Chávez is creating a political abyss - The Venezuelan nightmare

WASHINGTON For decades Venezuela was a backwater, uninteresting to the outside world. It could not compete for international attention with nearby countries where superpowers staged proxy wars, or where military juntas "disappeared" thousands of opponents, or where the economies regularly crashed.

Venezuela was stable. Its oil fueled an economy that enjoyed the world's highest growth rate from 1950 to 1980 and it boasted a higher per-capita income than Spain from 1928 to 1984. Venezuela was one of the longest-lived democracies in Latin America.Venezuela is no longer boring. It has become a nightmare for its people and a threat not just to its neighbors but to the United States and even Europe. A strike in its oil industry has contributed to a rise in gasoline prices at the worst possible time. Hasil Mohammed Rahaham-Alan, a Venezuelan citizen, was detained last month at a London airport as he arrived from Caracas carrying a hand grenade in his luggage. A week later, President Hugo Chávez praised the arrest orders of two opposition leaders who had been instrumental in organizing the strike, saying they "should have been jailed a long time ago." Chávez has helped to create an environment where stateless international networks whose business is terror, guns or drugs feel at home.

Venezuela has also become a laboratory where the accepted wisdom of the 1990s is being tested - and often discredited. The first tenet to fall was the belief that the United States has almost unlimited influence in South America. As one of its main oil suppliers and a close neighbor has careened out of control, America has been a conspicuously inconsequential bystander.

And it is not just the United States. The United Nations, agencies like the Organization of American States and the International Monetary Fund, or the international press - all have stood by and watched.

Another belief of the 1990s was that global economic forces would force democratically elected leaders to pursue responsible economic policies. Yet Chávez, a democratically elected president, has been willing to tolerate international economic isolation - with disastrous results for Venezuela's poor - in exchange for greater power at home.

The 21st century was not supposed to engender a Latin American president with a red beret. Instead of obsessing about luring private capital, he scares it away. Rather than strengthening ties with the United States, he befriends Cuba. Such behavior was supposed to have been made obsolete by the democratization, economic deregulation and globalization of the 1990s.

Venezuela is an improbable country to have fallen into this political abyss. It is vast, wealthy, relatively modern and cosmopolitan, with a strong private sector and a homogeneous mixed-race population with little history of conflict. Democracy was supposed to have prevented its decline into a failed state. Yet once Chávez gained control over the government, his rule became exclusionary and profoundly undemocratic.

Under Chávez, Venezuela is a powerful reminder that elections are necessary but not sufficient for democracy, and that even longstanding democracies can unravel overnight. A government's legitimacy flows not only from the ballot box but also from the way it conducts itself. Accountability and institutional restraints and balances are needed.

The international community became adept at monitoring elections and ensuring their legitimacy in the 1990s. The Venezuelan experience illustrates the urgency of setting up equally effective mechanisms to validate a government's practices.

The often stealthy transgressions of Chávez have unleashed a powerful expression of what is perhaps the only trend of the 1990s still visible in Venezuela: civil society. In today's Venezuela millions of once politically indifferent citizens stage almost daily marches and rallies.

This is not a traditional opposition movement. It is an inchoate network of people from all social classes and walks of life, who are organized in loosely coordinated units and who do not have any other ambition than to stop a president who has made their country unlivable.

For too many years they have been mere inhabitants of their own country. Now they demand to be citizens, and feel they have the right to oust through democratic means a president who has wrought havoc on their country.

Even though the constitution allows for early elections, and even though Chávez has promised that he will abide by this provision, the great majority of Venezuelans don't believe him. They are convinced that in August, when the constitution contemplates a referendum on the president, the government will resort to delaying tactics and dirty tricks. With international attention elsewhere, Chávez will use his power to forestall an election and ignore the constitution.

Venezuela's citizens have been heroically peaceful and civil in their quest. All they ask is that they be given a chance to vote. The world should do its best to ensure that they have that opportunity.

The writer, Venezuela's minister of trade and industry from 1989 to 1990, is editor of Foreign Policy magazine.

The electorate didn't turn out to vote in the 1998 election. The two party system was expanding, there wasn't a good opposition candidate to Chavez and with the split vote and apathy Chavez swept into office.

World Socialist Web Site - Hugo Chavez's election - Venezuelan and foreign capital size up former coup leader - By Bill Vann 17 December 1998 - [Full Text] The presidential election victory in Venezuela of Hugo Chavez, a former Lieutenant Colonel who led an abortive coup nearly seven years ago, has provoked relatively little consternation from foreign multinationals and the country's ruling class.

Chavez, who campaigned as the champion of the poor and the scourge of the "oligarchy," settled in rapidly to the role of a responsible statesman, determined to uphold the integrity of Venezuela's constitutional order and the soundness of capitalist investment.

The victory of the ex-paratrooper, who attempted to seize the Miraflores presidential palace in February 1992, was met with noisy celebrations in the shantytowns surrounding the capital of Caracas. For Venezuela's impoverished masses the election at least held the satisfaction of seeing the two parties that have safeguarded the interests of the rich for the past 40 years wiped off the political map. Many took to the streets with one simple slogan: "We are hungry."

Accion Democratica, and Copei, the Social Christian Party, had alternated holding power on a regular and predictable basis ever since the overthrow of Venezuela's former military dictator, Gen. Marcos Perez Jimenez, in 1958. Between them they divided up the considerable spoils of government in a relatively peaceful and business-like fashion.

Carlos Andres Perez, the leading figure in Accion Democratica, was the target of Chavez's coup, which came less than four years after the "Caracazo," the rebellion against IMF-dictated austerity measures in which Andres Perez sent out the army to slaughter hundreds. A year after the coup he was forced out of office in an immense corruption scandal.

Copei was the party of the incumbent 82-year-old president, Rafael Caldera, who was barred by the constitution from succeeding himself and totally discredited by the titanic economic crisis that has swept the country under his government.

In the past, these two parties routinely won more than 90 percent of the vote between them. But in this election their crisis was such that neither ran presidential candidates, throwing their support behind an "independent" anti-Chavez candidate, Henrique Salas Romer. Salas had the virtue of moderating his attacks on the two traditional parties, defining their multimillion-dollar embezzlements, bank frauds and kickback schemes as a matter of economic "neglect," rather than outright criminality.

But backing the independent did Accion Democratic and Copei little good. Between them, they picked up barely 9 percent of the vote, both of them trailing behind a personalist party launched by a former Miss Universe.

The collapse of Venezuela's two-party system is the political expression of the collapse of the country's economy, once considered among Latin America's wealthiest and most promising. Under the combined impact of falling petroleum prices, mounting foreign debt and the relentless assault of globally mobile finance capital, the country has seen both its inflation and interest rates driven up to around 65 percent.

The onset of recession this year has claimed more than 350,000 workers' jobs. According to the government's own estimates, at least 2,400 businesses have either closed or are on the brink of bankruptcy.

According to one recent study, 97 percent of the country's 23 million people have faced a drastic decline in living standards since the mid-1980s, with the working class seeing its purchasing power cut to one-third of what it was 20 years ago. The nominal minimum wage stands at $100 a month in a country where minimum basic necessities cost at least $800.

While in the past Venezuela's enormous petroleum reserves on the Orinoco River financed development and lined the pockets of generations of politicians, today the country faces a $25 billion foreign debt and a $6 billion dollar budget deficit with income from oil exports steadily falling.

Despite the populist promises of his election campaign and his previous attempt to seize power by force of arms, the victory of Chavez did not touch off any panic among ruling circles in Venezuela. While he campaigned on promises of jobs, decent living standards, housing, education and healthcare for Venezuela's poor, the ex-army officer lost little time once he had won in committing himself to policies that preclude any such reforms.

"My first message to investors is one of confidence," he declared. He said that business conditions would be even better under his government because "we will not have the situation of corruption of recent years. We are going to bring about the reestablishment of juridical security to guarantee investments." He sent his principal economic advisor to Washington to assure the International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions that his election rhetoric about reexamining Venezuela's foreign debt commitments was meant only for popular consumption.

"Comandante Chavez began his campaign with more radical language," said Luis Henrique Ball, president of the country's manufacturers' association, Conindustria. "Now it appears that he has moderated, which is very tranquilizing." Indeed, some representatives of native and foreign capital saw popular illusions in the former army officer as offering definite opportunities.

"The election means that the president-elect will have a reservoir of support for what has to be done," said Antonio Herrera-Vaillant, executive vice president of the Venezuelan-American Chamber of Commerce. "We have lacked this in the last five years, because Caldera was a minority president. There has been great relief since Chavez was elected, he has not waged class warfare and has been conciliatory. Nobody is giving him a blank check from the business community, but nobody is heading for the fire exit."

Washington also congratulated Chavez on his "impressive electoral victory." Having denied him a visa only a few years ago because of his role in the 1992 coup attempt, a White House spokesman expressed confidence in his dedication to the Venezuelan constitution and free market policies, and sent Chavez assurances that a visa would now be granted.

In the aftermath of the election, the stock market in Caracas registered its biggest-ever one day gain while the national currency rose sharply against the dollar. Wall Street analysts explained that Chavez's victory had already been factored in by finance capital and the market reaction was to the absence of civil war in Venezuela.

Chavez ran not only as the candidate of his own "Fifth Republic Party," but also as the head of the Popular Pole, a coalition that included all of the so-called left of Venezuela. The Stalinist Communist Party backed the ex-paratrooper, as did the Movement toward Socialism, or MAS. A prominent ex-Stalinist, Luis Miquilena, was named as the new government's Minister of Interior Relations, one of the key posts in the cabinet.

Meanwhile, there was speculation that MAS's most prominent figure, Teodoro Petkoff, would stay on in the position he held in the Caldera government, that of Planning Minister. Petkoff, an ex-Castroite guerrilla, has functioned for years as the principal architect of the IMF austerity programs that have devastated the living standards of the masses.

In throwing their support behind a former coup leader and populist demagogue like Chavez, these Stalinist and petty-bourgeois nationalist formations are only helping to legitimize the resurgence of military and authoritarian political figures throughout Latin America.

In Bolivia Hugo Banzer has returned to the presidential palace he once occupied as a dictator, while in Peru Alberto Fujimori continues to rule as the civilian head of what amounts to a militarized regime. In Colombia the right-wing presidential candidate and ex-general Harold Bedoya sent his congratulations to Chavez, declaring that the Venezuelan elections had demonstrated "a phenomenon that is taking place in Latin America, whose peoples see in democratic ex-military figures a way out of the current crisis."

In Venezuela this phenomenon has particular significance. The country had one of the longest-standing antimilitarist traditions in all of Latin America. After the overthrow of Perez Jimenez, it instituted regulations requiring the rotation of officers every year to prevent the consolidation of a military clique bent on staging a coup. In the 1970s, when most of the continent was ruled by military dictatorship, Caracas remained a safe haven for exiles from Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and elsewhere.

Latin America has a long and tragic experience with populist military figures, from Juan Peron in Argentina and Fulgencio Batista in Cuba to Gen. Juan Velasco Alvarado in Peru and Gen. J.J. Torres in Bolivia. Over and over again these military rulers, backed by the Stalinists, Castroites and other sectors of the petty-bourgeois left, have jettisoned their nationalist pretensions and radical rhetoric to accommodate themselves to imperialism and in most cases pave the way to right-wing dictatorships.

While a Peron could pursue limited national development schemes over a period of years, faced today with globally mobile finance capital and the domination of multinational corporations, these pretensions, as shown in the case of Chavez, evaporate within a matter of days.

The collapse of Venezuela's two-party system and the coming to power of Chavez, like the crisis sweeping Chile with the detention in London of ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet, are indications of a profound revolutionary crisis that is taking shape once again on the Latin American continent. [End]

Chavez then softened his tone and brought almost everyone on board. The majority of the country - not just the poor wanted reform. So Chavez easily took over.

_____________________________________________________________

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela by Steve Ellner Barcelona, Venezuela December 10, 1999 [Full Text] Venezuela´s president Lt. Col. Hugo Chávez frequently makes public appearances in military fatigues and tells his audience that he is ¨dressed for battle.¨ He adds that his words are ammunition and his targets are those adversaries who act at the behest of the discredited political parties of the establishment. Chávez has scored a string of electoral victories that have left the formerly dominant parties disgraced and demoralized. First, he triumphed in the presidential elections in December 1998 with 56 percent of the vote, as opposed to the meager 9 percent of the two main establishment parties -- the social democratic Democratic Action (AD) and the social Christian Copei. Subsequently, in a referendum in April, 90 percent of the votes were cast in favor of Chávez's proposal for a Constituent Assembly. For Chávez, the Assembly's raison d'etre is nothing less than the thorough transformation of the nation's political system.

Then, on July 25, Chávez trounced his opponents in the election for the Constituent Assembly. All but a handful of the candidates elected to the 131-seat Assembly belong to Chávez's coalition. The remaining few were endorsed by AD and Copei, whose candidates -- including several of the parties' national leadership - deceptively called themselves "independents."

Following the inauguration of the Assembly, influential actors abroad have questioned its assumption of emergency powers. At issue is the Constituent Assembly's claim that it is hierarchically superior to all other public institutions and its decision to oversee Congress, the judicial system and state governments. In an editorial on August 21, the New York Times labeled the Constituent Assembly's actions "Jacobin" and criticized it for "concentrating power in the presidency." The U.S. State Department, which had maintained a discrete silence regarding Chávez since his election, advised Venezuela to maintain "the separation of powers between the diverse branches of government." Nevertheless, a glimpse at Chávez's past and his government's program dispels the notion that he is set on assuming dictatorial power and that his efforts to fortify the executive branch overrides social concerns. Most important, none of the members of the opposition has been locked behind bars or persecuted in any way and no restrictions have been placed on the media, in spite of its vocal criticism of the government.

Chávez originally raised the banner of the Constituent Assembly as a vehicle for radical political change at the time of the abortive military coup he led in 1992. He again embraced it last year during the presidential campaign. Chávez lambastes the nation's Constitution of 1961 for privileging political parties. Their representatives in Congress have powers ranging from the nomination of judges to approval of military promotions. Chávez reserves his sharpest attacks for AD and Copei, which for decades have been at the center of what he pejoratively calls "party-democracy" marked by clientelism, inefficiency and corruption.

In accordance with their goal of limiting the reach of political parties and promoting participatory democracy, the Chavistas elected to the Constituent Assembly have moved to turn the judicial system upside down and are expected to enact the popular election of judges. Coalition partner Patria Para Todos (PPT) issued a statement in September calling on the Assembly to create an "autonomous and decentralized" court system, adding that "the jails should be utilized only as a last resort and should cease being a depot of human beings to convert itself into centers of work and study."

Many Chavista delegates favor eliminating state legislatures and reducing the authority of governors in order to enhance that of a municipal government accessible to ordinary citizens.

By actively taking part in the campaign for the Constituent Assembly, Chávez flaunted Venezuelan law and tradition which forbids the President from taking sides in elections so as to avoid utilization of the immense resources at his disposal. Chávez, however, must capitalize on his popularity if he is to carry through on his promise to overhaul the nation's political system. The parties that back him, including his own Fifth Republic Party, fall short of the task.

Not only do they lack prestigious leaders, but they are divided among themselves. Chávez´s movement began as a one-man show, and although some of its leaders have achieved a degree of national popularity, it is still completely dependent on its standard bearer.

THE WHY OF CHAVEZ'S POPULARITY

Chávez is a product of popular outrage and effervescence. Fifty years of relatively stable oil prices had provided the nation with a stable democracy, which contrasted with the military-run governments in the rest of the continent in the 1960s and 1970s. The sharp downturn in prices in the 1980s interrupted Venezuela's prosperity. Then on February 27, 1989 mass riots of slum dwellers broke out throughout the nation, leaving an estimated 2000 dead. Venezuela would never be the same.

Santiago Martínez, who heads a major community organization in Caracas, told me: "After February 27, we tried to reconstruct what I call the "social fabric" by easing social tensions, but to no avail. Poor people consider the affluent communities enemy grounds. Any businessman who is successful is assumed to be corrupt, and that goes for politicians as well. The distrust is mutual. The middle class fears that the poor are about to invade their communities." This class cleavage manifests itself in attitudes toward Chávez. Middle class members are increasingly alienated by the radical language of the President, who on several occasions has questioned the sanctity of private property. They view Chávez as indiscreet, long-winded and uncouth. In contrast, the nation's have-nots are as solidly behind him as at the time of his election and are especially taken by the President's frequent references to the plight of the poor.

Chávez´s charisma is not hard to grasp. He represents different things to different people. He frequently speaks to the nation informally in TV appearances which go on for hours, in the style of FDR´s fireside chats. He also has a weekly call-up radio program named ¨Hello President.¨ The President sometimes shows up unexpectedly and virtually unaccompanied at hospitals and elsewhere in order to get a close-up view of the nation´s pressing problems. Chávez comes off as an ordinary Venezuelan whose childhood dream was to play baseball in the majors. Indeed, on an Asian trip in Octuber, Chávez pitched prior to a game to Venezuelan slugger Roberto Petagine, who leads the Japanese major leagues in home runs. He performed a similar feat at Shea Stadium in New York earlier this year. He is a Southpaw who occasionally throws a wicked curve, and even argues with the umpire on calls he considers unfair.

Chávez also proudly talks of his Indian extraction in a country where many are conscious of their African blood but forget that they are also mestizo. Chávez embraces a homegrown style of nationalism underpinned by Venezuelan heroes. His discourse resembles Sandinismo which also developed a national doctrine while breaking with imported models of Marxism-Leninism. Chávez berates historians for practically writing off the nation´s history between the death of Simón Bolívar in 1830 and the modern era, dismissing a whole century of political leaders as ¨caudillos," or strong-men. In a book of interviews with Chávez entitled The Commander Speaks, he states: ¨Caudillos may have been necessary for the incorporation of our people in historical struggles. I believe we have been sold an imported bourgeois democratic model - that of the elimination of our leaders.¨

Among these ¨caudillo¨ leaders was Chávez´s great-grandfather, known as ¨Maisanta,¨ A life-long rebel, Maisanta participated in an uprising that left an ex-president dead, and in another which involved the execution of a notoriously ruthless governor. He was finally subdued in 1922 and spent his last seven years in prison.

Like Maisanta, Chávez is a rebel at heart. As a junior officer, he dedicated ten years laying the groundwork for an unsuccessful coup he staged on February 4, 1992 against neoliberal president Carlos Andrés Pérez (who was impeached a year later on grounds of corruption). Unlike his great-grandfather, Chávez was released from jail after serving only two years, and went on to form a makeshift party consisting of ex-military officers and leftists including ¨ultras.¨ He has now rewarded some of these same followers positions in his cabinet and the party.

AUTHORITARIAN DRIFT?

One of the candidates unexpectedly defeated in the elections for the Constituent Assembly was Carlos Andrés Pérez, Chávez´s arch-rival. Pérez claims that the choice available to Venezuelans is between ¨liberty and dictatorship,¨ while making clear who represents what. Pérez predicts that Chávez will convert the Assembly into a vehicle for personal rule.

If what Pérez and other opposition leaders say about Chávez´s authoritarian tendencies is true, then his presidency fits the general pattern of excessively powerful executives characteristic of Latin American democracies in the 1990s. Peru´s Alberto Fujimori dissolved Congress and the Supreme Court, and, as in the case of Argentina´s Carlos Menem, ruled for several years largely by decree. Latin American presidents have often run roughshod over congress in order to impose neoliberal policies that they themselves had adamantly opposed when first running for office. Chávez has also placed in doubt the legitimacy of the Congress, the parties of the establishment, and even the bureaucratically run labor movement, leading some to question his commitment to democracy. In addition, he has set aside his radical proposals on economic policy, such as a negotiated moratorium on the foreign debt and revision of contracts with foreign oil companies, and he no longer lashes out at the International Monetary Fund.

Nevertheless, Chávez is hardly moving in the direction of Menem and Fujimori, nor does he resemble their radical populist predecessors such as Juan Domingo Perón or Lázaro Cárdenas. In the first place, Chávez was a junior officer who conspired against the government for ten years and then led an armed uprising. In his informal style, his physical traits, and his lower middle class background he is more "one of the people" than were his populist counterparts. Furthermore, his key slogan is popular participation, a far cry from the paternalist relationships promoted by populism. Indeed, his followers have a sense of optimism and efficacy -- that they are the major players in a process that promises to transform the nation more than any event since Independence. Finally, given the conservative setting in Latin America in the 1990s, Chávez´s movement is distinguished by its radical and confrontational thrust.

Chávez´s critique of Venezuela´s post-1958 democracy goes beyond repudiation of discredited politicians of the ilk of Carlos Andrés Pérez. He proposes a completely new political model for Venezuela of direct citizen participation. In the book The A, B, C of the Constituent Assembly, Chávez follower Fabian Chacón quotes Rousseau as saying ¨the system of representation contradicts the principle of popular sovereignty." Chacón put it this way to me: ¨The idea that people can intervene in politics at any given moment, as against having to wait four or five years at election time, is the difference between night and day.¨ He went on to note that for the Chavistas the quintessence of ¨participatory democracy¨ is the proposal of a referendum allowing Venezuelans to vote politicians out of office in periods between elections.

One facet of the deepening of the nation's democracy is the democratization of the nation's main labor federation, the Venezuelan Workers Confederation (CTV). Chavistas pressured the CTV into allowing the rank and file to elect directly the president and other members of its executive committee. These elections will make the CTV practically unique among major labor federations throughout the world. The CTV also gave in to the insistence by Chavistas that the elections be supervised by an outside, neutral body, thus minimizing possible fraud. Nevertheless, the CTV stopped short of acceding to another demand of Chavista labor leaders, namely the inclusion of unorganized workers -- including such self-employed ones as street vendors -- in the list of voters. Diverse groups such as police, members of the cultural community, ecological organizations and even children participated in meetings to formulate proposals for the Constituent Assembly and, in some cases, launched their own candidates. The First Lady, Marisabel Rodríguez de Chávez, who has played an activist role on behalf of children rights in general, and street children in particular, was elected to the Constituent Assembly with the second largest vote. She proposes the creation of the figure of ¨The Defender of the Rights of Children¨ who would encourage children to come forward and denounce abuses. The tenacity of the First Lady´s convictions and courage was demonstrated during the presidential campaign when she publicly stated that her child, Rosainés Chávez, was conceived out of wedlock.

Chávez´s election has set off efforts to organize and mobilize other sectors of the population including the unemployed, land squatters and even prisoners. Venezuelan jails are among the most dilapidated and dangerous in the world. President Chávez and several followers met with prisoners and convinced them to turn over weapons. Sarith Suriega, a congresswoman I spoke to belonging to Chávez´s Fifth Republic party, participated in the endeavor: ¨Prisoners handed over some of their weapons which they had concealed in the walls, and in return we promised to look into their grievances, not only regarding prison conditions but the injustices of their own sentences.¨

Another Chavista, Rear Admiral Luis Cabrera, who ran for governor and was one of the top rebel leaders in 1992, pointed out to me: ¨70 percent of our prisoners are awaiting sentences. These people are a potentially powerful force, and their tactics such as hunger strikes draw world-wide attention. We (the Fifth Republic party) received a majority of votes in all the nation´s penitentiaries in the December elections.¨

From a political viewpoint, Chávez´s bold initiatives and his promises not to use force against those who protest have paid off, at least in the short run. A large part of the population is actively behind him and willing to take to the streets should circumstances require. In the long run, however, his militant rhetoric could backfire if expectations are not met. Chávez's bias in favor of non-privileged sectors gets translated into certain policies which hardly sits well with the IMF and national business groups. Although Chávez now accepts privatization, he adamantly opposes it in the area of health and education, and has thus put a hold on last year's law eliminating the publicly run social security program. His government has also clamped down on private schools that fail to meet basic standards. Spokesmen for this sector have warned that the draft of the new constitution submitted to the constituent assembly in October points in the direction of the elimination of private education.

In July, he also unveiled a 900-million dollar public works program to combat unemployment under the direction of military authorities. Representatives of the international business community criticized it for diverting money, derived from recent oil price increases, which should be used to put government finances in order. At the same time, Venezuelan business spokesmen attacked the plan for sidetracking the private sector.

The Chávez movement's mobilization strategy designed to shore up the Constituent Assembly also brings to the fore demands of a socio-economic nature. In a march organized by the "Fifth Republic" and PPT parties on September 2 in Caracas, the parties' worker contingents called for the restoration of the system of severance payment, calculated on the basis of the employees last salary, which the previous pro-neoliberal government had scrapped. The constitutional draft submitted to the Constituent Assembly in October restores the old system (although a last minute change of wording leaves the article somewhat ambiguous).

Another key element in Chávez´s political strategy is the armed forces, which has been incorporated into the nation´s life in the form of programs of civilian-military cooperation and appointment of officers to top government positions. The President's proposal for granting military personnel the right to vote, which leftists have been pushing for since the 1970s, was brought to the floor of the Constituent Assembly in October. Chávez can count on the armed forces as an ally, particularly crucial should political tensions reach a threshold conducive to military intervention.

AN INDEPENDENT FOREIGN POLICY

Chávez's independent and audacious foreign policy also represents a radical break with previous administrations. At the same time, it thrusts Venezuela into a leadership position among Latin American nations increasingly concerned with new forms of U.S. intervention.

This role of protagonist was demonstrated at the 29th General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) held in Guatemala in June. At the meeting, Foreign Minister José Vicente Rangel pointed to possible corruption among narcotics officials in the United States, at the same time that he called for elimination of Washington's annual "certification" of Latin American nations according to their record in combating the drug trade. Rangel, a three-time socialist candidate for President, posed the question "how does the country which figures as the principle market for narcotics get off certifying the efforts of other nations in this area?"

At the OAS general assembly, Rangel led the resistance to a resolution sponsored by U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering which would have created mechanisms to impede the slippage of democratically elected governments toward dictatorship. In an interview, Rangel told me, "The U.S. motion was vague and rested on hypothetical situations. If it had prospered, it would have served as a pretext for intervention."

In the interview, Rangel pointed to the turnabout in the attitude of the U.S. embassy in Caracas, which during the presidential campaign had denied Chávez a visa due to his conspiratorial past. "The State Department has shown great caution toward Chávez because of what I call the "Cuba Syndrome": the fear that U.S. inflexibility will push Chávez to the extreme left, as it did Castro." Rangel does not deny the possibility that Chávez's independent foreign policy could put a damper on investments from abroad, but notes, "With the end of the Cold War, foreign investors have paid less attention to ideology and geopolitics. They consider Chávez's commitment to revamp the notoriously corrupt and inefficient judicial system far more significant than any abstract formulation."

More recently, however, Washington's apparent easygoingness has been transformed into a more critical posture. Undoubtedly, one reason for this change in attitude is the realization that the political revolution Chavez is leading inevitably spills over to the economic sphere, in the process undermining U.S. economic interests.

Of overriding importance is the key role Chavez has begun to play in OPEC. In recent years, Venezuela was notorious for scabbing on OPEC by increasing oil exports. The Chávez government's announcement early this year that it would not attempt to recover the portion of the U.S. market previously lost to Saudia Arabia signaled a new policy of complying with Venezuela's production quotas. In March of next year, Chávez hopes to host OPEC's second summit of heads of states (the first was held in 1975) in which non-OPEC oil exporters will also participate. There Chávez is expected to push for the proposal for OPEC to reassume the role abandoned two decades ago of setting prices in the form of establishing a maximum-minimum range between which prices will be allowed to oscilate.

In less than one year in office, Chávez has diverged from the U.S. on a wide range of issues. What he said in China on the last day of a visit in October was more than just empty rhetoric: "We have begun to put into practice an autonomous foreign policy independent of any center of power, and in this we resemble China." Chávez went on to tell the Chinese that his end vision was nothing less than a "multi-polar world."

When Chávez exhorted fellow rebels to lay down their arms after intense fighting on February 4, 1992, he declared, "Unfortunately, the objectives we formulated have not been achieved for now.¨ The "for now" phrase has since become legendary in Venezuela. It serves as a reminder that Chávez is, above all, a strategist with a keen sense of timing. Indeed, Chávez makes this point to his followers. At a rally announcing Caracas' 8 candidates for the Constituent Assembly in June, Chávez told supporters that his movement has "cards up our sleeves" and cited the proverb "battle that is announced, doesn't kill soldiers."

Until now the President has carefully limited his radical objectives to the nation's political system. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Chávez and many of his followers have an underlying socio-economic vision. Indeed, many of his leading supporters have over an extended period of time called for reexamination of the foreign debt and defended state control of strategic sectors of the economy. If Chávez is successful in consolidating power and drafting a constitution which transforms political institutions, he may well switch over to a second track with the aim of overcoming economic dependence. For now, Chávez is concentrating his fire on corrupt and traditional-minded politicians, while defending national sovereignty in the form of an independent foreign policy. [End]

Soon Chavez was cozing up to Saddam and every anti-American he could find. Venezuelan Bolivian Circles were established at the urging of Fidel Castro resembling Cuba's Defense of the Revolution block watches. These radical groups have terrorized Chavez's political opposition, the media, the church, businesses and unions. Chavez has taken over the schools, the arts, the judicary, the congress. He is now the dictator of Venezuela.

_________________________________________________________________________

One man's explanation for the return of Marxism in Latin America - It's the corrupt judical system

Jan/Feb 2000 - Cato Institute - Vargas Llosa on the Future of Liberty in Latin America [Full Text] My first priority in life since I was very young has been literature. But, during most of Latin American history, writers have been pushed to participate in the civic debate and to take positions on the issues of the day. This doesn't happen frequently in the United States or in other advanced democracies where writers and intellectuals are not necessarily interested in politics or in civic debates and in many cases concentrate on their chosen work. That is practically impossible in Latin America; certainly, it has been in my own life.

In 1953 when I entered the University of San Marcos my country was a military dictatorship, as were many Latin American countries. I entered a university where many teachers had been in exile or prison. There was no political activity-all political parties had been banned. Censorship, supposedly for the security of the state, muted criticism. So it was very difficult if you were young and living in those circumstances not to become aware of the importance of politics in life. Even if you wanted to be a writer and only a writer, politics was there presenting you with all kinds of difficulties and obstacles and challenges to the exercise of your vocation.

So I was pushed to participate first of all in the political debate and then in political action. I have never considered myself a politician. Even during the three years when I was involved in practical politics and running for office in Peru I thought of myself first of all as a writer, who for special reasons was morally obliged to participate in a political campaign in defense of values and ideas that are indispensable to the progress and development of our society.

About 10 years ago, I was more optimistic about the future of liberty in Latin America. It seemed to have embraced at last the two essential tools of civilization: political democracy and free markets. Military dictatorships were disappearing and being replaced by civilian governments born of quasi-free elections. For the first time there was practically a continental consensus in favor of democracy as the framework within which to fight against poverty and underdevelopment and for progress. The idea of Marxist revolution was fading away; it remained popular only among very small circles of academics and intellectuals.

For the first time also it seemed that in Latin America the idea of free markets, of entrepreneurial spirit, and of open borders to integrate international markets was taking root. The old, damaging ideas-economic nationalism, import substitution-were viewed as anachronisms that were a major reason for our failure. So it seemed that, at last, Latin America would become the continent of the future as Stephan Zweig once predicted. But if we look at what has happened in the last decade, we must accept that those expectations have not been totally fulfilled. Democracy hasn't taken root.

Unfortunately, it was in my own country, Peru, that democracy first collapsed. As in the past, it collapsed because of the military. The difference is that in 1992 it collapsed with the elected president an accomplice in its destruction. But what was even more worrisome was that this coup was popular. That was really unusual in Peruvian history. We have had many military coups, but none in the past had garnered the strong support that the coup of 1992 did. Perhaps the circumstances-terrorism, the insecurity that terrorism created, the economic crisis that the populist policies of the previous government had produced, hyperinflation-had something to do with it. Only an active minority of Peruvians protested the collapse of the most precious good for our society-a democratic system, a system of freedom and legality.

That bad example, as you know, has had imitators elsewhere in Latin America. To my great surprise, people are once again thinking that they need a caudillo-a strong man-to rule their country. Since 1992, in many Latin American countries I have visited, I have heard people say, "What we need is a Fujimori. What we need is a man with pantalones. A man to fight corruption. A man to send home the totally inept politicians." The Peruvian coup was imitated in Guatemala, and the coup there failed because democracy was stronger than in my country, but it was still an attempt. And since then other developments that have impoverished (if not contributed to the destruction of) democracy have occurred in Latin America and in some cases, such as Venezuela, with great popular support. A regime doesn't have to be democratic to be popular.

There are many reasons for the enthusiasm for a "strong man." Corruption has been terrible. It is very demoralizing for a society to see that politics can be a shortcut to enriching yourself. And the way in which the democratic government wasted the national wealth and created expectations that were unrealistic makes the disillusionment with democracy somewhat understandable.

If there is a word that leaps from Mexico to Argentina today, it is not freedom-it is corruption. Corruption has become a key feature of the Latin American political scene. It is true that in some countries corruption has been reduced to "normal" proportions, but in many Latin American countries corrup-tion has grown so much that it has distorted important social and economic reforms.

I suppose that the example that is in the mind of everyone is Argentina-a very interesting case of a president whom no one would have ever imagined capable of reforms. But many of his economic reforms have been handicapped and sabotaged by corruption, which has been a major issue in elections. Corruption not only undermines reform; in the medium and long term it erodes the very idea of democracy, the vision of what a democracy is. That can have very negative consequences in the future.

Actually, we have had political democracy in Latin America, but democratic institutions in many countries are still very weak or nonexistent. For example, the legal system is still very undemocratic everywhere in Latin America. Justice is a privilege for only powerful Latin Americans. The great majority of the people do not have access to real justice because they have neither political nor economic power. And without justice-tribunals and judges who are really independent-it is very difficult for markets to function and for political democracy to enrich the lives of all citizens. You can have free elections, but if you feel that you can't go to a judge if your rights have been transgressed-because you know that justice can be manipulated by political power-then your faith in the democratic system will weaken or disappear.

Sadly, many economic reforms have been deeply undemocratic. Privatization, for example, was an extraordinary tool for increasing the number of holders of private property. If you don't have widespread ownership of private property-if private property is concentrated in the hands of a very small minority, and the great majority of society has no real access to private property-how can democracy be meaningful for the majority of the people? So, privatization of the enormous public sector that we had in Latin America was an extraordinary opportunity to spread private property among Latin Americans who had had no access to property. But that has been done in very few cases in very few countries.

Chile was one of the exceptions; on most of the continent, privatization meant the transformation of public monopolies into private monopolies. It was a way to enrich the state, to give it tools for populist programs and investments, and also in many cases to enrich friends and partners. So the idea of privatization in many Latin American countries has been associated in public opinion with corruption, with dirty tactics.

Why are people in Latin America so pessimistic when you talk to them about the advantages of democracy? I had this experience when I was a candidate and I went to poor villages and to poor neighborhoods in the cities. I talked to the people about democracy. I tried to explain what democracy meant for the advanced and prosperous societies of the world. But I could see skepticism in my listeners' eyes. They were looking at me as if I was from another planet. "What are you talking about?" is what they seemed to be thinking. "What do you mean democracy? If someone steals my cows and I go to the judge and I cannot bribe the judge, I know that I will be defeated in the tribunals. This has been happening since I was born and it is still happening. So what kind of democracy is this?" I think that if anything can really change the pessimistic attitude of many Latin Americans, especially poor Latin Americans, toward democracy, it is an improvement in justice. When people understand that there is an institution to which they can go to request compensation for damages and abuses committed against them, that improvement is possible, that they can have a better life, then they will support democracy in principle as well as in practice. [End]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.