Media, oil and social change. A recipe for a coup

Nearly 50 days into the lockout organised by Venezuelan businessmen and corrupt trade unions against that country's democratically elected president, Hugo Chávez, OPEC's decision to increase its oil production to make up for the drop in production in Venezuela is good news for the right-wing opposition to the Chávez administration. It will ease international pressure on them to restart not only the production, but also the shipping of oil, which provides Venezuela with most of its revenue.

So, it seems that demonstrations for and against Chávez are set to go on and the fear of violent clashes will continue. Those demonstrating against Chávez are professionals, the middle classes and workers who get paid to go on strike. On the other hand, those supporting Chávez are mostly from the slums that surround Caracas. Many of them are unemployed and their only hope of progress rests on the shoulders of the man they put in power and rescued from the hands of coup leaders on 14 April 2002.

However, on 2 December last, and despite the coup's failure, the opposition began what they called a strike - which is really a lockout, as workers have turned up at working places to find the doors locked by employers - demanding Chávez's resignation or early elections if he loses a proposed non-binding referendum on his rule.

Those interested in getting rid of Chávez are the business sector, the middle class, the corporate media, the church and the United States. Here we see the clear picture of established powers fighting against any change that may benefit the poorest sectors at the expense of increasing revenues for the richest. So, traditional powers feel vindicated in their aim of staging a second coup against Hugo Chávez, and feel that they can count on international world powers to recognise any new government.

They know from experience that the US and most of the member states of the European Union will welcome the coup as they did on 11 April 2002. Only hours after Chávez was ousted, the US administration and the EU - represented by Spanish right-wing PM José María Aznar - welcomed the arrival of a new administration in Venezuela. The new government was deposed 48 hours later by the military and the majority of the country's population, who managed to rescue Chávez and bring him back to the presidential palace.

However, in Venezuela - as in the rest of Latin America - the powerful see democracy not as the rule of the majority, but as a right that should only be enjoyed by the privileged classes. And they are upset because the poor decided to vote and supported an anti-establishment candidate by the name of Hugo Chávez.

The opposition has staged dozens of street marches, has called for a tax boycott and held a two-day bank strike at the beginning of January. The strike by oil workers has helped push up world oil prices.

On Sunday 12 January, tens of thousands of the anti-Chávez protesters marched on Los Proceres Park outside the Fort Tiuna military base in Caracas, seeking military support for the strike. Troops lobbed tear gas at the protesters but they quickly regrouped, shouting "cowards" at hundreds of soldiers facing them with armoured personnel carriers. Troops also kept back dozens of Chávez supporters protesting nearby.

So far, the military - purged of dissidents after the April coup - has supported Chávez during the strike, with troops seizing oil tankers, commandeering gasoline trucks and locking striking workers out of oil installations. Top commanders have professed their loyalty to the government.

Oil, the US interest

However, and from the point of view of the Bush administration, the massive popular support enjoyed for Chávez, or even his clear victory in the six referenda and elections that have taken place in Venezuela in the last three years, are enough. "That elections take place is not enough to describe a country as democratic," said Otto Reich, assistant US secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere and a household name when it comes to Latin America.

From 1983 through 1986, Reich headed the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy, whose main mission was to inflame fears about Nicaragua and its left-wing Sandinista government that had come to power by overthrowing a corrupt, US-supported dictator.

By covertly disseminating intelligence leaks to journalists, Reich and the OPD sought to trump up a Nicaraguan "threat," and to sanctify the US-backed Contra guerrillas fighting Nicaragua's government as "freedom fighters". The propaganda was aimed at influencing Congress to continue to fund the Contras.

At the time, Reich's office worked alongside the White House National Security Council, collaborating with CIA propaganda experts, Army psychological warfare specialists and a then-obscure Marine lieutenant colonel named Oliver North.

Today, Reich is again using his old tactics to justify Washington support of another coup in Venezuela. And it seems that the Bush administration is ready to pay any price, including a high price at the gasoline pumps.

Chávez has fought the strike by firing 1,000 workers from the state oil monopoly, where some 30,000 of 40,000 workers are off the job. The strike, which is strongest in the oil industry, has caused fuel shortages and is costing the country an estimated $70 million a day.

The ray of hope that Chávez was waiting for has come from Brazil. Newly inaugurated president Lula ordered oil to be sent to Venezuela to improve the situation within the country and offered the use of one of Brazil's petrol tankers. Before the Brazilian offer, the trade union from the national Colombian Oil Company (Ecopetrol) offered to send some workers to help in the Venezuelan oil industry. In a statement, the union said: "Those responsible for the coup, management and supervisors of PDVSA - the Venezuelan national oil company - will learn that in Colombia there are sympathisers and supporters of (Chávez's) Bolivarian Revolution". The Bolivarian Revolution is the name given to the process of change begun in Venezuela after Chávez's election and it takes its name from Simon Bolivar, "The Liberator".

Around 15% of the oil imported to the US comes from Venezuela, and the situation could worsen should the Venezuelan crisis not be resolved before any war against Iraq.

Those were the reasons why crude prices surged in recent weeks but fell sharply in anticipation of OPEC's boosting production. On Sunday 12 January, OPEC decided to increase production by 1.5 million barrels per day by 1 February, a move that will only partially offset the loss in Venezuelan oil.

Reich's comments and Washington's silence have alarmed some members of the US Congress. Dennis J. Kucinich, John Conyers, Jr, Jose E. Serrano, Barney Frank and Major R. Owens made a public call on President Bush to clarify Washington's position on Venezuela. They pointed out that the silence of the White House, together with Reich's declaration, seem to support the actions of the opposition and would make difficult a possible negotiation or a peaceful solution to the crisis.

The middle classes

"Chávez's biggest mistake has been to f*** the middle classes, " said Carlos Escarrá, constitutional lawyer and former judge, who describes himself as a participant in the change process initiated by Chávez, though not a Chávez supporter.

The most important reforms of the Chávez administration - a new constitution, changes in the education and health services and land reform - have been directed to improve the working classes and unemployed situation.

The new health and education policies favoured the poor ahead of the middle class. For the first time in Venezuelan history, the poor have enjoyed free health and education. Health centres are now more accessible and the government opened thousand of "Bolivarian schools" around the country. One of the reasons why parents and students are attracted to send their kids to the schools is that these provide three daily meals to the students. So, a million new students, who never before had participated in the school system, have registered in the schools.

The new constitution, approved in the year 2000, has put an end to the traditional pattern of two parties alternating in government, allowing for the participation of social sectors previously excluded from government. The new constitution also enshrines the rights of women, indigenous peoples and homosexuals. Once again, these changes have been resented by many among the middle classes.

Another priority for Chávez's agenda is land reform, with two different programmes dealing with urban and rural land. The rural land reform initiated in 2001 marked the beginning of the opposition campaign against the government. The legislation allows for the distribution of idle land to landless labourers and is directed to increase social justice and agricultural production. This project is supported by soft credits and training programmes.

The urban land reform plan is designed so the inhabitants of the slums can claim ownership of the land they had illegally occupied. The reform arranged for the creation of "land committees" who help the "squatters" to measure the land, decided on the land that would be communally owned and to negotiate with the government the provision of services as electricity, water and waste collection.

This democratisation of basic services goes hand on hand with the democratisation of local government through a process of participative planning for all local projects - a lesson that could be learned by Dublin Corporation.

Other government projects that benefit the poor are housing and small loans programmes.

Chavez also proposes tax reform that will hit the upper middle class in a government effort to increase tax contributions -another first in Venezuelan history. Only those with incomes over the minimum wages will be paying tax.

The media war

On Sunday 12 January, President Chávez threatened to revoke the broadcasting licences of Venezuela's main TV and radio stations, accusing them of supporting opposition efforts to overthrow him through the six-week-old strike.

Venezuela's main television stations have not broadcast any commercials during the strike except the opposition's ads. Media owners say they adopted that stance because Chavez incites his supporters to attack reporters, but the truth is that media interests in Venezuela are controlled by the same people organising the strikes against Chávez.

Media accusations against the government refer to incompetence and corruption based on non-verified reports.

The media is playing a central role in the psychological warfare, presenting local, national and international public opinion with an image of a divided and collapsing Venezuelan society where the government has no support or legitimacy.

The opposition believe they have the right to decide who governs Venezuela and so they want the elected president to leave his position immediately. However, the democratic game involves certain rules, and one of them is that the president is elected for a prescribed time period, and the only democratic way to get a new president is to wait for elections and win them. The National Elections Council has scheduled a referendum for 2 February, after accepting an opposition petition signed by 2 million people. But Chávez says the vote would be unconstitutional, and his supporters have challenged it in the Supreme Court.

Chávez was elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2000, and his term ends in 2007. Venezuela's constitution allows a referendum challenging the president halfway through a president's term - August, in Chávez's case. Then again, Venezuela's opposition does not like rules it cannot bend.