[NYTr] Weisbrot: Progressive Change in Venezuela and Latin America

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Tom Warner - Dec 9, 2007


Progressive Change in Venezuela and Latin America

By Mark Weisbrot

"He had faults, like other men; but it was for his virtues that he was
hated and successfully calumniated." -Bertrand Russell, on the American
revolutionary Thomas Paine.

The defeat of the Venezuelan government's proposed
constitutional reforms last Sunday will probably not
change very much in Venezuela. Most of what was in the
reforms can be enacted through the legislature. This is
especially true for the progressive reforms: social
security pensions for informal sector workers, free
university education, the prohibition of discrimination
based on gender and sexual orientation. The negative
elements, such as expanding the government's powers in
a state of emergency, probably wouldn't have changed
much if they had passed. The Chavez government has
never declared a state of emergency, and did not invoke
any special powers even when most democratic
governments in the world would have done so, e.g.
during the oil strike of 2002-2003, which crippled the
economy and almost toppled the government for the
second time in a year; or after the April 2002 military
coup. (It is also worth noting that even if they had
passed, the amendments wouldn't have given the
Venezuelan government the authority to commit the worst
infringements on civil liberties that the Bush
administration has made in its "war on terror.")

Chavez's proposal to scrap term limits was defeated, but he has more
than five years to try again if he wants. But even if this is his last
term, the changes underway in Venezuela will not likely be reversed
when he steps down.

Most importantly, the character of the political battles in Venezuela
has not changed. The popular presentation of this contest as between
pro-Chavez and anti-Chavez forces is misleading. It is a struggle of
left versus right, with the two sides divided and polarized along the
lines of class, democracy, national sovereignty, and race.

For these reasons, in the past eight years there has been very little
progressive or even liberal political opposition to the Chavez
government in Venezuela - just as there were no progressive or liberal
organizations in the United States that supported President George W.
Bush for re-election in 2004. Venezuela is politically
polarized - much more so than the United States.

The referendum shifted these political dividing lines only very
slightly, and very likely temporarily. Some within the pro-government
coalition opposed the reforms; and it appears that the amendments failed
mainly because a great many of Chavez's supporters didn't vote. But
there is no indication that these people have shifted to the opposition
camp, and polls show that Chavez and the government remain highly
popular. And the opposition to the government is still a right-wing
opposition, despite the addition of a mostly-well-off student movement
that is more ideologically mixed - including the student opposition
leader Stalin Gonzalez, who recently defended his namesake in the Wall
Street Journal.

With regard to democracy, there has always been a clear difference
between the two sides. Chavez's immediate acceptance of a razor-thin
margin of defeat - 50.7 percent against - before all the votes were even
counted should cut through all the media hype about a "strongman" and a
"dictator." Chavez congratulated his opponents on their victory. As in
previous elections, he had publicly committed to accepting the results
before the vote, and had called on the opposition to do the same.

On the other side, the opposition tried several oil and business
strikes, and a military coup in April 2002, to win what they could not
gain at the ballot box. The first act of the short-lived coup government
was to abolish the constitution and dissolve the Supreme Court and the
elected National Assembly. The coup was reversed due to massive
pro-democracy street demonstrations, but eight months later the
opposition once again tried to topple the government with a
devastating, management-led oil shutdown. Unlike in the United States,
where we have three sets of labor laws that would have put the leaders
of such a strike in jail, the Chavez government allowed the strike to
run its course, with the economy crippled in the process.

Only after all extra-legal means failed to dislodge the government did
the Venezuelan opposition resort to the ballot box, exercising their
constitutional right to a recall referendum on the presidency in August
2004. They lost by a margin of 59-41, and promptly refused to
accept the result. Although vote-rigging was nearly impossible under
the dual electronic-plus-paper-ballot voting system and the result was
certified by the Carter Center and the OAS, the opposition - which has
its own media and invents its own reality - to this day holds to
conspiracy theories(1) that the referendum was stolen by a fantastic
electronic fraud. In December 2005, seeing that it would lose
congressional elections, the opposition boycotted, despite the OAS
and European Union observers' condemnation of the boycott.

The opposition did finally accept their defeat in the December 2006
presidential elections, which Chavez won with 63 percent of the vote
and the highest turnout ever. And now that they have finally won at the
ballot box, there is a possibility of an opposition emerging that is
more willing to play by the democratic rules of the game. The student
movement seems to have more elements that favor democratic means of
challenging the government, and may have played a role in convincing
others in the opposition to vote in the referendum. But
they have not transformed the opposition into a
democratic movement.

With regard to class, polls sponsored by the opposition and the
government show that poor and working people are overwhelmingly
pro-Chavez, and the upper classes against him. There are obvious
reasons for this class divide: the Chavez government has provided
health care to the vast majority of poor Venezuelans, subsidized
food, and increased access to education. Real (inflation-adjusted)
social spending per person has increased by 314 percent over the eight
years of the Chavez administration. The proportion of households in
poverty has dropped by 38 percent - and this is  measuring only cash
income, not other benefits such as health care and education.(2)
Interestingly, the upper classes have also done pretty well, but appear
to oppose Chavez for mostly ideological reasons, including   his
commitment to "21st century socialism." The Chavez administration has
also provided the poor with more of a voice in government than they
have ever had previously. On the questions of national sovereignty
and empire, the lines are also clearly divided in  Venezuela. Leading
opposition groups, including some who were involved in the coup, have
received U.S. funding and other support. Washington's involvement in
the coup is well-documented and much deeper(3) than
the vast understatements and euphemisms used by the
major US and international media describe the US role.
The Washington Post reported this week that the Bush
Administration has been funding unnamed student groups,
presumably opposition, up to and including this year.

The Bush Administration has remained committed to this
day to regime change in Venezuela, through
destabilization and de-legitimation, although there are
differences within the State Department. Its tacit
support for the completely unjustified opposition
boycott of the December 2005 congressional elections is
a good example of this strategy: giving up about 30
percent of the Venezuelan congress just for the
propaganda advantage of having the media report on "a
congress completely dominated by Chavez." While the
media focuses on Chavez' rhetoric, such as his
notorious UN speech in which he referred to President
Bush as the devil, his confrontation with Washington
has been inevitable and not of his choosing.

Latin American racism, especially outside of that
directed against indigenous groups, is different than
in the United States because "race" is less well-
defined; but institutional racism is no less prevalent,
as the noticeable difference in skin color between the
white elite and the poorer classes throughout the
region makes very clear. In Venezuela, this difference
of complexion is also quite visible between the anti-
Chavez and pro-Chavez demonstrations. Perhaps more
importantly, those who are aware of and against racism
- including indigenous and anti-racist groups - are
overwhelmingly pro-Chavez, partly because of his
government's actions on behalf of indigenous rights,
including land reform and land titling, and
constitutional rights. (4) Needless to say, the
opposition to Chavez - who is proud of his African and
indigenous heritage - also contains overtly racist
elements.

Indigenous supporters outside Venezuela include
President Evo Morales of Bolivia, a close friend and
ally of Chavez. Other progressive Latin American
presidents also have close relationships with Chavez
and see him as a very important ally: Nestor Kirchner
of Argentina, Rafael Correa of Ecuador and although the
international media is always trying to deny it,
President Lula da Silva of Brazil. Lula heads a divided
government, but he has consistently defended Chavez.(5)
All of these leaders understand the historic nature of
what is happening in Latin America - the majority of a
region once known as "the United States' backyard" now
has governments that are more independent of the United
States than Europe is. Chavez has played a huge role in
this process, most importantly through the Venezuelan
government's billions of dollars of lending and grants
to governments - made without policy conditions. Until
a few years ago, Washington's main avenue of influence
in Latin America was through control over credit, which
was exercised through a creditors' cartel headed by the
International Monetary Fund (IMF). The collapse of this
cartel in recent years is the most important change in
the international financial system in more than three
decades, and one that has drastically reduced U.S.
influence. Venezuela's provision of an alternative
source of credit has helped other democratic
governments to try and deliver on their electoral
promises without the threat of economic strangulation
from abroad that, just a few years ago, may have doomed
them to a short life. It is thus helping to promote
democracy in the region.

What about the charges that Venezuela under Chavez has
been moving toward "an authoritarian state'? The denial
of a broadcast license renewal to a TV station that
participated in a military coup and several other
attempts to topple the government, and that would not
get a license in any other democratic country, is
hardly inappropriate (6); it was also defended by other
democratic presidents in the region, including those of
Brazil, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Venezuela's media is
still dominated by the opposition, and remains the most
anti-government media in the hemisphere. Then there is
the controversial "enabling law," which gives Chavez
fairly broad temporary authority to make certain
legislation by executive order, subject to revocation
by the congress or referendum. But as the US State
Department's top official for Latin America, Thomas
Shannon, commented when the Venezuelan congress passed
the law in January, "It's something valid under the
constitution. As with any tool of democracy, it depends
how it is used." And Chavez has hardly used the
enabling legislation at all - only to extract more
concessions from foreign oil companies.

One can go through the list, but the point is that one
does not have to agree with every decision of the
Venezuelan government to see that there is little or
nothing to back up the absurd image of "authoritarian
rule" that the Chavez-haters have created.
Unfortunately they have gotten help from politicized
groups such as "Reporters Without Borders," which
receives funding from the "National Endowment for
Democracy" (which has funded groups involved in the overthrow of
elected governments, including Venezuela [2002] and Haiti [2004]); the
Committee to Protect Journalists, which is funded by big media owners;
and other organizations who are generally more autonomous
but whose independence seems to weaken under pressure
with regard to Venezuela. Bottom line: no reputable
human rights organization has claimed, nor would they,
that civil liberties or human rights have deteriorated
under the Chavez government - or that it compares
unfavorably on these issues with the region.

A historic transformation in underway in Latin America.
After more than a quarter century of neoliberal  economic reform, and
the worst long-term economic growth failure in more than a century, a
revolt at the ballot box has elected leaders who are looking for
democratic alternatives that will restore economic growth and
development, and reduce poverty and inequality.(7) The U.S. government
is opposing these efforts; a key element of its overall strategy is to
demonize Chavez and de-legitimize the democratic government of
Venezuela. The U.S. and international media have enthusiastically
embraced this agenda, w journalism that makes Judy Miller's worst
articles in the run-up to the Iraq war look fair and balanced by
comparison.

A more truthful and accurate reporting and analysis of these events is
sorely needed. 


Footnotes:

1.See Mark Weisbrot, David Rosnick and Todd Tucker,
"Black Swans, Conspiracy Theories, and the Quixotic
Search for Fraud," Center for Economic and Policy
Research, September 2004. [
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/venezuela_2004_09.pdf]

2.See Mark Weisbrot and Luis Sandoval, "The Venezuelan
Economy in the Chavez Years," Center for Economic and
Policy Research, July 2007. [
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/venezuela_2007_07.pdf] 
Poverty figures here updated for first half
2007.

3. See Mark Weisbrot, "Venezuela's Election Provides
Opportunity for Washington to Change its Course"
Aniston Sunday Star, December 10, 2006. [
http://www.cepr.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=649&Itemid=45]

4. See e.g., Michael Fox, "Indigenous March in Support
of Chavez in Venezuela," Venezuelanalysis.com, June 11,
2006. [
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1985]

5. See Gosman, Eleonara, "Lula: "Nadie HarÃ.Æ.Ã.¡ que
Discute con ChÃ.Æ.Ã.¡vez, es mi Amigo," ClarÃ.Æ.Ã.­n, July 7,
2007; and Mark Weisbrot, "President Bush's Trip to
Latin America is All About Denial," Center for Economic
and Policy Research, March, 2007

6. See Robert McChesney and Mark Weisbrot, "Venezuela
and the Media: Fact and Fiction [
http://www.cepr.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1200]; 
Mark Weisbrot, "Eyes Wide Shut: The
Media Looks at Venezuela [
http://www.cepr.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=
view&id=1269&Itemid=45]

7. See Mark Weisbrot, "Latin America: The End of an
Era," International Journal of Health Services, Volume
37, Number 3 / 2007, also available at [
http://www.cepr.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=374&Itemid=8] 
_____

Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic
and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C.
(www.cepr.net).

Forwarded by Tom Warner 
Seattle/Cuba Friendship Committee
. a Task Force of the Church Council of Greater Seattle
8923 2nd Ave. N.E.Seattle, WA, 98115 
Phone: (206) 523-1720
Contact person: Thomas Warner
Email: warner(at)scn.org
www.seattlecuba.net