BY FEDERICO FUENTES
Since the failed April 11-14 coup against Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez, it has become even clearer that the move to topple the oil-rich Latin American country's democratically elected government was inspired from Washington.
The class character of the coup was made obvious by the corrupt Venezuelan oligarchy when its forces installed big business association (Federcamaras) boss Pedro Carmona as interim president. One of Carmona's first moves was to reverse the Chavez government's package of laws which benefited the country's poor majority.
The interests of the US in Venezuela are partly economic. Venezuela is the world's fourth largest oil exporter and the number three oil supplier to the US. With the instability in the Middle East, the US needs other guaranteed sources of oil.
However, US interests in Venezuela go well beyond oil. Throughout Latin America, the US is facing a growing revolt against privatisation and deregulation, which have been implemented at the insistences of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the US government. As deep economic and social crises grip the continent, Washington fears further radicalisation in other Latin American countries.
The people of Argentina continue to mobilise in huge numbers to demand that the entire political elite must go. In Colombia, guerrilla movements continue to hold out against the US-backed government and its military forces and allied death squads. Despite great difficulties, the urban left in Colombia is growing, threatening the corrupt ruling elite.
In Venezuela since the coup, the "Bolivarian revolution" has continued to polarise the country as Chavez moves to implement reforms that benefit the working class and urban poor in defiance of US wishes. He continues to maintain the independent foreign policy — such opposing US President George Bush's bogus "war on terrorism" and strengthening Venezuela's ties with Cuba — that has so infuriated the US government.
Washington's campaign
Washington's campaign against Chavez had been running for a long time, but the general strike organised by the Venezuelan bourgeoisie last December saw the US step up its campaign.
According to James Petras, a professor at the State University in New York, Washington's strategy for Venezuela consisted of two phases. The first was to destabilise the economy. This was carried out in close collaboration with the anti-Chavez alliance — business groups, private media proprietors and right-wing trade union officials — which launched a massive propaganda campaign against the "authoritarian" Chavez. He was also accused of trying to "Cubanise" the economy. Coupled with a dramatic flow of capital out of the country, this created the appearance of an economy in complete crisis.
The second phase involved the organisation of the coup itself. This had begun earlier this year with the public statements by several military officers calling for Chavez to resign. It created a "topic for discussion", particularly among navy and air force officers, who were generally less supportive of Chavez, and even in the army command in which the former paratrooper Chavez has a large support base.
Washington encouraged the plotters. US Secretary of State Colin Powell denounced Chavez for moving in an authoritarian direction and questioned his government's relationship with Cuba, Iraq and Libya and links with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The IMF announced it was willing to fund "a transitional government".
The April 11 coup attempt had Washington's fingerprints all over it. Evidence of direct US involvement has continued to mount. According to the April 25 New York Times, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a non-profit agency created and funded by Congress, dramatically stepped up assistance to anti-Chavez forces prior to the coup. Its budget for Venezuela was quadrupled to US$877,000.
In addition, US$154,377 was given to the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, the international arm of the peak US trade union federation, the AFL-CIO, to assist the corrupt right-wing Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV) which organised the strike in the days preceding the coup and directly participated in the assault on the presidential palace.
NED also provided significant funding to the foreign policy wing of the Democratic and Republican parties for work in Venezuela, which sponsored trips to Washington by Chavez critics. The International Republican Institute, with has close links with Bush and embraced the short-lived take over, was funded to the tune of US$339,998.
According to Duncan Campbell, writing in the April 29 Guardian, Venezuelan national assembly member Roger Rondon accused US ambassador to Venezuela Charles Shapiro, and two US embassy military attaches, of involvement in the coup. Rondon claims that the attaches — James Rogers and Ronald MacCammon — had been at the Fuerte Tiuna military headquarters with the coup leaders during the nights of April 11-12. "We saw [Shapiro] leaving Miraflores [the presidential] palace, all smiles and embraces, with the dictator Pedro Carmona ... [His] satisfaction was obvious. Shapiro's participation in the coup d'etat in Venezuela is evident", Rondon told the Guardian.
Another Allende?
The US administration's campaign against the Chavez government is disturbingly similar to the one it waged against the left-wing reformist government of Chile's President Salvador Allende in 1970-73. Allende was toppled in a bloody military coup that placed General Augusto Pinochet in power.
Allende and his Popular Unity coalition government, elected in September 1970, implemented a number of wide-ranging progressive reforms, including an average 35% pay increase, the release of all political prisoners and the nationalisation of a number of large corporations.
As in Venezuela, the US government closely collaborated with Chile's business leaders, dissident military officers and opposition political parties to engineer a political and economic crisis. The strike by the US funded CTV and business leaders in Venezuela was reminiscent of the truck owners' strike that was organised by the CIA against the Allende government.
On June 29, 1973, there was a coup attempt against the Allende government. Unfortunately, that failure was a prelude to the successful military coup, which occurred on September 11, 1973.
Whether the failed coup in Venezuela turns out to be a prelude to Chavez's own September 11 is yet to be seen. However, it is certain that the US, along with the anti-Chavez forces, will continue with its campaign to depose him. Whether the US will be successful will depend largely on how Chavez and the Venezuelan masses respond to the attacks.
What next?
The mass mobilisations of the Venezuelan people that restored Chavez to power made clear the amount of support Chavez has among the working class and urban poor. His legitimacy now rests not only on his consecutive election victories but the demonstrated willingness of vast numbers of Venezuelans to defend the "Bolivarian revolution".
Although Chavez's program has been portrayed as a move towards the "Cubanisation" of the economy, what has made his actions seem radical has not been the reforms themselves — many are quite moderate — but the fact that in the present context of decaying pro-imperialist regimes throughout Latin America, Chavez is willing to implement what he has been elected to do.
To continue to move forward, Chavez will need to continue to deepen the "Bolivarian revolution" and begin to implement radical reforms which defend the fundamental rights of the workers and peasants against the owners of capital. This is the only ground on which Chavez will be able to continue to mobilise his social base to defend their gains.
The speed with which the counter-coup began and was able to triumph demonstrated the importance for the Chavez forces to continue to organise its poor and working-class supporters if another coup attempt is to be thwarted. It was clear that it was the organisation of the militants around Chavez's party — the Movement for a Fifth Republic (MVR) — and the 80,000 Bolivarian Circles — committees of the revolution's supporters — which enabled the protests to begin immediately.
Not only do the Bolivarian Circles provide a way of organising Chavez's supporters, but they also provide a potential embryo for an alternative form of state power that can replace the current state, which is still dominated by personnel hostile to Chavez and his program.
The other major strategic task facing Chavismo is the thoroughgoing conversion of the MVR from a mass vote-gathering machine into an organisation with the strategic goal of the definitive consolidation of the Bolivarian revolution.
From Green Left Weekly, June 26, 2002.
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