News and Analysis
- 06 September 2005
So, US televangelist Pat Robertson has ordered his million-strong "brownshirt" army to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
This powerful Bush ally, who sells "miracles" on live TV to people who really believe that he has a hot-line to God, may just be protecting his turf - after all, the Venezuelan president has just announced on his own television show that he, too, will be helping the blind see again, only for free.
Mission Miracle is a new social programme which sends poor Venezuelans to Cuba for sight-restoring eye operations.
It has been tremendously successful and Chavez recently announced that it will be extended to countries across the hemisphere, including the US.
What this means is that poor north Americans without health care will be able to fly, at Venezuela’s expense, to Cuba - probably via Venezuela, as the Bush regime has drastically increased the penalties for US citizens who visit Cuba - where they will receive surgery from Cuban doctors. They can be accompanied by a relative or friend, also for free.
More proof that the Venezuelan administration genuinely believes in global revolution comes in the form of his offer to provide cheap oil to poor US communities, primarily for heating fuel during the winter.
Up to half of the skyrocketing price of oil goes to profit-hungry middle men, according to Chavez, and he wants to deal directly with the consumer.
Venezuela already owns a chain of petrol stations and refineries across the US, called CITGO, which could be used to implement such a scheme. Chavez has even offered to sell cheap oil directly to progressive groups in the US, such as the Black Caucus.
Venezuela was the first country to offer aid in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, though Chavez criticised US evacuation plans as far worse than those in Cuba.
CITGO pledged $1 million and gave food and shelter to 2,000 residents of Louisiana in one of its refineries there.
Two mobile hospital units have also been promised by Venezuela, as well as rescue specialists, generators, water purifiers and 50 tonnes of canned food.
The US government hasn’t yet accepted this generous offer, instead telling people to give money to the Red Cross, as well as to a charity named Operation Blessing via the website of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Tellingly enough, Operation Blessing is run by Pat Robertson and is being investigated for allegedly transporting diamond-mining equipment to Africa instead of medical supplies, which was what it fundraised millions of dollars for.
While the rich in Venezuela complain that Chavez is wasting "their" money on foreigners, supporters of this country’s peaceful and democratic revolution
- especially those living in poor neighbourhoods (barrios) - see this as an essential element of foreign policy, building solidarity with primarily poor people deep inside the US empire.
The problems of poverty and lack of health care, education, social security and dignified employment affect people all over the world and the solutions have to be global also. Bolivarian socialism, the new political philosophy of the Venezuelan masses, may hold some of the answers.
At its heart, Bolivarian socialism aims to redistribute power to the poor people and to include them in the decision-making of their own country.
Free universal education and health-care are crucial to achieving this, but they are not enough on their own to bring about true equality.
In some ways, the most revolutionary aspect of the political process here has been the rapid growth of the co-operative movement and the establishment of hundreds of "endogenous nuclei" across the country. Mission Vuelvan Caras, another of the numerous new social programmes in Venezuela, is responsible for co-ordinating and developing this movement of workers’
power.
An endogenous nucleus is a community in which there exist several co-ops working together, making products or offering services that complement and co-operate with each other. For example, when farming, trucking and kitchen co-ops establish links like this, they become a secondary co-op.
These can then provide products, services and education to the community, strengthening their democratic and inclusive nature and unlocking the potential of the people, the community, the country and even the hemisphere itself.
Economic liberation is only a part of this - more important, according to one Vuelvan Caras worker, is "changing the way we see ourselves and other people."
Co-ops are revolutionary because they allow workers to own and manage the means of production.
The government provides start-up microcredits to enable the purchase of equipment or office space, gives training and education if necessary and helps to find markets and customers for the co-op to sell to.
As the movement grows stronger, government resources should become less necessary and an entirely new, self-sufficient economic system will co-exist with and then eventually replace the capitalist, profit-driven machine which currently dominates the world.
The fact that the co-operative model can be exported to any other country makes it a credible threat to the corporate empire, as workers across the planet realise that they can run their businesses better than their bosses did and take inspiration from the self-empowerment of the Venezuelan people.
Another key element of Bolivarian socialism is the nationalisation of failed and bankrupt corporate industry.
Paper and oil-valve factories are two examples of this and Chavez has said that any more companies that go under will be taken over and run by the workers themselves.
Another popular concept being implemented is that of co-management, whereby workers have the right to be part of the decision-making process and are given real powers - for example, to set some of their own budgets.
Although not as radical as the entirely worker-owned and managed model, this is a big step towards a democratic economy and far more logical than the government expropriation of productive private industry.
One of the most profound aspects of all this is how the Venezuelan people are now debating what socialism really means and the ways in which their vision differs from previous interpretations in countries such as Russia, China and even their close ally Cuba.
The constitution establishes that the state should be "decentralised." This is important in respect to decisions being taken at a local level, rather than by privileged cliques at the top of hierarchical political power structures.
The Bolivarian movement’s grass-roots activists are very conscious of this ongoing struggle and protests against their own elected representatives - even Bolivarian ones - are not uncommon, as is the sense that their only defence against corruption is popular participation and pressure from below.
There is also a debate between the "libertarian" and "authoritarian"
tendencies within socialism. Venezuela is, in fact, quite a libertarian country. For example, driving without seatbelts or crash-helmets, through red lights and even under the influence of alcohol, is not particularly frowned upon, though they are all illegal.
Graffiti and murals are everywhere and protesters will often bring out a spray-can during demos to scrawl spontaneous slogans on street walls.
The government even came close to decriminalising personal-use quantities of drugs, though this legislation was stalled and then defeated at the national assembly.
There are currently very harsh penalties for any kind of drug use and the police generally see this as a way of extorting money from careless and unlucky tourists.
Although it is easy money for the cops, there seems to be a rather half-hearted aspect to their shake-downs, perhaps because of the contradiction between this and their job of fighting - often very serious - crime.
It is openly and commonly said that many policemen here are extremely corrupt and, since the US-backed coup of 2002 they are seen by many Venezuelans simply as puppets of Uncle Sam.
Soldiers, however, are much more respected and are genuinely regarded as being on the side of the people.
The collaboration with the communities of the military rank-and-file against the coup and bosses’ lockout later the same year, as well as their role in facilitating many of the social programmes throughout the barrios, has brought about a new civil-military alliance that will make any further coup or sabotage attempt much more difficult.
The rich and powerful opposition to Chavez, however, are not giving up without a fight. From provoking conflict in the streets, to their leaders meeting with Bush in the White House, they are planning something big, probably around the next general election in December 2006.
Many of the middle class have completely bought into the idea of Chavez-the-demon, a madman who is hell-bent on taking their homes and cars away from them.
This is exactly the line that the private media have been selling since he was first elected and the irrational hatred is part of what is stopping Venezuela from healing itself.
On the Bolivarian side, there is still deep resentment of the coup-massacre and lockout-sabotage that the middle-class helped to facilitate, perhaps unwittingly.
If there is ever to be any kind of reconciliation - although that might take a miracle - it is crucial that both sides re-evaluate what they have been taught to think about the other, change the way that they see themselves and society and make the ever-present government slogan "Venezuela: ahora es de todos (now is for all)" a reality.
- 31 August 2005
Speaking shortly after a press conference held by President Chavez and U.S. Reverend Jesse Jackson, Ramirez said that CITGO Petroleum Corp., the wholly owned subsidiary of PDVSA, is currently refining up to 664.000 barrels of oil through the refineries it owns and operates in the United States.
Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter and the fourth largest supplier of oil to the United States. Venezuelan oil accounted for 12% of U.S. oil imports.
Ramirez said that under the Venezuelan government plan, CITGO will set aside up to 10% of its refined oil products to be sold directly to organized poor communities, and institutions in the U.S. without intermediaries.
The plan calls for the sale of heating oil and gasoline to hospitals, nursing homes, schools and organized poor communities in U.S. soil, according to Ramirez.
Other Venezuelan government officials, who asked not to be named, said that Venezuela will not lose any money with this program because the idea is to "cut the middle-man", the intermediaries.
Ramirez said the beneficiaries will see a price reduction of about 30%.
Ramirez, who is also Venezuela's Minister of Oil and Energy, denied that Reverend Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition would be the recipient of the cheaper oil.
The Minister said Reverend Jackson's organization could help Venezuela identify those who are in need, but that they will not be the recipients of the products.
Ramirez was confident the program will be implemented before the U.S. winter begins.
CITGO Petroleum Corp. owns and operates eight refineries in the United States.
It is unclear how the CITGO gas will reach the consumers, as CITGO does not own any of the 14.000 CITGO-branded gas stations operating in U.S. territory through franchising.
"Impact on seven to eight million persons"
“There is a lot of poverty in the U.S. and I don’t believe that reflects the American Way of Life. Many people die of cold in the winter. Many die of heat in the summer,” said Chavez on Sunday during his weekly TV show, explaining why Venezuela was interested in providing discounted heating oil to the U.S. poor.
“We could have an impact on seven to eight million persons,” Chavez added.
Venezuela’s ambassador to the U.S. Bernardo Alvarez, had told Chavez that the embassy in Washington DC has already received over 140 requests about the plan, even though it has not been formally announced yet.
Venezuela also plans to provide free surgery for certain eye conditions for U.S. poor.
- 02 September 2005
Venezuela was the first country to offer help to the United States in dealing with the effects of Hurricane Katrina. On Wednesday, August 31st, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez announced that Venezuelan state-owned CITGO Petroleum Corporation had already pledged US$1 million for hurricane aid. "It's a terrible tragedy that our North American brothers are living through," Chavez said. "We have a battalion from our Simon Bolivar humanitarian team ready in case they authorize it for us to go there, if they give us the green light." He offered humanitarian workers and fuel to help. "We are willing to donate fuel for hospitals, for public transport, everything we can do," Chavez said.
But at the same time Hugo Chavez sharply criticised US president G W Bush for his handling of the Hurricane crisis. "As more information comes out now, a terrible truth is becoming evident: That government doesn't have evacuation plans," Chavez said. Putting words to what many in the US must be thinking, he added that Bush, "there at his ranch, said nothing more than 'you need to flee'; he didn't even say how - in cowboy style." He also pointed out that the lack of a clear strategy on the part of the government hit the poorest sections of the population hardest. "We all saw the long lines of desperate people leaving that city in vehicles, those who had vehicles," he said, noting that the areas worst affected are amongst "some of the poorest in the United States, most of them black."
In contrast with the lack of action on the part of the US government, the Venezuelan government was able to help hundreds of Lousiana residents. CITGO, a company in the US owned by the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA, has a network of refineries and gas stations in the United States. One of these is based in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and was opened to give shelter and aid to some 2,000 residents of the area.
Felix Rodriguez, the president of both PDVSA and CITGO who was visiting the Lake Charles refinery, said that the funds from their donation would be directed to aid organizations in affected areas.
According to Venezuelanalaysis.com, sources at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington DC said that "apart from the million dollars in monetary assistance, Venezuela is offering two mobile hospital units, each capable of assisting 150 people, 120 specialists in rescue operations, 10 water purifying plants, 18 electricity generators of 850 KW each, 20 tons of bottled water, and 50 tons of canned food."
In his statement Chavez also noted the contrast between the way Cuba and the US deal with these kinds of natural catastrophes. Here we can see again the advantages of a system where the private profit motive was abolished after the 1959 revolution. While there are very few victims of hurricanes in Cuba, and the contingency plans are properly organised, in the most powerful capitalist nation on earth, thousands die, most of whom could be alive today if the necessary measures had been taken.
Chavez further made the link between the fierceness and frequency of recent hurricanes and global warming, for which he blamed capitalism and criticised the US for refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gases.
Not surprisingly, coverage of this offer for help from Venezuela was very scarce or non existent in the US media. The only reaction from the US administration was from an unnamed "senior State official" quoted in the Washington Times as saying that “he was not aware of Caracas' proposal” but noted that “unsolicited offers can be counterproductive." The Bush administration cannot really accept this offer for help which would destroy the image they are trying to create of Chavez as an evil dictator.
Venezuela's offer comes a week after the statements by right wing fundamentalist preacher Pat Robertson, who said on his TV station that Chavez should be assassinated. The Bush administration has so far not condemned this statement and not taken any legal measures against Pat Robertson. The furthest they went was when Rumsfeld said that he did not agree with the declarations of Robertson, but that any private individual is free to say whatever he wants.
In the last week, Venezuela has also offered cheap gas and fuel to poor communities in the US, the hardest hit by the recent increases in the price of oil. "We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States". Chavez explained that the exorbitant price of oil is mainly caused by speculation on the part of the multinationals and intermediaries, and that if these were cut out, prices would be much cheaper. He explained how in Venezuela gas is even cheaper than bottled water and that Venezuelans can fill their tank for about $2. According to the Venezuelan Embassy in the US, more than 1400 organisations (churches, charities, counties, hospitals) have already contacted them to enquire about the details of the offer.
This is not the only offer that revolutionary Venezuela has made to the United States people. When Chavez attended the graduation of the first promotion of the Latin American School of Medicine in Cuba (ELAM), he also offered to bring tens of thousands of US citizens to Cuba to be operated on their cataracts, extending the "Mision Milagro", which has been dealing with Venezuelan patients, to a 150,000 poor US-Americans a year. The offer was also to train thousands of doctors at this ELAM school. "We are deeply concerned about the poverty which is increasing in the United States," Chavez said.
The attitude of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez towards the US is thus very clear and has been so from the very beginning of the Bolivarian revolution: opposition to imperialism and the attempts of the US administration to overthrow the democratically elected government in Venezuela, while at the same time solidarity and links with ordinary working people in the United States.
These offers of help also expose the inability of capitalism in the US to provide the basics for their own population: health care for all, relief in case of emergency, cheap fuel for heating in the winter, etc. This is a further argument against those who say that the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela must proceed cautiously, not to provoke imperialism, etc. In fact the best defence against imperialism is taking measures like these which will show ordinary working people in the United States what can be done and will make them think what kind of government they would rather have: one that puts war and private profit before peoples' basic needs, or one that invests the country's natural resources to improve peoples' lives.
This example would be even more powerful if the Venezuelan revolution were completed and the whole of the economy put under the democratic control of the workers, the only way in which the Bolivarian revolution can succeed.
- 31 August 2005
Chavez made these comments during his weekly television program today, which Jackson briefly attended to speak to Chavez and the audience. Jackson is on a three-day visit to Venezuela, during which he will meet with local religious leaders, Afro-Venezuelan groups, the president of the state oil company PDVSA, President Hugo Chavez, and visit poor-neighborhoods to see Venezuela's social programs at work.
Chavez had first mentioned the plan to supply discounted oil to poor communities in the U.S. last week, while in Cuba, but did not provide any details beyond that. Today he specified that it was heating oil that the Venezuelan government was looking into because this seemed the most feasible and most necessary approach. Given the high price of oil this year, heating oil is expected to reach very high levels this winter, which will be unaffordable for many poor families in the U.S.
“There is a lot of poverty in the U.S. and don’t believe that everything reflects the . Many people die of cold in the winter. Many die of heat in the summer,” said Chavez in explaining why Venezuela was interested in providing discounted heating oil to the U.S. poor. “We could have an impact on seven to eight million persons,” he added.
Chavez said that he was interested in talking to Jackson about this plan, so that his organization and other U.S.-based groups might help with it. Chavez mentioned the groups TransAfrica Forum, Global Exchange, and Global Women’s Strike that could also help implement the plan.
Part of the plan was for the U.S.-based and Venezuelan state-owned oil company Citgo to provide heating oil directly to poor households. Chavez said this would not present a loss to Venezuela because the idea would be to offer the oil at a lower rate because intermediaries would not be involved. Up to 30% to 40% of the cost could be saved said Chavez. Citgo licenses 14,000 gas station franchises and 8 refineries in the U.S.
Venezuela’s ambassador to the U.S. Bernardo Alvarez, had told Chavez that the embassy has already received over 140 requests about the plan, even though it has not been formally announced yet.
Free Eye Operations
Chavez spent a large part of his Sunday talk show discussing new healthcare plans for Venezuela. Part of this discussion also involved the provision of free eye operations to people in all of the American continents, north and south. The operations Cuba would provide the bulk of the operations, with Venezuela providing the transportation.
Chavez said that of the six million operations that Cuba and Venezuela would want to organize over the next ten years, there would be slots for 150,000 U.S.-Americans per year. Each country will receive a quota. Chavez gave some examples, explaining that there would be 100,000 for Brazilians, 60,000 for Colombians, 12,000 for Panamanians, 30,000 for Ecuadorians, 20,000 for Bolivians, and 20,000 for inhabitants of the Caribbean. Chavez said that those interested in the eye operations should turn to the Venezuelan embassies in their respective countries.
The plan to provide free eye operations is part of the “Mission Miracle,” which is one of the many new social programs that Chavez government has instituted in the past two years in Venezuela. By the end of December, 150,000 Venezuelans will have received eye operations. These operations involved operations for cataracts, myopia, pigmentary retinosis, and many others.- 02 August 2005
Signatories unions included the Teamsters, Teamsters Black Caucus, Carpenters Union, Millwrights, AFSCME (government workers,) Machinists, United Auto Workers, IURE, IBEW (electricians,) SEIU, Bloomington Federation of Teachers, NAL-CBR, BLET, NWU/UAW, AFT (teachers,) and the Chicago NEA (teachers.) Also signing the appeal were members of the IWW, Mexico Solidarity Network, Wellstone Action, Nicaragua Solidarity, and the Circle Bolivariana Cincinnati.
The starting rally at Chicago's Navy Pier began with speeches by former San Francisco Plumbers Union president Fred Hirsch, a long-time Latin American solidarity supporter, and represenatives of Chicago's Latin American Solidarity Center, which organized the day's events. The rally at Navy Pier also featured a Latin activist/singer. The loud and boisterous rally gained the attention and ear of many passers-by, headed to the downtown beach and recreation spot on the hottest ever recorded day in the city.
The rally then formed a column and marched to the downtown Chicago Sheraton Hotel, where the AFL-CIO convention was being held. The marchers shouted slogans such as "CIA, NED - Hands off Venezuela!" and "CIA, NED - they're the same! The only difference is the name!" The marchers then rallied in a plaza next to the hotel, where speakers from the Columbia Action Network and the Cincinnati Bolivarian Circle took the stage. Although turnout for the rally was much lower than expected, the grievances and demands of the demonstrators came out loud and clear.
On assuming office, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney had pledged to put an end to the Meaneyite "cold warrior" policies of the past, where the AFL-CIO had actively financed and supported US foreign policy and CIA activities abroad. To this aim, the "Solidarity Center" was created, ostensibly to support workers rights to organize in Latin America, Asia and Africa. However while using the language of solidarity, the AFL-CIO's activities abroad speak more of imperialism. "Solidarity Center" has provided the National Endowment for Democracy (NED,) the de facto political arm of the CIA internationally, with huge amounts of money and 'activists' to provide labor-cover for its activities. "Solidarity Center," along with the NED have offices in cities around the world, including Caracas. The NED has spent over $900,000 to support the corrupt opposition in Venezuela since 2001. In 2002, the "Solidarity Center" sent at least $150,000 to coup plotter Carlos Ortega's CTV "union" in Venezuela. These policies run completely counter to the interests of American workers and their brothers and sisters around the world. Working people need real solidarity, not the NED-style "democracy" of the likes of Pedro Carmona, Augusto Pinochet and George W. Bush!
*Shut down "Solidarity House!"
*Defend the Venezuelan Revolution - for genuine Solidarity and Internationalism!
- 18 July 2005
The recent endorsement of Hands Off Venezuela by the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) will certainly open many doors for the campaign not just in Alberta, but across Canada. The AFL is the umbrella organization for the Alberta labour movement and represents 31 different unions which account for over 125, 000 workers. At the most recent AFL convention in May 2005, a resolution was passed that voiced support for the reforms of the Chavez government. Young representatives of the Hands Off Venezuela campaign, from the New Democratic Youth of Alberta and the AFL Youth Committee further campaigned for the AFL to support HOV, resulting in an endorsement and donation not more than a week ago.
The campaign has been steadily gaining support in Alberta and the affiliations of the AFL and the Edmonton and District Labour Council have meant that HOV has reached many union locals that we were not previously in contact with. We have already received a significant donation and affiliation from the Edmonton Ironworkers local 720 as a result of the AFL and EDLC’s support. These affiliations and donations are making it possible for us to begin building a strong Canadian section of the Hands Off Venezuela campaign during this critical time for the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.
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- 18 July 2005
- 17 July 2005
- 13 July 2005
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| Campesinos marched on Venezuela's National Assembly, demanding justice and an end to impunity for assassins of peasant leaders. Credit: ABN |
“Zamora took Caracas” on Monday, as agrarian workers affiliated with the National Agrarian Coordinator Ezequiel Zamora (CANEZ)—named after the 19th Century hero of Venezuelan peasants—marched through the city demanding an end to the assassination of land reform leaders. Over 6,000 Venezuelan campesinos congregated outside the National Assembly, and later, outside of the Attorney General’s office to demand an end to impunity for those responsible for over 130 assassinations.
Since the Venezuelan government passed a controversial land reform law in 2001, conflicts between land reform activists and land-owners have resulted in at least 150 assassinations of campesinos, and possibly more. Since January, 2005 when the land reform initiative was given a new push by President Hugo Chávez, violence in the countryside has escalated further.
Claudia Jardim, a journalist who produces a special bi-monthly documentary on the country’s land reform process says the political murder-rate in the countryside has jumped to an estimated one peasant leader per week since January.
Campesinos marching on the National Assembly and Attorney General’s office submitted a document listing a series of demands to secure government protection for those on the frontlines of the land reform and to seek an end to impunity for the material and intellectual authors of the assassinations.
Specifically, their demands included the establishment of a series of special prosecutors to be assigned to the states that have witnessed the most serious levels of violence over the past few years.
The CANEZ also submitted a document to the Attorney General complete with evidence linking specific latifundistas—landowners—to the violence. Campesino leader and recent victim of an attempted assassination, Braulio Alvarez, was on hand during the protest and afterwards, where he was interviewed on state television channel 8. According to Alvarez, some of the richest landowning families in Zulia, Cojedes and Yaracuy (see map) are responsible for contracting killers to rid them of bothersome peasant leaders.
A Worrisome Trend
But according to peasant activists, every agricultural state has seen the use of hired-killers, known as sicarios, against peasant leaders pushing for land reform. In addition to the three states mentioned above, Lara, Guarico, Barinas, and Portuguesa have also seen violence directed against campesino movements, including the use of sicarios.
Marino Alvarado, Defense Coordinator for Venezuelan human rights group Provea told Venezuelanalysis.com that “Campesinos have been the targets of assassination in Venezuela for decades.” Nor is the problem of hired-killers, the “sicariato,” anything new in Venezuela, according to Alvarado. “Perhaps what is new is that the phenomenon has increased considerably,” he says. “Since 2000, the number of campesinos assassinated has increased rapidly, under specific conditions suggesting the involvement of sicarios, hired-assassins… Today, the sicariato is a problem nationwide, though it remains very much concentrated in the frontier.”
“What has changed of late,” explains Alvarado, “is that sicarios have been increasing the number of victims, and they have been widening their reach. In the past, sicarios tended to kill those linked to illicit activities, drugs, corruption, and so forth. Later this was extended to incorporate political activists, whether related to land reform, human rights, or community politics.” Over the past five years the sicario has been “diversifying his victims, and he has become more sophisticated in his methods.”
The state launched an ambitious land reform, argues journalist Jardim, without sufficiently advancing a strategy for protecting peasant leaders from the entirely predictable violent reaction of the landowning class.
From the Military to the Hired Assassin
For Alvarado, the sicariato represents another important development, and that is in the transition from the use of state sponsored repression, to the use of private killers. Since the Chávez government came to power in 1998, says Alvarado, repression in the countryside has largely been at the hands of private forces, forces outside the state police and military apparatus. 2005 may become the exception, he warns, noting that two peasant activists have already been killed by the Armed Forces.
In the past, the Venezuelan Army, the National Guard, as well as regional police forces were regularly implicated in killings of peasant activists and leaders. One infamous example was the 1988 Amaparo massacre, in which 14 “guerillas” were killed “in battle” by the Venezuelan military. As it turned out, the alleged ELN Colombian guerillas were in fact Venezuelan peasants on a fishing expedition. The military planted weapons on them and ELN insignia, then hastily buried the bodies without the required autopsy.
Since the Chávez government has redefined the role of the Venezuelan military, and radically challenged existing power relations in the Venezuelan countryside, landowners looking for retribution against peasant groups have turned to the sicario, the hired-killer to play the repressive role in rural areas that the military has largely abandoned.
Looking for Justice
The problem, says Ezequiel Zamora Front leader Domingo Santana, is the “situation of abandonment that peasants inhabiting frontier zones—especially in Apure—are currently living.”
“The most worrisome aspect of this entire issue,” says Provea Defense director Marino Alvarado, “is that the sicariato continues killing unpunished.” “That is not to say that sicarios enjoy special protection or impunity,” says Alvarado. In fact, they enjoy the same benefits of everyday murderers: a Justice system that is incapable or unwilling to adequately investigate these crimes and bring killers to justice.
With this impunity, warns Alvarado, the sicariato has been evolving into a truly developed class of professional killers, no longer restricted to operating in the frontier regions, but now essentially free to operate throughout the country, including Caracas. Alvarado suspects that the car-bomb assassination of Public Prosecutor Danilo Anderson in November, 2004 was at the hands of sicarios—perhaps the same ones operating in the countryside.
CANEZ and other land reform groups have repeatedly suspected specific landowners in the assassinations of their leaders. Often, the links appear clear, at least to the campesino groups in question: land reform activists occupy land for which they have legal title; they come into conflict with neighboring landowners who have illegal claim to the land; masked killers surprise the group’s leaders and kill them.
As a human rights group, Provea cannot say that landowners are clearly responsible for the killings of peasant leaders, says Alvarado. “We do not have the proof that unquestionably links these landowners to the killings of peasants…It is not for us to accuse, that is the job of the Attorney General’s office…Nonetheless, it is presumed that in at least some of the cases, some of the people involved were contracted by landowners.”
This view has been widely corroborated by other human rights groups in the country. Last April a group calling itself the Forum for Life, which brought together the most active and widely respected human rights groups in the country, issued a communiqué to the Venezuelan government, demanding that the state take a clear proactive role in protecting the lives of peasant leaders against assassination.
“The frequency with which in the past few years, activists and leaders of the campesino movement have been assassinated represents a grave situation that obligates the national government to present a prompt and fitting response,” reads the opening sentence of the report. “The occurrences of violent acts in the Venezuelan countryside reflect the inadequacy of current security policies and evidence the state’s responsibility, due to omission. Though high-level government officials have expressed their preoccupation with these events, mere declarations have proven insufficient. What is required is a policy that facilitates investigations, guarantees the protection of campesinos and their leaders and, in general, the improvement of citizens’ security in the countryside.”
A Quick Response
Peasant leaders and activists marching on the capital on Monday were met by an impressive array of high-level government leaders. At the National Assembly (AN), First Vice-President Ricardo Gutiérrez spoke to the crowd overflowing into the AN’s gardens and the streets outside, announcing the establishment of a special commission to discuss and respond to the principal problems of Venezuelan peasants. Gutiérrez is currently leading a commission investigating the assassinations of and aggressions against peasant and indigenous leaders and activists.
Peasant movements will select 15 representatives to join the commission, which will visit the states in which sicarios have threatened to halt the land reform process now fully underway. “We know you are here calling for justice,” Gutiérrez told the crowd of around 6,000. “We will pressure the public institutions to do justice.”
Minister of Agriculture and Land, Antonio Albarrán, also addressed the crowd that came to Caracas from all over the country. Albarrán announced the creation of a sub-commission to be presided by Alcides Rondón, Vice-Minister of Citizen Security of the Ministry of Justice and the Interior. The sub-commission led by Rondón will also investigate the assassinations as well as formulate preventative policies designed to improve security in the Venezuelan countryside.
Albarrán added that representatives from peasant groups and from the Attorney General’s office would be incorporated into Regional Councils previously established to address rural and land reform issues.
CANEZ leaders were also received by representatives of the Venezuelan executive at the Presidential Palace Miraflores. In a Monday night press conference Information Minister Andrés Izarra said the issue is of the utmost interest to the President, and should involve the cooperation and dedication of all relevant ministries.
Whether these responses will have the desired effect remains to be seen. Organizers of the march stated that the “in the face of repeated assassinations, the alternative is to deepen the agrarian revolution, continue the expropriations according to the Land Law, mobilize the masses of campesinos, and secure decisive action by the Armed Forces against the guilty parties.”
But a resolution to the crisis in the countryside is likely far away. The power struggle unleashed with the 2001 Land Law was widely considered to be a major motivation for the anti-Chávez opposition’s coup attempt in April, 2002, and it continues to be violently contested by landed interests in rural Venezuela.
As evidenced by recent events, most notably the extra-judicial killings of an estimated 200 people over the past several years in the state of Guarico in which the Governor has been implicated, and the similar killings of three students two weeks ago in a Caracas neighborhood, the Venezuelan security apparatus is in need of complete overhaul. While such an overhaul has recently begun, it will have to prove to be sufficiently profound for it to make a difference.
There is a culture of violence intrinsic in Venezuela’s police institutions in particular, but also including the military, which is by no means specific to Venezuela. Police and military in Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina have all been implicated in horrible massacres over the past few years. According to New York University historian Greg Grandin, this culture of violence is a legacy of Cold War state terrorism, one that many critics charge was bred by the infamous U.S. School of the Americas to which Latin America’s most notorious dictators sent their officers for training in “interrogation techniques,” among other hallmarks of “modern counterinsurgency.” Replacing such a culture of violence with a mission to protect Venezuelan citizens goes further than merely neutering the military and police’s repressive capacity; it also means ending the impunity of Venezuelan criminals, whether their crimes are politically motivated or not.Join / affiliate to the campaign!
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