BY STUART MUNCKTON
A Reuters news-wire report from Caracas on September 19 tells of a joke circulating among wealthy Venezuelans: George Bush wakes from a 10-year sleep to find that Saddam Hussein has embraced democracy. "What about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez?" Bush asks, to which he's told: "Word is they'll kick him out in two weeks."
The joke refers to the unceasing rumours of a new coup against the Chavez government, each rumour discrediting itself as the supposed date for the military rebellion passes. The cynicism suggested by the joke doesn't stop the wealthy elite, according to the Reuters story, greeting each other with a frantic question; "So when is it then? When are we going to get rid of Chavez?"
In this desperation, there is more than a little denial. After all, they tried to oust Chavez and the gains of his "Bolivarian revolution" and they failed dramatically.
A military coup launched on April 11 overthrew Chavez and installed the head of the Venezuelan Business Federation, Pedro Carmona. The military junta dissolved Congress, the Supreme Court, the democratic constitution (adopted by an overwhelming majority in a referendum), the land reform laws that redistributed idle land to landless peasants and declared Venezuela would cease selling oil to Cuba.
The US government and corporate media welcomed the coup, blaming Chavez for his own ouster. In its April 13 editorial, the "liberal" New York Times opined: "Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator."
The fact that Chavez's party, the Movement for the Fifth Republic (MVR), had won the last seven elections was ignored.
Defeat of April coup
The military junta lasted 48 hours before it was forced to surrender power back to Chavez by an uprising of workers and peasants. In Caracas, the poor streamed from the slums to the Presidential Palace. Troops loyal to Chavez arrested the key figures in Carmona's government and Chavez returned in triumph.
To understand why the poor would rise up to defend the Chavez government, you need only look at the reforms it has implemented: funding to education has doubled; health care has been made free; schools, homes and roads have been built; cheap credit has been provided for small businesses; radical land reform has begun, giving land to peasants.
The uprising was not simply spontaneous. Chavez has insisted he "will not be another Salvadore Allende" (the elected Socialist Party president of Chile overthrown in a US-backed military coup in 1973). Leaders of the MVR were aware a coup would come and they prepared for it.
In December, they made a move away from reliance on the existing state structures by establishing the Bolivarian circles. These are grass-roots organisations aimed at mobilising the poor in defence of the "Bolivarian revolution", carrying out anti-capitalist propaganda, and taking part in community projects.
When middle and upper class opponents of Chavez organised mass actions, the Bolivarian circles responded by mobilising the poor. The Bolivarian circles played a crucial role in preparing for the coup, and leading the mass resistance to it.
Struggle intensifying
Since the coup, the struggle over who should rule Venezuela the wealthy minority or poor majority has deepened. Both sides are mobilising their forces for the next, inevitable, showdown.
The first move of Chavez, after putting the coup leaders under house arrest, was to offer the opposition a dialogue aimed at "reconciliation". From his position of strength, having just been restored to power by a mass rising, Chavez made this gesture without offering any significant concessions. The opposition has refused to even meet Chavez unless he agrees to sack his left-wing cabinet, repeal his land reform laws and disband the Bolivarian circles, among other demands.
With Chavez moderating neither his tone nor policies, no talks have occurred. His wealthy opponents thus look like the intransigent ones.
Mass mobilisations on both sides have continued, although the right is having a hard time attempting to disguise the fact that the momentum looks to be going the way of the Chavistas. On May Day, there were competing pro- and anti-Chavez demonstrations. According to Cuban newspaper Granma, the anti-Chavez demonstrations stretched 12 blocks, and the pro-Chavez demonstration stretched 24 kilometres.
The most dramatic development has been the explosion in growth of the Bolivarian circles, a result of the conscious policy of the Chavez leadership. There were 8000 Bolivarian circles at the time of the coup and recent estimates put the number at 70,000 most of them based in the slums of Caracas where 60% of the city's population live.
The growth of the Bolivarian circles represents a decisive move by the Chavistas to organise their base among the Venezuelan poor. According to Walden Bello (in "Revolution and counter-revolution in Venezuela", <http//www.focusweb.org>), these circles are built as "institutions of self government". Bello quotes Freddy Bernal, mayor of the Libertador district and a radical Chavista, saying of the circles, "people have to stop waiting for government to do things for them. They have to start doing things for themselves."
The response of the wealthy has been to vilify the circles as organised thugs. They claim the circles are being armed by the Chavez government. The Chavistas deny the claim, but no-one denies that the circles are preparing for self defence.
Fear of the Bolivarian circles is gripping the capitalist class, which compares them to the neighbourhood Committees for Defence of the Revolution in Cuba. The anti-Chavistas have made the destruction of the circles a key part of their program.
There are two key issues around which the struggle is being waged in Venezuela at the moment. The first is the battle to bring those responsible for the coup, and the violence that surrounded it, to justice.
The opposition continues to blame Chavez for the killings of 17 people the day before the coup. The generals who initially seized power insist they did so to prevent more killings, claiming Chavez ordered the shootings of anti-government protesters. They continue to claim they believed Chavez had resigned and were simply filling a power vacuum.
But the Chavez government has produced video footage that shows the snipers who started the shooting (claimed by the opposition to be soldiers acting under the orders of Chavez) firing into the pro-Chavez, not the anti-Chavez, crowd. Most of those killed in the gun battle that followed were pro-Chavez demonstrators.
In their pious attempts to use these deaths against Chavez, the opposition ignore the deaths of more than 60 people at the hands of anti-Chavez Caracas police officers during the uprising that restored Chavez to power.
The government brought charges of rebellion against the generals who led the coup. However, the Supreme Court voted 11-8 that the generals had no case to answer and did not have to stand trial.
In response to this decision, Chavez called his supporters into the streets, and the numbers of protesters, according to the government, exceeded half a million. The Congress, which has a Chavez majority, has refused to accept the decision and is launching an investigation into the Supreme Court.
There is also an investigation into more than 300 military officers for their alleged role in the coup.
The second battle
The second battle is over whether or not Venezuela should sell oil to Cuba. The managers of the state-owned oil company, who have traditionally operated the company as a private business for their own enrichment, and the capitalist class as a whole, strongly oppose selling Cuba oil.
The coup leaders made a point of announcing that they would not sell "a single barrel" more to Cuba. They strongly opposed the close relationship the Chavez government has established with revolutionary Cuba. They point to Cuba's failure to pay for previous shipments and claim the government is "giving away" the oil.
The Chavez government insists on its right to sell oil to Cuba, as to any other country.
So far, the battle has been won by the government. Oil shipments to Cuba, suspended at the time of the April coup, resumed in early September. This occurred despite strong protests from most of the managers and white-collar professionals at the state oil company. They have even taken out newspaper ads in protest.
On the day shipments resumed, the right attempted to stage a mass action to shut down the main roads entering Caracas, with the aim of paralysing the city. These protests were failures. Only a few thousand people showed up and the roads remained open with no noticeable disruption.
The right has taken its opposition to the oil sales to Cuba to the Supreme Court claiming those sales are "unconstitutional".
Amidst all of this, talk of another military rebellion is gaining momentum. The wealthy classes are increasingly open about their desire for a second coup. A leading member of the opposition has gone so far as to take out a newspaper ad urging the military to get rid of Chavez. The government had him arrested.
The whole country is on a knife edge and half a step away from open civil war. Recent comments by Chavez that the "Bolivarian revolution" is "peaceful, but not unarmed" were obviously a warning to the right that another coup attempt will be met with armed resistance.
The forces of the right appear increasingly disorganised, with no clear strategy, while the Chavistas are strengthening their organisations all the time, and support for Chavez among the poor majority appears as solid as ever. But the right has behind them a lot of economic power (which they are using to sabotage the economy), most of the officer caste of the armed forces and not least the support of the world's only super-power.<|> From Green Left Weekly, October 2, 2002.
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