EDITORIAL
Venezuela--it's no strike
As the latest attempt by the U.S.-backed Venezuelan
oligarchy to overthrow the popular Hugo Chávez
government enters its 17th day, it takes a struggle to get even
a piece of the truth about what is happening there. Both the
big-business media in Venezuela and the imperialist-controlled
media here lie and slander the Venezuelan government and
distort all the events.
Perhaps the single greatest distortion is the media's use of
the word "strike" to describe this right-wing coup attempt and
sabotage of Venezuela's oil industry.
A strike is an action by workers struggling for their
economic and/or political interests. When the New York transit
workers even considered striking, the local media and
politicians slandered them as the closest things to "urban
terrorists."
That's because the workers were confronting the bosses.
In Venezuela it is the rich oligarchy, along with some
active and retired top army officers, attempting to mobilize
middle-class shopkeepers, managers, supervisors and other
privileged elements--including some police and ship
captains--to wage war on the Chávez government. Their
main target is the vital oil industry.
They want to get rid of Chávez and wipe out the
popular forces that support him. The oligarchs failed in a coup
attempt last April. At that time they seized Chávez,
held him for two days and tried to hunt down other progressive
political and union activists. The current tactic of the
rightists is to demand "early elections," despite the fact that
it violates the Venezuelan Constitution.
Last April, U.S. imperialism publicly backed the coup from
day one. Two days later Bush administration figures had to eat
their words because a massive uprising by the workers and
farmers and other poor people of Venezuela restored
Chávez to power and stopped the coup dead in its tracks.
Unfortunately, the coup-makers remained free to continue their
plotting.
This time the White House and U.S. State Department kept
their support covert during 10 days of class struggle in
Venezuela. But the arrogant Washington gang finally moved from
secret to public support of the Venezuelan rich by publicly
stating that Chávez should hold early elections.
Chávez gave them the best answer: "I'm sure President
Bush is not telling the world that Venezuelans must violate the
Constitution," he told U.S. reporters. "Here, there is no power
that can convoke an early election, so I have asked Washington
to review our Constitution."
Chávez has expressed confidence that he will ride out
the conflict. But the rich right-wingers are continuing their
attempt to sabotage the economy and bankrupt the popular
government. These forces are a small minority of Venezuelans.
But their threat should not be underestimated, as they have
great wealth, completely control the media in Venezuela and
enjoy the backing of U.S. imperialism and its media
machine.
Meanwhile the head of the Venezuelan army has declared
allegiance to the Chávez government, and the
pro-Chávez poor and workers have continued to mobilize
against the oligarch's coup attempt.
Whatever the lies in the media--in Venezuela and here--there
is no doubt that progressive and working-class organizations
worldwide have the duty to back the Chávez government
and the popular organizations in Venezuela in whatever steps
they take to stop this attempted reactionary coup.
Reprinted from the Dec. 26, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
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