Summit in Venezuela Opens 'New Phase in History'

November 2008

Summary of the Extension Request

Duration of the proposed extension: 5 years
Reasons for the proposed extension: In the past, Venezuela indicated that it delayed removing the mines because they serve as a defense against infiltration across the border by Colombian guerrillas. In its request, Venezuela states that access to the mined areas for demining and medical evacuations is very difficult, heavy rains prevent demining for much of the year, and purchasing equipment takes time.
Humanitarian, social, economic, and environmental implications of the extension: The Amazonian region where the minefields are located is sparsely populated. The mined areas are well marked and fenced and difficult to access because they are in areas where civilians are not allowed. Other relevant information: Venezuela has made no effort to clear mines from its 13 minefields since it signed the Mine Ban Treaty and no mine clearance capacity has been developed. Venezuela is requesting an extension on an operational plan covering 20 months of actual work time.

A. Duration of the proposed extension

Venezuela is requesting an extension to October 2014. There is a detailed operational plan including maps and photographs to support the extension. A key part of the extension is that the heavy rainy season in the Amazonian region of the country limits clearance activities to January through May, or five months each year. Over the period of the extension this calculates to 20 working months, with none in the first year.
Under the five-year operational plan Venezuela will clear the equivalent of 2.5 mined areas per year. With the average size of a minefield at 13,000m2 this equates to approximately 30,000m2 per year, which is an extremely low annual productivity rate. Venezuela will procure mechanical demining assets to support clearance operations.
Venezuela states the weather is the primary factor in whether or not it will be able to meet the 2014 deadline. The weather patterns are unchanged from 1999, and the proposed operational plan for the extension could have been implemented in 1999. In its statement to the Standing Committee on Mine Clearance, Mine Risk Education and Mine Action Technologies in June 2008, Venezuela declared that a lack of financial resources could also impact on the operational plan. [1]

B. Reasons for the proposed extension

Venezuela has 13 mined areas at six naval bases covering an area of 18 hectares or 180,000m2 consisting of 1,074 landmines. The extent of the problem is based on records from the Venezuelan Navy, which placed the mines. The data is consistent with Article 7 reports. With the first year of planned activities, 2009, devoted to training, the four-year clearance operation from October 2010-October 2014 is actually only 20 months in total, or less than two years of work.
Venezuela has never attempted to clear mines since signing the Mine Ban Treaty in 1999 even though past Article 7 reports have asserted that the demining would take place by its 2009 deadline. Mines have not been removed because in the process of removing them the Venezuelan military states they will be exposed to possible attacks from Colombian guerrillas ( page 8). The very wet conditions have also prevented clearance from taking place. At the Standing Committee meetings in June 2008, Venezuela added a further obstacle-that clearance could not be conducted until safety measures were in place to ensure that none of the deminers would be at risk. At past Mine Ban Treaty meetings, Venezuela has stated that the mined areas could not be removed until an alternative defense system was installed at these locations. In essence, Venezuela was continuing to take military advantage of the mined areas, which is barred under Article 1 of the treaty.
The request includes several additional troubling elements. In the absence of any mine clearance activities it is not possible to assess whether the Venezuelan Navy with oversight from the Ministry of Defense can implement a mine clearance program to international standards. It also appears Venezuela has never trained demining teams, as it is stated that the first year of the operational plan beginning in October 2010 will focus on training. There is no explanation of why this training could not take place earlier.
The request adequately describes the mine action structure and states that national standards and SOPs exist but does not say if they meet international (IMAS) standards. Although the IMAS are included in the Glossary they are never specifically mentioned in the extension request. It seems the mine action program is under the complete control of the Venezuelan military with no civilian input including that of the national legislature.

C. Humanitarian, social, economic, and environmental implications of the extension

The 13 mined areas in Venezuela are located on naval bases near sparsely populated centers. The mined areas are difficult to access and are in areas where civilians are not allowed. The landmine problem in Venezuela is purely military-focused and related to defending against attacks by Colombian guerrillas.
Based on the photographs in the Extension Request at least some of the mined areas are marked and securely fenced with clear signs indicating the area is mined. The only recorded incident was in 2004. No civilians have been reported injured or killed.

D. Other relevant information

The extension request states that Venezuela will contribute 30 million Bolivars (BEF), equivalent to $13 million at mid-October 2008 exchange rates. With rampant inflation and devaluations over the past 10 years it would be important to know if the commitment is to today's value, not a potentially lesser future value. No budget is provided.

E. Conclusions and recommendations

Venezuela has made no effort in 10 years to clear the landmines they laid in 1995-1997. They have failed to respect their obligation to clear antipersonnel mines "as soon as possible," citing reasons of defense, weather and difficult conditions. Venezuela has regularly put forward plans in its Article 7 reports to complete demining over a three-year period, including a prediction to complete demining by April 2009 in its 2005 report. But it fails to explain in its extension request why it did not meet these goals nor why demining can only now commence under exactly the same conditions that existed for the previous 10 years. The request also does not explain why training has not occurred to date, or why the clearance plan is over five years instead of the three years previously forecast in Article 7 reports. With such a small amount of land to be cleared in clearly delimited minefields, even three years is an excessive amount of time.
Most importantly, a country that has not begun demining by its ten-year deadline should not receive the support of the Meeting of the States Parties, especially when it has signaled that a key reason for the delay was the military benefit that it continued to draw from the mined areas. Venezuela should therefore be asked to begin demining before its 1 October 2009 deadline, and receive no more than a two-year extension. This would give Venezuela almost three years from now to complete the work, which should be sufficient. If Venezuela fails to commit to initiating demining before the expiry of its Article 5 deadline in 2009, the request should be turned down.

In an open letter to the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch, over 100 experts on Latin America criticized the organization's recent report on Venezuela, A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela, saying that it "does not meet even the most minimal standards of scholarship, impartiality, accuracy, or credibility." The signers include leading academic specialists from universities in the United States, including Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and a number of state universities, and academic institutions in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, México, the U.K., Venezuela and other countries. The letter cites Jose Miguel Vivanco, lead author of the report, saying "We did the report because we wanted to demonstrate to the world that Venezuela is not a model for anyone…"[1], as evidence of its political agenda. The letter also criticizes the report for making unsubstantiated allegations, and that some of the sources that Human Rights Watch relied on in the report are not credible.

"By publishing such a grossly flawed report, and acknowledging a political motivation in doing so, Mr. Vivanco has undermined the credibility of an important human rights organization," the letter states.

The letter notes that numerous sources cited in the report - including opposition newspapers El Universal and El Nacional, opposition group Súmate, and a mentally unstable opposition blogger - have been known to fabricate information, making it "difficult for most readers to know which parts of the report are true and which aren't." The letter also argues that the Human Rights Watch report makes sweeping allegations based on scant evidence. For example, its allegation of discrimination in government services is based on just one person whose nephew claimed she was denied medicine from a government program.

The full text of the letter follows:

December 16, 2008

Human Rights Watch
350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor
New York, NY 10118-3299 USA

To the Board of Directors,

We write to call your attention to a report published by Human Rights Watch that does not meet even the most minimal standards of scholarship, impartiality, accuracy, or credibility. The document, A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela, appears to be a politically motivated essay rather than a human rights report. Indeed, the lead author of the report, Jose Miguel Vivanco, stated as much when he told the press just a few days after its publication, "We did the report because we wanted to demonstrate to the world that Venezuela is not a model for anyone…"[2]

Clearly Mr. Vivanco is entitled to his views about Venezuela, but such statements run counter to the mission of Human Rights Watch and indeed any organization dedicated to the defense of human rights. By publishing such a grossly flawed report, and acknowledging a political motivation in doing so, Mr. Vivanco has undermined the credibility of an important human rights organization.

We do not make these charges lightly and we hope you will understand the seriousness of such grave errors in judgment. As scholars who specialize in Latin America, we rely on what are supposed to be independent, non-partisan organizations such as Human Rights Watch for factual information about human right abuses committed by governments and sometimes non-governmental actors. So do many other constituencies, including the press, government officials, and the public. It is a great loss to civil society when we can no longer trust a source such as Human Rights Watch to conduct an impartial investigation and draw conclusions based on verifiable facts.

The report makes sweeping allegations that are not backed up by supporting facts or in some cases even logical arguments. For example, the report's most important and prominent allegation is that "discrimination on political grounds has been a defining feature of the Chávez presidency." (p. 1) Yet the report does not show, or even attempt to show, that political discrimination either increased under the current government (as compared to past governments), or is more of a problem in Venezuela than in any other country in the world.

What is the evidence offered for such a broad generalization?

"In most cases, it was not possible to prove political discrimination-with rare exceptions, citizens were given no grounds at all for the actions taken-yet many were told informally that they were losing their jobs, contracts, or services for having signed the referendum petition [to recall President Chávez]. For example, in one case reported to Human Rights Watch, a 98-year-old woman was denied medicines that she had long received from a state development agency because, as her family was told by the program secretary, she had signed the referendum petition." (p.21) (Italics added).

Taking services first, the above paragraph refers to an allegation that one Venezuelan citizen was denied medicines for political reasons. Amazingly, this is the only alleged instance of discrimination in government services cited in the entire 230-page report. In other words, the Barrio Adentro program has provided health services to millions of poor Venezuelans each year since 2003, and the authors found one allegation (as reported to the authors in a phone conversation with the nephew of the alleged victim) of discrimination involving one person. On this basis the authors make the sweeping generalization that "Citizens who exercised their right to call for the referendum-invoking one of the new participatory mechanisms championed by Chávez during the drafting of the 1999 Constitution-were threatened with retaliation and blacklisted from some government jobs and services." (p. 10, italics added).

This is outrageous and completely indefensible. We do not expect a report of this nature to adhere to rigorous academic standards, but there have to be some standards.

With regard to employment, there is no doubt that there were cases where individual government officials discriminated on the grounds of employees' political beliefs. (There were also cases of discrimination and firing of pro-government employees in the private sector, which the report mentions in a parenthesis (p.10) and does not investigate). However, the report does not show that there was any organized or systematic effort to purge the government of anti-government employees. Indeed, as anyone who is familiar with the government of Venezuela knows, after nearly ten years since the election of President Hugo Chávez, the civil service is still loaded with employees who are against the government.

The report does not demonstrate whether the firings that occurred, in both the public and private sector, were simply the result of individual actions in a highly polarized society in which the opposition spent at least four years (according to opposition leader Teodoro Petkoff)[3] trying to dislodge the government though a military overthrow. Indeed, it is not hard to imagine that many government officials would, in such a climate, be apprehensive about employing people who are against the government. The report does not consider this possible cause of observed discrimination. Of course this would not justify such discrimination, but neither would it support the sweeping allegations of this report, which attempts to argue that the government is using its control over employment in the public sector in order to repress political opposition.

Indeed, the report's most serious allegation of discrimination in employment concerns a case where discrimination was not based on political partisanship, but in regards to unlawful subversion that no government would, nor should tolerate: "In the aftermath of the oil strike, PDVSA purged its ranks of thousands of workers who participated in the strike." (p.29). But as anyone who was in Venezuela at the time can attest, this was quite openly a strike to topple the government, which the opposition had succeeded in doing less than eight months earlier. The oil strike devastated the economy - which lost 24 percent of GDP in the resulting recession -- and came close to achieving its goal a second time.

The report implies that public employees, in this case oil workers should have the right to strike for the overthrow of an elected government; we do not support that view. It is especially dubious when that group of employees makes up less than one percent of the labor force, and is using its control over a strategic resource - oil revenues made up nearly half of government revenues and 80 percent of export earnings -- to cripple the economy and thereby reverse the result of democratic elections. The view that such a strike is "a legitimate strike" is not, to our knowledge, held by any democratic government in the world.[4]

But most importantly with regard to the credibility of the HRW report, it is profoundly misleading for the authors to argue that "political discrimination is a defining feature" of a government that is not willing to risk the continuing employment of people who have carried out such a strike.

The report's overwhelming reliance for factual material on opposition sources of dubious reliability also undermines its credibility and makes it difficult for most readers to know which parts of the report are true and which aren't. The most cited source with regard to political discrimination is the newspaper El Universal.[5] This is not only a stridently opposition newspaper, it has also, for the years during which it is cited, repeatedly fabricated news stories. For example, in a typical fabrication of the type deployed to libel government officials, El Universal reported that then Interior Minister Jesse Chacón had purchased a painting for $140,000.[6] This turned out to be completely false. There are many examples of fabrications in El Universal, as well as other opposition sources cited by the report.[7]

We find it troubling that a report on Human Rights depends heavily on unreliable sources. Would a report on human rights in the United States be taken seriously if it relied so heavily on Fox News, or even worse The National Enquirer? Indeed, this report ventures even further into the zone of unreliable sources and cites a mentally unstable opposition blogger as a source. (p. 20, footnote 30). This is a person who indulges not only in routine fabrications and advocates the violent overthrow of the government, but also has publicly fantasized about killing his political enemies and dumping the bodies from helicopters into the slums, and torturing others by "pour[ing] melted silver into their eyes."[8]

A disturbing thing about the report's reliance on these sources is that it indicates a lack of familiarity with the subject matter, or perhaps worse, a deep political prejudice that allows the authors to see most of these sources as unproblematic. Indeed, there is only one passing indication that the newspapers El Universal and El Nacional, are opposition newspapers, and it is a reference to the past[9], which the reader might therefore reasonably judge to be irrelevant. On the other hand, the report refers to the newspaper Últimas Noticias as "largely sympathetic to Chávez and his government" and "a generally pro-government tabloid." (p.70, p.89) This is a newspaper that prints articles that are harshly critical of the government on a daily basis, and according to polling data in Venezuela is seen as vastly more independent than any other major newspapers. The authors' view of the Venezuelan media seems to mirror the view of the right-wing Venezuelan opposition, or the U.S. Right's view of the "liberal media" in the United States.

Such profound prejudice, in which events are interpreted overwhelmingly through the lens of Venezuela's right-wing opposition, is apparent throughout the document: for example when the authors describe groups that helped organize and supported the April 2002 coup as "new organizations dedicated to the defense of democracy and the rule of law." (p. 203).

But the worst thing about the report's reliance on opposition sources like El Universal, El Nacional, or Súmate, is that these sources have engaged in enough fabrications as to make them unreliable sources for factual material.

In its discussion of the media, the report also paints a grossly exaggerated picture of reality, while presenting some valid criticisms of existing law and practice. It is acknowledged in footnotes buried deep within the text that the opposition still dominates both broadcast and print media (footnote 184, p.74; footnote 181, p.73). Yet the government is reproached for "having significantly shifted the balance of the media in the government's favor" by creating pro-government TV stations since the 2002 coup, when "Chávez faced an almost entirely hostile private media." This is an odd position for a human rights organization to take. While it would be nice if the government could create TV stations that had no bias whatsoever, isn't it better to have some competition in the media - from left-leaning, pro-government stations - than to have a right-wing, anti-democratic, private monopoly? Especially when that right-wing monopoly had, as never before in world history, organized a military coup against a democratically elected government and led a devastating oil strike that nearly toppled the government a second time? Do the authors consider this type of media monopoly to be more protective of human rights than a media that is still dominated by the opposition but also presents some other sources of information?

The report refers repeatedly to the danger of "self-censorship," but does not provide any examples of this actually happening. This is a major weakness in its argument, since it is not that difficult to find examples of self-censorship in response to government pressure in, for example, the U.S. media.

In the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, the Sinclair Broadcast Group of Maryland, owner of the largest chain of television stations in the U.S., planned to show a documentary that accused candidate John Kerry of betraying American prisoners during the Vietnam War. The company ordered its 62 stations to show the film during prime-time hours just two weeks before the election. Nineteen Democratic senators sent a letter to the U.S. F.C.C. http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200410/101504.html calling for an investigation into this proposed intervention by Sinclair in the campaign, and some made public statements that Sinclair's broadcast license could be in jeopardy if it carried through with its plans. As a result of this pressure, Sinclair backed down and did not broadcast the film.

This example is directly relevant to the HRW report on Venezuela, because it shows that, in order to have a broadcast license in the United States and other democratic countries, the licensee is expected to follow certain rules and not to become a major political actor, e.g. by intervening in elections. As Vivanco himself has noted, "lack of renewal of the contract [broadcast license], per se, is not a free speech issue." Yet this report cites the denial of RCTV's broadcast license renewal as a simple, and indeed its primary, example of the Venezuelan government's alleged attack on free speech. It does not seem to matter to the authors that the station had participated in a military coup and other attempts to topple the government and would not receive a broadcast license in any democratic country.

The report even uses innuendo to imply that the government is to blame for attacks on journalists, which have occurred against both opposition and pro-government journalists. The authors state that the opposition TV station Globovisión "has received warning letters from CONATEL because of the political tone of its reporting, it has been frequently refused entry to government press conferences, and its reporters and cameramen have been physically attacked and threatened by Chávez supporters." (p. 117) The authors provide no evidence that the government in any way condoned or supported such alleged attacks.

The major media in Venezuela to this day are practically unmatched in this hemisphere, and indeed most of the world, for their vehement, unfettered, and even vicious, libelous, and violence inciting attacks on the government[10]. While the HRW report presents a number of valid criticisms of existing law and a few cases of unwarranted intervention by government officials, it serves no legitimate purpose to hide or distort the actual state of Venezuela's media.

The same can be said for the rest of the report, including its treatment of the judiciary.[11] HRW has an obligation to criticize any laws or practices of the Venezuelan government that it sees as endangering human rights, and we welcome the valid criticisms that it raises in its report. But Mr. Vivanco has gravely undermined the credibility of Human Rights Watch by producing a report that, by his own admission, is politically motivated, as well as grossly exaggerated, based on unreliable sources, and advertises broad and sweeping allegations that are unsupported by the evidence.

We therefore request that HRW retract and revise its report so as to produce a credible document. Mr. Vivanco should also retract his remarks as to the political motivation for the report.

We would be glad to meet with you to discuss this issue further, and would welcome a debate with Mr. Vivanco in any public forum of his choosing, should he be willing to defend his report in public.

We hope you will consider these requests with the seriousness they deserve. Our letter is not meant as a justification for the Venezuelan government's decision to expel the authors of the HRW report from the country. Human rights are too important to be used as a political football, as has so often been the case when Washington singles out another government as an enemy state. This is why we depend on civil society organizations for independent, non-partisan, non-political reporting and investigation.

In the spirit of sharing our concerns with our Spanish-speaking colleagues, we are having this letter translated to be circulated in Latin America.

Since the arrival of Hugo Chavez on the Venezuelan scene—and later, for the left and the right, on the world scene—he's been the source of considerable interest.  Is he a new caudillo in the Latin American style, perhaps a reincarnation of Argentina's Juan Domingo Peron, or is he just an ego-maniac, who seeks to install a dictatorship on Venezuela? 

Steve Ellner's recent book shows that Chavez and the movement he heads is much more important than either of these two questions suggest.  Unlike the large majority of the writing on Venezuela in the Chavez era, which focus on Chavez' "style" or personality, Ellner focuses on substantive issues, especially around class and race.  Ellner's approach rests "on the proposition that political movements best serve a developing nation by combining efforts to achieve four critical goals, as opposed to one or two of them to the exclusion of others."  He then identifies these goals:  "(1) the struggle for social justice; (2) the struggle for democracy; (3) the effort to promote national economic development; and (4) the adoption of economic and political nationalism."

Ellner's goal is to really grasp the essence of Chavez and his movement, and he places it firmly in the country's history since the arrival of the Spanish. He rejects the claim of "exceptionalism" traditionally applied to Venezuela by scholars. He argues the country's history is much more complex than has been recognized, and he reviews it with an eye to uncovering developments that emerge subsequently while having been ignored in the past. He's not doing this just as an academic exercise, but to help understand how the country got to the place where the population would elect Hugo Chavez to the presidency in 1998.
Where things get very fascinating for the general activist/scholar is the period between 1989 and 1999. Venezuela, which had long been seen as an "exceptional case" in Latin America, went from being prosperous and calm (at least by traditional accounts) to the site of leading opposition to neo-liberal economic policies that were being spread around the globe by the US Government and its' subordinate agencies, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. What happened? Ellner argues successfully that the country was never as placid as described, but when the price of oil declined in the 1980s, it prevented the elite-led government from papering over problems as in the past.

The social explosion known as the Caracazo—a week of rioting and rebellion in early 1989—called into question the very legitimacy of the Venezuelan government. It also encouraged forces within the military—and most importantly, those led by Lt. Col. Hugo Chavez—to reject its role of societal "enforcer" against the poor.

Yet Ellner doesn't just focus on Chavez, the personality and ultimately political leader. He deftly examines various reforms initiated by various governments to address limitations in the social order, and sees that some of them further weakened the institutional power of the state. Combined with a general rejection of neo-liberalism by the populace, a weakened state, and a charismatic candidate such as Chavez—who explicitly rejected neo-liberalism in his efforts—Venezuelan voters shifted to his side, enabling him to assume the presidency in early 1999.

Yet Chavez does not operate alone—nor could he. He is the head of a movement that has a number of political parties and tendencies, and Chavez both initiates major projects and "oversees" discussion about policies by his followers. The Chavistas operate in a specific place and time, and among some ruthless sharks, including George W. Bush and the AFL-CIO, as well as extensive opposition from major sections of the Venezuelan elite; most importantly, the privately-owned mass media. This means the Chavez project in Venezuela has not moved in a linear fashion, but has bobbed and weaved through a coup attempt (April 2002), an eight week lockout by oil company management (late 2002-early 2003), and a recall referendum (August 2004) that ultimately left Chavez and his movement strengthened, and with the confidence to shift from initiating moderate to more radical proposals, ultimately seeking to develop "socialism for the 21st Century."

Ellner seeks to understand what happened, and why. He identifies four different stages of the Chavez presidency, and explains the two major ideological tendencies within Chavismo. He specifically examines internal Chavista debates around such salient issues as the labor movement, the oil industry, Chavez' political organization, the MVR (Fifth Republic Movement), and the issue of parallel social structures initiated by the state, and explaining how the two major ideological tendencies approached each one.

Yet Ellner argues that it is not enough just to examine the internal currents within the Chavistas. He also looks at how Chavismo differs from various Latin American populist movements of the past, and its relationship with its rank and file. His account differs from those who see the movement's rank and file as an uncritical mass, actually seeing it as the critical mass who is responsible for President Chavez' political survival between 2001-04. As I realized during my short visit to the country in June 2006, the massive mobilization in face of the coup was not organized by Chavez' political organization—they simply did not have the capacity—but was based on self-mobilization from below, with community-based activists being key.

Yet there is more to Chavismo than just the movement's rank and file. In fact, Ellner identifies two competing forces within Chavismo: those that focus on grassroots-initiated "horizontal" relations, and those that focus on the political party-initiated state, or "vertical" relations. He recognizes the grassroots, and its importance to Chavez and his project, but Ellner does not ignore the role of the MVR and the "political" struggle within the state and particularly among various nation-states, especially in regard to the United States. In fact, while he suggests that Chavez is more emotionally drawn to the grassroots, there are times when he prioritizes the "statist" aspect of the struggle. It is this strategic interaction between the grassroots and the statist aspect of the struggle that Ellner sees as being key to understanding the continuing Chavez phenomenon.

This is a very solid and sober reflection on the Chavez phenomenon, but it focuses on its development within the context of Venezuelan history, Latin America, and the global political-economic-cultural networks dominated by the United States and its allies. In fact, Ellner specifically writes about Chavez' rejection of the US-dominated "single polar" world, seeking to replace it with a "multi-polar" world. The fact that he has oil—oil that provides about 15% of the US's daily consumption (alone almost as much as from all the Middle East countries combined before the US invaded Iraq)--gives some "weight" to his position on the issue.

It's hard to critique this book, which is so well thought-out and presented: this is a major work. Ellner certainly focuses on the "class" differentiation within Venezuelan society, and he does an excellent job.

What I would have liked to see is a more-focused look at the issue of "race" in Venezuela: approximately one-fourth of the population is Afro-Venezuelan, and probably all have indigenous blood in their veins. And yet, the ones with power—corporate, governmental and social, at least before Chavez—have been almost totally white. Certainly, the white elite has historically ignored if not denigrated or destroyed the contributions of those "of color," but I believe that the elite opposition to Chavez is more than just because he threatens established interests as Ellner claims: there is no question that a significant amount of elite opposition is due to his dark complexion, support for those that are "of color," and his kinky hair, broad nose, etc., and his pride in his indigenous-Afro heritage. Videos of elite demonstrations against Chavez sure make this obvious to me.

Nonetheless, I believe Steve Ellner's new book is not only a major contribution to historiography and to political analysis of contemporary Venezuela, but it is watershed in academic work on Venezuela and Latin America overall. He takes a social "phenomenon," Chavez, and places him in a particular social context, which he understands more completely because he focuses on substantive issues and not just on "style" and "personality." He doesn't ignore Chavez' charisma, but he's not blinded by it, and he critiques the Chavista program and performance where he deems it necessary. Ellner really seeks to understand developments in his adopted country.

This, in turn, makes his book even more important. From his substantive analysis, Ellner argues that events taking place in Venezuela, despite the oil, are indicative of issues that affect the entire continent—if not even wider.

This book needs the widest readership possible—it is very rich and accessible—and my hope is that Lynne Rienner Publishers will reissue this in paperback to ensure its further dissemination. I cannot foresee any future work on Venezuela or Latin America that does not at least respond to the issues raised by Steve Ellner. He has set the bar high—and my hope is that future scholars and serious activists will accept the challenge that he has presented, a challenge that will help each of us better understand what is currently taking place in Venezuela.