Venezuelan tells U.S.:
'Don't try on us what you did in Haiti'
By Berta Joubert
In the days after the U.S.-backed coup in
Haiti, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez let Washington
know he would continue to resist the Washington-fomented
destabilization campaign in his country.
"On behalf of the truth, I have to demand the government in
Washington get their hands off Venezuela," he said. "We tell
Mr. Bush: don't dare try to do in Venezuela what you did in
Haiti."
And again: "We will resist with all our might; at this
stage, the Bolivarian Revo lution has enough allies in this
continent to initiate a 100 Years War, not only in the
Bolivarian territory."
Washington and Wall Street have been plotting non-stop to
oust Chávez since his election by popular vote in 1999,
when he began his agenda to advance the poor majority through
what he calls the Bolivarian Revolution. An April 2002
U.S.-backed military coup briefly unseated Chávez. But
the masses returned him to power with huge demonstrations that
surrounded the coup makers in the Presidential Palace.
The workers and the people's national army also defended
their national heritage--oil. When the state oil industry was
sabotaged by the CIA, aligned with the Venezuelan oligarchy, in
a lockout that almost ruined the country's economy, they were
able to restore production.
Now the strategy is a "recall referendum" to unseat
Chávez. A flood of U.S. dollars has gone to forces
opposed to Chávez in organizations like "Súmate,"
born in 2002. Súmate was the recipient last September of
$53,400 from the National Endowment for Democracy for an
anti-Chávez advertising campaign calling for a
referendum. That was spent openly. Of course, there is no
accounting for the secret funds the U.S. government spends on
counter-revolutionary activity.
The Washington-based NED, which has among its directors Gen.
Wesley K. Clark, was formed under President Ronald Reagan in
1983 to openly give money to what it calls "pro-democracy"
forces abroad.
After the failed oil coup, this organization revved up its
counter-revolutionary agenda, trying to claim its actions were
based on the 1999 Venezuelan Consti tu tion. That's the same
progressive constitution that the Venezuelan upper class
abhors. The first action taken by the coup leaders in April
2002 was to attempt to revoke it.
Struggle over referendum
According to the constitution, a person in any elected
government office may be subject to a recall referendum after
the completion of half their term if they do not perform their
duties well. In order for a referendum to be called, 20 percent
of the electorate--2.4 million voters--must sign a
petition.
On its website, Súmate lists as its accomplishment
the designing, planning and coordination of "El Firmazo" (the
Big Signing) of Feb. 2, 2003. This was a failed attempt to call
a referendum on Chávez. Signatures were
unconstitutionally gathered before the completion of the first
half of Chávez's term, among many other
illegalities.
The National Electoral Council (CNE) regulates Venezuela's
electoral process. In a second attempt the opposition, seeming
to abide by the constitution, delivered 3.08 million signatures
to the CNE in December.
But the CNE, after a careful review, accepted only 1.8
million of the signatures. Close to 1 million have been
rejected because of gross irregularities and almost 1 million
more have been set apart for verification because they appear
to correspond to minors or people who are dead. In some
instances, the same handwriting appears on several signatures,
which could signal widespread fraud and would make the total
number less than what is required to hold a referendum.
Even though Chávez says he will abide by whatever the
CNE rules, the opposition refuses to do the same and threatens
violent actions.
In fact, the "Democratic Coordination," an umbrella grouping
representing the oligarchy, has staged small, violent pro tests
that have already resulted in two deaths. In order to set the
stage for foreign intervention, particularly from the U.S., the
group has mounted a campaign charging the government with human
rights violations.
The media is still controlled by the opposition,
predominantly the Cisneros Group--Venevision, Globovision and
Univision, among others--and is linked to international
outlets. Recently, the world saw the same closeup, over and
over again, of one demonstrator's face covered with blood. The
aim of this attempt to sway international public opinion was to
force the referendum and overthrow Chávez
On March 1, a day after the CNE announced its findings,
people took to the streets in Venezuela and in many cities
around the world in defense of the Bolivar ian process and
opposing any interference by the United States.
Those same media outlets did not cover the massive support
for Chávez. While the opposition's demonstrations have
been violent and small, requiring closeups to make them appear
bigger, the pro-Chávez events needed a wide lens and
panoramic views to capture the sea of supporters of the
revolution.
Reprinted from the March 18, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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