------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 13, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
EYEWITNESS VENEZUELA: WORKERS TAKE OVER OIL PRODUCTION, FOIL BOSSES' "STRIKE" By Natalie Alsop Caracas, Venezuela [Alsop visited Venezuela in January with a delegation from the International Action Center.] It is difficult for people in the United States to find truthful information about what is happening in Venezuela. The corporate media, both in Venezuela and in the United States, scream that the country is splitting apart, that the economy is in dire straits, that the people are turning against President Hugo Chavez. What is really happening? People in Venezuela often say, "Hay dos Venezuelas." There are two Venezuelas. One Venezuela resembles middle-class and wealthy neighborhoods in the United States. It has travel agencies, Citibanks, Wendy's, Mailboxes Etc. and so on. People live in one-family homes and own a car, or maybe two. The second Venezuela is characterized by a lack of running water, schools, jobs. Many city families live crammed into high-rise buildings known as urbanizations. Most country folk earn an existence working on someone else's farm. One woman told us that this is a Venezuela where sometimes "there are more bullets to eat than food." Almost 80 percent of the people live in this Venezuela. The 1998 election of Hugo Chavez began a process that the people call the Bolivarian Revolution, which has galvanized this second Venezuela. There are a million examples of the ways this has happened. Since 1998, eight popular referenda have been held in Venezuela. One referendum approved the new constitution--one of the most inclusive in the world. Laws have been passed protecting small fishers from corporate fisheries, and loaning farm workers the seed money to start their own farms. The Bank of the Women was created to provide poor women with resources to start cooperatives in their communities. Cooperatives are being organized in poor barrios throughout the urban areas, supported by resources from the government. These cooperatives provide jobs and education and a sense of ownership of the process. In essence the process has opened up a space for people to organize their communities, and has provided the resources to do it. The other Venezuela is dead-set against this process continuing. The bankers, business owners and U.S.-owned corporations, along with the press and wealthy oil union bureaucrats, see their wealth and power threatened by the organization of poor and working people. In league with the ruling class of the United States, which depends on Venezuelan oil and markets, they are trying to stop the Bolivarian Revolution. Last April 11, these forces attempted a coup. They failed because of the strength and will of the people and of the military rank and file. Then, in December, they started a strike in an attempt to turn the people of Venezuela against Chavez and wrest control of the country from his supporters, the Chavistas. We asked people on the streets of Caracas and Maracaibo, the two biggest cities, "What is happening because of the strike?" They answered, "No hay paro"--there is no strike. This is evident merely walking through the streets of Caracas. The only shops that are closed are U.S. corporations and large chains like McDonald's and Nestl�. Otherwise, people are working and the shops are operating. However, the Venezuelan economy has been affected by the "strike" in some important ways. The banks have been, until recently, open only three hours a day. Oil production descended from 3 million barrels a day to 150,000 at its lowest. [Editor's note: It has since risen to 1.3 million barrels.] And there has been a shortage of milk and wheat, important staples. But the Chavez government quickly confronted these effects. President Chavez announced that milk and wheat imported from Colombia would be provided at very low cost to those who needed it. The management of the state-owned oil company, PDVSA, which had been locking out workers and sabotaging machinery, was fired and replaced by Chavistas. And at the end of January the banks were forced open. All these measures were accompanied by a steady education campaign so effective that the people of Venezuela can truly say, "No hay paro," and then explain why. The effects of the strike-lockout are social more than economic. It has polarized the Venezuelan population even more. The middle class is starting to split politically, part in favor of Chavez and part against. The failure of this economic sabotage has made the opposition--the other Venezuela and the U.S. ruling class--even more desperate. The lies being generated by the media have become more and more fantastic. At one pro-Chavez demonstration that we participated in, a television news crew stood right next to the demonstrators and reported it as an anti-Chavez demonstration. When the Metropolitan police shot and killed two Chavista demonstrators, the press reported that they were from the opposition. The Chavistas are responding by mobilizing to defend the Bolivarian Revolution once again. A Jan. 23 demonstration of over 300,000 people in Caracas in support of Chavez was just one of the many examples of the immense mobilization of the Venezuelan people. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. 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