Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Chavez: Un nuovo Salvador Allende?

Questi due articoli sono apparsi nella rivista americana Z Magazine.
Sebbene lunghi e in Inglese, meritano una lettura, per una prospettiva
diversa su cio' che e' successo in Venezuela da quella data dai nostri media
(lo sapevate che la maggior parte degli 11 morti durante la manifestazione
della settimana scorsa erano SOSTENITORI di Chavez?)
------------
 Coup in Venezuela: An Eyewitness Account
 By Gregory Wilpert
 
 The orchestration of the coup was impeccable and, in all likelihood,
 planned a long time ago. Hugo Chavez, the fascist communist dictator of
 Venezuela could not stand the truth and thus censored the media
 relentlessly. For his own personal gain and that of his henchmen (and
 henchwomen, since his cabinet had more women than any previous
 Venezuelan government's), he drove the country to the brink of economic
 ruin. In the end he proceeded to murder those who opposed him. So as to
 reestablish democracy, liberty, justice, and prosperity in Venezuela and
 so as to avoid more bloodshed, the chamber of commerce, the union
 federation, the church, the media, and the management of Venezuela's oil
 company, in short: civil society and the military decided that enough is
 enough-that Chavez had his chance and that his experiment of a "peaceful
 democratic Bolivarian revolution" had to come to an immediate end.
 
 This is, of course, the version of events that the officials now in
 charge and thus also of the media, would like everyone to believe. So
 what really happened? Of course I don't know, but I'll try to represent
 the facts as I witnessed them.
 
 First of all, the military is saying that the main reason for the coup
 is what happened today, April 11. "Civil society," as the opposition
 here refers to itself, organized a massive demonstration of perhaps
 100,000 to 200,000 people to march to the headquarters of Venezuela's
 oil company, PDVSA, in defense of its fired management. The day leading
 up to the march all private television stations broadcast advertisements
 for the demonstration, approximately once every ten minutes. It was a
 successful march, peaceful, and without government interference of any
 kind, even though the march illegally blocked the entire freeway, which
 is Caracas' main artery of transportation, for several hours.
 
 Supposedly at the spur of the moment, the organizers decided to re-route
 the march to Miraflores, the president's office building, so as to
 confront the pro-government demonstration, which was called in the last
 minute. About 5,000 Chavez-supporters had gathered there by the time the
 anti-government demonstrators got there. In-between the two
 demonstrations were the city police, under the control of the
 oppositional mayor of Caracas, and the National Guard, under control of
 the president. All sides claim that they were there peacefully and did
 not want to provoke anyone. I got there just when the opposition
 demonstration and the National Guard began fighting each other. Who
 started the fight, which involved mostly stones and tear gas, is, as is
 so often the case in such situations, nearly impossible to tell. A
 little later, shots were fired into the crowds and I clearly saw that
 there were three parties involved in the shooting, the city police,
 Chavez supporters, and snipers from buildings above. Again, who shot
 first has become a moot and probably impossible to resolve question. At
 least ten people were killed and nearly 100 wounded in this gun
 battle-almost all of them demonstrators.
 
 One of the Television stations managed to film one of the three sides in
 this battle and broadcast the footage over and over again, making it
 look like the only ones shooting were Chavez supporters from within the
 demonstration at people beyond the view of the camera. The media over
 and over again showed the footage of the Chavez supporters and implied
 that they were shooting at an unarmed crowd. As it turns out, and as
 will probably never be reported by the media, most of the dead are
 Chavez supporters. Also, as will probably never be told, the snipers
 were members of an extreme opposition party, known as Bandera Roja.
 
 These last two facts, crucial as they are, will not be known because
 they do not fit with the new mythology, which is that Chavez armed and
 then ordered his supporters to shoot at the opposition demonstration.
 Perhaps my information is incorrect, but what is certain is that the
 local media here will never bother to investigate this information. And
 the international media will probably simply ape what the local media
 reports (which they are already doing).
 
 Chavez' biggest and perhaps only mistake of the day, which provided the
 last remaining proof his opposition needed for his anti-democratic
 credentials, was to order the black-out of the private television
 stations. They had been broadcasting the confrontations all afternoon
 and Chavez argued that these broadcasts were exacerbating the situation
 and should, in the name of public safety, be temporarily shut-down.
 
 Now, all of "civil society," the media, and the military are saying that
 Chavez has to go because he turned against his own people. Aside from
 the lie this is, what is conveniently forgotten are all of the
 achievements of the Chavez administration: a new democratic constitution
 which broke the power monopoly of the two hopelessly corrupt and
 discredited main parties and put Venezuela at the forefront in terms of
 progressive constitutions; introduced fundamental land reform; financed
 numerous progressive ecological community development projects;
 cracked-down on corruption; promoted educational reform which schooled
 over 1 million children for the first time and doubled investment in
 education; regulated the informal economy so as to reduce the insecurity
 of the poor; achieved a fairer price for oil through OPEC and which
 significantly increased government income; internationally campaigned
 tirelessly against neo-liberalism; reduced official unemployment from
 18% to 13%; introduced a large-scale micro-credit program for the poor
 and for women; reformed the tax system which dramatically reduced tax
 evasion and increased government revenue; lowered infant mortality from
 21% to 17%; tripled literacy courses; modernized the legal system, etc.,
 etc.
 
 Chavez' opposition, which primarily consisted of Venezuela's old guard
 in the media, the union federation, the business sector, the church, and
 the traditionally conservative military, never cared about any of these
 achievements. Instead, they took advantage of their media monopoly to
 turn public opinion against him and managed to turn his biggest
 liability, his autocratic and inflammatory style, against him.
 Progressive civil society had either been silenced or demonized as
 violent Chavez fanatics.
 
 At this point, it is impossible to know what will happen to Chavez'
 "Bolivarian Revolution"-whether it will be completely abandoned and
 whether things will return to Venezuela's 40-year tradition of
 patronage, corruption, and rentierism for the rich. What one can say
 without a doubt, is that by abandoning constitutional democracy, no
 matter how unpopular and supposedly inept the elected president,
 Venezuela's ruling class and its military show just how politically
 immature they are and deal a tremendous blow to political culture
 throughout Latin America, just as the coup against Salvador Allende did
 in 1973. This coup shows once again that democracy in Latin America is
a
 matter of ruling class preference, not a matter of law.
 
 If the United States and the democratic international community have the
 courage to practice what they preach, then they should not recognize
 this new government. Democrats around the world should pressure their
 governments to deny recognition to Venezuela's new military junta or any
 president they happen to choose. According to the Charter of the
 Organization of American States (OAS), this would mean expelling
 Venezuela from the OAS, as a U.S. state department official recently
 threatened to do. Please call the U.S. state department or your foreign
 ministry and tell them to withdraw their ambassadors from Venezuela.
 
 
 ----
 
 
 An Imminent Coup in Venezuela?
 
 by Gregory Wilpert
 April 10, 2002
 
 It appears that the strategy of President Chavez? opposition is to
 create as much chaos and disorder in Venezuela as possible, so that
 Chavez is left with no other choice than to call a state of emergency.
 This, in turn could either lead to a military coup or U.S. military
 intervention.
 
 Given that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the western
 hemisphere; it is distinctly possible that the U.S. government is going
 to intervene overtly, if it is not already doing so covertly. This means
 that the current crisis in Venezuela is probably a planned conspiracy to
 topple the Chavez government with the support of the U.S.
 
 As I write this, on April 9, Venezuela?s largest union federation, the
 Confederaci?n de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CTV) has called for a
 two-day general strike. Venezuela?s chamber of commerce, FEDECAMERAS,
 has joined the strike and called on all of its affiliated businesses to
 close for 48 hours.
 
 This was the second time in four months that the two federations, of
 labor unions and of business owners, decided to join forces and strike
 against the leftist government of President Hugo Chavez. What is
 happening in Venezuela? Why are these and many other forces uniting
 against Chavez?
 
 Chavez took power in late 1998 in a landslide electoral victory, calling
 for a ?Bolivarian Revolution,? in reference to Latin America?s hero of
 independence and Venezuela?s favorite son, Simon Bolivar. Since then,
 Chavez has tried to root out the entrenched powers of Venezuelan
 society, represented by a political and economic elite, which had
 governed Venezuela for over 40 years in a pseudo-democratic form by
 alternating power between two entrenched political parties.
 
 Chavez first reformed Venezuela?s constitution, through a constitutional
 assembly and a referendum, making it one of the most progressive
 constitutions in the world. The old elite were nearly completely driven
 from political power in the course of seven elections, which took place
 between 1998 and 2000. However, the old elite of the labor unions, the
 business sector, the church, and the media are still in power and have
 recently begun making life as difficult as possible for Chavez.
 
 Although Chavez originally had popularity a rating of around 80%, his
 popularity has steadily declined in the past year, supposedly reaching
 the low 30?s now. Whether the reason for this decline was the slow pace
 of his promised reforms, the lack of significant progress in reducing
 corruption and poverty, or if it was because of the incessant media
 assault on his government, is not clear ? most likely it is because of
a
 combination of these factors.
 
 The conflict between Chavez and the old elite has recently come to a
 head. First, when Chavez passed a slew of 49 laws, which, among many
 other measures, were supposed to increase the government?s oil income
 and redistribute land. The chamber of commerce vehemently opposed these
 laws and decided to call for a general business strike on December 10.
 
 Venezuela?s labor union federation, the CTV, decided to join the strike,
 supposedly out of concern for the harm the laws did to the business
 sector and thus to employment in Venezuela.
 
 More likely, though, the CTV?s support of a general strike was in
 retaliation for Chavez having forced the unions to carry out new
 elections of the CTV?s leadership and for not recognizing its
 leadership, due to charges of fraud, when the old guard union leadership
 declared itself the winner of the election and refused to submit the
 official results and ballots to the government.
 
 The second major issue, which has resulted in a serious challenge to
 Chavez, occurred when Chavez appointed five new members loyal to him to
 the board of directors of the state-owned oil company, PDVSA, the
 largest oil company in the world and the third largest supplier of oil
 to the U.S.
 
 Also, he appointed a prominent leftist economist and long-time critic of
 PDVSA as its president. The management of PDVSA cried out in protest,
 arguing that the appointments were purely political and not based on
 merit and thus threatened to undermine the company?s independence and
 its meritocracy.
 
 Chavez has since countered that board members and president have always
 been political appointments and that the state needed to regain control
 over PDVSA because it has become increasingly inefficient, a state
 within a state, whose top management is living a life of extreme luxury.
 
 
 Furthermore, and less explicitly, Chavez wants to assure that PDVSA
 adheres to OPEC?s production quotas, so that the oil price remains at a
 stable and profitable level. PDVSA, however, has a history of
 undermining OPEC quotas because its management places a higher premium
 on market share than on a good oil price.
 
 Following a two weeks of protest and of labor slowdowns within PDVSA,
 mostly on the part of management, the labor federation leadership of the
 CTV, who all belong to the discredited old elite, decided to join the
 conflict in support of PDVSA?s management, arguing that it was acting in
 solidarity with PDVSA workers in its call for a day-long general strike.
 
 
 The chamber of commerce rapidly followed suit, seeing this as another
 opportunity to humiliate and perhaps topple Chavez, and supported the
 strike as well. Considering the first day a complete success, the CTV
 and the chamber of commerce have decided to extend the general strike
 another 24 hours. However, as PROVEA, Venezuela?s human rights agency
 has noted, even though Venezuela?s constitution guarantees the right to
 strike, the strike is completely illegal because it bypassed the legal
 requirements for democratic legitimation of such a strike.
 
 Given that a large majority of private businesses are members of the
 chamber of commerce and oppose Chavez, the strike has appeared to be
 quite successful. Whether workers actually believe in the strike and
 intentionally stay away from work in protest to the government, is
 almost impossible to tell, since most businesses were closed by
 management.
 
 Many businesses were open and most of the informal sector was actively
 selling its wares on the streets as usual. Of course, all government
 offices and all banks, whose hours are regulated by the government, were
 open. Together, these sectors account for about 40% of Venezuela?s
 workforce.
 
 The conflict in Venezuela has come to take on epic proportions, if one
 listens to the rhetoric of the two sides of the conflict. Both sides
 make extensive use of hyperbole, alternately calling the strike either
a
 complete and total failure or a complete and total success.
 
 Other examples of how passionate and heated the debates have become are
 reflected in the opposition?s repeated references to Chavez as a
 ?totalitarian fascist dictator? who wants to ?cubanize? Venezuela.
 Chavez and his supporters, for their part, refer to the opposition as a
 squalid (?escualido?) corrupt oligarchy.
 
 Both sets of labels are caricatures of the truth. Certainly, Venezuela?s
 oligarchical elite opposes Chavez, but the opposition to Chavez has
 become quite strong and has grown far beyond the oligarchy, to include
 many of his former friends and supporters. On the other hand, even
 though Chavez uses a lot of inflammatory rhetoric, the opposition has
 yet to find a single instance in which he has violated Venezuela?s very
 democratic constitution in any way.
 
 Chavez? greatest failure, from a progressive point of view, probably
 lies in his relatively autocratic style, which is why many of his former
 supporters have become alienated from his government. Whenever someone
 opposed his policies he has tended to reject them and cast them out of
 his government circle.
 
 The result has been a consistent loss of a relatively broad political
 spectrum of government leadership and a significant turn-over in his
 cabinet, making stable and consistent policy implementation quite
 difficult.
 
 This loss of broad-based support has made itself felt particularly
 strongly during the recent crises, making Chavez look more isolated than
 he might otherwise be. Other than his party supporters, who are quite
 significant in number and come mostly from the poor ?barrios,? the
 progressive sectors of civil society have been neglected by Chavez and
 have thus not been active. Instead, the conservative sectors of civil
 society, such as the chamber of commerce and the old guard union
 leadership are among the main mobilizers of civil society.
 
 Still, Chavez? policies have been almost without exception progressive
 in that they have supported land redistribution for poor farmers, title
 to the self-built homes of the barrios, steady increases in the minimum
 wage and of public sector salaries, and the enrollment of over 1 million
 students in school who were previously excluded, to name just a few
 accomplishments.
 
 In terms of international issues, Chavez has been on the forefront in
 working for greater intra-Third World solidarity, in opposing
 neo-liberalism, and in supporting Cuba.
 
 Figuring out what this epic conflict is about has been somewhat
 difficult for an outsider. Passions are so inflamed that it is
 practically impossible to find calm and reasoned analyses about what is
 going on. Are the chamber of commerce, the labor federation leadership,
 the upper class, and significant sectors of the middle class really
 primarily concerned about the ?politicization? of PDVSA and the
 appointment of a pro-government board of directors?
 
 Perhaps. But does opposition to these appointments justify a general
 strike? Definitely not. More likely these sectors are concerned that
 politicization of PDVSA means a loss of access to Venezuela?s cash-cow:
 oil. Not only that, the most common complaints one hears about Chavez
 have more to do with his style than with any concrete policies he has
 implemented. There often is a racist undertone to such complaints,
 implying that Chavez, because of his folksy and populist style and his
 Indio appearance, is sub-human, a ?negro.?
 
 It does not help that almost all of the media, except the one
 government-run TV network, out of about five major TV networks, and one
 out of approximately ten major newspapers is completely opposed to
 Chavez.
 
 The media regularly cover nearly every single opposition pronouncement
 and rarely cover government declarations. Chavez, out of frustration
 with the media has relentlessly attacked the media for belonging to the
 old guard oligarchy and for printing nothing but lies, occasionally
 threatening them with legal action for slander.
 
 The media has, of course, responded in kind, by accusing Chavez of
 intimidating journalists with his pronouncements and of sending gangs to
 threaten journalists with physical violence. The media has tried to
 embarrass Chavez internationally by taking its case to the Organization
 of American States and to the U.S., which have responded favorably to
 their complaints and have criticized Chavez for his supposed lack of
 respect for human rights.
 
 The other thing Chavez has done to combat the media is to exploit a law
 which permits the government to take over all of the airwaves for
 important government announcements. All TV and radio stations are
 required to broadcast these announcements.
 
 During the general strike Chavez decided to go all-out and interrupted
 all TV and radio broadcasts numerous times during the strike. The
 government?s use of the airwaves has now provided additional ammunition
 to the opposition and constituted an important factor in their deciding
 to extend the strike from one day to two.
 
 Chavez? greatest error has been his truly fundamental neglect for
 cultivating a culture which would support his ?Bolivarian Revolution,?
 one which progressive sectors of civil society would support and promote
 amongst the population and internationally, even against a strongly
 oppositional media.
 
 Despite this grave fault of his presidency, Chavez continues to deserve
 the support of progressives because the only alternative that has
 presented itself until now is a return to the status quo ante, where the
 upper class, together with selected sectors of the labor movement and
 the government bureaucracy share Venezuela?s oil pie amongst themselves,
 leaving the poor, who constitute three quarters of Venezuela?s
 population, to fend for themselves.
 
 Currently, however, the most immediate and most likely alternative to
 Chavez is either a military coup or U.S. intervention, since Chavez
 definitely won?t resign and since he is legally in office at least until
 the 2004, when a recall vote can be called. This means that progressives
 around the world should act in solidarity with Chavez? government and
 support him, if another Chile-style coup is to be avoided.
 
 
 Gregory Wilpert lives in Caracas, is a former U.S. Fulbright scholar in
 Venezuela, and is currently doing independent research on the sociology
 of development.

 della settimana scorsa erano SOSTENITORI di Chavez?)
ahahahahah certo che la disinformazione comunista non ha perso tempo...
le sparate grosse sapendo che qualche ingenuo compagno subito prenderà
le vostre balle per oro colato...
ma non vi vergognate a rubare persino i morti?
Franz
p.s.
l'immondizia (z magazine) leggitela tu...
-- 
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - 
http://www.Mailgate.ORG

I morti erano sostenitori di Chavez? Che strano! Evidentemente si sono
suicidati, dato che erano gli unici armati, e con armi automatiche
fornite loro dalle autorità locali.

 suicidati, dato che erano gli unici armati,
Leggiti l'articolo che ho postato e vedrai che non e' cosi'.
GT
PS:   Comunque forse questa vicenda verra' chiarita, visto che sembra che,
per una volta, i golpisti hanno perso.

 per una volta, i golpisti hanno perso.
ahahahahahahahah
hanno perso? i militari hanno fatto un contro-golpe ed hanno riportato
al potere il loro nuovo fantoccio chavez...
hanno arrestato il governo, ok, ti risulta che abbiano toccato i vertici
delle forze armate che sono quelli che hanno organizzato tutto? no?
ovvio: non si potevano arrestare da soli...
il sud-america lo conoscete ben poco...:))
ciao
Franz


 ahahahahah certo che la disinformazione comunista non ha perso tempo...
pssst....l'articolo è di una rivista americana, un po' difficile che sia
comunista, no?

the traditionally conservative military
io non conosco bene il Sud America come te, però mi par di capire che i
militari siano all'opposizione di Chavez...

 diversa su cio' che e' successo in Venezuela da quella data dai nostri media
Beh, visto che ci sono posto pure l'articolo sul lieto fine :-)
(dello stesso autore).
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0415-06.htm
Venezuela: Not a Banana-Oil Republic after All 
by Gregory Wilpert
 
The Counter-Coup 
It looks like Venezuela is not just another banana-oil republic after
all. Many here feared that with the April 11 coup attempt against
President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela was being degraded to being just
another country that is forced to bend to the powerful will of the
United States. The successful counter-coup of April 14, though, which
reinstated Chavez, proved that Venezuela is a tougher cookie than the
coup planners thought.
The coup leaders against President Chavez made two fundamental
miscalculations. First, they started having delusions of grandeur,
believing that the support for their coup was so complete that they
could simply ignore the other members of their coup coalition and
place only their own in the new government. The labour union
federation CTV, which saw itself as one of the main actors of the
opposition movement to President Chavez, and nearly all moderate
opposition parties were excluded from the new "democratic unity"
cabinet. The new transition cabinet ended up including only the most
conservative elements of Venezuelan society. They then proceeded to
dissolve the legislature, the Supreme Court, the attorney general's
office, the national electoral commission, and the state
governorships, among others. Next, they decreed that the 1999
constitution, which had been written by a constitutional assembly and
ratified by vote, following the procedures outlined in the pervious
constitution, was to be suspended. The new transition president would
thus rule by decree until next year, when new elections would be
called. Generally, this type of regime fits the textbook definition of
dictatorship.
This first miscalculation led to several generals' protest against the
new regime, perhaps under pressure from the excluded sectors of the
opposition, or perhaps out of a genuine sense of remorse, and resulted
in their call for changes to the sweeping "democratic transition"
decree, lest they withdraw their support from the new government.
Transition President Pedro Carmona, the chair of Venezuela's largest
chamber of commerce, immediately agreed to reinstate the Assembly and
to the rest of the generals' demands.
The second miscalculation was the belief that Chavez was hopelessly
unpopular in the population and among the military and that no one
except Cuba and Colombia's guerilla, the FARC, would regret Chavez'
departure. Following the initial shock and demoralisation which the
coup caused among Chavez-supporters, this second miscalculation led to
major upheavals and riots in Caracas' sprawling slums, which make up
nearly half of the city. In practically all of the "barrios" of
Caracas spontaneous demonstrations and "cacerolazos" (pot-banging)
broke out on April 13 and 14. The police immediately rushed-in to
suppress these expressions of discontent and somewhere between 10 and
40 people were killed in these clashes with the police. Then, in the
early afternoon, purely by word-of-mouth and the use of cell phones
(Venezuela has one of the highest per capita rates of cell phone use
in the world), a demonstration in support of Chavez was called at the
Miraflores presidential palace. By 6 PM about 100,000 people had
gathered in the streets surrounding the presidential palace. At
approximately the same time, the paratrooper battalion, to which
Chavez used to belong, decided to remain loyal to Chavez and took over
the presidential palace. Next, as the awareness of the extent of
Chavez' support spread, major battalions in the interior of Venezuela
began siding with Chavez.
Eventually the support for the transition regime evaporated among the
military, so that transition president Carmona resigned in the name of
preventing bloodshed. As the boldness of Chavez-supporters grew, they
began taking over several television stations, which had not reported
a single word about the uprisings and the demonstrations. Finally,
late at night, around midnight of April 14, it was announced that
Chavez was set free and that he would take over as president again.
The crowds outside of Miraflores were ecstatic. No one believed that
the coup could or would be reversed so rapidly. When Chavez appeared
on national TV around 4 AM, he too joked that he knew he would be
back, but he never imagined it would happen so fast. He did not even
have time to rest and write some poetry, as he had hoped to do.
So how could this be? How could such an impeccably planned and
smoothly executed coup fall apart in almost exactly 48 hours? Aside
from the two miscalculations mentioned above, it appears that the
military's hearts were not fully into the coup project. Once it became
obvious that the coup was being hijacked by the extreme right and that
Chavez enjoyed much more support than was imagined, large parts of the
military decided to reject the coup, which then had a snowball-effect
of changing military allegiances. Also, by announcing that one of the
main reasons for the coup was to avoid bloodshed and by stating that
the Venezuelan military would never turn its weapons against its own
people, Chavez supporters became more courageous to go out and to
protest against the coup without fear of reprisals.
Very important, though, was that the coup planners seem to have
believed their own propaganda: that Chavez was an extremely unpopular
leader. What they seem to have forgotten is that Chavez was not a
fluke, a phenomenon that appeared in Venezuela as a result of
political chaos, as some analysts seem to believe. Rather, Chavez'
movement has its roots in a long history of Venezuelan community and
leftist organising. Also, it seems quite likely that although many
people were unhappy with Chavez' lack of rapid progress in
implementing the reforms he promised, he was still the most popular
politician in the country.
The media and the opposition movement tried to create the impression
that Chavez was completely isolated and that no one supported him any
longer. They did this by organising massive demonstrations, with the
extensive help of the television stations, which regularly broadcast
reports of the anti-Chavez protests, but consistently ignored the
pro-Chavez protests, which, by all fair accounts, tended to be just as
large. The television channels claimed that they did not cover
pro-Chavez demonstrations because protestors threatened their lives.
While this seems unlikely since the demonstrators usually
unequivocally want their demonstrations covered by the media, they
could have gotten protection, if they had cared to.
The Media 
Nearly the entire media is owned and operated by Venezuela's
oligarchy. There is only one neutral newspaper, which is not an
explicitly anti-Chavez newspaper and one state-run television station.
During the coup, the state-run station was taken off the air
completely and all of the other media kept repeating the coup
organiser's lies without question. These lies included the claim that
Chavez had resigned and had dismissed his cabinet, that all of the
demonstration's dead were "martyrs of civil society" (i.e., of the
opposition, since the media does not consider Chavez supporters as
part of civil society), and that Chavez had ordered his supporters to
shoot into the unarmed crowd of anti-Chavez demonstrators.
The media never addressed the repeated doubts that members of Chavez'
cabinet raised about his resignation. Also, the media did not release
the names of those who were shot, probably because this would have
shown that most of the dead were pro-Chavez demonstrators. Finally,
the media edited the video footage of the shootings in such a way as
to avoid showing where the Chavez supporters were shooting—namely, as
eyewitnesses reported, at police and individuals who were shooting
back while hidden in doorways. Also, they did not show the pro-Chavez
crowd repeatedly pointing at the snipers who were firing at them from
the rooftop of a nearby building.
These media distortions in the aftermath of the coup drove home the
point just how powerful the media is at creating an alternate reality.
Those Chavez supporters who were at the demonstration and witnessed
the events realised more than ever that power needs a medium and that
those who control the media have much more power than they let on.
This is why the television stations became a key target in the hours
leading up to Chavez' reinstatement. The take-over of four of the
eight stations was essential to Chavez' comeback because it showed the
rest of the military and the rest of Venezuela that Chavez still had
strong support among the population and that if the people really
wanted to, they could fight for what was right and win.
Quo Vadis Chavez? 
An aspect of the rise of Chavez to power that is often forgotten in
Venezuela is that as far as Venezuelan presidents are concerned,
Chavez has actually been among the least dictatorial. True, Chavez is
a deeply flawed president with many shortcomings, among which one of
the most important is his autocratic style. However, earlier
presidencies, such as that of Carlos Andres Perez (1989-1993), the
killing of demonstrators were nearly a monthly occurrence. Also, the
outright censorship of newspapers was quite common during the Perez
presidency. None of this has happened during the Chavez presidency.
President Hugo Chavez is an individual who raises the passions of
people, pro or con, unlike anyone else. It almost seems that
Venezuelans either love him or hate him. A more balanced picture of
the president, however, would show, first, that he is someone who
deeply believes in working for social justice, for improving
democracy, and believes in international solidarity. Also, he is a
gifted and charismatic speaker, which makes him a natural choice as a
leader.
However, one has to recognise that he has some very serious
shortcomings. Among the most important is that while he truly believes
in participatory democracy, as is evidenced in his efforts to
democratise the Venezuelan constitution, his instincts are that of an
autocrat. This has led to a serious neglect of his natural base, which
is the progressive and grassroots civil society. Instead, he has tried
to control this civil society by organising "Bolivarian Circles" which
are neighbourhood groups that are to help organise communities and at
the same time to defend the revolution. The opposition easily
stigmatised these circles, however, as being nothing other than a kind
of SS for Chavez' political party. Another crucial flaw has been his
relatively poor personnel choices. Many of the ministries and agencies
suffer from mismanagement.
Finally and perhaps the most often mentioned flaw, is his tendency for
inflammatory rhetoric. Accusations that Chavez divided Venezuelan
society with his constant talk about the rich and the poor are
ridiculous, since Venezuelan society was divided along these lines
long before Chavez came to power. However, by trying to belittle his
opponents by calling them names, such as "escualidos" (squalids), he
made it virtually impossible for real dialogue to take place between
himself and his opponents.
The crucial question that Chavez-supporters and opponents alike are
now asking is whether Chavez has grown through the experience of this
coup. In his initial statement after being freed from his military
captors, was, "I too have to reflect on many things. And I have done
that in these hours. … I am here and I am prepared to rectify,
wherever I have to rectify." Right now, however, it is too early to
see if he really is going to change his ways, so that he becomes more
productive in achieving the goals he has set for Venezuela.
While Chavez' many progressive achievements should not be forgotten,
neither should his failures be overlooked, most of which have
important lessons for progressives everywhere. The first lesson is to
keep the eyes on the prize. Chavez has become so bogged-down with
small day-to-day conflicts that many people are no longer sure if he
remembers his original platform, which was to abolish corruption and
to make Venezuelan society more egalitarian. While greater social
equality is extremely difficult to achieve in a capitalist society, it
is fair to say that Chavez' plans have not had enough time to bear
fruit. He has a six-year social and economic development plan for
2001-2007, of which only a small fraction has so far been implemented.
However, on the corruption front, he has fallen seriously behind.
The second lesson is that the neglect of one's social base, which
provides the cultural underpinnings for desired changes, will provide
an opening for opponents to redefine the situation and to make policy
implementation nearly impossible. By not involving his natural base,
the progressive and grassroots civil society, Chavez allowed the
conservative civil society, the conservative unions, the business
sector, the church, and the media to determine the discourse as to
what the "Bolivarian revolution" was really all about.
The third lesson is that a good program alone is not good enough if
one does not have the skilful means for implementing it. Chavez has
some terrific plans, but through his incendiary rhetoric he manages to
draw all attention away from his actual proposals and focuses
attention on how he presents them or how he cuts his critics down to
size.
Finally, while it is tempting to streamline policy-implementation by
working only with individuals who will not criticise the program,
creates a dangerous ideological monoculture, which will not be able to
resist the diverse challenges even the best plans eventually have to
face. Chavez has consistently dismissed from his inner circle those
who criticised him, making his leadership base, which used to be quite
broad, smaller and smaller. Such a narrow leadership base made it much
easier for the opposition to challenge Chavez and to mount the coup.
Whether Chavez and his opposition have learned these lessons remains
to be seen. Venezuelan society is still deeply divided. One has to
recognise that, at heart, this conflict is also a class conflict.
While there certainly are many Chavez opponents who come from the
lower classes and numerous supporters from the upper classes, the
division between Chavez supporters who come from the lower
light-skinned classes and the opponents who come from the higher
dark-skinned classes cannot be denied. What Venezuela needs, if social
peace is to be preserved, is a class compromise, where social peace is
maintained at the expense of a more just distribution of Venezuela's
immense wealth. However, today's globalized world makes such a
compromise increasingly difficult to achieve because free market
competition militates against local solutions to this increasingly
global problem. But perhaps Venezuela is a special case because of its
oil wealth, which might allow it to be an exception. Such an
exception, though, will only be possible if power plays, such as the
recent coup attempt, come to an end.
Gregory Wilpert lives in Caracas, is a former U.S. Fulbright scholar
in Venezuela, and is currently doing independent research on the
sociology of development. He can be reached at: 
Wil...@cantv.net

 militari siano all'opposizione di Chavez...
lo erano fino a qualche giorno fa...
poi se lo sono tenuto 2 giorni chiuso in caserma si sono messi d'accordo
ed ora huguito chavez è il loro burattino...
