Stuart Munckton
If there is one thing that US imperialism cannot stand, it is the threat of a good example.
The US has a long and bloodstained history of using brutal force to make sure Latin America stays open to exploitation by US corporations. In a 1933 speech, reprinted in Common Sense in 1935, retired Major General Smedley Butler spoke on his role in leading military "interventions" in Latin America and the Caribbean:
"I helped make Mexico...safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street...I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916..."
This approach has been continued in the decades since. Now, it is Venezuela's pro-worker government that is in Washington's gun sights.
In the "dirty wars" waged by the US against the revolutionary movements in Central America in the 1980s, Washington funded, trained and armed death squads to crush popular insurgencies in El Salvador and Guatemala, and waged a brutal civil war to undermine and ultimately defeat the revolutionary Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
The nations that bore the brunt of US intervention in the 1980s were all relatively small. This only posed a minor threat to US profits. These countries did pose a threat, however, because they offered an alternative way forward for poor countries — a way that did not include meekly rolling under the heel of imperialist oppression.
In 1983, the US invaded Grenada — a country of just 100,000 people whose main export was nutmeg. The US did not need the nutmeg. But it could not allow an independent, anti-imperialist government to stay in power, lest the example inspired others to follow the same path.
Venezuela is not Grenada. Venezuela controls the largest reserves of oil outside the Middle East and the ongoing war in Iraq leaves the US dependent on supply from Venezuela.
Venezuela's radical left-wing government, led by President Hugo Chavez, is a direct block to US corporate profiteering in the medium and long term. Before Chavez's 1998 election, plans had been drawn up for the privatisation of Venezuela's lucrative oil industry. In 1999, Chavez held a referendum that adopted a new, popular constitution that made the privatisation of the state-owned oil company PDVSA illegal. Since then, US oil corporations in Venezuela have had their royalties doubled and Venezuela has played an active role in reinvigorating the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, allowing the oil-producing countries to secure higher prices from the big oil companies.
Washington then has a particular reason to loath Chavez's government, and to use its military and economic might to destroy it. Tis is contradictory. If all Washington wanted was short-term oil, it might be better to keep Chavez around. Chavez has threatened to cut off US companies' access to Venezuelan oil if the US militarily intervenes in his country. He has been quick to point out that, given his strong base of support and the weakness of the opposition, only his government could provide the stability needed for a reliable supply of oil.
However, like other revolutions before it, the imperialist elite based in the US knows that the biggest threat posed by Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution is the example that it poses to the poor of Latin America.
The extreme military and political pressure that Washington is under because of its occupation in Iraq has ruled out a direct military invasion in the short term. In the current climate, it would be unlikely to win support at home for a direct occupation of Venezuela, and Chavez's high popularity would make it difficult for Washington to stabilise a post-Chavez government imposed by force.
However, evidence continues to emerge of US backing to groups attempting to overthrow Chavez. In April 2002, a coup attempt against Chavez failed miserably. Some of the most prominent Venezuelans implicated in the coup attempt are now living in Miami, despite there being warrants for them in Venezuela. Also in the neighbourhood are former military officers wanted for their alleged role in bombings of foreign embassies. Venezuela has unsuccessfully applied for extradition of these people.
Oppositionists in Miami have made repeated calls in the media for the assassination of Chavez. The radical sector of the opposition was almost certainly responsible for the assassination of public prosecutor Danilo Anderson, who was waging a campaign to bring those responsible for the failed coup to justice.
On November 8, Danilo Anderson, the prosecutor responsible for pursuing many of those accused of assisting the coup, was killed by a car bomb. The Venezuelan government posthumously awarded Anderson the Order of Liberator, and held three days of public mourning.
According to an article posted to the online edition of the Cuban newspaper Granma on November 25, the Florida training camps of the right-wing Cuban terrorist group Commandos F-4, led by convicted terrorist Rodolfa Frometa, have been used by the anti-Chavez Venezuelan terrorist group Patriotic Junta. Patriotic Junta announced in September 2002 that it had formed an alliance with Commando F-4 and planned to coordinate actions.
In Venezuela, police have arrested two former detectives with links to the opposition for their alleged role in the bombing, and a November 28 Venezuela Analysis article reported that investigators have implicated arms dealer Isaac Perez Recao, who was also implicated in the failed coup. Two suspects have been killed in gunfights when police attempted to approach them for questioning, with police later finding explosives and other high-powered weapons at the home of one of them.
Although there is no direct evidence of US involvement in the assassination, the website reveals the documents that show that the US congress-controlled National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has provided funds to opposition groups that participated in the failed coup. Four leaders of the opposition group Sumate face charges because the got US$53,000 from the NED. The US government has seized on this case as evidence of Chavez's "authoritarianism", despite the fact that in the US, it is also illegal to receive money from a foreign power for the purposes of bringing down the government!
The NED sent representatives to Venezuela in November to attempt to get the charges against the Sumate leaders dropped. The Venezuelan government refused to meet them, pointing out that the Venezuelan judiciary was independent from the government, and that the NED had no business interfering in the internal affairs of Venezuela.
Some commentators have interpreted post-election moves by US President George Bush as signalling a harder line on Venezuela, which may have led to Anderson's death. An November 26 opinion piece posted at ZNet by Toni Solo argues: "It is reasonable to suggest that when George Bush named [anti-Chavez hardliner] Condoleeza Rice as his next Secretary of State, he signalled the all clear for an escalation in covert action against opponents of US policy in Latin America. Danilo Anderson was the first victim of that escalation..."
Extremely worrying is an article posted at the Vheadline website on December 1 that reports that an unnamed Bush administration official told Reuters newswire that the US takes "a dim view of the possibility that Venezuela will buy Russian MiG-29 fighter jets to replace its US-made F-16 jets." The anonymous official, in an unmistakable threat, declared "Let me put it this way: we shoot down MiGs."
The use of terrorist tactics by the US-backed opposition in Venezuela is a sign of its weakness; for now. The many electoral defeats the opposition has suffered has closed the constitutional road to it until 2006. The fact that, after the failed coup, the officer corp was purged of those who had been prepared to overthrow the government, makes another coup unlikely to succeed. The opposition now looks like losing what hold it still has over the police and the courts. An US-led economic blockade would cost the US oil that it wants. An armed conflict waged along the Colombian border by US-backed paramilitaries is a possibility; but made much more difficult by the fact that so much of the Colombian countryside is in the hands of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Given all this, we should not be surprised if the Venezuelan people are subjected to more terrorism. Our solidarity is needed, now more than ever, to help them fight it.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, December 8, 2004.
Visit the