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--- Begin Message ---
-Caveat Lector-
December 8, 2002
Please Distribute Widely
Dear Colleagues,
The online Spanish-language magazine Rebelión has published an astute and
informed analysis of the dynamics at work this week in Venezuela by Heinz
Dieterich Steffan...
http://www.rebelion.org/dieterich/dieterich071202.htm
We have now translated it to English and posted it to Narco News...
http://www.narconews.com/
We also make it available in the text of this email, to facilitate your work
distributing and posting it far and wide, so that all can get a better, more
accurate, understanding of what is really at play in Venezuela today.
According to Dieterich, there are very solid explanations for why the
Venezuelan "opposition" is behaving so erratically, irrationally and
desperately this week. And there are steps that the democratically elected
government in Venezuela can take to defeat the coup plotters, legally, once,
and for all.
from somewhere back in a country called América,
Al Giordano
Publisher
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com/
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Why Are the Coup Plotters So Impatient?
…And How Venezuela Can Defeat Them Legally
By Heinz Dieterich Steffan
Rebelión
The constitutional government of Hugo Chávez faces its fourth assault in
eight months. The April 11th coup d’etat launched a chain of mob acts that
were repeated under the banner of “civic” or “labor strikes,” all of them
programmed with high levels of physical violence and media manipulation.
This high pro-coup intensity against Venezuelan democracy enters a new
paradox. The Bolivarian Constitution of 1999, born from the breast of a
Constituent Assembly and approved by referendum of the citizens is, without
a doubt, the most democratic in Latin America. As such, it provides for
removal of elected public officials. Its Article 72 stipulates that “all
posts and magistrates that are popularly elected are revocable,” as of
halfway though the term for which they are elected.
Applying this Article to President Chávez, the possibility of removing him
by recall referendum opens up in August 2003, under the terms of the Magna
Carta. That is to say, there is an institutional path to change leadership –
that, according to opposition members is the goal of their street actions –
whose utilization would protect the life of citizens, strengthen the
democratic government and civic exercise of power and improve the national
economic situation.
President Chávez has publicly affirmed that he will submit himself to this
constitutinoal instrument and the international mediators of the conflict,
like César Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States
(OAS), have insisted that the adequate mechanism to resolve the country’s
problems is the institutional path. However, the “strikers” dismiss the
constitution and the hemispheric political institution, insisting on an
extra-constitutional solution and on street violence.
The question that this situation raises is the following: Why don’t the
“strikers” wait eight months to reach their goal through peaceful and
institutional routes? What is the urgency that makes them act desperately
fomenting chaos, ungovernable situations and military coup instead of
working toward August?
The reasons for this behavior are obvious and can be summed up by three:
Since the April 11th coup d’etat, which was their maximum point of power,
the conspirators have been weakened in two key ways. A. They have lost
internal unity and fight among themselves for power, and, more importantly,
B. They have lost a fundamental part of their social base in the middle
classes. During the 24 hours they were in power, during the April 11th coup
d’etat, it became clear that the middle classes had been used as cannon
fodder in a transnational dictatorial project. And the previous mob actions
via “civic strikes” only deepened the erosion of the pro-coup clique’s
legitimacy, supported from foreign lands by Otto “Third” Reich and recycled
Spanish Franco fascism.
The second reason for the pro-coup haste is the entrance in vigor of various
important laws that come into effect on January 1, 2003, that touch vital
interests of the economic elite: Among them, the Land Law that affects not
just the large plantation owners in the country but also real estate
speculators and vacant lots in urban zones. The Hydrocarbon law is even more
important because it will permit the dismantling of the meta-State of the
petroleum business PdVSA, the corrupt oil group that controls the economic
life of the country and that is an integral part of the New World Energy
Order of George Bush.
Today, only 20 percent of the income of this mega-company goes to the State.
Eighty percent goes to “operating costs” that enrich secret accounts of the
beneficiaries of this economic cancer. The power of this petroleum
“steal-ocracy” has become propped up progressively during recent decades. In
1974, the company delivered 80 percent of its income to the State and kept
20 percent (“operating costs”). In 1990, the ratio tied at 50 to 50 percent
and in 1998 it reached the ratio of 80 to 20 percent. It’s logical that they
are going to fight to the death – of the nation – to defend “their” black
gold.
The third reason the pro-coup forces are in a hurry is found in their doubts
about being able to win a recall referendum. Article 72 places three
conditions to revoke the term of the president. 1. A number of no less than
20 percent of the voters signing petitions is necessary to call the
referendum. 2. The voter turnout must be 25 percent or more. 3. The number
of voters who vote for the recall have to be equal or more than the number
of voters who elected the official. Since Chávez was elected with 57 percent
of the vote, the “strikers” will have to meet or supercede this percentage
in the August referendum.
There is an aggravating situation for the pro-coup forces. During the period
for which the official is elected “there can not be more than one recall
referendum on his term” according to the Magna Carta. Thus, an eventual
failure of the referendum will use up all institutional possibilities of
overthrowing the Bolivarian government.
In the current phase of the conflict, the clique that runs PdVSA and the
mass media in Venezuela are two fronts of the internal battles where the
destiny of the Boliviarian experiment is being decided. Having lost their
pro-coup nucleus in the Armed Forces and part of their social base in the
middle class, the conspirators have made the decisive battle of this mob
action that they call “an active strike with an ingredient of gasoline.”
That is to say: Control of the petroleum steal-ocracy.
To defeat the attempt at strangulation by energy by the subversives opens
the door to the firing of the directorship of PdVSA and the recuperation of
the company for the nation. This will be the means of triumph or failure by
the government. All compromise with the conspirators on this point will
maintain the economic-union center of the counter-revolution alive and
weaken the popular process.
To defeat the conspiracy through legal, but firm, opportune and audacious
measures would reduce the internal hydra to just one head: the media
octopus. The politics of this octopus is explained by multiple economic and
political interests of wide influence, among which the quartet of (former
president) Carlos Andrés Pérez, Gustavo Cisneros (of Venevision TV), Jesús
Polanco (of the daily El País in Spain) and (Spanish politician) Felipe
González. That will be the theme of another analysis.
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DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
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<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
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<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
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