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CounterPunch
December
18, 2002
Coup de Petrol in Venezuela
by GREGORY WILPERT
Caracas. Exactly one year after the opposition's first
"general strike," on December 10, 2001, which launched
the campaign to oust the democratically elected president of
Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, the opposition is engaged in its fourth
"general strike" and has come very close to finally
achieving its goal. The fourth employer-sponsored general strike,
which began on December 2, seemed to have a strong start, as
traffic resembled a Sunday and many stores and practically all
private schools throughout the country were closed that day.
However, by the second day it was clear that the strike would
not last. Still, the opposition continued to extend the strike
for an additional day every day, each time finding new reasons
to continue the strike, even though it was clear that the strike
had very little ongoing support beyond a few large businesses,
such as McDonald's and other fast food chains, the supermarkets,
and the private schools. The opposition, which consists of the
main Chamber of Commerce Fedecameras, the union federation CTV,
the coalition of opposition parties and organizations gathered
under the "Coordinadora Democratica," and the private
mass media kept claiming that the strike was a resounding success
nonetheless.
The opposition's fortunes turned, however,
when it pulled its trump card on the fourth day of the strike:
the managers and administrative workers of Venezuela's oil company,
PDVSA. Following a suspicious break-in at a manager's home and
the government's raid of a tanker captain's home, managers and
other white-collar workers of PDVSA staged a protest in front
of the oil company's headquarters. The National Guard immediately
broke-up this strike with tear gas and plastic bullets because
the headquarters had several months earlier been declared a "security
zone" and off limits to demonstrations, since it is of vital
economic interest to the country. Despite PDVSA's president's
continuous efforts to negotiate with dissident managers, these
decided that it was time for them to join the strike, given the
recent events. The management and white-collar worker strike,
however, did not gain much momentum until tanker captains and
dock workers joined it.
The opposition received an additional
and tremendous boost when the opposition's leaders and the media
took advantage of a terrible tragedy, in which a gunman opened
fire on a peaceful opposition rally and killed three and wounded
about 30 others. Opposition leaders immediately argued that the
government was responsible for this atrocity. For the next two
days the media continuously repeated the images of the chaos
and confusion and of the dead and wounded that were recorded
immediately after the shooting. The gunman was apprehended at
the scene of the crime and within two hours of the shooting,
amateur video footage surfaced that supposedly showed the gunman
in the presence of pro-Chavez mayor Freddy Bernal a day earlier.
Investigators of the crime, however,
have said that there is proof that the gunman, Joao de Goveia,
a Portuguese national, entered Venezuela from Portugal the day
before the shooting, but well after the footage of the amateur
video was taped. In other words, either the video image is not
of de Gouveia or the video might have been faked, which would
not have been too difficult, since the image is very grainy and
dark because it was filmed in the middle of the night. Apparently,
de Goveia was living and working in Venezuela, but had been abroad
for a while, just before the shooting.
As is usual in such high profile cases,
the truth will probably never be known beyond a reasonable doubt,
since there are too many interests at stake and too many people
willing and in the position to forge evidence or testimony. Still,
there can be little doubt that this attack was of absolutely
no benefit to the government, since it rekindled a strike that
was faltering. As a result, it provided a big boost to the opposition's
campaign to oust President Chavez.
Opposition leaders' taking advantage
of the attack and the relentless media campaign of the five private
television stations and eight or so major newspapers, which consistently
present only one perspective for interpreting all events that
take place in Venezuela, upset many pro-Chavez Venezuelans even
more with the media than they had already been. On the eighth
day of the strike, "Chavistas" surrounded the headquarters
of all of the major television stations in the capital and of
several in the rest of the country, staging loud pot-banging
"cacerolazos." (The opposition had already pioneered
such protests on a regular basis at the building of the state-run
television channel, ever since the two-day coup in April, but
this never received any media attention, not even from the affected
station.) After a couple hours of pot-banging, the demonstrators
withdrew, at the behest of pro-Chavez legislators and OAS general
secretary Cesar Gaviria. To the media, these protests were additional
proof that Venezuela is a totalitarian country, of which Chavez
is the dictator. Journalists argued that their lives were threatened,
even though it was quite clear that these were peaceful protests.
Still, the director of one TV channel even went so far as to
argue that the protests constituted "genocide." One
unoccupied station outside of Caracas did get looted, for which
Chavistas blamed radical elements of the opposition, since witnesses
say that there were no protests at that station that night.
Once again, these protests provided the
ammunition the opposition needed to justify he continuation of
the strike. While the strike has been relatively ineffective
in the general population and especially among the poor, it has
had its most devastating effect in the state-owned oil company,
PDVSA. With the complete shut-down of Venezuela's main oil refinery,
which is also one of the largest in the world, the walk-out of
key dock workers, and the anchoring of tankers off of Venezuela's
main ports, the supply of oil has been halved, from 3 million
barrels per day (bpd) to 1.5 million bpd. Meanwhile, PDVSA's
president, Ali Rodriguez, announced that a continued stoppage
of oil production and shipments would seriously harm the Venezuelan
economy, which is losing around $50 million per day as a result
of the strike. Also, nearly all of Venezuela's economic activity
depends in one way or another on the steady supply of oil from
its own refineries, such as gasoline for the transportation food
to cities or of supplies to factories, for the filling of airplanes
that land in Venezuela with jet fuel, or for the generation of
electricity. Rodriguez also warned that Venezuela would lose
international oil customers and could default on debt payments,
if oil production was not restarted soon. So far the restriction
of oil supplies has had most of its impact on the lack of gasoline
at many gas stations, especially in the country's interior, leading
to long lines at gas stations throughout the country, due to
consumer fears that their local gas station would soon run out
of gasoline.
As of this writing (Dec. 16), the government
claims that it has by and large managed to regain control over
the oil production and shipping process, with the help of the
military, so that oil supply should be back to normal within
a few days. The opposition, however, denies this and warns that
serious industrial accidents could result because unqualified
personnel are taking control of the installations.
Both the opposition and the government
are keeping up their efforts to mobilize their supporters through
large mobilizations. On December 7 the government organized a
large demonstration at the presidential palace, which attracted
several hundred thousand supporters, at which Chavez promised
that just as he had defeated the opposition in the seven elections
of 1998 to 2001, he would defeat them again in the current confrontation.
The opposition, for its part, organized a massive demonstration
of its own, also attracting hundreds of thousands of its supporters,
on December 14th. These demonstrations proved, once again, that
both the government and the opposition enjoy widespread popular
support. Of course, the private media in Venezuela does not reflect
this and covers only opposition demonstrations, leaving the impression
to non-participating observers that only the opposition has popular
support.
It would seem that where the opposition's
efforts to oust Chavez via a non-stop media campaign, large demonstrations,
a coup, and four "general" strikes have largely failed,
the management take-over, or coup, of the oil company might succeed.
The scenarios for doing so are still murky, though. Many among
the more radical elements of the opposition, to which the main
actors behind the "general strike" belong, such as
Fedecameras President Carlos Fernandez, CTV President Carlos
Ortega, and Caracas Mayor Alfredo Pena, seem to be hoping for
another military coup attempt. These three continuously issue
calls to the military to "abide by their mission,"
to "defend the constitution," and to avert Venezuela's
"castro-communist dictatorship." The more moderate
elements of the opposition, such as CTV general secretary Manuel
Cova and NGO-leader Elias Santana of "Queremos Elegir,"
seem to placing their bets on a negotiated settlement for early
elections. However, the OAS-mediated negotiations have so far
stalled and it is far from certain that they will reach any kind
of agreement before Christmas. What is for sure, however, is
that the opposition and a significant number of Venezuela's businesses
prefer to commit economic suicide, in its efforts to oust Chavez,
and to drag the country down with it.
Gregory Wilpert
is a sociologist and freelance journalist living in Venezuela.
He is currently working on a book on the Chavez presidency, which
will be published by Zed Books in 2003. He can be reached at:
Wilpert@cantv.net
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