Doug Lorimer
The radical government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has accused the US government of financing a conspiracy to carry out an anti-government coup. Washington regards the burgeoning Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela — an inspiration to masses throughout the Third World as proof that a better life is possible — as a major threat to its plans for world domination.
In the February 10 edition of his weekly live radio and television show Hello President, Chavez declared that there was proof of US financing of groups working to overthrow his government now "circulating on the internet". He was referring to US government documents made available to the public via the newly launched web site Venezuelafoia.info . The site, funded by the US-based Venezuela Solidarity Committee, has reproduced hundreds of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by veteran investigative journalist Jeremy Bigwood.
The documents reveal a consistent pattern of funding from various US government departments and agencies, such as the State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy, to a variety of well-known anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela.
One memorandum between the US State Department and the NED revealed that a payment of US$1 million had been awarded to Venezuelan opposition groups immediately after their failed coup against Chavez's government in April 2002. Another revealed that Accion Campesina (Farmers' Action) received a more than $80,000 to engage in efforts to hinder the passage and implementation of the Chavez government's land reform law in 2002-03.
Another anti-Chavez organisation, Sumate, received $53,400 for "electoral education" between September 2003 and September 2004. The funds awarded to Sumate were, according to the NED grant, to "train citizens throughout Venezuela in the electoral process and to promote participation in a recall referendum".
Sumate is the organisation that led an unapproved referendum drive in February 2003 in an attempt to remove Chavez from office before half of his term had expired, which is not permitted by Venezuelan law. Sumate claimed to have collected "27 million signatures in one day", yet it was later discovered that a majority of these signatures were gathered through fraudulent means, including being photocopied from bank records and credit card receipts.
It is no secret that US President George Bush's administration views Venezuela's pro-worker, pro-peasant Bolivarian Revolution as a distinct threat to US political and economic interests.
Chavez, a former paratrooper who was outspoken in his opposition to US-imposed, neoliberal "free market" policies, was unexpectedly elected Venezuela's president in 1998. Since then, his progressive agenda has brought about significant changes to improve living conditions for the 80% of Venezuelans who live in poverty in the world's fifth largest oil-producing country.
Confronted by a hostile Congress, judiciary and civil bureaucracy, Chavez turned to the ranks of the army to begin implementing his progressive agenda. In 2000, he sent soldiers into poor communities throughout the country to build roads, homes, schools and medical centres.
More homes were built for the poor in two years than in the previous 20 combined. A mass vaccination campaign lowered the infant mortality rate. Three million people received potable water for the first time. One million received sewage services.
Large numbers of soldiers were brought into close contact with the urban and rural poor communities, establishing solidarity between them.
More than 70% of voters voted for the new constitution, which among another things outlaws the privatisation of the oil industry and social services. The constitution was widely used to publicise the Chavez government's progressive social and economic agenda.
Forty-nine laws passed by executive decree included granting land to landless rural workers and increased government control over the oil industry, representing the first significant incursion into the property rights of the capitalist class.
Reforms such as providing two free meals a day in schools and the provision of clean water to 2 million people for the first time, have increased the confidence and hopes of working people. Every such reform came with the creation of new co-operatives and associations to help carry them out.
In May 2001, Chavez announced the formation of the Bolivarian circles. These armed neighbourhood-based committees were aimed at organising working people to support the radical reforms proposed by the government.
A key turning point was the April 11, 2002, coup which ousted Chavez and the massive, pro-Chavez army officer-led, uprising by working people against it which, within 48 hours, succeeded in defeating the coup.
This popular insurrection against the short-lived pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist government gave an enormous impetus to the organisation of the Bolivarian circles, which today involve at least 2 million people — more than 10% of the adult population.
As a result of this explosion of popular self-organisation, the restored Chavez government has been able to increasingly rely on the mobilised and organised masses of working people and urban poor in order to combat the counter-revolutionary opposition of the business elite.
In the wake of the popular insurrection, the Chavez government strengthened its hold over the armed forces, purging more than 400 right-wing officers.
During the next showdown — the bosses' lockout in the oil industry last December — the government responded by mobilising the oil production workers to take over the running of the industry. The capitalist managers of the industry were sacked.
The nominally state-owned oil industry, having in practice been run as a private concern by managers drawn from Venezuela's richest families, is now nationalised in practice. It provides the government with 50% of its revenue and accounts for 80% of the country's export revenue.
During the lockout, Chavez travelled the country speaking at mass rallies. In his speeches, interrupted by chanting of revolutionary slogans, Chavez urged working people to organise themselves. He appealed to the crowds to establish popular committees to guard oil pipelines from sabotage.
In the wake of this second defeat for the bosses, the incursions into their remaining institutional powers have deepened with a tightening of government control over access to foreign currency slowing capital flight, strict price restrictions to prevent speculation and a cabinet decree that bans employers from laying off workers.
The government has established a new agency that seizes goods hoarded or used for speculation and sells them in government-run stores at prices 30% lower than the private sector.
Land reform has benefited hundreds of thousands of rural workers and the government aims to distribute land titles to half a million families by the end of the year. The land titles come with cheap credit, meaning that many rural worker families not only have land, but new homes, running water and electricity for the first time.
There is a mass campaign aiming to mobilise 100,000 teachers with the aim of eradicating illiteracy. Cuban volunteer doctors have been recruited to work in the poor neighbourhoods of the capita Caracas, where most people have never seen a doctor before.
The government has legislation drawn up to introduce workers' control into the economy.
There is now a new, revolutionary and independent trade union federation — the National Union of Workers (UNT) — which has more members than the discredited pro-employer Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CVT).
Factory occupations, supported by the government, have spread as dozens of enterprises have been seized in response to employer attempts to lay workers off.
Not surprisingly, the deepening anti-capitalist character of the Venezuelan revolution has also been accompanied by increasingly closer relations between the Chavez government and Cuban President Fidel Castro's revolutionary government.
On January 13, during the Summit of the Americas in Monterrey, Mexico, Chavez praised post-capitalist Cuba's social advances and its aid to Venezuela. "With the help of Cuba and their alphabetising method", he declared, "Venezuela has managed to help almost one million people learn to read and write in just six months. Throughout our new health care program, also with cooperation from Cuba, we are providing free basic health care for the poor, attending 10 million cases."
Both the Venezuelan capitalist opposition and the US ruling elite accuse Chavez of being Castro's "man in Caracas" (as the April 15, 2002, Wall Street Journal put it).
The Associated Press reported on January 5 that Bush administration "officials say Cuba and Venezuela are working together to oppose pro-American, democratic governments in the region... Chavez's actions have worried Washington for some time, but US officials have said little publicly."
On February 18, Chavez demanded that the US government stop interfering in Venezuela's internal affairs. He accused the US government of backing the April 2002 coup against his government, noting that "US military officers acted in the coup" and that the "US ambassador was at the Presidential Palace after the coup to applaud the dictator [employers federation head Pedro Carmona]".
Chavez noted that Washington's involvement in the coup against his government has been documented by Newsweek, the New York Times and other mainstream US news media outlets.
The previous day, Venezuelan Vice-President Jose Vincente Rangel announced that the opposition group Sumate would be prosecuted in the courts on charges of treason for accepting financing from US government agencies for its attempts to unconstitutionally force the Chavez government from office.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, February 25, 2004.
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