HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------
DAWN (Pakistan) April 17, 2002 Close call for a radical experiment By Mahir Ali Last Friday it appeared as if the Venezuelan social revolution engineered by Hugo Chavez was going to bite the dust. His landslide victories in two presidential elections notwithstanding, Chavez - a charismatic former paratrooper who appeared determined to overturn his nation's political and economic power structures - was taken into custody by the military hierarchy after violence broke out at a rally organized against his government. The identity of the person chosen to replace him spoke volumes: Pedro Carmona was the head of Venezuela's largest business confederation. Chavez's ouster could not have surprised anyone who has been keeping an eye on recent developments in that country, least of all the US state department and the CIA. Whereas most Latin American governments, including those that had been critical of Chavez in the past, decried the "constitutional interruption" in Caracas, the state department and the White House spokesmen, with barely concealed glee, accused the Venezuelan leader of having his own grave. One can only imagine their dismay when Chavez returned to the Miraflores presidential palace in jubilation less than 48 hours after coup, after spontaneous popular protests at his arrest apparently convinced the army to reverse its gravely mistaken strategy. The situation was still fluid at the time of writing, but the indications were that Chavez would be able, at least for the time being, to go ahead with his radical reform program. While no concrete evidence has emerged thus far of US involvement in what was clearly an attempt to restore the status quo ante, there certainly were grounds for suspicion. Contrary to the version of the events publicised by the short-lived interim regime and its uniformed sponsors, the decision to move against Chavez was not prompted by the violence at last Thursday's demonstration but had been planned months in advance. It has been suggested that the violence may actually have been orchestrated to provide a trigger for the coup. And The Washington Post has reported that in the weeks before Chavez's removal, several of the military officers opposed to him visited the US embassy in Caracas - a charge that has neither been confirmed nor denied by the embassy. It is hardly a secret that the US does not take a kind view of leaders who prefer photo-ops with Fidel Castro rather than with George W. Bush. And there are intriguing parallels between the pattern of opposition to Chavez and the well-organized unrest that preceded Augusto Pinochet's coup against Salvador Allende nearly 29 years ago. After Allende had emerged as the leading vote-winner in Chile's 1970 presidential contest, the Nixon-Kissinger administration of the time, working mainly - but not exclusively - through the US embassy in Santiago, tried its level best to prevent the Chilean parliament from endorsing the popular choice. Failing in that endeavor, it then vigorously strove to encourage a military coup, and persisted in its efforts until a suitably ruthless general could obtain elevation to the top of the ranks. The few archive photographs of Pinochet accompanying Allende are as blood-curdling as those of Zia-ul-Haq standing humbly behind Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. In the meanwhile, to create an atmosphere of uncertainty conducive to a coup, the US was determined, in Richard Nixon's words, to "make the economy scream". That is not a particularly hard task when far-reaching reforms are being attempted. Demonstrations by middle-class housewives banging their pots and pans helped to create the impression that the Allende administration had proved to be an economic disaster, and it was hefty CIA bribes that convinced Chilean truck drivers to go on strike. Despite such instances of sabotage, much of the working class and the peasantry kept their faith in Allende, but to little avail. The banging of pots and pans echoed in the anti-Chavez movement too, and the crunch came when a go-slow by officers in the state-owned oil monopoly - to protest against its restructuring by Chavez - was accompanied by a strike by Venezuela's primary trade union. This would appear to suggest that it wasn't just the oil men but also the workers who had turned against the president. However, there's another way of looking at it: the oil company and the union officials were basically trying to protect their personal interests. Chavez had recently replaced leading personnel in the oil company and is bent upon democratizing Venezuela's trade unions. Venezuela is the world's fourth largest producer of crude oil - the largest outside the Middle East - and a primary supplier to the US. Despite its riches in terms of resources, 80 per cent of Venezuela's population has been living in poverty. Determined to redress this anomaly, Chavez knew it could not be done within the neo-liberal context that is the Latin American norm (with Pinochet having offered his nation as the laboratory for Milton Friedman's Chicago school of economists). That is why he has striven to overhaul the country's political structures as a necessary prelude to far-reaching socio-economic reforms. A crucial plank in this respect was to obtain a fair price for Venezuela's most precious resource. In the past, despite having been a leading founding member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Venezuela had, under US pressure, cheated by producing more than its quota, which helped to keep the price low. Chavez not only wanted to discontinue this practice, he wanted to involve all other OPEC members in agreeing on a less generous production quota that would help to keep oil prices at a reasonable level. His first oil minister, Ali Rodriguez, a one-time Marxist guerrilla, was chosen as the head of the OPEC. To put forth his point of view ahead of an OPEC summit in Caracas in 2000 - the organization's first since 1975, the year that another Venezuelan, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez (aka Carlos the Jackal). seized 70 hostages at a meeting of OPEC oil ministers in Vienna - Chavez visited the cartel's member nations, traveling not just to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait but also to Libya and Iraq. The US state department was less than thrilled, although Baghdad was chuffed at the first visit from an elected head of state since the Gulf War in 1991. "Every now and then," an Iraqi foreign ministry spokesman said at the time, "the rulers of America receive slaps from representatives of other countries." Added Venezuelan foreign minister Vicente Rangel: "Nobody can influence our decision. He's going to arrive, whether it be on a skateboard or on a camel." And he did, traveling overland from Iran. During his helmsmanship of OPEC, the international price of crude oil rose from $8 to $27 per barrel. Chavez was keen to stabilize it at around $25 - by no means an unreasonable rate. It was not just Chavez's visit to Baghdad that bothered Washington but also his ability to influence Riyadh and Kuwait. Added, of course, to his domestic endeavors. Not to mention his close relations with Castro, his apparent ambivalence towards left-wing Colombian guerrillas, his regular tirades against globalization, and his accurate characterization of the US attack on Afghanistan as a futile attempt to "fight terror with terror". To his discredit, Chavez first came to prominence when, as an army colonel, he sought to carry out a coup against the government of Carlos Andrez Perez in 1992. The coup was successful everywhere except in Caracas, and Chavez was imprisoned for his troubles. He was granted amnesty two years later, by when Perez, a devoted neo-liberal, had been impeached on grounds of corruption. By 1997 Chavez had formed the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR), and at the end of the following year he won nearly 60 per cent of the vote in a presidential contest on an anti-poverty and anti-corruption platform. Not surprisingly, he is adored by the poor - who recognized last week's events as an attempt by vested interests to regain the upper hand and successfully mounted resistance. Chavez's return to power was also facilitated by divisions among the military, with several strategically important commanders deciding to remain loyal to the elected government. The president has appointed military officers to civilian posts, but he has also involved the army in large public works projects - a sensible move that has caused some ire among the generals who relish their privileges, as well as their traditional ties with the Pentagon. Until last week, Chavez, despite his autocratic streak, had resisted the temptation to take any serious action against his foes, who include the owners of most private media outlets. Free speech and the freedoms of assembly and association are worth preserving. But he should beware: having failed once, the powerful forces whose toes he has trod upon may well, the next time around, choose for him the tragic fate that awaited Allende on September 11, 1973. Chavez has vowed to change his ways, without elaborating exactly in what way. Condoleezza Rice responded to his resurrection by saying: "We do hope ... that he takes advantage of this opportunity to right his own ship, which has been moving, frankly, in the wrong direction." Whether that is intended as gratuitous advice or as a threat, it ought not to unnerve the victim of the shortest-lived coup in Latin American history. _____________________________________________________________ Get free email address [EMAIL PROTECTED] at http://www.moldova.com Your Gateway to Moldova! _____________________________________________________________ Run a small business? Then you need professional email like [EMAIL PROTECTED] from Everyone.net http://www.everyone.net?tag --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
