Venezuela:
Right-Wing Lockout Loses Steam
by Andy McInerney
Venezuela's bosses and their masters in Washington face the
prospect that their lockout and attempted shutdown of the
Venezuelan economy will fail to unseat the democratically
elected government of President Hugo Chavez.
This failure is due to the determination of the Chavez
leadership team, the strength of the organized masses and
the vacillation of U.S. imperialism as it faces challenges
on every front.
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Since December 2, 2002 a coalition of big-business
federations, members of Venezuela's old political elite,
some corrupt union leaders and a handful of dissident
military officers have tried to economically strangle the
Venezuelan people and force Chavez to resign. The same
coalition tried to unseat Chavez in an April coup backed by
the U.S. government.
The Venezuelan ruling class is furious that Chavez has
managed to restructure the political system, giving poor
and working people a voice for the first time in history.
He has encouraged the formation of "Bolivarian circles,"
neighborhood-based groups organized outside the bounds of
the police to defend his "Bolivarian revolution".
Chavez has also initiated a number of economic projects
designed to shift part of Venezuela's oil wealth to benefit
the 80 percent of Venezuelans who live below the poverty
line. He has proposed land redistribution. His government
has proposed a bigger role for the state in the oil and
banking industries.
In addition, his independent foreign policy has met
opposition from the U.S. government. Chavez has challenged
U.S. aggression toward Iraq and Cuba. He has refused to
support U.S. intervention against the leftist insurgencies
in neighboring Colombia.
The organizers of the most recent attempt to topple the
Chavez government call their effort a "strike". But it is a
lockout: It is organized by bosses and business executives,
not by workers.
Its main target is the oil industry, where the lockout is
supported not by oil workers--many of whom are valiantly
working to keep the industry running--but by executives and
highly paid technicians.
The shutdown has had the open support of the U.S.
government and big corporations based in the United States.
For example, a Dec. 26 French Press Agency report quoted
Ramon Martinez, governor of the state of Sucre in eastern
Venezuela:
"The transnationals are involved up to their
necks".
He detailed a government seizure of the "Barbara Palacios,"
one of the oil tankers refusing to unload Venezuelan oil.
"The captains were receiving instructions from Washington
and were handling accounts in dollars," Martinez charged.
The governor also said that U.S.-based oil companies like
Exxon were ordering their tankers not to load oil.
Proctor and Gamble, General Motors and Goodyear are some of
the other U.S. companies that have shut down their
operations in Venezuela to support the "strike". A January
9, 2003 Associated Press report revealed that the U.S.
based Ford Motor Co. sent 1,300 workers home "on vacation"
- beginning December 3, the second day of the shutdown.
International bankers have also weighed in. On January 10,
the World Bank's International Finance Corp. froze
distribution of $225 million in loans - at the very time
that the Venezuelan government is preparing to normalize
oil production.
The U.S. government itself has been far from neutral. In
the early weeks of the shutdown, the State Department
endorsed the right wing's call for an early election--
despite the fact that such an election has no basis in the
Venezuelan constitution.
When Chavez proposed a "Friends of Venezuela" group on Jan.
3 to mediate the conflict, the White House immediately
threw cold water on the idea.
But one week later, the Bush administration had apparently
made an about- face. On Jan. 10, the Washington Post
reported that the U.S. government was pre paring a "major
initiative" on Venezuela:
"The U.S. initiative is centered
on the formation of a group of 'Friends of Venezuela,'
trusted by one or both sides to the conflict, that would
develop and guarantee a compromise proposal". The U.S.
proposal, of course, counts the Bush administration as
among the "friends". According to the Post,
"Its immediate
goal would be an end to an opposition-organized strike".
Carlos Ortega - one of the main organizers of the shutdown
affiliated with the old "Democratic Action" party that
Chavez trounced in both 1998 and 2000 elections - was
summoned to Washington on Jan. 11 for a meeting with the
State Department.
BEHIND THE SHIFT
Why the shift in tactics? A January 11 New York Times
headline pointed out one factor: Venezuela Crisis
Complicates Iraq Situation, Experts Say.
"A few months ago everybody thought that if we went to war
in Iraq oil wouldn't be a major problem," said oil industry
analyst Larry Goldstein.
"Now, we won't have enough spare
capacity to take care of both those events," referring to
an invasion of Iraq and a protracted crisis in Venezuela.
Another factor has been the Chavez government's refusal to
offer any concessions to the rightists. Instead of
following a strategy of trying to reach accommodation with
the opposition, Chavez has stood his ground.
Hundreds of oil executives have been fired for their
sabotage. On January 8 Chavez unveiled a plan to
restructure the state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela to
gut the managerial bureaucracy, the heart of the
anti-Chavez movement.
When bank executives and supermarket owners tried to stage
a shutdown, Chavez threatened to nationalize the banks and
send in the army to seize warehouses of food.
But the most crucial factor in forcing Washington and its
lackeys to back down from all-out confrontation has been
the strength of the mobilized poor and working people in
defense of what they call their "Bolivarian Revolution".
Workers take pride in working against the will of their
bosses. Oil production is resuming at one refinery after
another--despite sabotage by managers and engineers.
When bankers shut the doors in solidarity with the
"strike," tellers and other employees reported for work.
Consider the opening line of a January 9 Associated Press
report on the bank "strike":
"Many bank workers ignored a call Thursday for a two day-strike".
Daily demonstrations show support for Chavez and his
government. Right- wing rallies are blocked in the streets
by mobilizations from the poor neighborhoods.
Despite U.S. efforts to pull the Venezuelan ruling class
back from an immediate confrontation with the Chavez
government, a threshold has been crossed. The Bolivarian
Revolution is passing from its electoral birth into a phase
of open class struggle.
The outcome of this struggle will be felt across Latin
America.
– Andy McInerney
SOURCE: Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the January 23, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper.
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