martha rosler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
UK Guardian: Racist Rage Of The Caracas Elite
Craig Brozefsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: <nettime> Rebelion_/_Narco_News'_Take_on_Venezuela
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From: martha rosler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: UK Guardian: Racist Rage Of The Caracas Elite
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 01:06:32 -0500
>Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 20:51:51 -0800
> ZNet | Venezuela
> Racist Rage Of The Caracas Elite
> Venezuela's Embattled President Faces A Pinochet-style Opposition
> by Richard Gott; The Guardian ; December 11, 2002
>
> Pilin Leon, a former Miss Venezuela, was busy judging the Miss World
>competition in London on Saturday when the oil tanker that bears her name,
>illegally at anchor in Lake Maracaibo (principal source of Venezuela's
>oil), was boarded by Venezuelan marines. The end of history was supposed
>to mean an end to class struggle, but the current political conflict in
>Venezuela suggests it is alive and well.
>
> When the captain of the Pilin Leon first dropped anchor, he was
>expressing his solidarity with the anti-government strike in Caracas. But
>the tanker's crew were opposed the strike and their captain's piratical
>action. When the marines boarded, on the orders of the embattled president
>Hugo Chavez, only the captain needed to be replaced.
>
> For the past year or more, Venezuela's upper and middle classes, opposed
>to Chavez's government, have protested in the wealthy new neighbourhoods
>of Caracas, while the poor (the vast majority of the city's population)
>have come from their shantytowns and demonstrated to defend "their"
>president.
>
> Chavez celebrated his overwhelming electoral victory of four years ago at
>the weekend, at the end of a week-long insurrectionary strike designed to
>force him to resign, and so far he has displayed a Houdini-like capacity
>to escape from tight situations. In April, a similar scenario led to a
>brief coup d'etat, from which he was rescued by an alliance between the
>poor and the armed forces, and this time, the president says, he will not
>allow himself to be surprised.
>
> The opposition has been hoping to repeat in December what it failed to
>achieve in April, but the situation is no longer the same. The armed
>forces are now more solidly behind the president than before. The most
>conservative generals no longer hold important commands; those involved in
>the April coup attempt have all been sent into retirement.
>
> The international situation is different, too. The US welcomed the April
>coup, but this time, with more important problems elsewhere, Washington is
>being more circumspect. It has publicly thrown its weight behind the
>negotiations being conducted by Cesar Gaviria, the Colombian ex-president
>who leads the Organisation of American States.
>
> Perhaps even more significant than the changing attitude of the military
>and of the US is the fact that the poor are more mobilised now, to such an
>extent that there is talk of a possible civil war. Until the April coup,
>the poor had voted for Chavez repeatedly, but his revolutionary programme
>was directed from above, without much popular participation. After the
>coup, which revealed that the opposition sought to impose a regime on
>Pinochet lines, the people realised that they had a government that they
>needed to defend. The opposition's protest marches have now conjured up a
>phenomenon that most of the middle and upper classes might have preferred
>to have left sleeping - the spectre of a class and race war.
>
> Opposition spokesmen complain that Chavez is a leftist who is leading the
>country to economic chaos, but underlying the fierce hatred is the terror
>of the country's white elite when faced with the mobilised mass of the
>population, who are black, Indian and mestizo. Only a racism that dates
>back five centuries - of the European settlers towards their African
>slaves and the country's indigenous inhabitants - can adequately explain
>the degree of hatred aroused. Chavez - who is more black and Indian than
>white, and makes no secret of his aim to be the president of the poor - is
>the focus of this racist rage.
>
> The trump card of the opposition, in April as in December, has been the
>state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, often described as the
>fifth largest oil exporter in the world, and an important supplier to the
>US. Nationalised more than 25 years ago, it has been run over the years
>for the exclusive benefit of its employees and managers - its profits
>being invested everywhere except Venezuela. Before the arrival of Chavez,
>it was being prepared for privatisation, to the satisfaction of the
>engineers and directors who would have benefited. But with a block placed
>on privatisation by the new Venezuelan constitution, the company's middle
>class and prosperous elite has been happy to be used as a shock weapon by
>the leaders of the Pinochet-style opposition, and they have tried to bring
>their entire industry to a halt.
> The vital task for Chavez is to bring the oil company back under
>government control, replacing the conservative management with the radical
>executives who had been forced out in earlier internal struggles. If he is
>to support the crews loyal to the government on tankers such as the Pilin
>Leon, he may yet need to impose a state of emergency to regain the upper
>hand.
>
> * Richard Gott is the author of In The Shadow of the Liberator: Hugo
>Chavez and the Transformation of Venezuela
>
>
>
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From: Craig Brozefsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Rebelion_/_Narco_News'_Take_on_Venezuela
Date: 12 Dec 2002 00:17:51 -0600
Quim Gil <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> It would be possibly a mistake to consider "the anti-Chavez" as a single
> social body, also to consider that what is going in Venezuela is simply
> a pro-Chavez - anti-Chavez confrontation.
>
> David, a friend from Caracas, veteran of more than one Latin
> American revolution and skilled in socialist and capitalist
> economics and politics, makes an interesting point that I think is
> shared by millions of citizens that suported the Chavez government
> but not anymore:
>
> "We want to count votes to not to have to count deaths"
If that is the case, what is presently motivating their protest when
Chavez has agreed to a revocatory referendum in 8 months time, as
described in the Venezuelan constitution? I understand that people
like your friend are perhaps not represented at the negotiations held
by the OAS and could not have forced the oligarchs to accept such a
referendum.
Ricardo Bello has suggested Chavez resign. Others who present
"reasonable left" opposition to Chavez have made similiar claims. Now
the organizers of the strike are calling for Chavez's resignation,
without the referendum at all. Should democratically elected
presidents resign in the face of street protests? I don't think they
should. Should democratically elected presidents resign in the face
of economic blackmail? I don't think they should.
The only argument I have seen so far, is that something must be done
to stop the escalating violence. The last time "something was done to
stop the escalating violence" it was a military junta lying thru the
media that the democratically elected president had resigned.
Subsequently the democratically elected national assembly and Supreme
Court were disbanded. Journalists were hunted down (some are still
under arrest and are being framed), alternative media outlets were
persecuted, and the police killed dozens of citizens who were marching
for the return of their democratically elected president.
It seems from afar that the middle-class and "progressives" are caught
in the middle of a conflict between the oligarchs and Chavez, and have
sided with the oligarchs who will use them as cannon fodder in their
attempt to preserve/protect their power. I wish your friend safety
and health.
--
Sincerely,
Craig Brozefsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Free Scheme/Lisp Software http://www.red-bean.com/~craig
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