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"I want to kill that son of a bitch," said the Capitan of the Venezuelan National Guard, Thomas Guillen in a recorded telephone call with his wife. In the call, played on Venezuela's state TV channel last month, the Capitan reveals his and his father's plans to kill President Hugo Chávez. The next day, the Capitan and his father, retired General Ramon Guillén Dávila, were arrested and taken into custody for conspiring to kill the President of Venezuela. [1]

In recent weeks, Hugo Chávez has increasingly warned that the United States has plans to kill him and is stepping up its activity against him and his government.  Chávez has also claimed that the CIA is working with associates of the famous Cuban terrorist and CIA agent Posada Carriles, designing plans for his assassination. But could there be any truth to all of this?  Could this be a classic CIA-conspiracy to kill another official "enemy" of the United States?  A quick look at the connections between the CIA and the General Ramon Guillén Dávila shows that it definitely is a possibility.

The United States manages to spread its tentacles into different countries around the world in various ways, influencing and intervening in the politics of sovereign nations. In Latin America, one of the most common ways is through supposed "drug operations." The CIA has been known to run "anti-drug" operations in countries like Bolivia, Colombia and Ecuador.

In Venezuela, such CIA-created "anti-drug" operations were led in the 1980's by the same General Ramon Guillén Dávila who was recently planning to kill Chávez. According to the Miami Herald, Guillen was the CIA's most trusted man in Venezuela and the senior official collaborating with the CIA during the 1980's. [2]

As head of the Venezuela National Guard, Guillén worked closely with the CIA to infiltrate and gather information about Colombian drug trafficking operations. But instead of curbing drug operations, Guillén and the CIA ended up smuggling cocaine themselves, and the whole thing exploded when 60 Minutes aired an expose in 1993.  The CIA had collaborated with Guillén to smuggle the incredible sum of 22 tons of cocaine into the United States. [3]

After US customs intercepted a shipment of cocaine entering the country through Miami Internatoinal Airport, an official investigation revealed that General Guillén was responsible. But according to investigative journalist Michael Levine, Guillén was a CIA "asset" operating under CIA orders and protection, a fact that was later admitted by the CIA.  General Guillén was never extradited for trial in the U.S. [4]

So is General Ramon Guillén Dávila still a CIA "asset" working to knock off the Venezuelan President? Whether or not the General maintains ties with the CIA, it does seem that he would be a likely candidate for destabilization efforts against the Chávez government.

According to the web page School of the Americas Watch, General Guillén graduated from the infamous U.S. combat training school in 1967. [5] The School of the Americas, renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in 2001, is a US military facility that is used to train Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques and interrogation tactics.  

As another of the many tentacles of the U.S. Empire, the School of the Americas has been called the "biggest base for destabilization in Latin America." Located in Fort Benning, Georgia, the school sends its graduates throughout the region to repress left-wing and communist movements and to influence the political situations in Latin American countries. The school has frequently supported regimes with a history of employing death squads and torture to repress their populations.

Last week, during the 5th anniversary of the 2002 U.S.-supported coup attempt against the Venezuelan government, Chávez emphasized that "the empire never rests." He assured that the United States, along with the Venezuelan elite will continue conspiring in order to remove him from power, and that they would never accept the Bolivarian Revolution.

It would be no surprise, however, if the CIA were planning to kill or overthrow Hugo Chávez. The criminal organization has a long and dirty history of covert operations including assassinations, economic warfare, and rigged elections. In Latin America alone the CIA has overthrown numerous regimes in places like Nicaragua, Chile, Panama, Brazil, Grenada, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and, most recently, Haiti in 2004.

What would be more surprising is if the CIA is not searching for a way to get rid of the popular Venezuelan President. After all, Chávez has proven to be quite a threat to the interests of the U.S. Empire and their corporate sponsors. Chávez has sharply rejected Washington's neo-liberal agenda, nationalized major sectors of the economy, freed his country from IMF and World Bank mandates, strengthened OPEC, taken control of the nation's oil industry, and strengthened south-south integration across the world.

However, what is even more threatening to the interests of the empire is that the revolution in Venezuela serves as an example in the region, and is now spreading to other places.  Countries like Bolivia and Ecuador are now living their own revolutions, replicating the Venezuelan experience.  

It seems feasible that former CIA "asset" General Ramon Guillén Dávila was conspiring with the CIA to get rid of the most consolidated leftist movement in Latin America today. But regardless of whether or not the CIA can manage to extinguish the fire in Venezuela, it might be too late for them to control the growing wave of leftist revolutions in the region.
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1.    "Presentan grabación sobre supuesto plan de magnicidio contra Chávez," ABN / Aporrea.org, 07/03/07 http://www.aporrea.org/actualidad/n91527.html

2.    Jerry Meldon, Contra-Crack Guide: Reading Between the Lines, 1998. http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/crack10.html

3.    Howard G. Chua-Eoan, "Confidence Games," Time Magazine, Monday, Nov. 29, 1993, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,979669,00.html?iid=chix-sphere

4.    Michael Levine, "Mainstream Media: The Drug War Shills?," http://www.expertwitnessradio.org/essays/e6.htm

5.    School of the Americas Watch, Notorious Graduates from Venezuela, http://www.soaw.org/article.php?id=248

Chris Carlson is a freelance journalist and activist living in Venezuela.  See his personal blog at:  www.gringoinvenezuela.com

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Latin America is finally free

October 3 2006

FIVE centuries after the European conquests, Latin America is reasserting its independence. In the southern cone especially, from Venezuela to Argentina, the region is rising to overthrow the legacy of external domination of the past centuries and the cruel and destructive social forms that they have helped to establish.

The mechanisms of imperial control — violence and economic warfare, hardly a distant memory in Latin America — are losing their effectiveness, a sign of the shift towards independence. Washington is now compelled to tolerate governments that in the past would have drawn down intervention or reprisal.

Throughout the region a vibrant array of popular movements provide the basis for a meaningful democracy. The indigenous populations, as if in a rediscovery of their pre-Columbian legacy, are much more active and influential, particularly in Bolivia and Ecuador.

These developments are in part the result of a phenomenon that has been observed for some years by specialists and polling organisations in Latin America: As the elected governments became more formally democratic, citizens expressed an increasing disillusionment with the way democracy functions and "lack of faith" in the democratic institutions. They have sought to construct democratic systems based on popular participation rather than elite and foreign domination.

A persuasive explanation for the decline of faith in existing democratic institutions has been offered by Argentine political scientist Atilio Boron, who observed that the new wave of democratisation in Latin America coincided with externally mandated economic "reforms" that undermine effective democracy.

The concepts of democracy and development are closely related in many respects. One is that they have a common enemy: loss of sovereignty. In a world of nation-states, it is true by definition that decline of sovereignty entails decline of democracy, and decline in ability to conduct social and economic policy. That in turn harms development, a conclusion confirmed by centuries of economic history.

The same historical record reveals that loss of sovereignty consistently leads to imposed liberalisation, of course in the interests of those with the power to impose this social and economic regime. In recent years, the imposed regime is commonly called "neoliberalism." It is not a very good term: The socio-economic regime is not new, and it is not liberal, at least as the concept was understood by classical liberals.

In the United States, faith in institutions has also been declining steadily, and for good reasons. A huge gulf has opened between public opinion and public policy, rarely reported, though people cannot fail to be aware that their policy choices are disregarded.

It is instructive to compare the recent presidential elections in the richest country of the world and the poorest country in South America — Bolivia.

In the 2004 U.S. presidential election, voters had a choice between two men born to wealth and privilege, who attended the same elite university, joined the same secret society where privileged young men are trained to join the ruling class, and were able to run in the election because they were supported by pretty much the same conglomerations of private power.

Their programmes were similar, consistent with the needs of their primary constituency: wealth and privilege. Studies of public opinion revealed that on a host of major issues, both parties are well to the right of the general population, the Bush administration dramatically so.

In part for these reasons, issues are removed from the electoral agenda. Few voters even knew the stand of the candidates on issues. Candidates are packaged and sold like toothpaste and cars and lifestyle drugs, and by the same industries, dedicated to delusion and deceit.

For contrast, consider Bolivia and Evo Morales’ election last December. Voters were familiar with the issues, very real and important ones like national control over natural gas and other resources, which has overwhelming popular support. Indigenous rights, women’s rights, land rights and water rights are on the political agenda, among many others. The population chose someone from their own ranks, not a representative of narrow sectors of privilege. There was real participation, not just pushing a lever once every few years.

The comparison, and it is not the only one, raises some questions about where programmes of "democracy promotion" are needed.

Given its new ascendancy, Latin America may come to terms with some of its severe internal problems. The region is notorious for the rapacity of its wealthy classes, and their freedom from social responsibility.

Comparative studies of Latin American and East Asian economic development are revealing in this respect. Latin America has close to the world’s worst record for inequality, East Asia the best. The same holds for education, health and social welfare generally. Imports to Latin America have been heavily skewed towards consumption by the rich; in East Asia, toward productive investment. Capital flight from Latin America has approached the scale of the debt — suggesting a way to overcome this crushing burden. In East Asia, capital flight has been tightly controlled.

Latin American economies have also been more open to foreign investment than Asia. Since the 1950s, foreign multinationals have controlled far larger shares of industrial production in Latin America than in the East Asian success stories, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development. The World Bank reported that foreign investment and privatisation have tended to substitute for other capital flows in Latin America, transferring control and sending profits abroad, unlike East Asia.

Meanwhile new socio-economic programmes under way in Latin America are reversing patterns that trace back to the Spanish conquests — with Latin American elites and economies linked to the imperial powers but not to one another.

Of course this shift is highly unwelcome in Washington, for the traditional reasons: The United States has expected to rely on Latin America as a secure base for resources, markets and investment opportunities. And as planners have long emphasised, if this hemisphere is out of control, how can the United States hope to resist defiance elsewhere?

Noam Chomsky is a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author, most recently, of Hegemony or Survival Americas Quest for Global Dominance.

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GRANMA
March 15, 2007

Report from the Venezuelan Great Savannah

Ronald Suarez and Alberto Borrego Avila (photo)
Granma Special Correspondents

"Where is everyone going," the Cuban doctor asked. "Don't you worry doc,
we'll take care of you and continue preparing the food you like. You won't
lack anything while you are with us," replied some of the residents.

THE CUBAN DOCTORS WERE THE FIRST EVER TO WORK IN THE VILLAGES

OF THE PEMON INDIGENOUS, IN VENEZUELA'S GREAT SAVANNAH.

Dr. Lester Montoya had to run to catch up to the members of the village and
prevent them from blocking the roads of the Southern Great Savannah. They
were committed to stop anybody from entering or leaving their territory, not
even the National Guard or the Army, because the Venezuelan Constitution
provides autonomy to indigenous communities.

The same thing was happening in other communities. The reason of the
protests: Trying to stop the transfers of Cuban doctors.

"It took a lot of work to finally convince them," Montoya recalls. The
Council of elders met first, followed by a town assembly. After long
debates, they finally acquiesced to trust once again the Cuban doctor, the
first to cut across the jungle to take care of them.

Place of Honor

The story had begun some six months earlier, when the beating on pots and
pans woke up the Cuban doctors. What a way to start a day, they thought.

The sound came from locals worried about the presence of the Cubans. "They
are military people sent by Fidel Castro, and they have already unloaded
their weapons to launch an attack on the village," one local radio station
had reported.

The previous day, a truck from the National Guard had arrived with several
boxes of medical supplies. One by one, they opened all the boxes in front of
the inhabitants of Santa Elena de Uarien, one of the towns mentioned in
Alejo Carpentier's Los pasos perdidos (The lost steps).

The 27 Cuban doctors had arrived after a tiring road trip of more than 2,000
kilometers, following the same route taken by Carpentier a half century
before in search of the origins of American humankind and its music.

They came with the mission of offering free healthcare for the people of
Santa Elena and the rest of the communities in the Great Savannah, comprised
of some 48,800 people, scattered in a territory half the size of Cuba.

In Ikabaru, Betania, Maurak, located in the depths of the jungle, they set
up their camps, after the Council of the Elderly, the supreme authority of
the tribe, approved the arrival to each of the villages.

Afterwards, in an assembly meeting, there was a discussion on what to feed
the guests, since they were not used to eating the moriche worm, or the
roasted bachaco (a kind of ant) or tripe soup.

The remoteness, harsh conditions and lack of communication, led the
organizers to consider the Great Savannah as a place of honor. And the
performance of the Cuban doctors, every day, validates that description.

In Ikabaru, Dr. Ibis used her own anti-poison serum to neutralize the venom
of a patient that had been bit by a snake. In Santa Elena, Dr. Tejada
donated his blood to save the life of a miner who was haemorrhaging. But the
most important achievement has been changing the people's hygienic
practices, and convincing entire populations who had never seen a doctor in
their lives, to get check ups.

The land of The Lost Steps

The Great Savannah is a beautiful jungle landscape separated for centuries
from modern life. The jungle rises to an altitude of 1,500 meters above sea
level, with steep drop-offs and rivers descending in torrents that generate
the majority of electricity in Venezuela.

Scientists believe that these were the first lands to emerge, but they are
also the last to be explored. It was pure greed that first pushed colonizers
into this area in search of El Dorado, the mystical golden city.

Now the Cuban doctors have come, not following a legend but to come and live
and work among the Pemon indigenous, people who use to live and die, without
ever seeing a doctor.

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Belize

Due to the presence of the Cuban medical brigade, 45 Health Centers, 37 of them located in rural areas, were able to start functioning. Family health care services, covering 100,000 people, were included in the program for rural areas.

Guatemala

During its 18 months of work, the Cuban medical cooperation in Guatemala has implemented, along with the Health Ministry of that country, a net of primary health care in each of the departments where it is present. Through this net, the application of a Mother-Child health care program by virtue of which the infant mortality rate was reduced from 40x1000 born alive to 18.5x1000 born alive have been possible.

Along with the Guatemalan Health Ministry, Cubans are working in the implementation of an educational program addressed to foster family medicine in 6 departments of the country.

Haiti

With financial support of Japan and the PHO, a vaccination campaign for protection against six childhood illnesses, which will cover an infant population of 800 thousand children, is carried out in Haiti. Cuban health personnel resulted a decisive force in that campaign.

A project of triangular cooperation among Cuba, France and Haiti is developed in two departments of the South. A French contribution amounting 400 000 USD will be devoted to purchase medicines and medical inputs as well as to train human resources. That project is led by Cuban health professionals.

Honduras

Cuban cooperation has achieved 12% of medical care covering, but in departments like Intibuca and the Mosquitia , the most remote in the Honduran geography, and with a more difficult economic situation, a covering of 85% of the population has been reached.

In the Honduran Mosquitia, department located in the northwest of the country, infant mortality reduction has been up to 40%. According to the Honduran Health Ministry official information, the rate of infant mortality in that department was 92 for each 1000 born alive in 1998. Through Cuban medical cooperation, the first semester of the 2000 close with a mortality rate of 46 per 1000 born alive. That is to say, in a year and a half of cooperation, 54 children’s lives were saved in that department.

In Santa Bárbara department with a population of 300 000 inhabitants, the mortality rate was 60 per 1000 born alive at the arrival of the Cuban medical cooperation. This rate was reduced to 45 per 1000 born alive in just six months.

At the request of the First Lady of Honduras and of the leaders of the tawahka ethnic group, which is considered by UNESCO an anthropological reserve of that region, in serious danger of extinction as a result of their population's abrupt reduction, the Government of Cuba has begun a comprehensive health care program in these communities with the purpose of protecting their population and developing the region.

The Cuban medical cooperation has proven its integrality with the presence of electro-medical engineers who have repaired a significant number of medical equipments, allowing the Honduran Health Ministry to save a total of 371 266 USD.

On request of the Honduran Government, faced to a difficult situation provoked by the dengue epidemic, Cuban medical brigade has been reinforced with 20 new specialists plus 12 water heater nebulizators and ½ ton of pesticides. The joint work they are developing with the country health authorities is aimed at neutralizing the epidemic which has already taken the lives of 4 Hondurans, 3 of them children.

Cuba has also sent a SUMA equipment with 5 000 diagnosis tests that have facilitated both the active searching of cases and the precocious detection of the illness.

Venezuela

107 members of a medical team remain working in Venezuela, 99 of them located in the State of Vargas and 8 in Miranda .Seventy one are doctors, 14 graduated in nursery and 22 are paramedic professionals and technicians.

Cuban Comprehensive Health Care Delivery Program covers a population of 225 549 out of the 304 000 inhabitants of the State of Vargas who represent the 74.19% of the total population of the state. Our medical team is distributed in 4 regions: Carayaca, Catia the Sea, Caraballeda and Caruao.

The Cuban doctors are located in 45 of the 57 health posts of the State of Vargas. From the primary care, they have been able to attend 456 539 people both in outpatient consultations and at home, to deliver 241 childbirths as well as to practice 2396 surgical interventions, as well as 52 615 sessions of health education and 12 806 sanitary actions.

In the regions and medical posts where our collaborators are located, the infant mortality remains in zero.

Gambia

Sentry Centers in charge of evaluating the Cuban Comprehensive Health Care Delivery Program, have recognized a 34% reduction of the infant mortality rate, that is to say, from an infant mortality rate of 121 x 1000 born alive in 1998, they have gotten to reduce the rate to 90 x 1000 born alive. With a Cuban medical team of 154 members, a population health covering of 90% has been accomplished.

The creation of a small medicine faculty in Gambia has allowed to begin the training of 22 youths in such specialty, an effort made possible with the support both of the country’s authorities and the World Health Organization, which made a contribution of USD 35 thousand for the purchasing of text books and computers.

Equatorial Guinea

In that African country with an infant mortality rate of 111 for each 1000 born alive, a health care covering of 80% of the population has been achieved with 139 Cuban medical specialists distributed in the whole country.

A work is being done by a Cuban professors staff to establish the Medicine School in which 30 young Guineans will be registered the next academic year.

In the regions and health post where our collaborators are located the infant mortality remains in zero.

http://america.cubaminrex.cu/English/cooperation/cooperation.htm

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Venezuela: The Struggle after the Vote

Feature by Michael Lebowitz,

The Socialist Review (UK), December 2006

Introduction

In the latest test for President Hugo Chavez, Venezuelans are voting in a presidential election that will decide the future of the country's radical reforming government. Michael Lebowitz talks to SR about the nature of the "Bolivarian Revolution".

Hugo Chavez is the most prominent symbol of a far-reaching revolutionary process in Venezuela, which has provided inspiration for those fighting corporate globalisation and imperialism across Latin America and around the globe. A hero to millions, he is a thorn in the side of George Bush.

Michael Lebowitz, a leading Marxist writer currently living in the capital, Caracas, has just published a new book entitled Build It Now, which examines the potential for this process to lead to the creation of a new "socialism for the 21st century". He answered questions from SR.

Q. In the title of the last chapter of your book you use the phrase "The Revolution of Radical Needs". What makes events in Venezuela a revolution, and who is driving this process forwards?

A. A revolution is not a coup or a specific act - it is a process. There definitely is a revolutionary process under way in Venezuela.

This process is creating conditions that empower people from below while keeping firmly in sight the goal of human development, which is where the phrase in my title comes from. It is a process in which oil money is being used both to support the development of human productive forces and also to create new productive relations. And it is one where a new form of power from below - communal councils - organising neighbourhoods composed of 200 to 400 families in urban areas, is rapidly spreading. How far this process will go won't be decided by analysts, but only through real struggle.

Certainly, Chavez is pushing this process forward. There's no question about this - you only have to read his speeches. But Chavez doesn't act in a vacuum. The incredible response he gets from the masses makes him what he is. In the absence of this response, which electrifies him and gives him energy and confidence, I suspect that he would be absorbed into the "Third Way" perspective that he had at the time of his initial election. So I see a dialectical process here between leadership and those at the base of society.

Q. How are those at the base of society organised? In your book you talk about the need to construct a "political instrument" or party of some kind. Are there signs of this happening? How could the different sectors - informal workers living in the barrios, organised workers in the UNT union federation, agricultural workers and peasants - be drawn together?

A. In local communities, those at the base are organised in many ways, for example through land committees, health committees, water committees, defence, sports, etc. And in the communal councils the focus is upon bringing these specific sectoral concerns together so the communities can look at their problems as a whole. This is an important step in uniting that base.

But we are still a way off from linking those individual communities in common demands and, further, linking them directly with organised workers, who tend to be well off relative to the masses in the informal sector. Part of the problem is that the UNT union federation has been so preoccupied with internal factional struggles that the leadership which organised workers could provide is absent. So, at this point, the development of that political instrument which I see as necessary is a slow process.

It could emerge more rapidly in the context of a political crisis, or if Chavez threw his energy into stressing the importance of political organisation at the base - as he did during the 2004 referendum campaign, in which the elite tried to have him removed as president.

Q. Venezuela is still a capitalist society, with dire poverty. There have been ambitious social programmes, in health, education, literacy and so on. How far is it possible to reform Venezuelan society without new revolutionary convulsions?

A. I think the social programmes have made a big difference to the majority, but that a revolutionary rupture will be necessary, sooner or later, if this process is to continue to move along a socialist path. What form it would take, however, is unclear.

In the absence of political and cultural revolutions, the revolution will be inevitably deformed. By cultural I mean the problem of the long-standing pattern of clientalism and corruption - a disease to which Chavist leaders are by no means immune. And this is not simply a question of attitudes. There are people around Chavez who want "Chavez without socialism". As I write in my book, these are people whose concern for "development of the capabilities and capacities of the masses is not as compelling as the desire for the accumulation of power and comfort for their families".

Class struggle is everywhere in Venezuela. It's there in the battle against US imperialism and neoliberalism, and for real sovereignty. It's there in the battle between Venezuela's old oligarchy and the Bolivarian Revolution [the name Chavez has applied to the process in Venezuela]. It's there in the struggle between Venezuelan capitalists and organised workers as well as peasants, and it's there in the growing divergence between a new would-be Bolivarian oligarchy and the masses of those excluded and exploited.

All of these are in play at the same time, but in my view, the contradictions within the Chavist camp itself point to the most immediate threat to the progress of the revolution. They reveal the barrier that must be removed in order to proceed on other fronts. But, again, how that happens depends upon many contingent factors.

Q. To what extent is the state an obstacle to socialist transformation in Venezuela? You quote Karl Marx's comment on the Paris Commune of 1871, when workers briefly held power in the city. He argued, based on that experience, that workers can't take control over the "ready-made state machinery" that grows up under capitalism. Does that mean the state has to be "smashed" or can the state be "transformed" ? Do workers need to create their own state from below, as happened during the Commune?

A. So far the existing Venezuelan state has been an enormous obstacle - even to the establishment of the social programmes. It's important to keep in mind that all the successful programmes introduced have occurred by forming "missions" which bypass existing state structures. And now a new state has the potential to emerge in the form of the communal councils, one that creates the basis for power from below - a new kind of state, much like Marx saw in the Paris Commune.

So, yes, I do think that a new kind of state is needed, but precisely how it is put into place in Venezuela or elsewhere doesn't have to follow a particular formula. Rather, what is important is the clear recognition of the goal - that only a state that is democratic and decentralised, as Marx learned from French workers, can allow for the full development of working people. However, if I'm asked how I feel about people who say that the state must be "smashed" because the state (any state) by definition betrays and defeats you, I just laugh.

Q. What about the international dimension? Is there a danger of Venezuela becoming isolated from other countries?

A. Yes, there is that danger. And, yes, Venezuela needs international support and needs not to be isolated. Having said that, though, the question is what kind of isolation and what do you do to prevent it?

Some people say, "We need to do everything possible to win public opinion to support the Bolivarian Revolution." And what do they mean by public opinion? Well, the mass media, influential intellectuals and left opinion makers. So what is the implication of that focus - it's that you should conform, not stick out, because you'll be hammered. So just do your nice anti-poverty programmes, and you'll get that support, they argue. We'll be able to describe you as "old Labour".

Such people would say, "No, no, don't remove your ambassador from Israel in response to its assaults on the Lebanese and Palestinian people - you will alienate important countries whose support you need in checking US aggression against you." But the masses in the Middle East understood the importance of Venezuela's action and celebrated Chavez's principled courage in taking this action - one which made the inaction of their own compromised governments so visible.

More in dispute is the matter of Chavez's celebrated UN speech [in which he referred to George Bush as "the devil"]. The wisdom of domestic and foreign international experts would say, "Look, there in that speech Chavez screwed Venezuela's chances at getting a seat on the UN Security Council." Well, maybe (I'm not convinced the votes were ever there). But Chavez, speaking naturally in the same way he does to the Venezuelan masses, also electrified masses around the world through that speech and excited them about something different happening in Venezuela.

Even more important was the response in Venezuela itself. Of course, opposition people as well as supporters who worry about the reaction of the respectables were predictable. However, what I saw was incredible pride among workers and the masses - people saying he's the only one telling the truth; he's the only one with the "cojones" ["balls"].

And there's something here that goes beyond the particulars of Venezuela and Chavez's UN speech. I've been reading (finally!) C L R James's magnificent book, The Black Jacobins, about the 1791-1803 Haitian Revolution. One point made so clearly is that the fatal error of Toussaint L'Ouverture [who led the forces that liberated the island from the colonial powers] was his manoeuvring and trying to convince France of his good intentions while ignoring, in the process, the need to communicate with the revolutionary masses and understand what they needed to hear.

And the same problem, I understand, occurred with the Sandinistas [who ruled Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990], who tried to convince imperialism that they were really "nice guys", rather than tailoring their message to their own base. The first responsibility of revolutionary leadership is to stay in touch with the masses. And that is Chavez's natural gut instinct - he empathises with and speaks the thoughts of the masses. When he follows those instincts, he is at his best.

So what about the problem of international isolation, then? The responsibility for preventing this is that of the left outside Venezuela. I have little patience with popes of the left who issue their encyclicals about how yet another real world example fails their pristine tests for socialism.

It is a responsibility of revolutionaries to learn what is happening in Venezuela and to spread an understanding of the use of oil revenue to create new productive relations, the extent and variety of programmes which are supporting the development of the capacity of people, the creation of communal councils, and what is happening in workplace occupations and worker decision-making. And I think that organising international solidarity on this basis is simultaneously a way of organising domestically to build a new common sense that challenges capitalism.

Q. The last time SR looked in detail at Venezuela was at the start of this year. What's changed in the past 12 months and how important is the current election campaign?

A. Perhaps the most significant changes are the development of the communal councils and the extent to which the organised working class, by splintering organisationally, is not currently playing an important role in the process. The real question is what next year will bring. Chavez has stressed the need to deepen the socialist process and bring people together to create a unique party of the revolution. What that will mean in practice is really unclear.

This election is obviously critical to the continuation of the process. But I have never seen a more incoherent campaign than that being run on behalf of Chavez. I think this is a clear reflection of intense contradictions within the Chavist camp. In the absence of a struggle to shift power to the base within the Chavist forces, I'm not at all optimistic about the deepening of the socialist process, and think a unique party would be a barrier rather than an instrument for moving along a socialist path. In short, I think we are potentially entering into a new phase of class struggle in Venezuela.

Michael Lebowitz's Build It Now: Socialism For The Twenty-First Century is published by Monthly Review Press and available from Bookmarks, 020 7637 1848

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집회에서 자주 불려지는 곡인데, 그루포 마데라 라는 사람들이 아마 편곡을 하던가 했나 보네요.

차베스는 떠나지 않아! 라는 뜻입니다.

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November 30, 2006

Axis of Hope

Venezuela and the Bolivarian Dream

By TARIQ ALI

 In the Muslim world religious groups that are militarily effective,
but politically limited dominate resistance to the American Empire.
Asia is infatuated with capital. Europe lies buried deep in
neo-liberal torpor, and the Left and social movements in the EU
(Italy is the most recent example) are in an advanced state of
decomposition. But in South America an axis of hope has emerged that
challenges imperial domination on every level. Democracy,
hollowed-out and offering no alternatives in the North, is being
used to revive hope in the South.

 The likely re-election of Hugo Chavez this weekend in Venezuela
will mark a new stage in the process. His opponent, Manuel Rosales,
described in the Financial Times (November 30) as a "centre-left"
candidate was heavily implicated in the defeated coup attempt to
topple Chavez in 2004. Rosales claims that "I will not sit on
anyone's lap" but it is hardly a secret that he is firmly attached
to the White House.

 The wave of revolts and social movements spreading unevenly across
the South American continent today are the inevitable result of the
Washington Consensus, the economic enslavement of the world. Latin
America was the first laboratory for the Hayekian experiments that
finally produced the Consensus. The Chicago boys led by the late
Milton Friedman, who pioneered neo-liberal economics, used Chile
after the Pinochet coup of 1973 as a laboratory. It was a good
situation for them. The Chilean working class and its two principal
parties had been crushed, their leading cadres killed or
"disappeared". Six years later, the Sandinista revolution in
Nicaragua was crushed by a US-backed Contra counter-revolution.

 Earlier this month, the Sandinista leader, Daniel Ortega won the
Presidency in his country. Blessed by the church, flanked by a
former Contra as his vice-president and still loathed by the US
ambassador, Ortega may be a sickly shadow of his former self, but
his victory undoubtedly reflects the desire of Nicaraguans for
change. Will Managua follow the radically redistributive policies of
anti-imperialist Caracas or confine itself to rhetoric and remain a
client of the International Monetary Fund?

 There was even better recent news from Quito. The substantial
electoral triumph of Rafael Correa, a dynamic, young, US-educated
economist and former finance minister, who pledged in his election
campaign to reverse

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Ecuador: Polls give leftist victory

QUITO, Ecuador, Nov. 26 (UPI) -- Three exit polls gave leftist candidate Rafael Correa a victory in Ecuador's run-off presidential race, El Comercio reported online Sunday.

Economist Correa polled 57 percent of the vote while conservative banana magnate Alvaro Noboa polled 43 percent, the newspaper said.

Correa campaigned on a promise to renegotiate some foreign oil contracts and said he would reconsider whether Ecuador would pay off some of its foreign debt.

Noboa promised to bring more foreign investment to the country.

세 개의 출구조사 결과 좌파 후보인 Correa 57%, 우파 후보 Alvaro 43%의 득표가 예측된다는 기사입니다.

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아래의 선거 중간보고 기사에서 제가 빠뜨린 것이 있었는데, 반대편의 Plan V와 이쪽편의 Plan Che에 관한 것이었습니다. 그러니까 차베스의 압도적인 승리로 (이제 60%도 당연한 것으로 보는 분위기더군요) 선거가 끝날 것이 확실시 되는 터이다 보니, 저쪽에서는 무조건 선거 자체를 부정선거로 몰아붙이고, 선거 다음 날 바로 민중궐기에 나서자고 선동하는 판입니다. "이미 선거가 부정선거임이 드러났다. 투표를 하고 선거 다음 날은 거리로 나서라." 하면서 말이죠, 물론 군사쿠데타도 선동하고 있지요. (아래 동영상 참조) 우리나라 수구보수들도 최근에 잊을 만하면 한번씩 선동했던 군사쿠데타를 이에 익숙한 남미 정치세력들이 안 할 리는 없을 것 같네요. 이것이 Plan V입니다.

이에 대항하는 차베스의 Plan Che는 선거에서의 득표율 차이를 최대로 벌려서 완전히 기를 꺾어놓는 것, 그래서 부정선거니 뭐니 해도 끄덕하지 않는 것, 그리고 현재 진행되고 있는 혁명적 민주주의를 더욱 확장시키는 것, 그것입니다. (정확하지 않아요. 왜 이렇게 기억이 안 나지.)

어찌되었던 관련기사를 Venezuelanlysis에서 퍼옵니다. 아래 동영상도 그 기사에 붙어있던 것인데 일단 따로 떼서 올려봅니다. 자막이 있는데, 스페니쉽니다. -_-;  기사는 기사보기를 클릭하면 나옵니다. 

Original source / relevant link:
Gringo in Venezuela

기사보기

www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1878

Another Coup In The Making in Venezuela?

Thursday, Nov 16, 2006

By: Chris Carlsson - Gringo in Venezuela

 

On April 11th, 2002, a group of businessman, politicians, and military officers, in conjunction with the cooperation of the major national media, kidnapped the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, and took over the national government.  Two days and 19 deaths later, the coup d'etat ultimately failed and the president was returned to power.  The wealthy businessmen and oligarchs were unable to get rid of the popular president of the masses.  However, recent events give the impression that they will soon make another attempt. 

With most of the polls and surveys showing that Chavez has a huge advantage in the upcoming December elections, there remains little doubt about who will win the presidential elections on December 3rd.  However, the opposition candidates and opposition media in Venezuela have a habit of claiming fraud every time Chavez or his party win an election.  The stage is already being set for the upcoming elections, as mainstream media in Venezuela constantly mention the possibility of fraud, and claims the elections are not transparent.  The question remains; how can they claim fraud when dozens of surveys taken over the last few months show that the election won't even be a close contest?  And secondly, why would the Chavez government commit fraud when it is obvious that they will easily win?  The answer: it is all part of a plan to overthrow the government in the days following the December 3rd election.

The opposition parties in Venezuela have been making claims of fraudulent elections over the last few years.  Often times they focus on the "captahuella" machines, which take the voters fingerprint to prevent them from voting more than once.  Other times the claims center on the CNE, the national electoral body which oversees the elections.  The opposition claims that this body is totally under the control of the Chavez government.  All of these claims by the opposition are, of course, widely covered in the private media, and have created the feeling that Venezuela has unfair elections.  So, for the December presidential elections, whether people believe it or not, this is all more of the same old story.

Last week, however, leaders of the opposition stepped up their rhetoric and discussed a "plan" for the days surrounding the elections.  Prominent journalistic businessman Rafael Poleo, who was also involved in the 2002 coup attempt, announced on the cable network Globovision the opposition "plan" for December 3rd, 4th, and 5th.  The plan calls for all voters aligned with the opposition to come out and vote on December 3rd.  Then, on December 4th, claiming that the elections were fraudulent, the opposition voters must take to the streets to protest the Chavez victory.  Referring to the "Orange Revolution," when popular protests in Ukraine overturned fraudulent elections in 2004, Poleo claims that the electoral fraud is already in place, and makes a call for all Venezuelans who are opposed to Chavez to come out into the streets and protest on December 4th.  He emphasizes that Manuel Rosales, the opposition candidate, must join this movement on December 4th and claim that the elections were fraudulent.  If he does, says Poleo, Rosales could become the most important person in 21st century Venezuelan history. 

With all of this in place, the plan continues with a call to the high military command, in the words of Poleo, to "decide if it is going to continue forcing the Venezuelan opposition to put up with an embarrassing regime."  These words, directed to the high military command, basically amount to a call to overthrow the government.  He continues by referring to the plan as a sequence of events that all Venezuelans are going to see this December, and in which their destiny as dignified human beings, and the destiny of their respectable nation, is at play.  Obviously, Poleo is implying that if Chavez continues in power, Venezuela will cease to be a dignified and respectable nation, and that Venezuelans should not have to continue putting up with him.  He forgets to mention, however, that surveys show Chavez has the support of the majority of Venezuelans.

This message to the high military command coincides with a similar call made by candidate Manuel Rosales one day before.  At a political rally, Rosales made a call for a meeting with the high military command, "because we have to be preparing for a transition and change of government that will come to Venezuela in the near future," he said.  Rosales has yet to make the claim that the elections are fraudulent, but he did call on the government to get rid of the "captahuella" machines, which he had previously accepted as a condition of the election.  Rosales maintains that he will win at the ballot box, although nearly all the polls show him to be trailing Chavez by a large margin.

If it weren't for the 2002 coup attempt, which occurred in a strikingly similar fashion, these words from the opposition might not be as significant.  But the 2002 coup also began with large opposition protests against the government.  When violence broke out between pro and anti-government groups, snipers and the Metropolitan police opened fire on innocent protesters both from the Chavez camp and from the opposition.  Next, blaming the violence on the government, military officers aligned with the opposition forced the president to leave office under the threat that the Presidential Palace would be bombed.  Just as they appear to be doing now, the private media set the stage for the coup after they made numerous calls for the people to come out and march against Chavez.  Later, with the intervention of a group within the military they were almost successful in overthrowing the government.  Popular demonstrations forced them to hand power back over Chavez, but the radical opposition groups didn't go away, and they have continued their attempts to destabilize the country in the years since. 

On December 4th, it is almost certain that there will be large opposition protests in the major cities of Venezuela.  Since the private media continues to report false surveys that show a possible victory for the opposition, a large sector of the population now believes that Rosales may hold the lead.  When Chavez beats him at ballot box, which is the obvious result according to most polls, it will be a hard reality to accept for all those Venezuelans who have been decieved by their major media's manipulation.  Rosales and the opposition leaders have called out to the people, and to the military command.  There will no doubt be protests in the days following the elections, but will there be a coup?

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Challenges for Venezuela's Revolution

An Interview with Michael Lebowitz

     
"There is a fascinating process happening here", Lebowitz explained. "The process began with the [1998] election of [President Hugo] Chavez, but took significant form with the establishment of the [Bolivarian] constitution [in 1999]. There are enormously unique elements in this constitution: in particular, the focus on human development, the focus on the full development of everyone's personality, and the clear recognition that this can only occur through practice.

"Only through meaningful practice in struggle are people able to develop themselves: these are not just the abstractions of the constitution, but there are concrete references to self-management, self-government, these kinds of institutions.

"The constitution itself, however, was a contradictory document. At the same time as you had these aspects, you also had the elements of support for private interests, private capital, the maintenance of the independence of the central bank and so on. So, it was a snapshot at that point of the stage of consciousness, and of the coalitions that had emerged at that time.

"Which way it would have gone is unclear to me. But, as Marx explained, slaveholder revolts put the sword in the hand of the social revolution, so it moves faster as a result. That's precisely what happened in Venezuela, with the opposition [from the right wing] to the laws that would put some teeth into the process [of implementing] the constitution.

"Then there was the [April 2002] coup, which was reversed relatively quickly, and even more important was the bosses' lockout, which went on for months [from December 2002 to February 2003]. The consciousness of people expanded enormously in that period, even more so than at the time of the coup and reversal of the coup, because that happened so fast. That longer period [of the lockout meant] coming together and struggling together, with new groups emerging.

"So the revolution began to move significantly forward at that time, after those developments in 2002 and early 2003. And the kinds of things that Chavez started to talk about then, the social economy, meant that it wasn't a gigantic leap when he began to talk about socialism, because he had already been saying those kinds of things about the social economy. But it was important because, when he began to talk about socialism, it was a whole process of beginning to change the consciousness of people. That's the role Chavez plays, as teacher and leader, in terms of developing the consciousness of the masses.

Chavez and Chavistas

"One of the problems, of course, is that there is a gap between the promises and the rhetoric and what is actually realized in practice. Partly that gap is the result of the state that Chavez inherited, a state that was filled with people on a clientalistic basis, by the old regime, by the Fourth Republic.

"Another part, though, is that all the supporters of Chavez are not necessarily in agreement with the socialist direction. In the concluding chapter of my new book, one of the things I talk about is that there is significant opposition within the Chavez camp to the advance of the revolutionary process. Some people talk about Chavism without Chavez. Far more significant is the group of people who want Chavez without socialism; who don't want to see self-management and co-management within the enterprises; who don't want to see communities making decisions at the local level; who want to retain the power to make decisions from above, both because of their own economic interests — and corruption is a major problem here, it is part of the tradition — but also because they don't want to lose the power to engage in clientalism.

"The Chavez parties are engaged in this sort of activity — they want credit for everything; they want to engage in these activities, to make the decisions. So, you have this tension, between people in the local communities and the Chavez parties, the functionaries, who want the power and control within the communities — thinking, like so many people on the left, that if we don't have the power, everything will go wrong. And that is precisely contrary to the conceptions in the constitution, which talk about the fact that people develop through their own activity.

"Rosa Luxemburg said the working class demands the right to make its own mistakes and learn in the dialectic of history. If they're going to be prevented from making mistakes, you won't have the continuing advance of the revolutionary process.

"This is a tension right now, which is reflected in the current [presidential] election campaign. If we remember the [2003-04] referendum campaign [an opposition attempt to use the provisions of the new constitution to hold a referendum on whether Chavez's term should end prematurely and a new election be called], Chavez had turned first to the Commando Ayacucho, bringing together the parties and the party leaderships to conduct the campaign against the opposition before the signatures were actually achieved. And the way they functioned was by making grand speeches, macho speeches, and did very little at the grassroots. They were completely lost, they were ineffective.

"The opposition did get the signatures. The response from the parties was, well, it's a fraud, don't go with this. Chavez had better sense. He concluded it was necessary to accept those signatures, take on the referendum campaign, and turn it into a positive thing. He then went around the parties to create Commando Maisanto. The leadership was all picked from civil society, rather than the parties. He went to the people in the neighborhoods, formed local committees. It was a struggle for the parties to figure out, where do we fit into this process."

Organizing the grassroots

"In this current election campaign", Lebowitz continued, "one of the things that has happened is that it has returned to the Commando Ayacucho concept. It's back to the parties at the top making the decisions, organizing everything. That is a concern that I have."

Most opinion polls show that Chavez has a crushing lead over right-wing candidate Manuel Rosales, the governor of the state of Zulia, in the presidential election campaign. Lebowitz said his sense is that it would be very difficult for Rosales to defeat Chavez "but you never know what imperialism has planned".

"I'm sure they have lots of plans", he explained. "One of those may be to have Rosales withdraw to discredit the process. They are probably sitting in back rooms on a daily basis [discussing this].

"One of the options that was written about in Green Left Weekly was building on Rosales's campaign to create a process of separation, separatism [in Zulia]. Chavez is very conscious of that, and will throw a lot of resources into Zulia, to keep those [opposition vote] numbers down. It's certainly seen as a critical place for the electoral struggle. But anything is possible. Vigilance is essential."

Lebowitz described the election as "crucial", adding that "one of the critical questions is what way will the election campaign be carried out". "There needs to be a mandate for the revolution to proceed. Everywhere, you hear people say that 2007 is going to be a qualitative difference, and how it will [signify] the deepening of socialism. If these questions of socialism are raised increasingly in this campaign, then that will create the conditions for a significant advance next year."

On September 9 Chavez called for the creation of a "great party of the Bolivarian revolution" to unite the groups that support the revolutionary process in Venezuela. Lebowitz believes that the proposal for a "unique party" is a good one in principle, "but it depends on its content".

"If its content is just more of the same [an amalgam of the existing parties], it will in fact be a way of reducing democracy from below. If its content is going to be one that strengthens people within the communities for the ability to struggle, and also strengthens the ability of people to organise in the state sectors, where there has been an incredible campaign against co-management, then it [can be positive]. If it doesn't strengthen people from below, the unique party will be a blockage on the way to revolutionary change, to socialism, rather than an advance.

"That is something I discussed about in my book, which talks about the need for a revolutionary party that can unify those people in the communities and the workplaces, to create people power from below."

GLW asked Lebowitz about the role that organisations created as part of the Bolivarian revolution — the social missions, the Communal Councils — have played in the revolutionary process.

"I wouldn't lump them all together", he replied. "The missions command enormous loyalty from the people. But all the missions aren't the same. Health, education, the food mission Mercal, those have been very successful. Mission Vuelvan Caras [a cooperatives-based training and employment mission], though, is another question. It is not clear whether it's delivering on its promises. There has been some disappointment, and pressure on the government to move faster.

"I look at these kinds of institutions, and say, this is what is unique about the [Venezuelan] process. There is a process whereby people are developing their right to make decisions, and it's not easy to do that in any country. But people have been poor, and apathy has been part of the pattern. So, it is exciting to see the awakening of people, and their sense of `this is our right, to go and demand this'. That is the future of the revolution. The question is, will it be nurtured, or will it be cut off?

Revolutionary democracy

"I gave a talk recently to a meeting in Vancouver. There was an Iranian militant who said that it was like this in the early days of the Iranian revolution. We had these factory committees, he said. We worked closely with the communities, but it didn't last. There were all these processes set in motion, but it was cut off. I said, it was similar in Cuba. In the early days of the revolution, there were these workers' committees in the factories, there was a sense of active workers' power …

"These things can be part of the fervor of the early days of a revolution. The problem is how do you institutionalize them, how can you create the means by which they can, in fact, not be transitory? Things like the Communal Councils are extremely important, because they institutionalize something here that is not present elsewhere. If they can work, if they can get, for example, the money from those who have it for their own projects, then you can achieve a symbol for revolutions everywhere.

"In Cuba, there is a process where there are neighbourhood committees, there are local councils, but their power is really limited. One of the things I hope that the Venezuelan revolution can succeed in is to stimulate the possibilities in Cuba as well. This is a real dialectic, which is very healthy."

Chavez has declared the Bolivarian revolution's goal to construct a "socialism of the 21st century." Lebowitz explained, "One of the things that Chavez has been very good at in his statements on this is that we are not going to repeat the [previous] process. We don't want to worship machines, the state; we want a humanistic socialism that starts from human beings, and that's what the constitution is saying. I think that those are central characteristics.

Socialism

"The link between socialism and democracy is an ideal that is being pursued here. And that means democracy, not just as, every four years you vote, and not as a form, but democracy as practice. Democracy as a process by which people take control over their lives, make collective decisions at every level of their societies. And I think that is a unique conception.

"Compare Yugoslavia [under Josip Broz Tito]. For a whole period, you had the process of self-management in the enterprises, functioning within the market, competing against each other, but no sense of responsibility for a community. Everything was self-interest there [in Yugoslavia].

"That is something Chavez is very sensitive to. I know he´s been very interested in this. We talked about the problem of Yugoslavia, and the problem of self-interest there. That is why he has insisted on a focus, not on exchange of commodities, but on a process in which, as Marxists like Istvan Meszaros [author of Socialism or Barbarism: From the `American Century' to the Crossroads and Beyond Capital: Toward a Theory of Transition] talk about, there is exchange of human activity based on communal needs and purposes.

"Chavez talks about the need to create a new socialist morality — socialist consciousness, which is based on solidarity. That's why he has been focusing on the Empresas de Produccion Social [Enterprises of Social Production], the EPSs. The idea is that these would be enterprises that would be oriented to satisfying people's needs. That was his conception of it.

"And why not cooperatives? Isn't that sufficient? Because cooperatives are self-interested — collections of producers who have their own goals. And what Chavez was stressing was the need for these groupings of people to internalize their responsibility to the communities in which they function.

"Now, with the EPSs, again there's always this gap between the conception and the way in which that conception is realized. The way the EPSs are going right now is horrible. They're not realizing this conception … they're creating institutions that see their responsibility to the community as [providing] 10% of their income. We call that taxes! So, that shows the possibility of the perversion, the distortion of the concept.

"There are a lot of potential problems. And, to quote my book, in describing the situation before the revolution, before the election of Chavez, talking about the corruption, clientalism, and bureaucracy of the state, it stated that Venezuela `required an economic revolution, a political revolution and a cultural revolution'. And, as I go on to say later, the economic revolution is underway, but the political revolution has only just begun. [The political revolution] made a leap forward with the constitution, but it requires a real transformation of the state.

"And, furthermore, the cultural revolution, which requires a strong attack on corruption and clientalism, has hardly begun. So, without those other two, the revolution cannot help but be deformed. That is the central question.

"People keep saying, the problem in Venezuela is, how can you talk about socialism there because they still have private capital, private ownership of the media, private banks, etc. That is not the problem of the Venezuelan revolution. The problem of the Venezuelan revolution is from within. It's whether it will be deformed by people around Chavez."

Reprinted, with permission, from Green Left Weekly, November 10, 2006.

Another informative analysis of the current situation in Venezuela, by Jorge Martin, international director of Hands Off Venezuela, can be found at http://xrl.us/Venezuela

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