At the outset I admit that the following observations concerning the current political climate in Venezuela as well as some thoughts concerning the nature of US involvement in the Venezuelan political scenario come from someone with whose knowledge of things Venezuelan was no greater than anyone else who read US newspapers. I still do not presume to know much as my stay in Caracas has been less than two months...the following remarks are based on interviews with people working in local civic organizations, NGO's that receive support from the US, people in the street, people in lower class neighborhoods, and anyone else willing to engage in a conservation regarding politics in Venezuela. One thing is certain, most everyone has an interested opinion concerning the political goings-on that if not verging on the side of passion at least it is heartfelt and sincere..this is important as many have said that prior to the late 80's nobody really was much interested in politics or at least didn't talk about it the way it is talked about presently...so there seems to have been an awakening in the sense that people vote with a sense of personal conviction. Hugo Chavez is the benefactor of this awakening..in that when the traditional parties known as the AD (social democratic) and COPEI (christian democrat) that had ruled the country since 1958 in an agreed to power sharing pact both of which are right or center-right parties could no longer offer anything to the populace that was credible the time was right for someone without any links to either of the traditional parties to offer Venezuelans something that had resonance with them..the political history in the twentieth century for Venezuelans has either been a dictatorship or rule by oligarchs via the two abovementioned parties...the majority of the infrastructure visible today is a product of the dictatorship of Perez-Jimenez who fell in 1958. For a country with petroleum reserves that may exceed those of Saudi Arabia, Venezuelan living standards would shock anyone who visits the west side of the city. In fact, the east is known as that part where most of the money is and the west is its much vaster majority where the poor live..a Brazilian friend of mine visiting Caracas described one of the neighborhoods on the west side we walked through as a \"favela\" or the equivalent of Rio's famous slums. So much oil wealth but so little of it is visible...remember unlike US law..what is underground belongs to the state..so oil is by rights property of Venezuela..so how it is administered is directly visible..many of the political opposition claim that Chavez's \"revolucion bonita\" (pretty revolution) is nothing but a sham in that it replaces the old corrupt political leadership (AD\/COPEI) with a new class of corrupted bureaucrats that surround Chavez...this has a ring of truth...as the institutions of the preceding governments under the old constitution remain very much intact...and it is probably true that with the record prices for crude, there is even much more money to be stolen...yet, Chavez and many of his party the MVR (Fifth Republic Movement), are like the Zapatistas in Chiapas recognize that they are fighting the gargantuan battle against the culture of fraud, corruption, classism and racism...change will not happen overnight..the Zapatistas have opted to work outside the Mexican culture of fraud, Chavez is inside...it remains to be seen who will win...the social programs to help the 80% of Venezuelans who are poor are a huge start in the right direction...Venezuela has embarked on a huge regional integrational program using its access to oil...which does threaten in a big way US hegemony..Venezuela now via Chavez represents a huge moral weight juxtaposed to that of the hypocrisy of the US. Who else would stand up in the United Nations and say what no other head of state would say..Venezuelan has become the only country in the twentieth century to confront the US in the western hemisphere both in terms of its political discourse and its economic and social projects...it has the economic wherewithall to effect change where Cuba, Nicaragua and Chile could not...it could make reality an institutionalized socialist revolution if it deals effectively with those in the bureaucracy who seek to undermine it...the biggest enemy of the \"proceso\" (or process, term that Venezuelans use to describe the socio-economic changes ocurring) is not US imperialism as the rhetoric may have us believe but those who continue to line their pockets with state money subverting those resources destined for social programs and infrastructure. Cynically, the US says that it is promoting democracy in Venezuela as Chavez becomes more and more authoritarian...they say or at least their NGO's say that they are willing to work with parties of the opposition as well as Chavez's supporters...in reality, there has been no effective relationship ever between US NGO's and the official party...all the resources that the US Congress gives to political parties via the National Endowment for Democracy or USAID are those that want to unseat Chavez..the most progressive elements in these NGO's argue that they are looking for a way to end the polarization in the country by seeking a third way or middle ground...sounds good...but just look at the results of such efforts in El Salvador and Nicaragua..after years of war and lots of US money supporting oposition parties on the right, after 10 to 15 years the search for that middle ground continues and meanwhile...the right wing rules both countries...and both willing to sign on to free-trade agreements...the US never wanted to promote democracy then and nor does it want to now...it wants to ensure that a government favorable to its interests gets into power regardless of the levels of poverty due to past pro-US governments in Venezuela..the parties that are receiving financial and technical assistance at least in the short term will be unable to form a coalition that can effectively compete with the support that Chavez has...in the words of those providing money and technical assistance to those of the opposition, the reason they are not capable of uniting is because they are selfish and only concerned with maintaining their small spheres of political power that they have...in other words, as anti-Chavez as their rhetoric is their actions have yet to match it.. they are stilled viewed by the majority of the populace as corrupt and selfish and even stupid...so the US is financing new political parties...hoping somehow to win that critical 10% of the vote that will force a presidential election in to second round election...and if possible prevent the National Assembly from falling completely to the official party...in the meantime...at least the feeling I get from interviews from people on the opposition is that Chavez's programs are doomed to failure and that if not US backed oppositional efforts a sort of social explosion will put an end to Chavez's dreams..but all this has a sense of urgency in that many feel that part of the Chavez agenda includes a strategic alliance between civilians and the military and if that happens then it will be too late for any poltical opposition to unseat Chavez and in effect it will become a dictatorship...a scenario such as this smells too much the way right wing Cubans in Miami in their hysteria look at the world...Venezuelans like their northamerican counterparts are lovers of liberty and democracy...in fact if we were to look at both systems impartially comparing the US current political system and how it operates with the current Venezuelan poltical system, I think you would be hard pressed to say that the US system is more democratic...thanks for reading...<\/p>\n
At the outset I admit that the following observations concerning the current political climate in Venezuela as well as some thoughts concerning the nature of US involvement in the Venezuelan political scenario come from someone with whose knowledge of things Venezuelan was no greater than anyone else who read US newspapers. I still do not presume to know much as my stay in Caracas has been less than two months...the following remarks are based on interviews with people working in local civic organizations, NGO's that receive support from the US, people in the street, people in lower class neighborhoods, and anyone else willing to engage in a conservation regarding politics in Venezuela. One thing is certain, most everyone has an interested opinion concerning the political goings-on that if not verging on the side of passion at least it is heartfelt and sincere..this is important as many have said that prior to the late 80's nobody really was much interested in politics or at least didn't talk about it the way it is talked about presently...so there seems to have been an awakening in the sense that people vote with a sense of personal conviction. Hugo Chavez is the benefactor of this awakening..in that when the traditional parties known as the AD (social democratic) and COPEI (christian democrat) that had ruled the country since 1958 in an agreed to power sharing pact both of which are right or center-right parties could no longer offer anything to the populace that was credible the time was right for someone without any links to either of the traditional parties to offer Venezuelans something that had resonance with them..the political history in the twentieth century for Venezuelans has either been a dictatorship or rule by oligarchs via the two abovementioned parties...the majority of the infrastructure visible today is a product of the dictatorship of Perez-Jimenez who fell in 1958. For a country with petroleum reserves that may exceed those of Saudi Arabia, Venezuelan living standards would shock anyone who visits the west side of the city. In fact, the east is known as that part where most of the money is and the west is its much vaster majority where the poor live..a Brazilian friend of mine visiting Caracas described one of the neighborhoods on the west side we walked through as a \"favela\" or the equivalent of Rio's famous slums. So much oil wealth but so little of it is visible...remember unlike US law..what is underground belongs to the state..so oil is by rights property of Venezuela..so how it is administered is directly visible..many of the political opposition claim that Chavez's \"revolucion bonita\" (pretty revolution) is nothing but a sham in that it replaces the old corrupt political leadership (AD\/COPEI) with a new class of corrupted bureaucrats that surround Chavez...this has a ring of truth...as the institutions of the preceding governments under the old constitution remain very much intact...and it is probably true that with the record prices for crude, there is even much more money to be stolen...yet, Chavez and many of his party the MVR (Fifth Republic Movement), are like the Zapatistas in Chiapas recognize that they are fighting the gargantuan battle against the culture of fraud, corruption, classism and racism...change will not happen overnight..the Zapatistas have opted to work outside the Mexican culture of fraud, Chavez is inside...it remains to be seen who will win...the social programs to help the 80% of Venezuelans who are poor are a huge start in the right direction...Venezuela has embarked on a huge regional integrational program using its access to oil...which does threaten in a big way US hegemony..Venezuela now via Chavez represents a huge moral weight juxtaposed to that of the hypocrisy of the US. Who else would stand up in the United Nations and say what no other head of state would say..Venezuelan has become the only country in the twentieth century to confront the US in the western hemisphere both in terms of its political discourse and its economic and social projects...it has the economic wherewithall to effect change where Cuba, Nicaragua and Chile could not...it could make reality an institutionalized socialist revolution if it deals effectively with those in the bureaucracy who seek to undermine it...the biggest enemy of the \"proceso\" (or process, term that Venezuelans use to describe the socio-economic changes ocurring) is not US imperialism as the rhetoric may have us believe but those who continue to line their pockets with state money subverting those resources destined for social programs and infrastructure. Cynically, the US says that it is promoting democracy in Venezuela as Chavez becomes more and more authoritarian...they say or at least their NGO's say that they are willing to work with parties of the opposition as well as Chavez's supporters...in reality, there has been no effective relationship ever between US NGO's and the official party...all the resources that the US Congress gives to political parties via the National Endowment for Democracy or USAID are those that want to unseat Chavez..the most progressive elements in these NGO's argue that they are looking for a way to end the polarization in the country by seeking a third way or middle ground...sounds good...but just look at the results of such efforts in El Salvador and Nicaragua..after years of war and lots of US money supporting oposition parties on the right, after 10 to 15 years the search for that middle ground continues and meanwhile...the right wing rules both countries...and both willing to sign on to free-trade agreements...the US never wanted to promote democracy then and nor does it want to now...it wants to ensure that a government favorable to its interests gets into power regardless of the levels of poverty due to past pro-US governments in Venezuela..the parties that are receiving financial and technical assistance at least in the short term will be unable to form a coalition that can effectively compete with the support that Chavez has...in the words of those providing money and technical assistance to those of the opposition, the reason they are not capable of uniting is because they are selfish and only concerned with maintaining their small spheres of political power that they have...in other words, as anti-Chavez as their rhetoric is their actions have yet to match it.. they are stilled viewed by the majority of the populace as corrupt and selfish and even stupid...so the US is financing new political parties...hoping somehow to win that critical 10% of the vote that will force a presidential election in to second round election...and if possible prevent the National Assembly from falling completely to the official party...in the meantime...at least the feeling I get from interviews from people on the opposition is that Chavez's programs are doomed to failure and that if not US backed oppositional efforts a sort of social explosion will put an end to Chavez's dreams..but all this has a sense of urgency in that many feel that part of the Chavez agenda includes a strategic alliance between civilians and the military and if that happens then it will be too late for any poltical opposition to unseat Chavez and in effect it will become a dictatorship...a scenario such as this smells too much the way right wing Cubans in Miami in their hysteria look at the world...Venezuelans like their northamerican counterparts are lovers of liberty and democracy...in fact if we were to look at both systems impartially comparing the US current political system and how it operates with the current Venezuelan poltical system, I think you would be hard pressed to say that the US system is more democratic...thanks for reading...<\/p>\n","contact":"peterstedman2004@yahoo.com","link":"","address":"n\/a","phone":"n\/a","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"included are some preliminary comments concerning Venezuela","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2005\/10\/comments_concerning_venezuela.txt","filesize":"7.6 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2005\/10\/136477.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}