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Web | Mar 28, 2003

The history of the rise and fall of Empires teaches us that it is when their own citizens finally lose faith in the efficacy of infinite wars and permanent occupations that the beast implodes. TARIQ ALI The historic significance of the protests against the war in Iraq is that they have been unprecedented in size, scope or scale. This is the first truly global response to a political event: millions have come out on the streets of Western Europe, North and South America, Western Europe, the Far East, Australia and New Zealand and last week, the Arab street exploded with the largest spontaneous demonstration Cairo had seen since Nasser’s funeral.

What will be the effect of the war now raging in Iraq on the peace movement? Its fair-weather friends (symbolised in Britain by the pathetic and spineless figure of the Liberal leader Charles Kennedy) will naturally drop out, but the movement itself will grow in strength and determination. The US occupation of Iraq will necessitate a change in tactics, but the overall strategy of the global peace movement will not alter.

It is now obvious to a large majority of the world’s population that the real threat to peace and stability comes not from the depleted armouries of decaying dictatorships, but from the rotten heart of the American Empire or its regional satrapies (Israel, Britain). It is this new awareness of world realities that has radicalised a new generation across the globe. Those who accept the official justifications for the conflict simply cannot understand the resistance to this war. It has nothing to do with support for Saddam, but reflects a refusal to believe the untruths being spouted by Bush, Rumsfeld and Blair and their apologists in the media. Apart from the United States, few citizens elsewhere believe that the fiercely secular Ba’ath Party of Iraq has any links with Osama’s gang. As for ‘weapons of mass destruction’ the only nuclear stockpile in the region is situated in Israel. And even if Saddam Hussein had the capacity to acquire these weapons, an imperial princess had already pointed out that it would be a futile act.

In the January/February 2000 issue of Foreign Affairs, for example, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice wrote: "The first line of defense should be a clear and classical statement of deterrence : if they do acquire WMD, their weapons will be unusable because any attempt to use them will bring national obliteration."

Unusable in 2000, but now Saddam must be removed by bombing Iraqi cities and a land invasion before he gets them? Like many of the other pretexts for this war it doesn’t add up, thus fuelling a broad-based opposition.

What appears to have happened is that a Christian-Jacobin faction from the extreme-right of the Republican Party (backed by hard-core Zionists) has utilised 9/11 to capture the White House, the Pentagon and the Department of Justice. Their aim is the pursuit of a bold and audacious imperialist agenda of which the occupation of Iraq is seen as the first step. Iran and the Korean Peninsula are the next targets.

Its spokespeople, compared to the flatulent rhetoric of their New Labour toadies, are refreshingly honest: in order to preserve US hegemony they will use force wherever and whenever necessary.

European hand wringing leaves them unmoved. If the United Nations can’t be used as an instrument of US power it should be dumped without too much delay. And, one could argue from the other side, if the UN is genetically incapable of preventing pre-emptive strikes by imperial rogue states that openly violate its charter (leave alone ratifying the occupation of Iraq and becoming an after-sales service for the Empire) then it is time to think of other more effective arrangements. The creation or strengthening of existing regional associations of nation states would be an obvious next step. Recently, the Organisation of American States isolated the US and refused to endorse any attempts to topple Hugo Chavez in Venezuela (another oil-rich state considering moving from the dollar to the Euro).

The antiwar movement was given a tremendous boost by the French-German decision not to back the war. This is the first occasion on which a disagreement between the inner core of the EU and the United States exploded into a public rift and helped polarise public opinion both in Europe and North America. Add to that the Turkish parliament (unlike the House of Commons) disrupted the war effort and the Canadian Prime Minister used strong language to denounce the conflict. The opposition of these states is limited (only Belgium refused to permit the use of its air space), but that it exists at all marks a turning point in European-US relations. If the US continues on this course then the EU will have to re-open a public discussion regarding its future. A fierce private debate is already taking place in France and Germany. The ramifications of the assault on Iraq will have global consequences and a resistance to the Empire is inevitable. Its timing is the only point of dispute. Where will this take the peace movement?

The model of what needs to be done by today’s dissenters was established in the last year of the 19th century. Mark Twain, shocked by the chauvinist reaction to the Boxer Rebellion in China and the US occupation of the Philippines, sounded the tocsin. The problem, he argued, was imperialism. It had to be opposed. His call led to a mammoth assembly in Chicago in 1889, which founded the American Anti-Imperialist League. Within two years its membership had grown to over half a million and it attracted some of the most gifted writers and thinkers of the United States (Henry James, Charles Elliot Norton, W.E.B. Dubois, William Dean Howells, Frederic Douglass, Jr, etc.)

Today, when the United States is the only imperial power, the importance of a global Anti-Imperialist League cannot be understated, but it is the US component of such an organisation that will be crucial. The resistance can only be political. The history of the rise and fall of Empires teaches us that it is when their own citizens finally lose faith in the efficacy of infinite wars and permanent occupations that the beast implodes.

The World Social Forum (which hosts the movement of movements every year) has, till now, concentrated on the power of multinational corporations and neo-liberal institutions. But Friedrich von Hayek, the inspirer of the "Washington Consensus", was a firm believer in wars to buttress the new system. The World Social Forum should think of campaigning against the military presence of the US in 120 countries. Economics is after all only a concentrated form of politics and war a continuation of both by other means.

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www.vheadline.com Posted: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 By: Jorge Martin

International commentarist Jorge Martin writes: On Thursday February 20, at midnight, the Venezuelan police arrested Carlos Fernandez, the president of the employers’ organization Fedecamaras, accused on five charges: betrayal of the fatherland, rebellion, instigation to crime, association to commit crime and devastation.

Carlos Fernandez, together with the leader of the trade union confederation CTV, Carlos Ortega (for whom there was also an arrest warrant) had been the main public faces of the employers’ lock-out and sabotage of Venezuela's oil industry in December and January through which Venezuela's ruling class tried to overthrow the Chavez government.

The justice system's action clearly reflects the pressure of the revolutionary movement and the new balance of forces after the complete failure of the attempted coup in April last year ... from the beginning of this latest action on December 2, the reactionary forces went from defeat to defeat, basically due to the initiative of the public masses who fought back decisively at every stage.

Each one of the reactionary forces' actions had the effect of increasing support for the revolutionary process and raised the level of consciousness and organization of the Venezuelan people in general and the workers in particular.

The most important factor was the extraordinary reaction of oil workers who fought back and overcame sabotage by managers, directors and a large section of PDVSA technicians in refineries at Puerto la Cruz, El Palito, the Yagua distribution center and elsewhere ... oil workers who went to work and re-established normal functioning of the oil industry under workers’ control in an organized way. It can be said, without fear of exaggeration, that it was the oil workers who saved the Chavez government, since bringing the oil industry to a halt was a key element in the oligarchy's strategy.

This is a marvelous example of the capacity of the working class to struggle and to organize production by itself ... in a few days, the oil workers destroyed the myth that the managerial layer of PDVSA were the only ones who know how to organize production.

Furthermore, this experience of workers’ control took place not in a small bankrupt company which the workers were forced to reopen, but in Venezuela's main industry ... one of the 50 largest companies in the world. It's of enormous political significance and sets an important precedent ... the qualitative leap forward which took place in the struggle against the lock-out is that, for the first time, the working class participated in the revolutionary process as a class where it had previously only participated as a part of the general population.

We should add here that the oil workers had the support of revolutionary masses who defended PDVSA buildings and refineries all over the country ... and the National Guard which, in agreement with the workers and the people, organized and controlled the distribution of fuel during the 63 days of the lock-out.

At the beginning of January, the so-called Democratic Coordination (popularly known as the anti-Democratic Conspiracy - CD) decided to up the stakes by declaring the non-resumption of school activities after the Christmas break. Once again this was a serious mistake, since their actions only provoked an increased level of popular organization. All over the country, communities organized themselves to ensure the opening of schools and teachers who refused to teach were replaced by volunteers (unemployed teachers, university students, etc).

Likewise, in the universities, there was a strong student movement demanding resumption of lectures ... they finally managed to force the reopening of most universities ... strengthening an organized left-wing students' movement which had been quite weak before.

The peak of the process was a massive march, January 23, in support of the revolution: called “the taking over of Caracas.” The opposition had created a climate of panic and fear among middle classes, spreading the idea that the march was going to mean an invasion of “Chavista hordes” coming down from the “cerros” (the hills which surround Caracas where most poor people live) to loot middle-class neighborhoods.

For weeks, opposition leaders had been organizing “contingency plans” which included a census of all available firearms, accumulation of food and water, the organization of the armed defense of streets, buildings and neighborhoods, blocking of streets with gates, barricades, etc.

The aim was clearly to create a climate of fear, using the middle classes as shock troops for the oligarchy to provoke a violent clash which could justify foreign intervention under the mandate of the Organization of American States ... and with the support of a section of the armed forces in order to overthrow Chavez.

Counter-revolutionary provocations: One of the pinnacles of the strategy was a clash in Los Proceres, outside Fuerte Tiuna (the main army barracks in Caracas) in the first days of January. The opposition had called for a rally outside Fuerte Tiuna demanding freedom for an army officer who was under arrest for participating in an earlier coup attempt.

All of the opposition media publicized the call for the rally presenting it as the “final battle” which would finally overthrow Chavez ... a clear provocation prepared down to the last detail. The government did not do anything ... and did not call for the masses to organize a serious counter-demonstration. However, thousands of Bolivarians gathered to defend the revolutionary process against reactionary provocation. After hours of verbal clashes, the reactionaries opened fire and killed two Chavez supporters. To add insult to injury the opposition-controlled Metropolitan Police (PM) attacked the funeral parlor where the next-of-kin were mourning their dead. Clashes on that day also reflected the feeling of the masses' powerlessness, witnessing how the opposition was carrying out its plans without a serious fight-back on the part of the government or organizations which support it.

It was under this framework that the massive January 23 mobilization of took place with some 2 million people taking part in an impressive show of strength to defend the government ... a demonstration that was the last nail in the coffin of the December-January attempted coup. The CD had no other option but to admit defeat and publicly announced an “easing of the strike” ... calling it off altogether later. It was a sorry spectacle in which all the contradictions within the CD exploded into the open ... nobody wanted to take responsibility for having called an “indefinite civic strike,” and the “it wasn’t me” slogan once again became the rule of the day.

Under these conditions, Chavez has adopted a very different strategy to the one he used after the April 11 coup last year. On that occasion he had tried to conciliate, negotiate, he even asked for forgiveness and reinstated the old directors at PDVSA. He was already warned that the attempt to appease reaction through negotiation would only have the effect of strengthening the resolve of the reactionary ruling class, which would inevitably use the opportunity to prepare for a new coup.

Even during the attempted December-January coup, Chavez' position was extremely legalistic, faithfully following all legal proceedings while the opposition used all sorts of illegal methods to paralyze Venezuela and sabotaged the justice system from within. The workers' and the peoples' fight-back took place despite lack of any nationwide revolutionary leadership which could coordinate and organize their efforts, for ... despite the fact that there are tens and even hundreds of thousands of rank and file organizations all over the country ... the revolutionary movement in Venezuela still lacks a nationwide coordinating body.

Revolutionary offensive: Starting with his speech at a massive demonstration,January 23, President Hugo Chavez Frias made it clear that this is the time to go on the offensive, calling for a deepening of the peoples' organization ... the government has implemented a series of measures to fight reaction, starting with the suspension of foreign exchange while control mechanisms are put in place (in order to fight capital flight), price controls over basic products (to fight speculation) and a discussion in parliament of a new law of social responsibility covering the media (which had played a crucial role in the organization of every single coup conspiracy).

In his “Alo Presidente” program, February 16, he said that organizations created to defend the right to education should now became organizations of revolutionary vigilance over price controls. At the same time Chavez has broadcast a number of TV programs from different oil refineries where he recognized and thanked oil workers for their role in the defeat of the attempted coup. Mass rallies were organized in States which have opposition governors and Chavez calls for these to be recalled (a mechanism which is part of the new constitution) before the end of the year.

The arrest of coup conspirator Carlos Fernandez is part of the offensive, and is obviously welcomed by the majority of the people. The most widespread comment is that this was long overdue. In fact popular organizations, demonstrations and graffiti on the walls in the main cities had been demanding “strong action” to be taken for a long time.

The leader of the telephone workers union, Jose Mora, declared that he was happy that Carlos Ortega had gone into hiding because this meant that, now, the workers could go and find him themselves and settle accounts. However, even this action shows the limits of government action since a few hours after being arrested, the judge in charge of the case was replaced by another who immediately placed him merely under 'house arrest' and withdrew some of the charges.

This is a scandalous decision since there is already the precedent of Pedro Carmona's escape ... he was the main figure in the April 11 coup, and was also remanded to house arrest. Meanwhile the 'Defenders of Puente Llaguno,' who defended the democratic government on April 11, rot in jail waiting for a trial, despite the fact that one of them is dying of cancer ... it is clear that the judiciary is still largely in the hands of reaction.

However it would be foolish to think that the reactionaries are dead and buried. It is true they were dealt a heavy blow with the defeat of their December-January attempt, but the Venezuelan ruling class is far from having been defeated once and for all, and continues to agitate in the media, waiting for a new opportunity.

Economic crisis: The main challenge that faces the revolutionary process right now is the collapse of the Venezuelan economy as a result of the oil sabotage and the conscious disorganization of the productive process, particularly in the food sector. The oligarchy is trying by all means to create chaos and shortages in order to undermine the social basis of support for the revolutionary process. In this respect, the measures taken so far by the government are completely insufficient and limited.

Firstly one must discuss the question of the reorganization of PDVSA. So far the government has appointed new directors which, following the people’s call for a “cleaning out PDVSA,” has already sacked 12,000+ employees ... the overwhelming majority of them directors and technicians of the upper echelons of the company.

However it is not enough to replace one set of directors with another who might be more or less loyal to the revolutionary process. On the contrary, the impressive experience of workers’ control over production during the sabotage must be used to spread it to the running of PDVSA as a whole.

Oil workers have saved PDVSA, and they are the ones who should be running it from now on. A national congress of oil workers must be called to unify all workers and establish the mechanisms of workers’ control ... this is the only way to guarantee that “PDVSA belongs to the people” and that it is run for the benefit of all. Workers’ control of industry should also spread to all State-owned companies where many of the directors had also declared themselves to be “in rebellion.”

Another front is that of the private companies where the bosses are trying to make the workers pay for the cost of the employers’ lock-out. Workers must resist, in an organized fashion, any attempt to totally or partially paralyze their factories, any attempts to cut wages, to declare unpaid holidays, etc. In several factories around Venezuela there have already been important examples of such struggles. The Convencaucho workers in Barquisimeto (Lara) had to force a change of union leaders and occupy the factory to force their employer to pay their wages in full and to keep the factory open.

Also in the Carabobo car industry, workers have so far defeated employers' attempts to make them pay the effects of the lock-out ... one of the main discussions amongst class struggle and democratic trade union activists right now is the issue of factory occupations and their running under workers’ control. .

At a recent meeting of 350 trade union leaders from all over Venezuela called by “Trade Union Autonomy” there was a discussion on the issue based on a document which called for “the occupation of all companies which are abandoned, declared bankrupt, closed down or semi-paralyzed, creating workers’ committees to force their statization under workers’ control of production,”

The “Workers' Mole” trade union currently in Lara openly demands that “faced with crisis the government must reactivate industry, applying the principle of ‘company closed, company opened under workers’ control’...” Even within the Ministry of Labor there are discussions on workers’ control, and how to legalize any factory occupations which might take place.

Another important question is that of control over the finance sector. Together with measures already taken on foreign exchange, there must be an offensive against the private banking sector ... the banks adopted a clear line of support for opposition sabotage and therefore should be deprived of the means of doing it again.

It is true that the government has already withdrawn part of its assets held in private banks, but this is not enough.

The nationalization of Venezuelan banks (which in the main use resources which belong to the State) would allow the government access to a large amount of money which could be used to alleviate the economic crisis through a massive program of public works, and which would guarantee the payment of wages to public employees and the normal functioning of public services, like health and education, which are currently under threat for lack of resources. The nationalization of the banks would also allow the government to finance the statization of occupied factories.

As a part of the offensive there have been discussions about the setting up of a new trade union confederation to replace CTV leaders ... however, this process has received strong criticism from trade union activists from the beginning because of methods used. The proposal has come from a number of trade union leaders who are close to the government ... which had raised the idea from above without any real consultation of the rank and file and without organizing a campaign within the existing unions. It would seem that for them, the most important thing is to set a date for the founding of the new trade union center and to decide who is going to be on the leadership executive.

These are clearly wrong methods.

In order to move towards a real re-founding of the trade union movement in Venezuela, a serious campaign of explanation, discussion and struggle must be organized in order to win over the overwhelming majority of workers who still belong to unions affiliated to the CTV, and to organize all those who are still un-organized.

The practical experience of the last few months and weeks clearly shows that CTV leaders (who appointed themselves at the end of a rigged election process) are completely discredited in the eyes of their own members.

The political moment is favorable ... such a campaign, culminating in a nationwide workers’ constituent assembly, to set up a new trade union confederation based on the principles of class struggle, democratic and militant trade unionism, would have a massive impact.

One of the main weaknesses is still the lack of nationwide coordination of committees and organizations which have been set up over the last few years ... all Bolivarian Circles (of which there are now 300,000), democratic unions, urban land committees, student organizations, committees to defend education rights, etc. should establish coordination bodies at neighborhood, local, state, and national level, through the democratic election of delegates with the right of recall at any time. This would enormously strengthen the movement and give it a democratic leadership, helping to generalize experiences and advance in its political conclusions.

It is also time to make a balance sheet of the political perspectives ... Hugo Chavez Frias' project, which opened the doors for the process of mass mobilization and popular organization, was based on the development of Venezuela’s productive forces, defending national sovereignty and applying a number of measures in favor of the oppressed. But this project never raised the question of going further than the limits of a capitalist system.

On occasion, Chavez has spoken of “humane capitalism” but there can be no independent national capitalist development in any country ... the epoch of bourgeois revolution was more than 200 years ago ... the last four years of Venezuela's revolutionary process have shown quite clearly that decisive sections are unable to play any progressive role at all. They will give the government no respite.

The only way to reach agreements with the employers is on the basis of making the workers pay for the crisis ... and this would provoke a decisive fight back from a labor movement which now feels confident.

On the contrary, the defeat of the employers’ lock-out has shown the central role of the working class ... there is no other way to defend and deepen the revolution than by placing the means of production, distribution and exchange in the hands of the people in the interests of the majority of the population.

Only on the basis of a democratic planning of the economy would it be possible to develop Venezuela’s productive forces and use its enormous wealth to improve living conditions for the overwhelming majority ... not to fill the Miami bank accounts of an idle minority.

Venezuela's revolution will be a powerful beacon of light to the whole of Latin America, which would orientate the struggle of workers and peasants, setting the basis for the fulfillment of Simon Bolivar’s dream of a united Federation of Latin America.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 By: Hands Off Venezuela Campaign

International commentarist Jorge Martin writes: If we were to believe the information we get from the international mass, we would get the impression that there has been a two months' general strike in Venezuela and that President Hugo Chavez Frias is an extremely unpopular and authoritarian ruler who is about to be overthrown in a mass popular revolt.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, the "national civic strike" called by the opposition on December 2, demanding Chavez's resignation and early elections has been a complete failure since the beginning. When I arrived in Caracas on December 11, the airport was working normally, as well as public transport (buses, coaches and the Caracas Metro), shopping centers, restaurants and bars. The basic industries (iron, steel, aluminum, etc), which are State-owned, were working at 100% capacity because of the decision of the workers and their unions to oppose the 'strike'.

In Carabobo State ... one of the most important centers of manufacturing industry ... the 'Class Struggle' and 'Democratic Trade Union Block' ... which brings together workers from 52 different unions in the most important factories in the state (including Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Pirelli, Good Year, Firestone, MAVESA, and others) ... declared its opposition to the 'strike.'

Some factories remained open, but at others, the workers went to work and found themselves locked-out by the bosses ... they demanded their wages, since they had gone to work, and in most cases they were paid. The same was true in some sections of the food and beverages industry, which is controlled (almost in its entirety) by Grupo Polar, which is owned by the powerful businessman and opposition leader Mendoza.

This was not a strike at all, but a bosses' lock-out.

The fact that this protest has the support of the executive committee of the CTV, the main trade union federation in Venezuela, should not fool anyone, since its Executive Committee has never actually been elected. The people who sit on it appointed themselves before the end of the ballot in extremely irregular elections in November 2001. This also explains why it is not recognized by most of the federations and local union branches.

The only part of the economy that was seriously hit by the opposition protest was the oil industry. Here, a small group of managers, directors, supervisors and technicians organized the sabotage of production and brought the industry almost to a halt.

Oil production is highly computerized, and a few managers who withdrew their keys and passwords caused a lot of damage ... they also made sure they fixed the administrative procedures so that they would still receive their (very high) salaries while they were on 'strike.'

A number of captains and crews of some of Venezuela's oil tankers mutinied and prevented normal deliveries ... and it is important to note that oil workers' union leaders (who in April had supported the opposition-led attempted coup), did not even dare make a public statement this time in favor of the 'national strike.'

Slowly but surely, oil workers took over the refineries and oilfields and started to get the industry back to normal ... by January 10, the State-owned oil company, PDVSA was working at 50% of capacity.

The opposition protest has been accompanied by a campaign of lies, half-truths and the blatant manipulation of all the private media ... particularly the TV stations, which are also controlled by the opposition. All TV stations suspended their normal programming to broadcast only 'news' about the success of the 'strike' ,,, and gave all their commercial breaks over to opposition propaganda.

To give just one example of the level of hysteria which the opposition and the media are trying to whip up against the government, when the government finally got a court order to take over the oil tankers that had mutinied, the opposition claimed that the new crews were Cuban, and that this was a further sign that the country was rapidly moving towards "Castro-Communism." This direct lie was repeated by the media, until a couple of days later, when it was directly challenged by the Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister and opposition leaders were forced to retract their allegations, admitting that there were no Cubans working in the oil tankers.

At the beginning of January, faced with the failure of their actions to bring the country to a halt, the opposition decided to up the stakes by announcing the closure of banks and that schools and universities would not re-open after the Christmas break.

Again, both actions failed.

Most banks remained open, and those that did close did so only for 48 hours. In most schools around Venezuela, an alliance of parents, teachers and students guaranteed the opening of the schools and colleges ... in some cases against the will of the headmasters.

As for Chavez being an unpopular dictator ... nothing could be further from the truth.

The opposition has been regularly calling demonstrations against the government demanding his resignation, and they can manage only to mobilize 100,000, 200,000 or even 300,000 people onto the streets ... mainly from the rich and middle class areas of Caracas. What is not generally reported is that the Bolivarians (as the supporters of the revolutionary process call themselves) can get far bigger crowds onto the streets. On December 7 ... right at the beginning of the opposition protest ... a massive demonstration of more than 2 million people took to the streets of Caracas against the 'strike' and to defend the democratically-elected government.

In fact, the result of the opposition 'strike' has been to further polarize Venezuelan society and push many people who had not previously taken sides, to openly declare themselves against the opposition ... which they rightly see as being responsible for the fuel and food shortages.

There have been many instances where people, queuing for hours to get petrol, have expelled opposition supporters from the petrol station queues for having the audacity to try to blame the government for shortages. Chavez is most definitely not a dictator.

It is in fact his supporters who are demanding that the government take stronger action against the opposition, which is hell bent on overthrowing a democratically-elected government. The only people who are currently in prison as a result of the April 11 opposition coup last year are actually government supporters who were defending the Presidential Palace against the coup!

Pedro Carmona Estanga, who appointed himself President for a few hours following the coup, was put under house arrest for a few days, and later escaped to Colombia.

The opposition newspapers (all of them apart from two or three exceptions) carry numerous articles and editorials openly calling for a military coup to remove Chavez and appealing to the armed forces to overthrow the government, and no measures are taken against them!

There is a group of military officers who have declared themselves in rebellion against the government and, instead of being arrested, they have been allowed to set up a permanent camp in Plaza Altamira, a square in the center of Caracas (mind you, these "courageous" individuals leave their "permanent" camp at night to go to sleep in luxury hotels!).

Chavez and his government have been put to the test in seven different elections since he was elected in 1998 ... and they have won every single one of them.

Furthermore, Venezuela's new Bolivarian Constitution allows for all elected public officials to be subject to a recall referendum half-way through their term of office. This includes the President, who is up for such a referendum in August 2003. The problem is that the opposition is convinced they would lose such a referendum, and that is why they are demanding Chavez's resignation. What they did not achieve in April, by means of a military coup, they want to achieve now by a combination of economic sabotage, chaos, appeals to the armed forces and international pressure.

The reason why the local oligarchy and the USA are opposed to Chavez is that even his limited program of democratic reforms (land reform, maintenance of PDVSA as a state-owned company and the extension of political democracy amongst others) and the process of mass mobilization and organization which they have generated, directly clash with class interests. But the very actions of the reactionary forces are pushing the masses to take direct action and push forward their revolutionary cause.

On January 10, for instance, 400 workers at Covencaucho (a tire company in Lara State) decided to take over the factory and declared themselves on "strike against the strike," when they were told that the company had decided to join the opposition protest.

Oil workers at one of the refineries had been running the installations under workers' control throughout Christmas and New Year ... when a new manager was appointed by the government to replace the old one, who had joined the opposition protest, he was told by the workers that he was welcome to join them, but that the refinery was now under workers' management.

Also, on January 17, the National Guard, with the support of the workers and the local population, took over a Panamco beverages warehouse in Carabobo State belonging to the powerful businessman and oppositionist Gustavo Cisneros, justifying it as collective rights before private rights ... all these are just some indications of the deepening of the process of the Venezuelan revolution.

The main discussions taking place in the trade union and popular movements at the present time are about popular control of the mass media, workers' control and management of the State-owned companies, occupation of privately-owned factories, popular management of schools, nationalization of the banks, etc.

Through their own experience, the workers, the poor peasants and students are drawing the conclusion that in order to defend the revolutionary process it must be strengthened and deepened.

The most urgent task for Venezuelans is the building of a leadership that can help draw necessary conclusions in a process adopting a clear approach as the only way to guarantee final victory.

Jorge Martin (Secretary) Hands Off Venezuela Campaign handsoffvenezuela@yahoo.co.uk

www.theage.com.au March 20 2003

America is seeking to ward off any threat to its economic domination of the world, writes Kenneth Davidson.

George Bush planned "regime change" in Iraq before becoming United States President in January 2001. The events of September 11, 2001, were the pretext for invasion of Iraq, not the reason.

The blueprint for the creation of a "global Pax America", to which Bush subscribes and which is driving the invasion of Iraq, was drawn up in September 2000 for Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush (George's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff).

The document, called Rebuilding America's Defences: strategies, forces and resources for a new century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think tank Project for the New American Century.

According to the document, written three months before Bush became president, "the US for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."

The document outlines the global ambitions of the Bush Administration. It sets out a "blueprint for maintaining global US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests".

The question for John Howard must be: to what extent does his Government subscribe to the Bush strategy outlined in the think tank's document?

Howard says Australia's participation in this war is in Australia's national interests. How?

To answer that question we must know why the war is being fought in the first place. For all I know, Bush, Howard and Tony Blair may be absolutely sincere when they claim that getting rid of Saddam is a humanitarian act that will make the Iraqis better off, or that Saddam has the will, the motive and the weapons of mass destruction capable of threatening other countries. But these are not the real reasons for the invasion.

The real reasons can be summed up as deciding who controls Middle East oil and gets access to the water from the Tigris and Euphrates, and what currency will be used to pay for the development of the oil and water resources.

According to the think tank document, the US would have to increase its defence spending to 3.8 per cent of GDP (which it has just achieved) to finance an American military capability "to fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars" and to "perform constabulary duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions".

This is a massive task that can only be achieved if the US can continue to draw on the resources of the whole world, which in turn is only possible if the US can continue to run massive trading deficits with Western Europe, China and Japan. In other words, these regions must remain willing to exchange the product of their industries for American dollars.

It would be fatal to America's global strategic ambitions if countries in Europe began to ask for euros instead of US dollars for their exports, or if China demanded settlement of their accounts with the US in yuan instead of US dollars. The US would have to redirect domestic demand for imported goods paid for in dollar-denominated IOUs into exports to earn yuan and euros to pay for US imports.

It is difficult to see how the US could develop new, internationally competitive industries and run a military machine on the scale envisaged by the think tank without a massive increase in taxation and redistribution of wealth to the productive elements in the economy without precipitating a global recession.

In 2000, Saddam's regime had the temerity to demand payment in euros for the trickle of Iraqi oil the US has allowed onto the international market. Iran and Venezuela are following Iraq's example. This is the real threat to US hegemony.

If the US can control Middle East oil production, it can control the industrial development of Europe, China and Japan (and Australia), to prevent a rival to its hegemony emerging. But to do this it must retain the greenback as the world currency.

It is possible to make a weak case based on realpolitik why Blair is along for the ride with Bush in Iraq (BP and Shell), but it is impossible to see what Australia will get out of this adventure even if it "succeeds".

Bush personifies the American quest for absolute security. Americans don't yet understand or care that this status can only be achieved by making everybody else absolutely insecure.

This is why the most lasting thing to come out of the war with Iraq is likely to be the faster development of a unified Western Europe and an economically powerful China to challenge US hegemony.

Kenneth Davidson is a staff columnist. dissentmagazine@ozemail.com.au

www.crikey.com.au Stephen Mayne and Kate Jackson Keeping an eye on George Dubya's Oilies January 31, 2003

With war in the Middle East looming we look at the top ten oil producing nations and their proven reserves, and consider just who is influencing foreign policy in the Bush administration.

Biggest oil producing countries There has been much discussion of late about the motivation of a US led attack on Iraq. Many people have mentioned oil as a motivation, but who really knows which countries produce the most oil and which have the largest reserves? We have compiled a list of the top 10 crude oil producing countries and the countries top 10 crude oil reserves (and those just outside the top 10).

World crude oil production by country in 2001 (barrels daily)

1. Saudi Arabia - 8,768,000
2. USA - 7,717,000
3. Russian Federation - 7,056,000
4. Iran - 3,688,000
5. Mexico - 3,560,000
6. Venezuela - 3,418,000
7. Norway - 3,414,000
8. China - 3,308,000
9. United Kingdom - 2,503,000 10.Iraq - 2,414,000
10. United Arab Emirates - 2,422,000
11. Nigeria - 2,148,000
12. Kuwait - 2,142,000
13. Libya - 1,425,000
14. Indonesia - 1,410,000

World proven crude oil reserves by country in 2001 (thousand million barrels)

1. Saudi Arabia - 261.8
2. Iraq - 112.5
3. United Arab Emirates - 97.8
4. Kuwait - 96.5
5. Iran - 89.7
6. Venezuela - 77.7
7. Russian Federation - 48.6
8. USA - 30.4
9. Libya - 29.5 10.Mexico - 26.9
10. Nigeria - 24.0
11. China - 24.0
12. Qatar - 15.2
13. Norway - 9.4

Stats from BP's Stastical Review of World Energy

In the PDF file "table of proved reserves at end 2001" you'll see how Iraq's proven reserves have rocketed from 29.7 billion barrels in 1981 to 112.5 billion barrels in 2000 - second only to Saudi Arabia which has 261.7 billion barrels.

The key statistic here is that Iraq is the tenth biggest producer but has the second largest amount of proven reserves. Given that the Bush administration is full of oilies, it does suggest that oil is a big motivation in the move to oust Saddam.

In other words, Saddam is sitting on proven oil reserves worth an incredible US$3 trillion based on current oil prices (+US$30).

At the moment the French, Chinese and Russians are best positioned to exploit this. No wonder they are reluctant to back George W and let Exxon, Chevron, Texaco and the like in there.

The USA's proven oil reserves have fallen from 36.5 billion barrels to 30.1 billion over the past 20 years whilst NAFTA has dropped from 102 billion barrels to just 64.8 billion, presumably due to all that Yankee gas-guzzling as the economy has boomed.

The ratio of NAFTA reserves to annual USA oil consumption has never been lower. If the Yanks were only relying on NAFTA, their annual consumption of 7 billion barrels would suck the whole of North America dry in less than 10 years.

Yet Saddam is sitting on decades worth of US oil consumption. When you've got an administration full of oilies and these are the cold, hard facts, it is very hard to dismiss the widely held view that this war is all about oil.

Meanwhile, pitiful Australia only has 2.9 billion barrels in proven reserves and we've recently given East Timor a slice of this, although the treaty is still to be signed. The Yanks certainly won't be invading if Simon Crean or Bob Brown ever became Prime Minister.

What others are saying:

The topic of America's oil obsession is also gaining mainstream coverage in the media. Tony Walker observed in the Fin Review on 31 January that, "The US is a net importer of 52 per cent of its oil requirements. By contrast, Australia imports about 8 per cent of its oil requirements, most of that form Asia, with a small amount from the Middle East.

No great arguments there for Australia's legions to march across the desert sands of Iraq, although Australian officials in Canberra are understood to have had preliminary talks with their American counterparts in Washington about the possibility of BHP and Woodside sharing in some of the post-war action in Iraq.

The gas guzzling US consumes more than 25 per cent of oil produced worldwide. And where does the US get its oil imports? In 2000, nearly 55 per cent of US gross oil imports came from four countries: 15 per cent from Canada, 14 per cent from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and 12 per cent from Mexico. Iraq supplied 5 per cent to 6 per cent.

But - and this is a huge "but" - according to the US Energy departments own projections, the US and its major trading partners are set to become much more dependent on Gulf oil over the nest two decades."

Meanwhile the eleven members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) are still collectively suppling about 40 per cent of the world's oil output, and possess more than three-quarters of the world's total proven crude oil reserves. At the end of 1999, OPEC had proven reserves of 811,526 million barrels of crude oil, representing 77.8 per cent of the world total of 1,042,536 million barrels.

The member countries are Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. There are a few countries with which the US has deliberately cultivated relationships, such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Not countries you would expect the US to be friends with if oil were not in the equation.

Bush's oil industry connections

It is well known that George W. followed his father into the Texas oil business years before following him into the White House. But the links between his administration and the oil industry do not stop there.

Vice President Dick Cheney previously served as chairman and chief executive of Halliburton Co., the world's largest oilfield services company, which has operations in Azerbaijan. Cheney and Commerce Secretary Donald Evans both ran energy-related companies, earning millions of dollars.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, was on Chevron's board of directors from 1991 until January of this year, and has a company oil tanker named after her.

Christine Todd Whitman, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, owns interests in oil wells in Texas and Colorado valued at between $55,000 and $175,000. She has promised to divest of them to meet ethics guidelines.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has between $3.25 million and $15.5 million worth of investments in energy-related companies. He is divesting himself of many financial holdings but has not provided details.

The law firm of former Secretary of State James Baker, a Bush family adviser, represented several oil companies with interests in Azerbaijan, among them Exxon-Mobil Corp.

Brent Scowcroft, a Rice adviser who was national security adviser in the administration of Bush's father, has industry connections that include sitting on the boards of Pennzoil-Quaker State Co. and Enron Global Power & Pipelines, a unit of Enron Corp.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is a former co-chairman of the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce.

With such strong oil connections in the administration it is very hard to imagine how access to Middle East oil reserves could not be a large factor in Bush's decision to go to war. Not to mention the fact that many of these large energy companies donated money to the Republican Party. After all, it wasn't long ago that former head of Enron, Kenneth Lay and the President were best friends.