The Daily Grasshopper

The front page of yesterday’s Boston Globe features another full-color photo of a “Clash in Venezuela.” The caption under the photo says “Soldiers lobbed tear gas yesterday at thousands of demonstrators in Caracas demanding the military’s support in the strike against President Hugo Chavez.” The Globe and other newspapers have been giving the “strike” in Venezuela very prominent coverage for the last several weeks. I use quotation marks around the word strike because there are other journalists, notably Al Giordano of Narco News, who insist that the events in Venezeula are nothing but a well-orchestrated media stunt to undermine a democratically-elected government – a coup by the wealthy and their friends in the media (http://www.narconews.com/Issue27/article571.html). How can that be?

Part of the answer can be found in yesterday’s New York Times story on Venezuela, “As the Hardships Mount, Venezuelans Consider Easing Strike.” You can read it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/13/international/americas/13VENE.html

The Times story finally concedes what other reporters, like Giordano, have been saying for weeks – that the “strike” in Venezuela lacks popular support. The article by Ginger Thompson reports that:

“The strike leaders, representing a coalition of civic and business groups and labor unions, accuse Mr. Chávez of undermining democracy in order to install a Cuban-style revolution. They said today that they had no intention of ending their campaign to force him to resign and call early elections. They also said they planned to increase the pressure on the government by calling on workers at electricity and water plants to interrupt basic services and on teachers to continue their walkouts.

However, some strike leaders acknowledged that they never expected Mr. Chávez to endure the strike for so long. As it drags on, it suffocates the middle class entrepreneurs and professionals who are the opposition's base of support.”

The most astonishing thing about the strike is that the most powerful people in Venezuelan society are arrayed against Chavez – the wealthy landowners and businessmen, the major media, the biggest union… How has he "endured"? The most likely explanation is that Chavez still has the support of the Venezuelan people, who have elected him twice since 1998.

The Globe also has a story to go along with the dramatic photo, the lead article in “The World” section, which you can read here:

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/013/nation/Venezuelan_troops_stop_marchers+.shtml

Here’s a somewhat shocking revelation from the Globe report:

“Venezuela's main television stations are not broadcasting any commercials except opposition advertisements promoting the strike. Media owners say they have been pushed into this stance because Chavez incites followers to attack reporters.”

Can you imagine living in a society that refused to allow meaningful political debate, but instead gave corporate leaders permission to use the airwaves to brainwash people into thinking that their positions were the only viable ones? Seems pretty crazy. In fact, the supporters of Chavez (who tend to be poor, which means the vast majority of Venezuelans) have taken to staging their counter-demonstrations outside TV stations.

The reality behind the strike in Venezuela is that the wealthiest and most powerful sectors of society, including the owners of the commercial TV stations, naturally, are the ones organizing the opposition. It’s a strike of the wealthy against a government that is trying to redress some of the most persistent problems facing Latin Americans. Chavez’s government is committed to alleviating some of the burden on his country’s poorest citizens by instituting land reforms. Throughout South America, a tiny percentage of elites owns the overwhelming majority of arable land. This is the legacy of colonial relationships, and has been the target of a series of revolutions since the days of Simon Bolivar. This reality is hard to find in the reports from even such "liberal" news outlets as the Boston Globe and the New York Times.

The wealthy in Venezuela enjoy their dominant status (what’s not to like?), and therefore see Chavez as a threat to their way of life. It’s sort of like the usual South American protest story in reverse. Usually, students and other assorted radicals are confronting a corrupt government and demanding reforms. Now, in Venezuela, you have a government that is committed to implementing changes that benefit the many, and the elites have risen in protest. The article by Giordano that I linked to shows that strike leaders from the state oil company have an average income of around $600,000. In an economy like Venezuela's, they are beyond super-rich. Chavez has taken steps to nationalize the oil industry, which would jeopardize their source of privilege and power, and redistribute the country's wealth to benefit the majority of Venezuelans.

The Globe story reports that 19 people were injured, but that there were no deaths. Henrique Capriles, an opposition mayor of a wealthy Caracas suburb, is quoted as saying, “All of this show of force is absurd. People are tired of being assaulted and repressed.” Anyone familiar with the history of Latin American politics knows that “clashes” between militaries and protesters often result in scores of deaths. To call 18 cases of tear gas asphyxiation and an injury from a rubber bullet fired into the air “repression” and a “show of force” is absurd (although there have been deaths in previous weeks, numbering around a dozen). This is not to justify excessive use of force by Chavez’s military. This is to offer a little perspective. The best-known example of "repression" might be the massacre at Mexico City's Tlatelolco Plaza on Oct. 2, 1968, where hundreds of students were killed by the Mexican military.

You can read about it here:

http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~delacova/mexico/unveiling.htm

There is a lot of good information at ZNet's "Venezuela Watch" page, although it has been difficult to get live links this morning - keep trying, though, if you're interested in the other side of the story on Venezuela's "striking" elites.

http://www.zmag.org/venezuela_watch.htm

Oh - two more things. Venezuela is the fifth-largest oil exporter in the world. And the Bush administration has aligned itself against Chavez.