Chavez On The Offensive

I t is one of life’s little ironies that the impending reopening of that symbol of American capitalism, McDonalds, which is still on “strike” against the Venezuelan government, will be hailed as a victory for President Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution. But perhaps we should not be too surprised. This is, after all, the country where everything seems the wrong way round and language is being continually reinvented. In Venezuela, the word “democracy” has come to mean the overthrow of the elected president. Bosses organize the strikes and corrupt union leaders complain about the government defending workers’ legal rights. The military, armed with cement mixers and bricks, invades shantytowns to build houses, not to destroy them. In the midst of this struggle, Hugo Chavez is busy banging the last nails into the coffin of a collapsing two-month-old strike of managers in the state-owned oil company, the PDVSA. The strike is a showdown between the right-wing opposition and the government over the control of the country’s vast oil reserves, which provide Venezuela with two-thirds of its export earnings. Wresting control of the PDVSA from the old pro-American management, who had run it as a personal fiefdom and favored privatization, is seen as pivotal to Chavez’s ability to deliver on his promises of homes, health, and education for the poor. Just as the failure of April’s coup allowed Chavez to purge the military of right-wing generals, the slow defeat of the strike in the PDVSA, has provided Chavez with the opportunity to dismiss 5,000 anti-government executives and saboteurs, and press ahead with the long overdue reform.

Thus far, the Venezuelan opposition’s tactics bear a remarkable similarity to those that successfully overthrew Salvador Allende’s government in Chile in 1973 and that led to Michael Manley’s defeat at the ballot box in Jamaica in 1980.

In each case, there was a sustained and organized attack on the legitimacy of the government led by the big business-owned media monopoly. Each of the country’s leaders was subjected to a campaign of character assassination and labeled a tyrant, a liar, and an incompetent. The government was declared “undemocratic” and “Communist” and lies and misrepresentations abounded. In turn, this created an atmosphere in which political violence would be seen as aimed not at the destruction of democracy, but at its preservation. Economic destabilization then followed, which included the flight of capital abroad.

In all three cases, the government was accused of taking orders from Fidel Castro and of hiding thousands of Cuban troops in the country. Each leader was also accused of arming terrorists. In Allende’s case, it was communist guerrillas. In Manley’s case, the PLO. In Chavez’s case, FARC and al Qaeda. In Chile, the coup was preceded by an employers’ strike. In Jamaica, Manley’s election defeat was preceded by an employers’ strike. In Venezuela, last April’s coup was preceded by an employers’ strike.

A t the time the United States issued categorical denials that the CIA was behind the destabilization and coups or had ever financed and advised government opponents. They later admitted their intimate involvement in the Chilean coup, but only after the evidence became so overwhelming it couldn’t be denied. Chavez has learned the lessons of Chile and Jamaica. First, he has secured his base in the military, making another coup attempt a near impossibility. Second, he has set up over 130,000 grass-roots neighborhood organizations in the slums, called Bolivarian Circles. These are self-help groups of between 7 and 13 persons, which represent and organize the local population and act as a communication channel between the populace and the government. The opposition claims that it is heavily armed. Third, providing the government defeats the oil executives strike, Chavez will have access to a steady and reliable source of hard currency revenue with which he can continue to finance social programs for the working class and poor.

The opposition’s media monopoly, which includes three of the four TV stations and all the national papers, remains Chavez’s biggest obstacle and the opposition’s greatest strength. Recently legal documents were served on the private TV stations, threatening them with closure if they continued to undermine the constitutional legitimacy of the government and participate in attempts to overthrow it. The opposition, having played the cards of military coup and economic destabili- zation, are looking increasingly boxed in. The United States, currently preoccupied with the Middle East and still smarting from the embarrassment of having recognized last April’s short-lived coup, has been forced to declare that it wouldn’t recognize another dictatorship or directly intervene.

Provided that remains the U.S. position, the opposition is left with elections as the only viable means of unseating Chavez. Under the Constitution, a binding referendum on Chavez’s presidency may be held in August, which is the mid point of his six-year term. However, the opposition must first collect the verified signatures of at least 20 percent of registered electors. To unseat the president, the opposition must not only win the referendum, but also attract a larger number of actual votes than Chavez received when he was elected in 2000 with 56 percent support. The opposition is not confident they can reach this target, hence their strategy to force out the president by alternative means. Their problems are further compounded by internal division and lack of a clear position. Some leaders are calling for an end to the crumbling business strike, others are calling for it to be strengthened. A group of disgraced former army generals is demanding the assassination of the president, while more moderate voices are calling for negotiations.

In public, the “opposition” is trying to put on a brave face. They point to opinion polls that allegedly show a majority against the government. But opinion polls, even legitimate ones—which the Venezuelan versions are not—often understate the support for an incumbent President because voters are more inclined to express their dissatisfaction when the choice is abstract. The battle for public opinion appears to be moving in the Chavez government’s favor. In January, up to a million mainly indigenous Venezuelans from the city slums and the countryside marched through the capital, Caracas, in a huge show of support for the government. The opposition’s counter demonstration, held a few days later, attracted only about 70,000 mostly white middle class people. This was significantly down on previous figures .

Opposition leaders are now admitting that they are facing a backlash from workers, particularly from those who have lost their jobs as a result of bankruptcies brought about by the business strike. At the gas stations, irate motorists queuing for scarce petrol are no longer heard blaming the government for the shortages. In some parts of the country, car stickers are appearing, saying, “Opposition supporter turned Chavista.”

Calvin Tucker writes on British and international issues for the British monthly Straight Left.