https://socialistaction.org/2017/08/12/trump-threatens-venezuela-amidst-crisis/
Trump threatens Venezuela amidst crisis
/ 11 hours ago
Sept. 2017 MaduroBy WAYNE DELUCA
Only days after threatening “fire and fury” against North Korea,
President Donald Trump said, “We have many options for Venezuela,
including a possible military option, if necessary.” Trump was
improvising, with no back-up from the Pentagon, and seems to be
inventing his militaristic bombast as he goes. But we cannot dismiss the
threat of military action against Venezuela.
There is a long history of U.S. interference in the region. In
Venezuela, Washington endorsed a 2002 military coup attempt against the
president, Hugo Chávez. In recent weeks, the Trump administration has
leveled sanctions at Maduro and a number of Venezuelan officials, and
threatens further sanctions against the country’s oil industry.
Protests have raged in Venezuela since January. Masked youth have taken
to the streets, erecting barricades, throwing rocks and Molotov
cocktails, rioting, and looting stores and warehouses. Daily life has
ground to a halt, crime is rampant, and weapons have flowed throughout
the population. The government has responded with a heavy hand,
arresting thousands, and using the National Guard to stop the protests.
Tear gas and rubber bullets are a common sight.
The rightist opposition, far from arranging peaceful demonstrations, has
provoked this violence. There have been attacks on police barracks and
government supporters, and most dramatically, a helicopter attack on the
pro-Maduro Supreme Court in late June. The opposition’s goal is to
create an excuse for either the military or the United States to step
in, claiming to “keep the peace” and “restore democracy.” The U.S. State
Department has spent at least $49 million to support the right wing
since 2009 and has deep ties to its leaders.
The ongoing crisis in Venezuela has deepened since the National
Constituent Assembly (ANC), elected on July 30, has begun to take
action. The opposition boycotted the election to the ANC, and supporters
of President Nicolás Maduro control the body.
On Aug. 6, there was an attack at a military base in Carabobo, near the
city of Valencia. Video was released showing men claiming that the
attack was meant to “re-establish constitutional order.” The base
remained in government hands. Two men were shot dead and eight more
captured. Maduro claimed that his government “had to defeat terrorism
with bullets.”
On Aug. 5, the ANC voted to remove Luisa Ortega Díaz, the Attorney
General, from her office. The National Guard took control of her offices
and supporters had to escort her from the area on a motorbike. She
denounced the current regime as a “totalitarian form of government.”
Ortega, a member of the ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV), broke with
the Maduro government this April. She was the leading critic of the
installation of the ANC and was likely to begin an investigation into
vote tampering during the election. Her office has made numerous charges
of corruption within the government and has charged the National Guard
with abuses during the country’s turbulent protests.
When she was in office, the press speculated that Ortega might trigger
Article 350 of the Venezuelan constitution, which calls for Venezuelans
to “disown any regime, legislation or authority that runs counter to
democratic values, principles and guarantees, or that undermines human
rights.” Hailed as a hero by the Western media, Ortega is in reality
positioning herself as a figure who could be useful in a right-wing coup.
On Aug. 8, the ANC declared itself superior to the opposition-controlled
National Assembly. That body has not recognized the ANC as legitimate
and has declared its opposition to any decrees it issues, including the
dismissal of Ortega. The ANC has established a “truth commission” that
is poised to attack the political opponents of Maduro and the PSUV
government, and a Supreme Court packed with Maduro loyalists has already
removed five opposition mayors.
Maduro’s government has increased its repression while facing a public
that grows more hostile by the day. Protests are suppressed whether they
come from the right-wing forces behind the opposition (Democratic Unity
Roundtable, or MUD) or parties to the left of the PSUV. Independent
forces to Maduro’s left have found their ability to mobilize hampered,
while the MUD grows in strength.
At least 120 people have been killed during the protests. In response to
state repression, the regional trade bloc Mercosur suspended Venezuela’s
membership, and Peru has expelled its Venezuelan ambassador in protest.
Economic meltdown
The unrest stands against a backdrop of economic meltdown. Analysts have
suggested that Venezuela’s economy may shrink between 7 and 10 percent
this year, a catastrophic rate. Such statistics must be taken with a
grain of salt, however, since they come from sources like Fedecamaras,
the Venezuelan federation of Chambers of Commerce. In the 2002 coup,
Fedecamaras President Pedro Carmona was named as interim president of
the country, and it has been a leading counter-revolutionary force.
Still, all the symptoms of severe economic crisis are in force.
Venezuela’s currency, the bolivar, has crashed relative to the dollar.
The official exchange rate is 2000 bolivars to a dollar, but for most
citizens the “unofficial” rate is over 10,000 to a dollar. Food and
medicine are unaffordable for many, thanks to heavy inflation, and other
goods are priced beyond them. The hoarding of supplies by the bourgeois
opposition has also increased shortages of food and basic goods.
The army has taken charge of subsidized food-distribution as price
controls have fed an out-of-control black market. Four out of five
households were considered poor last year, and most live on the minimum
wage of 250,000 bolivars.
PDVSA, the nationalized oil firm, has watched its revenue figures crash
in the past year, as creditors are drawing away most of its profits. The
firm has borrowed almost $6 billion as advance payments from the Russian
oil firm Rosneft. There was briefly a question of whether Citgo (owned
by PDVSA) could be subject to a lien from the Russian company, but
Rosneft has dumped its shares due to U.S. sanctions. Russia functions as
Venezuela’s lender of last resort, and stands to reap a windfall if oil
prices increase thanks to the crisis.
Pensions and the minimum wage have not received their annual
adjustments. This symbolizes a deeper part of the crisis: Venezuela’s
sovereign debt is near collapse. Credit Suisse has banned the country’s
bonds, and Goldman Sachs was criticized for buying them. There is a
growing drumbeat in the financial press that Venezuela might default on
its debt, as payments come due in October and November of this year.
Even if the government can muster enough hard currency for this year,
next year’s payments loom heavily on the horizon.
Populism under Chávez
Under Hugo Chávez, who was president from 1999 until his death from
cancer in 2013, Venezuela was the jewel of Latin America’s “Pink Tide.”
After a 1999 constitutional reform, Chávez survived a coup d’etat in
2002 with massive support from the Venezuelan working class. Following
an unsuccessful recall referendum in 2004 he began to set himself out as
an anti-neoliberal reformer.
Flush with oil wealth from the state-owned oil firm PDVSA, Chávez’s
Venezuela created an aggressive welfare state and popular organizations
dedicated to social reform. His government established closer diplomatic
and trade relations with Cuba. Together, Cuba and Venezuela founded the
Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), which grew to
include Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and several other countries in
Latin America and the Caribbean.
But Chávez’s rule was always based on an alliance with the
“Boli-bourgeoisie,” the capitalists who made their profits alongside the
oil industry, as well as the working class. Despite grandiose claims of
“21st-century socialism,” and a handful of nationalizations, Chávez
remained squarely inside the boundaries of classical Latin American
populism.
Maduro became president of Venezuela under less than ideal
circumstances. Lacking Chávez’s charisma and facing a long-term decline
of oil prices, Maduro was forced into currency manipulations that
crashed Venezuela’s import trade. While he survived a recall attempt in
2014, at the end of 2015 Maduro and the PSUV lost control of the
National Assembly for the first time since the party was formed in 2007.
Maduro declared an emergency in January 2016, and gave himself the
ability to rule by decree, which would persist until well into 2017.
Then in May of this year, the Supreme Court dismissed the Assembly and
granted Maduro further decree powers. The action against the Assembly
drew harsh criticism and had to be repealed, driving Maduro to call for
a Constituent Assembly, which would have formal power over the National
Assembly.
Revolutions cannot be made halfway. Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution
improved the lot of workers and the poor in Venezuela, and included
inspiring measures such as the building of local communes and workers
taking over abandoned factories. But it never followed the Russian and
Cuban revolutions in nationalizing the banks, agricultural land, and big
industries. This means that the oligarchs remained in control, and has
allowed the deep slide backward under Maduro.
Socialist Action demands “Hands Off Venezuela!” Trump’s threats and
sanctions are aimed at fomenting a coup d’etat against the Venezuelan
government. We are completely opposed to Washington’s support for the
Venezuelan right-wing opposition, which has used mass action tactics to
destabilize the country. We cannot forget that during the 2002 coup, the
United States immediately recognized the coup government as legitimate,
and 15 years later is still hoping to finish the job.
The opposition is based in the predominantly white middle classes.
Chavismo’s base has been among the mestizo and Afro-Venezuelan
population, and middle-class whites see this as a threat to their
privileges. The opposition’s leadership is drawn from Venezuela’s
traditional elite, which traces its lineage back to the Spanish conquest
of the Americas, among them Henrique Capriles and Leopoldo López. Former
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who is now organizing a network of the
Latin American far right, has been among those calling for a coup.
Chávez, a former colonel, enjoyed the support of much of Venezuela’s
military throughout his career. Maduro, who worked his way up in the
civil bureaucracy, has no such connection. He has leaned on the military
increasingly throughout his presidency but has had to make major
concessions, giving more and more positions to officers and using the
National Guard in an attempt to tamp down resistance. This poses obvious
dangers: Maduro cannot lean on the military permanently. Given incentive
from the right wing, the army could easily turn on Maduro and back a
different leader, and there would be nothing to stop them.
Maduro particularly has had a tin ear for the Venezuelan masses, in
contrast to Chávez’s charisma. Even in normal times, this would be a
handicap. After four years of unrelenting crisis, it has led him to
deepen the authoritarian measures that Chávez was able to say with
honesty were rarely needed. The PSUV government is now guilty of
numerous crimes against the Venezuelan people. But we reject
unconditionally any attempts by the United States, the U.S.-backed MUD
opposition, or any foreign power to overthrow Maduro.
The only way to secure and deepen the gains that workers made under
Chávez is to form a workers’ government. A revolutionary workers’ party
that fights for socialism, independent of Maduro and the PSUV as well as
the MUD reactionaries, must be built to lead the working class, armed
and organized against a coup. Only such a government could prioritize
workers’ desperate needs against the entrenched military and oligarchy
interests.
Trump’s direct threats are a new facet of U.S. attempts to install a
pliable client regime in Venezuela. This policy was put forward by both
George W. Bush and Barack Obama. It reflects a long history of U.S.
imperial intervention, including the Guatemala coup of 1954, the Bay of
Pigs invasion in Cuba, the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile in
1973, U.S. support for death squads in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the
1980s, and most recently the 2009 coup in Honduras. In the U.S. we need
a strong, democratic antiwar movement, independent of both the Democrats
and Republicans, which can mount mass actions around the demand, “Hands
Off Venezuela!”
Photo: Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Federico Parra / AFP
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August 12, 2017 in Latin America, Trump / U.S. Government.
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