. A man who is the president of a country with almost daily kidnappings and where civilians are killed daily; where death squads and drug traffickers are in control of towns and several patches of territory; where several governments have failed in their attempts to defeat two guerrilla groups which control several other portions of the Colombian territory. And all of this has in turn led to a deeper US involvement in Colombia's internal affairs through the US-designed Plan Colombia, US navy military advisors and the involvement of contractors such as Dyna Corp. So what is then the proper context in which we can understand Uribe's arguably hypocritical speech? By the time of president Uribe's speech, Venezuela's oil industry was engaged in a steady recovery that was bringing Venezuelan oil production to 1.2 million barrels a day after a crippling stoppage organized by the top management of the oil industry. Even though people in Venezuela were still struggling to obtain gasoline for their vehicles and food for their families, the government seemed to have overcome the worst of the business lock out. The business strike organized by the opposition Coordinator group had failed to get workers to join the efforts to overthrow president Chavez. Chavez, who had suffered a coup d'etat in April 11, 2002 only to emerge less than 48 hours later on the shoulders of the Venezuelan poor, is still carrying on with his project, after enduring the last of four business strikes, which lasted for 60 days and caused the complete shutdown of the oil industry. He somehow has also overcome the business sector's extraction of $33.1 billion from the economy during the 1998-2002 period. Despite the best efforts of the opposition to call a recall election or otherwise remove him, Chavez has refused to budge from the presidential seat. From the beginning he has made two proposals to those trying to get rid of him. One, to follow Constitutional procedure and wait until August to call for a recall referendum after the required number of signatures has been collected. The opposition would have to collect signatures from 20 percent of the registered voters or about four million signatures to hold a recall referendum. The second option he has given the opposition is to follow proper procedures to modify the 1999 constitution. Any modification to the constitution, which was approved by 86 percent of the voters in 1999, has to be submitted to a popular referendum. The opposition opted instead for a non-binding referendum requiring only 10 percent of the registered voters. Their hope was that since Chavez's supporters were not going to participate in it, that a show of strength on their part would force Chavez to resign. The non-binding referendum was scheduled for Feb. 2, with the opposition expecting it to be the culmination of the effort to paralyze the country that had started on December 2, 2002. The non-binding referendum will never take place, but even at the end of January it was evident that Chavez had been able to overcome the business strike and that the military and most of the workers in the country were strongly on his side. US WAFFLES ON OPPOSITION SUPPORT There is another subtler note to Uribe’s speech. That is, it effectively made him a new spokesman for the Venezuelan opposition, especially in light of the fact that US support of the opposition is fluctuating. Since the United States has become a member of the Group of Venezuelan Friends, its open criticism of president Chavez’s government has frayed. Thank God, after all, the United States has shown nothing more than a convulsive foreign policy towards Latin America and specifically towards Venezuela. This convulsive policy has brought the US policy towards Venezuela to the brink of an abyss. Let's take for example the coup d'etat on April 11, 2002. Spain and the US were the only two countries of the world recognizing the dictator Pedro Carmona. This decision was, nevertheless, not a surprise at all. Through the National Endowment for Democracy, (See appendix for more information on the National Endowment for Democracy and read the article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/25/international/ americas/25VENE.html": 04.25.2003) a non-profit Congress-founded organization, opposition forces had been receiving aid in the order of over a million dollars previous to the coup d'etat. It was also noted that many of the opposition leaders, including the dictator Carmona visited Washington DC and had meetings with members of the State Department during the period from mid-February to the few days before the April coup. More recently, in October 2002, the United States backtracked from their demands for early elections after being told that there was a constitutional procedure to do so that had to be respected. Even more recently, during the month of January 2003, Chavez brought to Brazil a proposal for the formation of a Group of Venezuelan Friends, an idea coming originally from William Lara, then-President of the Venezuela National Assembly. The United States rejected the notion of forming such a group, stating that it could undermine the role of OAS president Cesar Gaviria. But a few days later the US joined the Group of Venezuelan Friends. It could be said that former US president Jimmy Carter has been the one coming to the rescue of US foreign policy towards Venezuela. Nevertheless, to the dismay of the opposition, Carter's proposals to solve the crisis in Venezuela mimic the proposals that Chavez had made from the beginning of the conflict: a recall referendum in August or a constitutional reform following proper constitutional procedures including an approval by popular referendum. Meanwhile if the US government has been sitting on the fence as far as its support of the opposition, US media and corporations have eagerly embraced it. Gustavo Cisneros, the owner of Venevision TV station, has formed alliances with AOL-Time Warner and DirecTV. Cisneros is also the major owner of Univision TV station in the United States, and switched alliances from Pepsi to Coca Cola, becoming the major distributor of Coca Cola for the Latin American market (Panamco). POWERFUL FRIENDS, WEAK IDEAS: WHERE DOES THE OPPOSITION GO FROM HERE? "Who has ever seen a president to endure a sixty-day strike? This is not a CTV strike; this is not an opposition Coordinator group strike; the strike took flight away from our hands." So said Carlos Ortega, President of the Venezuela Confederation of Workers, the main leader of the Opposition Coordinator Group, on trying to avoid responsibilities for the consequences of the strike (on Venevision TV). The opposition Coordinator group defined as the main objective of the strike the ousting of president Chavez. This despite the fact that they had no concrete plans for the aftermath of a hypothetical Chavez resignation or ousting. Once the opposition Coordinator group failed to overthrow Chavez, no one assumed responsibility for organizing the strike, for pressing the business owners to lock down their stores and factories in order to paralyze the economy. No one wanted to assume responsibility for the collapse of the economy, for the enormous losses that the government and the private sector, friends and foes, have to bear now. The real consequences of the oil stoppage and the business lock out are yet to be seen. Nevertheless, and in spite of the terrible economic consequences that will surface in the coming months, a confident Chavez has emerged calling for the overhaul of the Justice System to punish the powerful people responsible for the sabotage of the oil industry and the attempts to overthrow his government; establishing price controls to fight inflation; and implementing a currency exchange control to combat capital flow and the depleting of the country international financial reserves. Once the oil stoppage petered out the opposition was left with no element of pressure in the negotiations with the government and therefore in a situation of weakness. Weakness has, in fact, been the trademark of the Venezuelan opposition movement. In spite of counting on the support of the mass media and the most powerful economic forces in the country, the opposition has been unable to put together alternative projects that can attract the poor. This is definitely an important factor in a country where 80 percent of the population is living at or below the level of poverty. Not only that, they have not been able to put together an alternative plan that could at the very least consolidate the opposition forces currently in the Democratic Coordinator group. I have read many statements saying that the opposition lacks a leader; to me the problem with the opposition is that they have too many leaders of average to low quality competing for very few positions of leadership. The problem with the opposition is also that they continue to practice a "troglodyte" style of leadership where infighting and personal aspirations prevail over the interest of the majority. What is next for the opposition then? Is the holding of elections or referendums the solution to the Venezuelan "problem?" Not even US ambassador to Venezuela Charles Shapiro believes so. In typical diplomatic fashion, Shapiro backtracked from his previous declarations of December 17, 2002 calling for a "peaceful and electoral solution" to the Venezuelan crisis, to state that "an election will not solve the deep problems of the country and will not get rid of the invisible Berlin wall dividing Caracas. An electoral arrangement at the top will not get rid of this wall and if anything will further incite confrontation between the government and the opposition." He proposed a solution of the South African type where a racially divided population was able to reach agreements on how to live together. But for the Venezuelan government the conflict goes beyond living together. "What we are trying to achieve here is not an electoral arrangement. What we are trying to achieve is social justice,” said Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister, Roy Chaderton, on Venezuelan TV. A MODEL OF DEMOCRACY; THE OIL INDUSTRY The Venezuelan conflict was not supposed to exist. Only a few years ago, everything seemed to be in place to keep the country as a model of democracy for the rest of the continent and the world. There was a bipartisan political system where a few leftist political parties were subsidized into existence to keep the impression that a real opposition existed. Elections were held every five years and people were invited to vote for the previously chosen candidates. Those opposing the system were brutally repressed and often assassinated. The imprisonment of radical political leaders and people living in poor neighborhoods was a common practice. But oil kept the hopes up for people wanting a better economic future. So the system went on with its corruption and prioritization of the interest of the rich and powerful societa -- an oligarchy. Until recently PDVSA, the Venezuelan oil company, was in the hands of a group of about 4,000 managers who would directly do business with foreign corporations using members of the Venezuelan oligarchy, and even family members as intermediaries. Even though PDVSA is a state-owned company, the government had little if any control of the business and the PDVSA management group had autonomy in making deals with other corporations. This group was acting as the real leader of the industry, and they also were farming out more and more PDVSA operations into the hands of foreign corporations, in fact, privatizing most of the company operations to benefit foreign and local friends. Particularly troubling is the alliance between PDVSA and SAIC through a join venture called INTESA. SAIC, Science Applications International Corporation, was in control of PDVSA's computer operations. Payroll, finances, databases, and all the strategic plans and information were in SAIC's hands under a $330 million a year contract with PDVSA for hosting its computer services. SAIC primarily works in research for the US weapons industry and there are several former top CIA and State Department officials on the board of directors. During the oil stoppage in Venezuela, after the top management of the industry abandoned their jobs, locked out workers and shutdown refineries and equipment, INTESA sabotaged the refineries and computer systems in PDVSA, further complicating the workers’ efforts to rescue the oil industry. One of the biggest accomplishments of the Venezuelan government as a result of the business strike has been the retaking of control of PDVSA. PDVSA top management made the political decision of trying to overthrow the government by paralyzing the oil industry but in the end it was they who were unemployed. This decision has taken away not only a strategic weapon the opposition had to threaten the government but also fabulous contracts and benefits that the top management and members of the oligarchy used to share. The walk out --characterized now as a jump into the abyss -- also led to the discovery that this bureaucracy was spending 80 percent of the oil income on itself and on contracts with foreign corporations. PDVSA's income in 2001 was $52.1 billion, of which the government only received $11 billion. ”THE PERFECT SYSTEM” CRUMBLES: WEALTH AND DEBT During the oil boom of the ‘70s, Venezuela went into debt even with oil money. The government was incapable or unwilling to invest the extra income in the country, and wanting to keep it in dollars, deposited the money in foreign banks, which in turn decided to offer loans to poor countries worldwide. The powerful wealthy people of society – “potens” -- stole most of the loaned-money. So did government officials, while Venezuela kept on pumping oil and increasing production, which eventually led to a lowering of oil prices. As years passed, reality sank in, and the middle class sector started to disappear. By 1989 the poor sector of the population had reached almost 70 percent of all Venezuelans; by 1998, 80 percent of the population was considered poor. The perfect system that had been designed to keep the rich in power was starting to crumble. It was not that perfect after all, because there was a design flaw. It was designed to benefit a small sector of the population at the expense of the majority. The bipartisan political system lost its credibility and people decided it was time to take action. In 1989, for the first time, people decided that they had had enough. In February 1989 massive protests were triggered by an IMF-recommended increase in gasoline prices and as result an increase in prices for pretty much every other consumer item and service. Poor people took the streets. Between 400 and 3,000 (the exact number is still not known) were assassinated when Carlos Andres Perez, the then President of Venezuela, ordered the army to shoot at protesters. The months that followed were filled with tension, constant violence and repression aimed at trying to keep poor people from rioting again. A military-supported popular insurrection was to take place on February 4, 1992, to overthrow the Carlos Andres Perez's government. It failed. Hugo Chavez, the leader of the popular insurrection, went to jail for plotting a coup. Six years later, after being granted amnesty, he would win the 1998 national elections with 56 percent of the vote. CHAVEZ THE REFORMER Chavez won the 1998 elections amidst a clear scenario of poverty and desperation, where people did not trust traditional political parties. He was elected with a popular mandate for radical reforms. Not surprisingly the powerful sector of Venezuela did not like him from the beginning and during the electoral campaign used to refer to him as the "bicho," which in Venezuela means something ugly and scary. They unconstitutionally separated presidential elections from legislative elections in order to prevent Chavez's control of Congress. All this while Chavez was given only 8 percent popularity in polls previous to the election. The approval of a new constitution with popular participation in 1999 set the stage for a new round of elections in 2000 where Chavez won again for a six-year term with 57 percent of the votes. This time his supporters also obtained the majority in Congress. The constitution of 1999 is important not only because it provides a blueprint for the society Venezuelans want to achieve, but more so because it promotes people's direct participation in the decision-making process of their local government. Articles 166 and 182 of the constitution, for example, create mechanisms for people to participate in the decision-making process of their governorships and city councils. Chavez is also in constant contact with the people, and he has a TV program, "Alo Presidente," which airs from a different Venezuelan town every Sunday. This communion with the poor however, came at the cost of disenfranchising the powerful and some sectors of society that were used to being the ones calling the shots. Chavez has provided the lower economic income sector of society with a variety of important benefits. More houses have been built since 1998 that during the previous twenty years. One and a half million children have returned to schools where all children are provided with two meals a day, uniforms, shoes, books and other school utensils for free. More than a million people have received access to potable water. The oil industry has been re-orientated to the benefit of the Venezuelan people. There are four subway systems under construction in four different cities across the country. Numerous roads and some highways are crossing the Venezuelan scenery, and the construction of a national railroad system has already started. Chavez has also done something more, he has dismantled a government structure that was designed to cater to the potens and other economically privileged sectors of society. PRIVATE BUSINESSES The business sector of Venezuelan society is heavily dependent on government and oil industry contracts for their income. They keep their money in foreign banks and expect the government to furnish them often with fresh contracts and money, which after a while they convert to dollars and take away from the country. There has not been any heavy investment by Venezuela’s businessmen in the country for the last 20 years. Most of the few Venezuelan businessmen who are producing something are doing so under the tutelage of a foreign corporation and with foreign technology. There is no private investment on research and most of the food that the country consumes comes from abroad. The government has tried to diversify and stimulate production of new articles by prioritizing the formation of cooperatives and by giving communities and businesses the possibility of integrating in common ventures. The government also wants to promote self-reliance, which has conflicted with a business culture that had not followed theoretical capitalistic principles of free competition, research and investment – there had existed in Venezuela a culture where contracts were not given in competitive bidding processes but in exchange for receiving financing for political campaigns, kickbacks or friendships or compadrazgos. POLITICAL CULTURE Political parties currently in the opposition used to follow a system of quotas where positions of leadership and budgets were given based on certain conditions and following power games. They have kept that system alive even under the conditions of opposition that they play now. Their individual search for power and money makes people wary of what would happen if they were allowed to return to govern the country. Venezuelans are tired of these games. Venezuelans want an honest government that speaks to them clearly and want a business sector willing to take risks, to invest and to stay away from trying to influence the decision-making process in society through secret deals, economic pressure, and the promotion of corruption. Chavez has done nothing more than to open the field for this to happen while prioritizing those sectors of society that because of the political culture that prevailed in the country had been neglected and forgotten for centuries. The efforts for social and economic assistance to this sector have concrete forms in the creation of the Women's Bank, the People's Bank, and other community banks directed to service the members of poor communities and small entrepreneurs. There is also a law mandating that commercial banks must give one percent of their credits to agricultural endeavors. MORE PROBLEMS TO OVERCOME This progress does not mean that everything will be smooth sailing for the Venezuelan government from now on. The next few months are likely to be characterized by instability due to the tremendous crisis resulting from the oil stoppage; the continuous attempts on the part of the opposition to overthrow Chavez’s government; the fact that the judicial system continues to be dominated by corrupt judges; the business sector's economic sabotage and the creation of unemployment in order to blame the government. It is expected that as result of the government full reestablishment of production in the oil industry, the economic situation will improve but in the meantime Venezuela is going to undergo what could probably be the worst economic crisis of the last 200 years. The government efforts have been guided to guarantee food for the poor and the internal distribution of gasoline, which was severely disrupted with the oil stoppage. What is a stake in Venezuela is the concept of development itself. There is a vision of development that favors capital over people; this vision sees people mainly as a labor force and consumers. Another vision prioritizes people over capital, promotes the formation of small community groups such as Bolivarian Circles, cooperatives, neighborhood associations, artists groups, and professional associations. This includes the realization of assemblies for decision-making and to facilitate the direct participation of people in the formulation and implementation of their development plans. The recent efforts to curb capital flow and inflation by implementing both an exchange and a price control system will create an environment where the government can try to control the sabotage of the economy and can also be understood within the context of defending the interest of the poor by regulating interest rates and prices. WHAT IS NEXT? The political confrontation is going to become "heavy weight" with potens taking a more active role in politics, not just through the media but by entering in the international and national political arena defending their power in a more direct way than we have seen in the past. We foresee Gustavo Cisneros, Guillermo Zuloaga, and other very powerful people (potens) going to talk to the international media and to meet with politicians in other countries. At the end, since the business sector has been seriously hurt with the business strike, it is going to have to compromise. But it will not go down quietly. They still have a few bullets in their gun and primarily Uncle Sam. US plans for the region imply the need for docile governments willing to follow the guidelines of US corporations under free trade treaties. The United States' economy will not recover unless other countries are willing to sacrifice their future, sacrifice their dreams, sacrifice their own projects of development to enter into an unequal partnership where the United States will find an open and fertile market for their expensive products and technologies. Furthermore, the economic weakness of Latin America will make its countries an easy prey for United States ambitions for a complete domination of the region. A free trade treaty with the United States will imply also the US ownership and further exploitation of raw resources in the territory and the US ownership over basic services such as electricity, water, garbage collection and the like. Some Latin American governments may opt for a free trade treaty with the United States as result of desperation, of not seeing alternatives, out of corruption or negligence. Therefore a natural consequence of US free trade plans is the need to obliterate any alternative project and the imposition of docile governments in the region. But it will not be easy to do. The Venezuelan process for example is already an alternative to those projects looking for domination and control of markets and resources in the region. The process of participatory democracy and the constitution of 1999 conform the vision of a new society of a project of development that is based in mutual support, solidarity, of people coming together to build their future independently of their race, sex, or ethnicity. It is something that the dominant power of the world does not want. Corporate interest and the need to revamp the US economy can lead to a clash of projects, can lead to an even bigger level of confrontation between the Venezuelan government on one side and the United States and its wealthy Venezuelan allies on the other. But thanks to organizing over the Internet, thanks to the Bolivarian Circles and other community organizations, thanks to Chavez’s strong commitment to the cause of the poor it will not be an easy task for either the US government or the opposition in Venezuela to overthrow Chavez. So far the United States and its partners in the region have used confrontation as the tool to accomplish their goals. Uribe's words at the beginning of this article are just a sample of this. What could we expect from a president who has not been able to find solutions for the problems of his own country, and has decided to take sides with powerful sectors instead of establishing a sincere dialogue looking for real solutions to the conflict in Colombia? Both the United States government and Uribe would be happy if they could get rid of Chavez. They want to overthrow Chavez's government to eliminate alternative projects, to eliminate hope, to eliminate the better future that people from the region could build together. There is a catch though. People in Venezuela, people in Latin America have opened their eyes; they have tasted freedom and dignity, furthermore they have found the possibilities that exist by working together. No bombs, no country -- even the United States -- can destroy such people. Appendix A The National Endowment for Democracy "The National Endowment for Democracy was set up to 'support democratic institutions throughout the world through private, nongovernmental efforts.' Notice the 'nongovernmental' -- part of the image, part of the myth. In actuality, virtually every penny of its funding comes from the federal government, as is clearly indicated in the financial statement in each issue of its annual report. NED likes to refer to itself as an NGO (Non-governmental organization) because this helps to maintain a certain credibility abroad that an official US government agency might not have. But NGO is the wrong category. NED is a GO. Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, was quite candid when he said in 1991: 'A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.' In effect, the CIA has been laundering money through NED. The Endowment has four principal initial recipients of funds: the International Republican Institute; the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs; an affiliate of the AFL-CIO (such as the American Center for International Labor Solidarity); and an affiliate of the Chamber of Commerce (such as the Center for International Private Enterprise). These institutions then disburse funds to other institutions in the US and all over the world, which then often disburse funds to yet other organizations. In a multitude of ways, NED meddles in the internal affairs of foreign countries by supplying funds, technical know-how, training, educational materials, computers, faxes, copiers, automobiles, and so on, to selected political groups, civic organizations, labor unions, dissident movements, student groups, book publishers, newspapers, other media, etc. NED programs generally impart the basic philosophy that working people and other citizens are best served under a system of free enterprise, class cooperation, collective bargaining, minimal government intervention in the economy, and opposition to socialism in any shape or form. A free-market economy is equated with democracy, reform, and growth; and the merits of foreign investment are emphasized." This appendix was taken from: Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, by William Blum Dozthor Zurlent can be reached at contact@casavenezuela.org Dozthor Zurlent is a lecturer about Venezuela and Latin American issues at Universities and Community Centers. He is also a member of the Bolivarian Circle "Amada Libertad" in Chicago and of the Chicago Coalition for Venezuela.