For
the Venezuelan government the result of the recall
referendum last Sunday was a triumphant validation
of its legitimacy, its policies and its President,
Hugo Chavez. It amounts to an electoral Dien Bien
Phu (1) for the United States
and its allies who have worked determinedly to destabilize
Venezuela's political life in almost every conceivable
way since George W. Bush and Dick Cheney took office.
In particular, the mainstream international media
who have consistently calumnied the Venezuelan State
and its constituent entities, although chastened
by the referendum victory, remain mealy-mouthed
or downright hostile both in their news coverage
and in their analysis.
The
case of the London Independent - publishing a story
on their web site announcing an opposition victory
and then pulling it with no apology or comment (2)-
was perhaps the most egregious. But almost all the
international mainstream press , even while grudgingly
recognizing the win for Chavez, tended to recycle
the same tired old chestnuts. Chavez has divided
the country, Chavez has close ties to Cuba, Chavez
is a populist strongman, Chavez depends on windfall
oil revenues. Little or no mention was made of three
key recent policy achievements (apart from the phenomenally
successful educational and health campaigns) of
the Venezuelan government - the rapprochement with
Colombia on infrastructure integration, the association
with the Mercosur trading block and the incredible
turnaround in oil production following the destructive
opposition management lock-out in 2002.
The
plea Chavez has made for dialogue(3)
with opposition leaders has so far met silence or
rejection. Large sections of the opposition continue
making absurd claims of massive fraud in the referendum.
No matter how hard President Chavez tries to promote
reconciliation, the responses of much of the opposition
are likely to range from truculent obstruction to
outright sabotage. They may even reject the referendum
result outright and act to tip the country into
chaos once more.
The
Nicaraguan election of 1984 - lest we forget
Despite
obvious differences (Venezuela is not subject to
daily terrorist attacks organized by the United
States) the political situation in Venezuela continues
to throw up parallels with Nicaragua in the 1980s.
Twenty years ago this November, the Sandinistas
won a decisive electoral victory. Prior to their
success in staging the watershed 1990 election,
which as an organizational achievement more than
stands comparison with the extraordinary effort
in Venezuela last weekend, the1984 vote was the
most free and fair election Nicaragua had ever had.
The
Sandinistas won support from over 60% of the voters
in that election. Right wing opposition groups,
organized and funded by the United States, boycotted
the vote. Other opposition parties fought the election
and won significant representation in Nicaragua's
legislative assembly, especially for the long marginalized
Atlantic Coast.
Impartial
foreign observers, including a delegation of UK
parliamentarians, declared the election to be free
and fair. It decisively sealed the legitimacy of
the Sandinista government, especially in relation
to its Central American neighbours. But even at
that stage the destructive US terrorist war and
the illegal trade boycott against Nicaragua had
rendered consolidation of the social and economic
benefits of the revolution impossible.
The
US government organized attacks on fuel storage
tanks in the main Nicaraguan Pacific port of Corinto.
US-laid mines damaged foreign shipping in Nicaraguan
waters. At the same time, the US was funding, training
and equipping Contra mass murderers who roamed remote
rural areas in task forces of up to as many as five
or six hundred, attacking virtually defenceless
rural cooperatives, burning clinics and schools.
They murdered teachers and health workers, targeting
farmers and their families just as the Israeli-trained
Colombian paramilitaries do today with the support
of the US and British trained Colombian army and
the active collusion of the Colombian government,
Leading
Nicaraguan opposition political figures like Violeta
Chamorro and Arnoldo Aleman were complacent beneficiaries
of the terrorist crucifixion of their country by
the United States, just as Alvaro Uribe and his
colleagues are currently in their country, Colombia.
It is hard to believe that these trajectories are
not regarded as guiding stars by the recalcitrant
anti-democratic Venezuelan opposition. In 1984 the
terrorist Reagan administration ignored the November
election result in Nicaragua and proceeded apace
with their policy of war, economic strangulation
and diplomatic isolation.
The
Iran Contra team - ¡Presente!
The
same strategy is likely from the current Bush administration
as regards Venezuela. The ouster of President Aristide
in Haiti made clearer than ever their total lack
of respect for the legitimacy of elected governments.
Many of the people now in government in Washington,
like Richard Armitage, figured in the Iran Contra
scandal involving illegal arms deals, money laundering
and drugs.
They
bypassed due constitutional process so as more surely
to destroy Nicaragua. It is the presence of such
people in government, not the attacks of September
2001, that explain why the US Constitution is currently
trashed and in tatters. These same murderous white
collar terrorists who destroyed Nicaragua are now
formulating US policy toward Venezuela and the rest
of Latin America.
On
the other hand, little change can be expected in
the event of John Kerry becoming US President. The
Democrats' Me-Too-But-More-So foreign policy offers
scant relief from US imperial greed in Venezuela
or anywhere else in Latin America. As Miguel D'Escoto
Nicaragua's former foreign minister has pointed
out, "It would be a serious mistake to conclude
that the current behavior of the United States represents
something temporary that will change when George
Bush Jr. leaves the presidency. Never in its history
has the United States taken a backward step in its
drive towards universal domination and never has
it corrected its behavior, going from bad to worse
from the point of view of the rights of the rest
of humanity."
Likely
future patterns
The
Venezuelan opposition may well try and hold out
just as the Nicaraguan opposition did after the
1984 election. They will hope for US money, diplomatic
muscle, covert action and economic strong-arming
to help them get their way. US government proxies
like Colombia's President Uribe will talk peace
and act dirty-war, just as the presidents of Nicaragua's
neighbours in Central America did during the 1980s.
The
standard imperial tool kit as deployed throughout
the last century is likely to be put to work to
dent, damage and corrupt Venezuela's shining example
of participatory democracy. Although in Venezuela's
case its huge oil reserves make it likely that the
heavier items in the tool kit, like mass terrorism
and illegal economic sanctions, will stay under
wraps. For Cuba, however, the empire's humiliation
in Venezuela may mean yet more turns of the sanctions
screw and greater exposure to reckless US military
action or provocation.
For
the US dominated international financial and trade
institutions, Venezuela's decisive defence of Latin
American autonomy, dignity and self-determination
is a menace. It challenges the long standing contradiction
between their avowed espousal of poverty reduction
and their insistence on irrational deregulation
and knock down auctions of public resources. They
cannot permit Venezuela's example to be copied elsewhere
in the continent and still maintain their current
policies. So they are likely to act swiftly and
clearly to restrict the options available to heavily
indebted countries like Brazil or Argentina. Ecuador
and Bolivia are susceptible to the same treatment.
It
will be interesting to see what happens in volatile
Bolivia when people ask why Bolivia's gas wealth
cannot be used to build health and education options
for the poor majority just as Venezuela's oil wealth
does. Already resistance to President Carlos Meza's
disingenuous manipulation of the July 15th gas referendum
is taking the form of direct action with campesinos
taking over oil production facilities. (4)
In Ecuador President Gutierrez is finding it increasingly
hard to stave off indigenous criticisms of his current
policy of collaboration with the United States policy
in the region.
Ever
greater urgency can be expected on the part of US
Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and his team
to push through "free trade" deals, fastening
in place on a permanent statutory basis US trade
and investment advantages. Zoellick's team may well
try and put such deals, already programmed this
year for Andean countries like Colombia, Ecuador
and Bolivia on an even shorter schedule than they
are already. Venezuela's bilateral negotiations
with Argentina and its wider relationships with
the Southern Cone trading block Mercosur and the
Caribbean economic community Caricom pose a dire
threat to the imperial neoliberal model that has
had a free run in the Americas for nearly 20 years.
In
environmental matters, the implications of the Venezuelan
authorities commitment to major infrastructure projects
are still not clear. They may be tempted to follow
the pattern of irresponsible displacement of indigenous
populations and environmental damage in search of
the chimerical macro-economic benefits giant infrastructure
projects promise but generally fail to deliver.
But in the area of genetically manipulated seeds,
Venezuela's stance against environmentally dangerous
and unproven biotechnology may help stem the rampant
proliferation of genetically modified crops in other
parts of Latin America too. So the referendum result
may be bad news for multinational bio-tech outfits
like Monsanto, Dupont and Dow as well as for the
European companies Syngenta and Bayer (Aventis).
Miltarily,
as the US implements its recently announced troop
re-deployments and withdraws troops from Europe,
some are likely to be moved to the Andes. The defeat
in Venezuela is a clear signal to the empire that
a new urgency may be needed to defend its hegemony.
Under either Bush or Kerry the options for defending
US and allied imperial interests are the same as
they have always been, brute military force and
shameless economic coercion. But it may not be too
far-fetched to believe the incredible creativity
and resilience of the Latin American peoples that
dawned again in Caracas last weekend will come to
symbolise hope and reconstruction lifting us all
out of the current nightmare of neoliberal injustice
and despair.
Toni
Solo is an activist based in Central America. Contact
via www.tonisolo.net.
