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CounterPunch
December
19, 2002
US Still Intervening
Against Democracy in Venezuela
by MARK WEISBROT
CARACAS. "Where are they getting their money?"
asks historian Samuel Moncada, as the television displays one
opposition commercial after another. Moncada is chair of the
history department at Central University of Venezuela in Caracas.
We are sitting in one of the few restaurants that is open in
the eastern, wealthier part of Caracas.
For two weeks during this country's business-led
strike, the privately owned stations that dominate Venezuelan
television have been running opposition "info-mercials"
instead of advertisements, in addition to what is often non-stop
coverage of opposition protests.
"I am sure there is money from abroad,"
asserts Moncada. It's a good guess: prior to the coup on April
11, the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy stepped up its
funding to opposition groups, including money funneled through
the International Republican Institute. The latter's funding
multiplied more than sixfold, to $340,000 in 2001.
But if history is any guide, overt funding
from Washington will turn out to be the tip of the iceberg.
This was the case in Haiti, Nicaragua, Chile, and other countries
where Washington has sought "regime change" because
our leaders didn't agree with the voters' choice at the polls.
(In fact, Washington is currently aiding efforts to oust President
Aristide in  Haiti
-- for the second time). In these episodes, which extended into
the 1990s, our government concealed amounts up to the hundreds
of millions of dollars that paid for such things as death squads,
strikes, economic destabilization, electoral campaigns and media.
All this remains to be investigated in
this case. But the intentions of the U.S. government are clear.
Last week the State Department ordered non- essential embassy
personnel to leave the country, and warned American citizens
not to travel here. But there have not been attacks on American
citizens or companies here, from either side of the political
divide, and this is not a particularly dangerous place for Americans
to be.
In this situation, the State Department's
extreme measures and warning can only be interpreted as a threat.
The Bush Administration has also openly sided with the opposition,
demanding early elections here. Then this week Washington changed
its position to demanding a referendum on Chavez's presidency,
most likely figuring that a divided opposition could easily
lose to Chavez in an election, despite its overwhelming advantage
in controlling the major means of communication.
The discussion in the U.S. press, dominated
by Washington's views, has also taken on an Orwellian tone.
Chavez is accused of using "dictatorial powers" for
sending the military to recover oil tankers seized by striking
captains. Bush Administration spokesman Ari Fleischer urged
the Venezuelan government "to respect individual rights
and fundamental freedoms."
But what would happen to people who hijacked
an oil tanker from Exxon-Mobil in the United States? They would
be facing a trial and a long prison sentence. Military officers
who stood outside the White House and called for the overthrow
of the government (and this just six months after a military
coup supported by a foreign power) would end up in Guantanamo
facing a secret military tribunal for terrorism.
In fact, the U.S. press would be much
more fair if it held the Venezuelan government to the standards
of the United States. In the U.S., government workers do not
have the right to strike at all, as Ronald Reagan demonstrated
when he summarily fired 12,000 air traffic controllers in 1981.
But even this analogy is incomplete: the air traffic controllers
were striking for better working conditions. Here, the employees
of the state-owned oil company -- mostly managers and executives
-- are trying to cripple the economy, which is heavily dependent
on oil exports, in order to overthrow the government. In the
United States, even private sector workers do not have the legal
right to strike for political demands, and certainly not for
the president's resignation.
In the United States, courts would issue
injunctions against the strike, the treasuries of participating
unions would be seized, and leaders would be arrested.
Meanwhile, outside of the wealthier areas
of eastern Caracas, businesses are open and streets are crowded
with shoppers. Life appears normal. This is clearly a national
strike of the privileged, and most of the country has not joined
it.
More than anything right now, this country
needs dialogue and a ratcheting down of the tensions and hostilities
between the two opposing camps, so as to avoid a civil war.
But this dialogue will never happen if the United States continues
to pursue a course of increasing confrontation.
Mark Weisbrot
is Co-Director of the Center
for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington D.C.
and the co-author of Social
Security: the Phony Crisis.
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