The people's patience runs out
www.sundayherald.com Sunday Herald - 12 January 2003
Forty days of strikes and protests have split Venezuelan opinion over President Chávez, who is begging for more time to make things right. Alberto Letona in Caracas reports on the crisis
I was on the verge of giving up when the telephone finally rang in my hotel bedroom. It was the call I had been waiting for from the Miraflores Presidential Palace. Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president, had agreed to the interview I had been requesting for more than a month.
This was last May, and just a few days before permission was granted for the interview, a large opposition demonstration had ended up with 16 people dead after a confrontation with the president's supporters.
The local media attributed the 'massacre' to the Circulos Bolivarianos, a paramilitary organisation close to Chávez, and the following day the president was briefly arrested by some of his army officers and the business association leader, Pedro Carmona, proclaimed himself the new president. It was a failed coup d'?tat that lasted for less than 24 hours. The army took command of the situation and handed the reins of power back to Chávez.
It was mid-morning when I met President Chávez in Fuerte Tiuna, one of the army's main headquarters located 10 miles from Caracas. Holding a crucifix in one hand, he talked calmly about social justice and a national development programme to build roads, schools, hospitals and low-cost housing for the country's poorest citizens.
Ch‡vez openly criticised the 'savage neoliberalism' that he says runs the policies of many countries in Latin America. But he was far less communicative on the subject of Venezuela's relationship with neighbouring Colombia and the United States. The former US ambassador to Peru, Dennis Jett, brands Venezuela's president 'one of the biggest threats to democracy in Latin America', and it is said that Washington would give its approval to a coup against Chávez.
But Chávez, a former military man who spent two years in prison as a result of a failed coup d'?tat in February 1992 and then became a democratically elected president in 1999, is a man of strong character and many dreams. The mere mention of his name provokes varying reactions in Venezuela. For some, he is the leader of the poor and Fidel Castro's natural heir in Latin America. For others, Chávez is the key culprit responsible for the social and economic difficulties his country faces.
Chávez in turn blames previous governments' corruption and negligence for Venezuela's problems and begs for time by quoting the hero of the Latin American liberation struggle, Simon Bolivar: 'Stand firm, have patience, and more patience.'
But for a large section of the Venezuelan population, that patience has already run out. After 40 days of strikes and the oil industry's almost total paralysis, the world's fifth-largest producer of oil is in a bad way.
On Friday, Venezuelan banks and supermarkets closed their doors for the second consecutive day in support of the gruelling strike. Unemployment is running at 42% and political violence and street crime are rife.
The current crisis dates back to October 2001 when Chávez passed 49 new laws enforcing social and political changes. One of them allowed the government to seize unproductive private farmlands and turn them over to landless peasants.
In response, the ranching association and leading business groups called for a national strike. Since then, the relationship between the president and the opposition has gone from bad to worse.
In Caracas the distinctive scars of poverty, compounded by the current instability, are ever present.
'There is no investment because nobody wants to risk their money in a country led by a corrupt government,' says Oscar García Mendoza, president of the Banco Venezolano de Crédito, one of the country's leading banks.
From his elegant top-floor office, the most deprived areas of Caracas -- the 'ranchitos' -- are clearly visible. In the densely populated Barrio 23rd January, not far from the presidential palace, the houses are built on mud slopes and lack proper foundations. Clean running water and electricity might be in short supply, but there is strong support for Chávez.
Juan Contreras is in his late 20s and is one of the few people living in the barrio who holds a university degree and is ready to fight the anti-Chavistas. 'The president is our only hope for the future. We will not stand by if he is ousted by violence,' Contreras says.
For Alberto Garrido, a political analyst and author of many books about guerrilla movements in Latin America, the Venezuelan president is a seller of dreams -- and those most dispossessed are the keenest buyers.
'The president has given a political identity to people who never had it before. Overthrowing him could lead the country to a really undesirable situation,' warns Garrido.
Over the past three years, more than 250,000 members of Venezuela's upper and middle classes have emigrated to the United States, Spain and France, taking their money with them. Around $12 million was taken out of the country last year.
The Country Club is a suburban area of Caracas. Here, barbed-wire fences crown the walls of many houses and sports clubs where the wealthy caraque–os socialise. Security is tight everywhere in the area and, as soon I park my car, two men arrive to challenge me. I ask one of the neighbours, a middle-aged woman, about the situation facing Venezuela.
'It is awful. The president hates the rich and has succeeded in passing the same feeling on to the poor. It wasn't like that before,' she complains, declining to give her name.
Tens of thousands of anti-Chávez demonstrators now take to the streets almost daily. Most want to force the president to accept a non-binding referendum on his rule, blaming him for the deepening economic crisis and political polarisation of the country.
'His rhetoric is inflammatory,' says Jorge Olavarria, a 65-year-old writer and former friend of the president. 'Chávez's ideology is a sort of tutti-frutti with Marxist ingredients, military and a Perónista influence,' he adds, referring to the Argentinian general Juan Domingo Perón.
When the opposition doesn't rally, it is the turn of the Chavistas to emerge from the ranchitos to downtown Caracas in a show of strength.
Over the past 10 days, thousands of the president's supporters, wearing red paratrooper's berets just like his, marched through the streets of the capital to protest against the killing of two comrades at the hands of the Metropolitan police. They also denounced the general strike that has left Venezuela having to import food from its neighbours to beat shortages.
Iris Varela is a parliamentarian and one of the leaders of the Movimiento Quinta Republica, a party launched by Ch‡vez with his military comrades and some leftist civilian parties as coalition partners. For her, the president is not a 'caudillo'.
'He has called, and won, eight referendums. The people said yes to our new constitution, which is progressive and democratic: this is not a mere strike, this is another coup d'?tat,' she says vehemently.
Few doubt that on the political and economic front the outlook for Chávez is gloomy. The only bright spot is the backing of his Latin American neighbours, especially Brazil's new president, Lula da Silva. But all this could quickly change if Chávez fails to restore calm in the country.
Another problem is that his 'vision' is not confined to Venezuela but extends wider within the region, giving rise to friction with the United States. He has doubts about the proposed Free-Trade Area of the Americas, and he is also perceived by the US administration as a close ally to Castro's regime.
For now, Chávez has failed to improve meaningfully the lives of the poor, his most loyal constituency, and his government is close to bankruptcy. His plans to nurture a fairer society, it seems, will have to wait.
Meanwhile, those opposing him are disorganised and fragmented . Carlos Ortega, president of the Union Trade Confederation, feels that Chávez is trying to dilute their power, and has asked Venezuelans not to pay taxes in order to intensify pressure on the president. Ortega says civil disobedience is the way to oust Chávez, but there are some who say he should be overthrown by force. Among the most vociferous is the National Emergency Junta, a group supported by the military and middle upper classes.
Hugo Chávez might still be the democratically elected president of Venezuela, but the pressure on him is growing inexorably. While Venezuela's constitution includes a referendum on replacing the president, it cannot be implemented before January 2004, when Chávez is half-way through his term. Before then, however, anything could have happened. Few doubt the potential for a worst-case scenario.
As Alfredo Peña, mayor of Caracas and one of Ch‡vez's main opponents, put it recently: 'There is a real risk of civil war.'