Nikolas Kozloff

Recently, I spoke with Greg Wilpert, editor of venezuelanalysis.com and a freelance journalist. Wilpert is the author of Changing Venezuela By Taking Power, forthcoming from Verso Books later this year. During the one hour interview the two discussed Venezuelan media, the role of the internet, U.S.-Venezuelan relations, socialist education, and obstacles for the Bolivarian process as it moves ahead.

NK: What is your personal background?

GW: I was born in the U.S. but moved to Germany because my father was German and my mother is American. When I finished high school I went to study in the U.S. I went to college in San Diego and did my PhD in sociology at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

NK: How did you come to be in Venezuela?

GW: I spent six years living in New York and that´s where I met my wife who is Venezuelan. I taught sociology at the New School. My wife had to go back to Venezuela as she finished her studies and was on a temporary visa. I´ve been here ever since, seven years now. I came down on a Fulbright to do research and teach at the Central University of Venezuela. The grant ran out, but right about the time of the coup attempt I decided to focus more on journalism. I felt the international media wasn´t doing as good a job as it should. In 2003 I hooked up with one of the founders of Aporrea.

ORIGINS OF VENEZUELANALYSIS

NK: What is Aporrea?

GW: It´s one of the main Chavista Web sites which was very important following the coup attempt because it provided a key source of information and continuous updates as to what was happening in Venezuela. It was very important for community movements here in Venezuela and also internationally, for people to get a steady stream of information that wasn´t controlled by the existing corporate media. So, we got together and talked about launching something similar but slightly different and geared towards an international audience in English.

NK: When you say ¨we,¨ who do you mean?

GW: Myself and Martin Sanchez, who was one of the founders of aporrea.

NK: So, where does the funding come from?

GW: Well, that´s always a tricky issue (laughs) because of course opposition supporters always say, ¨that´s 100% government.¨ We did receive some funding from the Ministry of Culture, but we also get some grassroots donations. Also, we have mutual support agreements with several different groups, such as Green Left Weekly, Alia2, and briefly with Telesur, among others. We don´t have much money now, at the high point we may have had 4 or 5 people but it keeps fluctuating as people come and go. It´s kind of hard to find people to work on the site because it´s in English but you need people who know the situation in Venezuela.

NK: Do you plan on getting funding from other sources?

GW: Yes, we´re working on getting some advertising, and we´re looking into applying for funding from foundations.

JOURNALISTIC ENVIRONMENT

NK: Does the government ever call you up and complain that it´s unhappy about whatever story, is there any interference?

GW: None whatsoever. As far as the Web site, I´m not in touch with anyone as far as content.

NK: What´s it like working in Caracas and what is the journalistic environment here?

GW: It varies (laughs). I actually have quite a few contacts because my wife works in the government and she was a political activist before Chavez came into office. So, that has certainly helped me. But even for me it´s often quite difficult, because no matter where you come from, and even if you come recommended from someone else, you´re generally regarded with a lot of suspicion from the government and it can be quite difficult to get information.

NK: Have you noticed any growth in anti-American sentiment over the past few years?

GW: No, not at all. Whenever the media talks about Chavez being anti-American, no one here perceives it that way. They perceive him as being anti-Bush.

IMPACT OF THE MEDIA

NK: What kind of impact has venezuelanalysis had, how many people log on to the site?

GW: I think about 1,000 people read the site every day. I have the impression that it does have an important impact; we´ve reached other journalists and academics for example. Journalists who view the site will in turn speak to other journalists who are based here and most of them are anti-government.

NK: And these 1,000 hits, do you know where they come from?

GW: I´m not sure, but I think they´re almost all from the U.S. and Britain.

NK: How effective do you think internet and other pro-Chavez media have been in countering mainstream media coverage?

GW: If you do an international comparison of media coverage on Venezuela, in the English speaking world one generally has the impression that Chavez gets trashed. However, the coverage is actually better in the English speaking media than it is in the German or French media, which I keep an eye on, let alone Brazil or other Latin American media outlets. I can´t say venezuelanalysis has moderated the harsh coverage of Chavez in the English language media, but I do think we´ve had an impact. Actually, there is no other equivalent of our site in other languages.

GROWING RADICALIZATION

NK: To what extent are grassroots groups pressuring the government to radicalize, and what is the impact for the United States?

GW: The problem here in Venezuela is that civil society is relatively weak. There are very few strong or powerful organizations around. The strongest are perhaps the unions, and even they are very small, weak and disorganized. Other than that there´s very little. On the other hand there are demands coming from community groups around the country that are clamoring for attention and they are trying to get Chavez´s attention. And I think they do have some impact in that sense. However, the groups are totally unfocused and disorganized.

NK: What kinds of groups are we talking about?

NK: Mostly community groups that change their formation in various ways. They might have been organized as Bolivarian Circles at one point and as the electoral battle units, now in the consejos comunales and urban land committees, water committees, health committees, whatever. These groups are organized in a thousand different ways. And that´s part of the problem because it´s not coherent. You have Chavez´s party, but that´s seen as a very top down organization. So, there´s all these community groups but no umbrella organization which might channel their demands. So, I do think these groups are pushing the process forward, but in a fairly ineffective manner.

U.S.-VENEZUELAN RELATIONS

NK: There´s been some nationalizations recently, some of these have affected U.S. economic interests. Do you think there may be further nationalizations that might upset U.S.-Venezuelan relations? Are grassroots groups pressuring the government on that front?

GW: No, I don´t think nationalizations is a popular issue. But, I do think the government will continue them, for various reasons. The government has already announced three areas that would be nationalized, and it has proceeded to go ahead. So, it´s not really clear what´s left to do. That is, telecommunications, oil, and electricity. There´s not too much left of strategic importance. But I could imagine nationalization proceeding in various other sectors, which are smaller and less important. Nationalization is part of an overall socialist strategy, and if there was an effort to turn these companies over to worker management or co-management, then nationalization would be a prerequisite for that. I do see that happening down the line.

NK: What about the countryside, are there any U.S. interests in agriculture? Could land reform jeopardize U.S.-Venezuelan relations in any significant way?

GW: One thing you have to consider is that the proportion of agriculture in the gross national product is only about 6%, so it´s really a miniscule portion of the economy. The amount of U.S. interest in that 6% is probably not more than 1% at the most. I don´t think land reform will have any impact on U.S. relations. The most prominent case was this Lord Vestey ranch which belongs to the British, but that case was more or less settled. The government really wants to expand agricultural production and it would be very careful not to disrupt this production. The agreement then with Vestey has to be seen in that context.

NK: There are various U.S. oil companies operating in the Orinoco Oil Belt. Do you see any point of contention there which could damage relations?

GW: If the government proposes that the compensation for the Orinoco Oil Belt production is somehow below market value, then yes relations could be affected. According to Venezuelan law, it has to be at market value and so far it seems the government is interested in doing that. The problem in the Oil Belt, and the reason the government might not give such a good deal, is that we´re talking about much larger sums of money. The foreign oil companies are saying that they invested something like $17 billion in production. I think foreign participation there is about 60-70%, so to get a majority or 60% share the government would have to buy out about half of that. Still, that´s about $8 billion, hardly petty cash. I think the Orinoco Oil Belt is going to be a drawn out process and it´s going to be difficult for the government to come up with the money.

NK: Do you think if Venezuela purchases more foreign arms this might contribute to the inflammatory rhetoric and provide another point of friction?

GW: Yes, that is probably going to happen but actually to a lesser extent in future because I think the government has completed the first wave of updating its military arsenal. Up until now, the military hadn´t received new weapons for almost 20 years. I don´t expect much higher expenditures in the near future.

NK: It sounds from what you´re saying that ironically, despite all the rhetoric, there aren´t a lot of contentious issues in dispute?

GW: I think the situation in Colombia could be a possible contentious point. If Uribe were forced to resign, and his successor was less friendly towards Chavez, the U.S. could exploit the friction.

NK: Well, there is the possibility that we´ll have more ideological radicalization which, while it might not affect U.S. interests directly, could have an important psychological effect, through the formation of cooperatives for example. How do you see the revolutionary process deepening?

GW: I think the danger is that any effort to move away from so-called liberal, representative democracy will be interpreted as an effort to bring about dictatorship. I don´t think that´s a fair conclusion to draw, but I think the U.S. would say this as well as many people in the international community and within the international media. That could isolate Venezuela. And, I think the Chavez government is intent on moving away from capitalism and liberal representative democracy.

NK: How do you see that specifically?

GW: In the measures that he´s already announced. On the political level, for example, giving more power to communal councils, and giving priority to them over representative government or elected officials, also in terms of allocating budgets and making various decisions in the regions of the country. On the economic level, more nationalizations, more worker self-management at all levels. And so, these changes at the political and economic levels will be interpreted as anti-democratic, even if they´re not.

NK: But, with the opposition fractured and Bush distracted in Iraq, do you think that even if things were to radicalize that Washington would be in a position to do anything?

GW: If it´s a situation where the international community could be won over, Bush could do something. At this point however it´s pretty much hopeless for Bush to get other Latin American countries on board, I think that´s a lost cause. But perhaps Bush might try and succeed to get European countries on board.

NK: In the event that a Democrat is elected in 2008, how might this affect relations?

GW: I think it depends on what kind of Democrat. If it´s a moderate Democrat like Hillary Clinton, I could easily see a continuation in friction. Democrats like her and John Kerry have shown a great degree of eagerness to play to the Miami Cuba crowd. Whereas, if it were a more liberal democrat like Obama or Edwards then that could definitely be a big change.

UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH?

NK: Given your academic background, it occurred to me to ask: Chavez has talked about launching a so-called "University of the South." If it did take off (and he has launched a Bolivarian University already), to what extent is that an ideological challenge to the U.S.? Have you seen their curriculum and has the Bolivarian University had a radicalizing impact on adult students?

GW: I´ve spent some time looking at the Bolivarian University, and I definitely think it represents an ideological challenge in many ways. The university is a conscious effort to train people for government service, who have a more Bolivarian outlook on the world. I think the University of the South is still a ways off, the last time I heard about it, which was a year ago, it was completely embryonic.

NK: What is the specific curriculum at the Bolivarian University?

GW: It´s very interesting. Students start out even in the first year getting involved in the community and working on community projects, at the same time that they´re in class. So, it´s very centered on helping the poor and developing means to overcome poverty.

NK: The other day I was walking around and I saw a sign reading "Center of Socialist Learning." Is this a move towards propagandistic teaching?

GW: I haven´t seen the center, but all of the new educational programs have some kind of socialist bent to them, for example the Vuelvan Caras program. And yes, it is definitely an attempt to convince a larger segment of the population to support the program. I personally think it´s a bad idea, not because I´m against that type of education but from what I can see there´s an over emphasis on this kind of moral dimension and being moralistic. To my mind that´s not what socialism is about. It´s an elaborate critique which I won´t go into now, but there´s a simplified idea about education that I feel is being propagated sometimes, that we just need to teach people how to think in more collective terms and the collective good instead of the individual good, more in terms of solidarity and everything will follow from there. I just don´t think that´s how education works and it could easily lead to a new form of dogmatism which is quite dangerous.

DEEPENING OF THE REVOLUTION

NK: Well, speaking of which, what do you see as the main obstacles towards a deepening of the Bolivarian process?

GW: The main obstacles I see are actually internal and not external. By and large, I think the external obstacles have been overcome. I think the dynamics of both domestic and international capital have been overcome. Domestic capital, mainly because it´s so weak, it´s completely dependent on the state sector and there´s not much it can do at this point. The old opposition, the old elite is another obstacle and that too has been overcome through all the electoral defeats and coup attempts. So, we are left with three main internal obstacles. One of these is a kind of in-group mentality related to clientelism. Because of the external threats, even though these threats have subsided, there´s still this idea that we need to protect ourselves and promote only those who are with us. That usually leads to a skewed notion of citizenship, where government services and jobs are given mainly to supporters, which has been widely discussed in the media. I think this is a problem which exists and could even get worse. This is a mild form of corruption but it could lead to more serious corruption.

NK: What is the logical conclusion from what you´re saying, could there be social unrest or even revolt?

GW: There´s a contradiction here in the ideology, which is supposed to be universalist, which is supposed to be inclusive of marginalized people, but in actual practice you see the exclusion of some people, of opposition supporters. So, it´s a contradiction that sort of hollows out the belief system, it makes people more cynical. The other thing is that it hardens the opposition. Even if the opposition is a minority, they become more and more willing to actively resist the government if they are completely cut out and cut off from any kind of participation in the social and political life in the country. That could lead to a situation like what we had in Nicaragua, where you had people taking up arms in a low intensity civil war. You could get this in Venezuela, or a terrorist campaign. I still think that´s a possibility if enough people in the opposition were convinced that this was the only way to be politically active. The other danger is this whole focus on Chavez the person. The whole Bolivarian movement is so dependent on Chavez that it causes problems on many different levels. It de-emphasizes what this movement stands for, and it ends up standing for Chavez as president and not much else. And it sets up a situation where you don´t have a real social movement that can channel the political debate, that can articulate societal interests. The whole movement becomes so dependent on this "dialogue," so to speak, which tends to be rather one way, between Chavez and the masses. And of course, the whole thing is rather unstable, because if Chavez were to disappear the whole movement would fall into a thousand pieces.

NK: Chavez has been claiming recently that he´s been targeted for assassination…

GW: I think assassination is a real possibility because people in the opposition who don´t like the government, if they´re smart, they realize that everything is so dependent on Chavez that if they get rid of him they have a very good chance of coming back to power. But, they might also conclude that such a development could provoke total chaos in the country. I think analysts in the U.S. government know that, and maybe I´m being too optimistic or thinking too highly of them, but I kind of doubt they would be interested in total social unrest in Venezuela because that would threaten the oil supply. So that´s why I doubt the U.S. government is behind an attempt to assassinate Chavez. But that doesn´t prevent people in the opposition from wanting it, especially since they probably don´t care very much whether oil goes to the U.S. or not, and their main concern is getting back into power. The third obstacle is Chavez´s governing style. Even though he wants to bring about participatory democracy, he still has a very top down management system and that creates contradictions. He´s not very participatory in his own environment, I have this feeling that he has a very militarist mentality of giving orders and expecting everyone to follow them. This works for a leader in that it´s good to be strong, but it´s lacking a certain amount of flexibility and willingness to accept criticism and input from various sectors. Also, the whole idea of the Enabling Law, of democratizing the country through a relatively undemocratic process, is also contradictory.

Greg Wilpert is editor of venezuelanalysis.com and a freelance journalist. He is the author of Changing Venezuela By Taking Power, forthcoming from Verso Books later this year.

During a recent trip to Venezuela, I found myself in my Caracas hotel room watching President Hugo Chavez give a speech on TV.  I had come to the country as a guest of the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Investigation (known by its Spanish acronym IVIC), which was helping to organize an environmental conference about Lake Maracaibo.

 

I had long been interested in ecological concerns: my dissertation focused on the environmental history of the Venezuelan oil industry.  In my recent book, Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the U.S. (St. Martins' Press, 2006), I touched on the role of American oil companies in the Lake Maracaibo area.

 

As usual, Chavez was thundering against the United States, in this case striking an environmental theme.  North Americans, he charged, had pursued an "egotistical" model of development.  Chavez denounced the consumerist lifestyle in the United States, predicated on having more than one car per family. 

 

On other occasions, Chavez has argued that powerful nations are responsible for causing global warming.  What is more, he has publicly regretted pollution resulting from traditional sources of energy.  He has called on developed nations to look more favorably on alternative energy such as gas, hydro and solar power.  To its credit, Venezuela has ratified the Kyoto Protocol reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

 

Venezuela emits only 0.48% of the world's greenhouse gases.  According to government officials, the country is in fourth place in Latin America regarding greenhouse emissions after Brazil, Mexico and Argentina.  Nevertheless, Venezuela exports 1 million barrels of oil per day to its northern neighbor and thus contributes to global warming.

 

For Venezuelan environmentalists, the country's dependence on oil exports is worrying.  In an effort to learn more about energy policy in Venezuela, I caught up with Jorge Hinestroza, a sociologist at the University of Zulia in Maracaibo and the former General Coordinator of the Federation of Zulia Ecologists.  We met in Maracaibo, where I was attending the environmental conference dealing with Lake Maracaibo. 

 

"In the next fifty years we should be going through a process of transition, to substitute oil for another source of energy," he remarked.  "I think from a scientific and technical standpoint we are not doing sufficiently enough to look for oil alternatives," he added.

 

There are encouraging signs, however, that the government is taking some action.  For a country whose economy is almost wholly dependent on oil production, Venezuela has taken some positive steps.

 

Brazil: An Ethanol Giant

 

Since 2002, Venezuela and Brazil have fostered an alliance through the promotion of joint energy projects.  For example, the Venezuelan state-run oil giant PDVSA has joined with Brazil's Petrobras to construct the Abreu de Lima refinery, located in dirt poor Pernambuco state.  The refinery will process crude oil resulting from joint exploration projects in Venezuela. 

 

The energy alliance has in turn bolstered political ties.  During the 2002-3 oil lock out, in which the opposition sought to topple the Chavez regime, Brazilian President Lula also shipped oil to Venezuela.

 

Now, Brazil is helping to spur alternative energy in Venezuela by shipping ethanol to its neighbor.  In South America, ethanol is an alcohol fuel made from sugar cane.  According to a recent study from the University of Minnesota, ethanol produces 12 percent less greenhouse gasses linked to global warming than gasoline.

 

For three decades Brazil has used fuel alcohol on a large scale, but it's only more recently that the country has been able to reap the full reward from its ethanol production.  Because of the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for the reduction of pollutant emissions, there are now great opportunities for sale of ethanol. 

 

With its eye on this great potential, Brazil has dived straight into the foreign alcohol market.  Authorities have announced that Brazil will invest heavily in transport infrastructure over the coming years.  Almost all Brazilian cars have flex-fuel engines running on both gasoline and ethanol, and the country has reduced its gasoline consumption by nearly half over the last four years. 

For Paulo Roberto Costa, Supply director at Petrobras (the Brazilian state oil company), ethanol shipments to Venezuela should "strengthen [Petrobras'] position as an energy company [and] generate great gains to the environment."  Costa added that Petrobras stood to benefit, as the company would "enter new markets and sectors, sponsor the growth of Brazil and collaborate to the integration of the countries of South America."

 

Venezuela Seeks Ethanol Self Sufficiency

 

Though Venezuela has imported ethanol from Brazil, the Chavez government has also taken action to produce the fuel on its own so the country can become self sufficient.  Venezuela has in fact taken the step of eliminating its consumption of lead-based gasoline.  The country seeks to produce ethanol for domestic consumption and to add 10% of the fuel to all gasoline.

According to Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez, "The elimination of lead from gasoline ... will bring great health and environmental benefits."  PdVSA has set up an ethanol producing subsidiary, Alcoholes de Venezuela. 

 

Venezuela will commence construction of 15 sugar cane mills in 2007 and hopes to complete 21 distilleries by 2012.  Chavez has pledged to invest $900 million to plant sugarcane and construct processing plants over the next several years.  Such a plan is certainly ambitious: Venezuela will have to plant 740,000 acres of sugar cane if it wants to meet its target.

 

Venezuela and Cuba: Solidifying Ties through Ethanol

 

Chavez has sought strong ties to Cuba in recent years, and Venezuela is now solidifying an innovative energy alliance with the island nation.  For years, Venezuela has exported oil to Cuba in exchange for Cuban doctors who have serviced the poor and disadvantaged through Chavez's Barrio Adentro program.

 

Now, Chavez has gone further by seeking Cuban assistance for his nascent ethanol program.  For Cuba, it is a novel opportunity to take advantage of its dormant sugar industry.  Though the country was at one time the largest sugar exporter in the world, the island's sugar industry fell on hard times in recent years when falling prices obliged the country to close almost half its mills.  Now, however, Cuba says it will modernize its old distilleries as well as build new ones which would be geared principally towards the production of ethanol fuel. 

Venezuela stands to gain from Cuban expertise in the ethanol sector.  The island nation shall provide Venezuela with parts from its dismantled mills for use in ethanol production.  "Cuba is advising us in the process [of ethanol production] and training personnel," remarked Maria Antonieta Chacon, president of the Venezuelan Agrarian Corporation.

 

Ethanol: Solving Chavez's Political Imperative

 

For Chavez, ethanol not only serves an environmental purpose but also relieves political pressure on the government.  In Venezuela, rural to urban migration is a thorny social problem.  Caracas, a polluted, crime-infested city, has seen explosive civil unrest in the past and needs to stem the flow of new rural migrants. 

 

Chavez's ethanol plans could help to ameliorate some of this migration by encouraging a nascent industry in the countryside.  According to PdVSA, ethanol and sugar cane fermentation "cuts dependence on oil and promotes other economic activities."  Under the program, sugar cane will be harvested in 12 states throughout the country and will lead to the creation of 500,000 jobs.

 

PdVSA has announced that it could build several ethanol plants in the central state of Yaracuy, which is one of the top sugarcane producing areas in the country.  Nelson Rojas, General Secretary of the state, remarked that the state's plans to create twenty plants in his state would be a boon to the local economy.  According to Rojas, each plant would create more than 12,000 jobs. 

 

Chavez at the United Nations

 

In his 2005 address to the United Nations, Hugo Chavez derided what he called "a socioeconomic model that has a galloping destructive capacity."  The Venezuelan president expressed concern about "an unstoppable increase of energy" and added that "more carbon dioxide will inevitably be increased, thus warming our planet even more."

 

It's rather ironic that Chavez, as the leader of one of the world's leading oil producing nations, would emphasize global warming at the United Nations.  Nevertheless, recent moves by the government suggest that Chavez is willing to undertake some modest changes in energy policy. 

 

While it's certainly environmentally vital for Venezuela to move off lead based gasoline and adopt alternative technologies, Chavez also has public relations considerations.  The Venezuelan President wants to paint himself as an underdog on the world stage, struggling against U.S. imperialism and the voracious consumerist appetites of North Americans.  By moving towards ethanol, Chavez may deflect criticism that he is hypocritical.  In adopting alternative fuels, he also gains politically by shoring up ties to Cuba and Brazil, two key allies in the region.

With the Venezuelan presidential campaign shifting into high gear in advance of tomorrow’s election, Caracas looks as polarized as ever. Recent demonstrations have underscored the great political rift dividing Chavez followers from the opposition.

Last week, supporters of Manuel Rosales, the opposition candidate, thronged streets and major highways. The very next day, hundreds of thousands of Chavistas, dressed in their trademark red clothing, turned out onto the streets in support of the president. Some marched through Altamira, a wealthy district in the eastern section of the city which is sympathetic to Rosales.

While in Caracas I was struck by the changed political atmosphere which prevailed in the city. Indeed, much had changed since I lived in the city in 2000-2001. I had gone to Venezuela then to pursue research on my doctoral dissertation, and spent much of my time between San Bernardino, a hillside neighborhood where I had rented a room, and downtown, where I used to go to do archival work.

At that time, Chavez was still consolidating his political power and had not yet initiated controversial social and economic programs. As I recount in my recent book, Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the U.S. (St. Martin’s Press), many folk in San Bernardino were beginning to grow suspicious of Chavez. The neighborhood had once been affluent; Nelson Rockefeller had even built a famous hotel in the area, the Hotel Avila.

In more recent years, however, poor residents had taken over a hillside next to my landlord’s condo. I was warned that the people were Colombian and should be avoided at all cost as they were violent. After I finished my day’s work at the archive downtown, I would head to the Institute of Advanced Business Studies (known by its Spanish acronym, IESA). The institute had generously agreed to provide me with a work visa in Venezuela so I could pursue my research.

The school was located a couple blocks from my apartment building, and I frequently made use of IESA’s computer room. The school, with a quiet and tranquil atmosphere cordoned off by gates, was a refuge from polluted and congested downtown. The students, who in general looked whiter than many folks in the city center, used to demonize Chavez as a dangerous radical.

I left Venezuela in the summer of 2001, and judging from my discussions with many members of the middle class, social antagonism was starting to grow. However, Caracas still hadn’t achieved the level of popular mobilization that we’ve seen in recent years. During and after the coup of 2002, however, that would change as the city became more and more polarized.

One physical symbol of the growing political radicalization within Caracas is the proliferation of street murals. Over the course of about three weeks this summer, I had the opportunity to see a lot of the new public art. At one point, while taking a grimy bus from the mountains down into downtown, I saw signs on the highway reading "Let us unite and we will be invulnerable."

The quote was attributed to Simon Bolivar, the Great Liberator and independence hero against Spain whose profile appeared on the mural. Throughout the city, murals depicting patriot leaders such as Antonio Jose de Sucre are commonplace. I saw one mural of the independence fighter Felix Ribas outside of a government sponsored cooperative. Appearing next to Ribas was a portrait of Chavez, wearing his characteristic red beret.

Later, I went to Bolivar’s Native House (Casa Natal de Bolivar) in downtown. The staff was in the midst of restoration of the colonial building, which had a red brick tile roof. For Chavez, Bolivar, who liberated Venezuela from Spanish rule, carries symbolic importance. The president has renamed Venezuela the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (the government had to redo all the country’s stationery at great expense), and addresses his people on TV while sitting underneath an oil portrait of the Great Liberator.

According to Mercedes Garcia, the director of Bolivar’s Native House, Chavez had been able to awaken a historical interest amongst the masses. As a result of the president’s speeches, Garcia told me, more people were heading to Venezuelan historic sites and had undergone a psychological shift. In the schools, children were now leaning more about Bolivar than ever before. In her museum Garcia noted an increase in the amount of visitors, which now amounted to 3,500 per week. Garcia added that many soldiers were now coming to Bolivar’s House and that there was greater historical curiosity within the armed forces.

In 2000-2001, I was always careful not to linger in downtown Caracas after hours. In San Bernardino, my landlord advised me not to go out after 7 PM. Apparently my neighbors had similar ideas: in the evening, the streets around IESA were deserted. At night I would like awake in bed, the silence punctuated only by the occasional sound of distant gunshots.

During my recent trip, I cannot say that I sensed much of a drastic improvement in Caracas. In downtown I found it difficult to breathe due to the pollution. My eyes and throat frequently felt sore from the smog. Meanwhile, downtown seemed as anarchic and unsafe as ever. Indeed, I found it difficult to walk on the street as it was taken over by the buoneros (informal street vendors). The buoneros sell everything from CDs to arepas, a kind of Venezuelan corn pancake. Compared to five years earlier, there were more homeless people sleeping in the streets around Bellas Artes, a grimy area falling to pieces.

In light of their brutal everyday struggle, it is not surprising that many residents here have become politicized and routinely turn out for Chavez’s mass street rallies. To some, Chavez’s hard core supporters are a menace. Speaking to one well-to-do businessman in Altamira, a wealthy Caracas neighborhood, I inquired about activists who attended Chavez’s mass rallies. "They are fanatics," he replied.

To get more perspective about growing social polarization, I traveled to the neighborhood of Chacaito and the offices of the Venezuelan opposition party, Primero Justicia. There, I met with Gerardo Blyde, General Secretary of the party. Blyde was clean cut, had slicked back hair and wore a blazer.

Blyde admitted that in Caracas, there was a real discrimination in terms of services. The poor had little access to basic infrastructure, he commented.

"In New York," he said, "the water you get in Queens or Brooklyn is as clean as the water you receive on 5th Avenue in Manhattan. That kind of equality in services is not evident in Caracas. Unfortunately, Caracas grew in an amorphous manner which was disordered, adequate planning was not put into services, and this has given rise to chaos."

To get a sense of how the other half lived, I went to Altamira. On one day when I was there, I noticed workmen tending some flowers planted nearby. Though still polluted, the neighborhood had a fountain in the main square and tree lined streets. In the cafes, women flaunted jewelry, surprising to me in light of growing kidnapping of wealthy residents in the capital.

At a nearby store, I spoke with the same businessman who belittled anti-Chavez supporters. During the oil strike of 2002-3 [designed to shut down the oil industry and bring down the Chavez government], he remarked, well dressed and educated folk tried to keep his store from opening and surrounded the premises. Finally, he had called the police. Personally, he had just as much disdain for the elitist anti-Chavistas in Altamira as the hard core Chavistas.

Blyde admitted that in 2002 many of the elite were paranoid about the Chavistas coming into their homes. Since then, however, he said that the Caracas elite, like much of the rest of the city, was not fearful of political violence as much as everyday street crime.

"Caracas is one of the most dangerous cities in the world," he said. "Because of the lack of employment and lack of income, the city is very violent."

Rafael Uzcategui, media coordinator at the human rights organization Provea, agreed with Blyde that much of the paranoia had decreased since 2002. However, he also stated that the political divide had widened once again in advance of the election.

Five years earlier I’d met Rafael in Caracas. At that time he had been a student at the Central University and frequently wrote for the anarchist newspaper El Libertario. Rafael was still involved with the paper, but he confided to me that he did not feel comfortable selling El Libertario on the campus of the Central University of Caracas.

There, he said, there were pro-Chavez and anti-Chavez groups. His circle was in the minority, and members of El Libertario felt pressured by both sides. Even an elder member of the group was insulted when he attempted to distribute materials. Rafael said that he was no longer on speaking terms with many former friends owing to political differences.

"There are pro-Chavez zones of city and anti-Chavez areas," Rafael said. "We have always been interested in putting on cultural events and showing movies," he added. "When we put on activities in opposition areas, we are accused of being pro- Chavez." But, he continued, "In a pro-Chavez barrio, they said we were right wing imperialists."

During the April, 2002 coup, he said, members of El Libertario had received a lot of death threats, hateful e-mail, and harassing telephone calls. The group’s Web site had been hacked and destroyed during a meeting of the World Social Forum, and they had had to launch a new page through a more secure server.

"We have had to put up with a low intensity civil war in this city," Rafael commented.

Back in 2002, Rafael said, people would judge you based on the newspaper you read. If you bought El Nacional, you were automatically perceived as anti-Chavez. If you were seen reading Ultimas Noticias, you were assumed to be pro-Chavez.

"In 2002," Rafael added, "If you went out with red on you could feel the pressure of people looking at you in the metro."

For me personally, the issue of color as a political marker is one of the most interesting facets of Caracas political life. In recent years, red has become the official color of the Chavistas. In Catia, a poor Caracas barrio, I visited a cooperative where women were busily sewing red T-shirts for the state-run oil company, PdVSA. On another occasion, I witnessed pro-Chavez followers painting over an opposition mural in front of my Caracas hotel. They were all wearing red.

On a recent trip to Coral Gables, Florida, I had the opportunity to discuss these questions with Dr. Steve Stein, an old mentor of mine who is currently the director of the Latin American Studies Program at University of Miami.

"The Sandinistas had red and black and they really used those colors a lot," Stein said. "In the nineteenth century political parties had colors in Argentina; the liberal and conservatives had light blue and red. Under Rosas’s authoritarian regime in Argentina you had to wear something red. So, color as a means of political identification has been a longtime fixture of Latin American politics." [for those interested in reading the rest of this interview, see the upcoming December edition of the Brooklyn Rail which will shortly be available online].

The name of the game in Caracas has been winning the allegiance of the middle class. According to Blyde, the vast majority of the middle class voted for Chavez in 1998.
"But," he said, "that middle class is accustomed to getting the kinds of services that are common in today’s world. They’re not rich, they’re not multimillionaires from Manhattan, they’re who have studied, who have worked hard to get their car, their apartment, their house. These people felt threatened by speeches made by Chavez: he was going against what they had built up over the past twenty or thirty years."

"Thirty years ago," Blyde continued, "there was no middle class. There were some rich people and a few families. The rest were poor, like the typical division in Latin America. They felt threatened by Chavez’s rhetoric stressing ‘Socialism for the Twenty First Century.’ They thought they were going to have their standard of living taken away. Chavez then lost the middle class."

Once, while eating in a Tasca (Spanish style restaurant) near to my hotel, I fell into discussion with a middle aged couple. The woman, who was of Spanish descent, said that if Chavez won again she would leave the country. Her husband owned a print making shop, which had done well economically. But, the two of them were fearful of Chavez’s intentions and believed that the Venezuelan president might impose communism.

Speaking to the amiable night watchman in my hotel, I asked him about growing political tensions in Caracas. He said that he was a Chavista, as was his family, but that he was not a fanatic. He disliked Chavez’s program, Alo, Presidente!, but occasionally watched the other state channel, Vive TV.

As a whole, he said, the middle class was divided. Some were with Chavez, others were against, and some comprised the so-called "ni, ni" bloc (neither with the opposition nor with the Chavistas). He personally believed that the middle class had not become very anti-U.S. as a result of Chavez´s speeches.

"People are just as consumerist as before," he said, "perhaps more as the economy is now doing better." Some middle class, he said, had sold their property after the coup and moved abroad. But then, he said, they found that life wasn´t so easy and had to return to Venezuela.

Currently local and state authorities as well as government ministries fund public murals in Caracas. My favorite was a huge piece near the Bellas Artes metro station not far from San Bernardino. The piece is comprised of several panels, each of which is perhaps one storey tall. The mural depicts Venezuelan history from the colonial period to the present. In the first panel, the mural shows prosperous owners of great cocoa plantations and black slaves rising in revolt. Another panel depicts Venezuela’s experience with oil in the twentieth century. Sitting on top of a big barrel of oil was none other than Juan Vicente Gomez, a dictator who ruled the country from 1908 to 1935. Gomez, who was installed in a U.S.-supported coup d’etat, developed a strategic alliance with American oil companies. Simultaneously, Gomez presided over the country through a repressive spy and police network. In the mural, next to Gomez, we see a prisoner holding on to the iron bars of a jail cell. The Gomez era was notorious for its horrible prisons, such as the terrible dungeon known as La Rotunda.

In supporting such public art, the Chavez authorities are clearly trying to compete with materialistic, U.S.-style billboards and advertising all over the city. In downtown Caracas, the desk clerk at my hotel remarked that in his view, the murals had not made much of an impact on public consciousness. I put some of these questions to Steve Stein.

"If we look back on the Mexican Revolution, which was probably the beginnings of this kind of political mural art," Stein said, "there was not a lot of subtlety in the great Diego Rivera or Orozco murals either. Did they actually indoctrinate people towards a certain ideology? And the answer is probably not. My sense is that after a while, you don’t even see them anymore."

As for Caracas, Stein added, we need to pose crucial questions about the overall impact of the murals. "Is the murals effect greater than the products of an international, globalized consumer society. I don’t know if I have the answer to that question."

To view the article, click here.

It now looks as if Rafael Correa, a leftist candidate in Ecuador, has handily won his country’s presidential election. As of Monday morning, with about 21 percent of the ballot counted, Correa had 65 percent compared to 35 percent for Alvaro Noboa, according to Ecuador’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal. If Correa wins, he will preside over Ecuador for a four year term.

It’s yet another feather in the cap for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who had long cultivated the aspiring leader’s support. What’s more, it’s a stinging blow against the Bush administration which now must confront a much more unenviable political milieu in the region. Ecuador now joins other left leaning regimes such as Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Chile, all of which are sympathetic to Chavez.

Bush cannot dismiss the Correa victory as inconsequential: Ecuador is currently the second largest South American exporter of crude to the U.S. The small Andean country hosts the only U.S. military base in South America, where 400 troops are currently stationed. Correa opposes an extension of the U.S. lease at the air base in Manta, which serves as a staging ground for drug surveillance flights. The U.S. lease expires in 2009.

"If they want," Correa has said ironically, "we won’t close the base in 2009, but the United States would have to allow us to have an Ecuadoran base in Miami in return."

It’s no secret that Chavez and Correa had a personal rapport. During a short stint in 2005 as finance minister under the regime of Alfredo Palacio, Correa brokered a $300 million loan from Chavez. As a result of his diplomacy, Correa was forced out of the government. Allegedly, Correa pursued the loan deal behind Palacio’s back. He later visited Chavez’s home state of Barinas, where he met with the Venezuelan leader and spent the night with Chavez’s parents.

"It is necessary to overcome all the fallacies of neoliberalism," Correa has declared. Borrowing one of Chavez’s favorite slogans, Correa says he also supports so-called "socialism for the twenty first century."

Correa: "Whipping" Ecuador’s Politicians, and the U.S., into Shape

Unlike Chavez, Correa does not come from a military background but grew up in a middle class family; the young politician also dresses impeccably. He got his doctorate in economics from the University of Illinois and is a follower of left wing economist and Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz.

To his credit, Correa spent a year volunteering in a highland town called Zumbahua and speaks Quichua, an indigenous language. Natives from Zumbahua remember Correa as a man who walked two or three hours to remote villages in a poncho and broken shoes to give classes.

Correa pursued an amusing campaign. During rallies, he would bounce on stage to his campaign anthem, set to the tune of Twisted Sister’s "We’re Not Going to Take It." As the music blared, Correa would break out a brown leather belt, which he would flex along to the music.

For Correa, the belt became the chief slogan of his campaign: "Dale Correa." In Spanish, the phrase means "Give Them the Belt." Correa promised to use that belt to whip Ecuador’s politicians into shape.

Correa campaigned on pledges to prioritize social spending over repaying debt. He has even stated that the Andean country might want to default. He also declared that he would renegotiate contracts with foreign oil producers doing business in the country. Correa says he wants to increase funds for the poor and opposes a free trade deal with the U.S.

"We are not against the international economy," Correa has stated, "but we will not negotiate a treaty under unequal terms with the United States."

Correa, too, has nothing but contempt for George Bush.

When he was recently asked about Chavez’s "devil" diatribe against the U.S. president at the United Nations, Correa remarked amusingly, "Calling Bush the devil offends the devil. Bush is a tremendously dimwitted President who has done great damage to the world" [after he was defeated by Noboa in the first round of voting Correa toned down his rhetoric, stating that his comments about Bush were "imprudent" and that Ecuador would like to continue its strong tries to the United States]

Noboa Plays the Chavez Card

In an effort to scare voters, Alvaro Noboa, a banana magnate in Ecuador, sought to label Correa as a Chavez puppet. Noboa, in an allusion to Chavez’s military background, labeled his adversary "Colonel Correa."

Correa, the Noboa campaign charged, was being financed by Venezuela. In a bombastic tirade, Noboa even declared, "the Chavez-Correa duo has played dirty in an effort to conquer Ecuador and submit it to slavery." If he were elected, Noboa promised, he would break relations with Caracas.

Correa denied that his campaign was financed by Chavez and in a biting aside declared that his friendship with the Venezuelan leader was as legitimate as President Bush’s friendship with the bin Laden family.

"They have pursued the most immoral and dirty campaign against me in an effort to link me with communism, terrorism, and Chavismo," Correa explained. "The only thing left is for them to say that Bin Laden was financing me."

Chavez, perhaps fearing that any statement on his part might tilt the election in favor of Noboa, initially remained silent as regards the Ecuadoran election. But at last the effusive Chavez could no longer constrain himself and broke his silence.

The Venezuelan leader accused Noboa of baiting him in an effort to gain the "applause" of the United States. Chavez furthermore expressed doubts about the veracity of the voting result in the first presidential run off in October, in which Correa came in second. In his own inflammatory broadside, Chavez accused Noboa of being "an exploiter of child labor" on his banana plantations and a "fundamentalist of the extreme right."

In Ecuador, Chavez said, "there are also strange things going on. A gentleman who is the richest man in Ecuador; the king of bananas, who exploits his workers, who exploits children and puts them to work, who doesn’t pay them loans, suddenly appears in first place in the first [electoral] round."

The Noboa campaign, in an escalating war of words, shot back that the Venezuelan Ambassador should be expelled from Ecuador due to Chavez’s meddling.

Ecuadoran Indigenous Peoples and Chavez

Judging from the early electoral returns, Ecuadoran voters, many of whom are indigenous, disregarded Noboa’s fire and brimstone rhetoric. Indians, who account for 40% of Ecuador’s population of 13 million, are a potent political force in the country. Correa has capitalized on indigenous support. He represents Alianza País, a coalition that garnered the support of indigenous and social movements which brought down the government of Lucio Gutierrez in April 2005.

What does the Correa win mean for Chavez’s wider hemispheric ambitions?

As I explain in my book, Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the U.S. (recently released by St. Martin’s Press), Chavez has long sought to cultivate ties to Ecuador’s indigenous peoples. Ecuadoran Indians have long feared that their traditional lands were being exploited to serve a rapacious United States intent on corporate expansion. U.S. missionaries have fueled the resentment. According to indigenous activists, the missionaries hastened the penetration of U.S. corporations. A key example, according to Huaorani Indians, was the petroleum industry which worked with the missionaries to open up traditional lands.

Chavez has done much to cultivate the support of indigenous peoples. He plays up his own indigenous roots, for example. He also expelled the Protestant New Tribes Mission from Venezuela, which he said was collaborating with the CIA.

"We don’t want the New Tribes here," Chavez declared. "Enough colonialism! 500 years is enough!"

In opposing the missionaries, Chavez has echoed the agenda of Ecuador’s indigenous peoples, who called for the expulsion of North American missionaries from their country. CONAIE, Ecuador’s indigenous federation, in fact endorses many of Chavez’s positions such as an end to U.S. militarization in the region and an end to neo liberal economic policies. CONAIE, like Rafael Correa, wants Ecuador to terminate the U.S. lease at the Manta military base. CONAIE, as well as the movement’s political wing Patchakutik, has backed Chavez. CONAIE in fact has condemned the "fascist" opposition in Venezuela and derided U.S. interventionism.

Chavez has not only cultivated political ties with hemispheric leaders but also with social movements from below. In an innovative move, Chavez has sponsored something called the Bolivarian Congress of Peoples in Caracas. CONAIE officials attended the Congress, as did Humberto Cholango, president of the Kichwa Confederation of Ecuador. Cholango remarked at the time, "no one can stop this [Bolivarian] Revolution in Venezuela, we will keep on defeating the Creole oligarchies and the Yankeesthe time has come for South America to rise up to defeat the empireLong live the triumph of the Venezuelan people."

Cholango is an important link in the future Chavez-Correa alliance. His Kichwa Confederation has backed Correa. In a communiqué, the Confederation wrote, "We will not let Noboa, who owns 120 companies and made his fortune by exploiting children in his companies, take control of the country to deliver water, deserts, oil, mines, forests and biodiversity to big private transnational corporations."

Ecuadoran Oriente: Area of Conflict

Chavez has exchanged oil for political influence throughout the region in such countries as Nicaragua, as I explained in my earlier Counterpunch column [see "A New Kind of Oil Diplomacy: In Nicaragua, a Chavez Wave?, November 7, 2006]. In Ecuador, Chavez may opt for a similar strategy but here the Venezuelan leader has to watch out for pitfalls that could reveal serious contradictions within his movement.

With a Correa administration in place, Chavez will be in an advantageous position to advance his plans for hemispheric energy integration. Ecuador’s state oil company Petroecuador has been involved in longstanding negotiations with Venezuela to refine its crude. Ecuador is also interested in acquiring Venezuelan diesel and gasoline to cover its own internal demand. Ecuador’s growing energy ties with Venezuela have been applauded by important figures such as Luis Macas, long associated with the CONAIE.

The dilemma for Ecuador is that, while oil represents about a quarter of the country’s GDP, many disadvantaged communities have been unhappy with development. The north eastern section of Ecuador, the "Oriente," has long been the scene of serious social unrest. I know something about the social and environmental conflicts in the area, having written a couple of articles about the Huorani Indians for the Ecuadoran magazine 15 Dias and the Quito daily Hoy.

In 1992, having just completed a reporting internship at WBAI radio in New York, I headed to Quito. At that time, North American as well as Ecuadoran environmental groups were concerned about Maxus Corporation, a Texas-based energy company. The influential company had the support of the government, the press, and North American Protestant missionaries. The Huaorani had just traveled to Quito, where they had carried out a protest in front of Maxus headquarters.

The Indians demanded that Maxus halt its construction of a highway in block 16, which fell in their traditional homeland. I flew out to the Amazon and interviewed the Indians who were living in deplorable health and sanitary conditions. In my articles, I dissected Maxus’ unconvincing propaganda and warned about imminent environmental problems.

Venezuelan Involvement in the Ecuadoran Oil Industry?

I left Ecuador in late 1993, and not surprisingly the unrest continued. In 2002, the government declared a state of emergency following protests in Sucumbios and Orellana provinces. Protesters hit the streets, demanding greater investment in their communities. Indigenous peoples in the area had long felt that they had not adequately shared in the benefits of oil development. The military used teargas to break up protests which blocked oil wells.

In August 2005 the disturbances continued, with an oil strike hitting Orellana and Sucumbios. At that time, Chavez came to the aid of Ecuadoran president Alfredo Palacios by agreeing to send Venezuelan crude to the Andean nation. At the time, Chavez expressed sympathy with Ecuador "because we [Venezuela] have already passed through this type of thing with the oil sabotage [the oil lock out in 2002-3 encouraged by the Venezuelan opposition]."

Early this year, Petroecuador was forced to suspend exports when protesters, unhappy about longstanding environmental damage, demanded the departure of U.S. oil company Oxy and took over a pumping station vital to the functioning of a pipeline. Protesters, led by local politicians from the Amazon province of Napo, demanded that the government pay them funds for infrastructure projects in local communities.

In March, the government put three provinces under military control when workers initiated a strike for unpaid wages and improved working conditions. At one point, the government declared a state of emergency in Napo, when protesters demanded that the oil companies invest more of their profits in the area.

Guadalupe Llori, the prefect of Orellana, remarked "If we are treated like animals we are going to react like animals. We could join the workers and demand the government respect our rights." Petroecuador technicians and troops finally took control of oil facilities and cleared strikers from vital sites.

In May, Petroecuador took over oil wells belonging to Oxy’s block 15 oil concession; the Ecuadoran state wants the Venezuelan state company PdVSA to refine 75% of the 100,000 barrels per day within the old concession. According to the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal, Ecuador is considering Venezuela as a possible partner in the fields formerly operated by Oxy.

Chavismo and Its Hemispheric Contradictions

If PdVSA had a presence in block 15, this would lead to a potential problem for Chavez. Having proclaimed its support for social and environmental justice, as well as indigenous rights, Venezuela would now be operating in an area long marked by social unrest and discrimination of indigenous peoples.

In the short term, Chavez may take some pride in the fact that Bush received another black eye in South America; what’s more Venezuela can now count on Correa’s support as well as the indigenous movement. But in the long term, Chavez could run the risk of alienating many of his supporters if Venezuela is perceived to be an accomplice in misguided development schemes.

In the coming years, will Chavez maintain his political support amongst disadvantaged peoples throughout the hemisphere, or will his popularity be tarnished by oil diplomacy? Up to now, Chavez has certainly used oil as an effective geopolitical instrument, but it may prove his Achilles Heel if he is not careful.

With the Democrats now taking over Congress, the question is: what will the change in leadership mean for U.S. policy towards Venezuela? While it's heartening that some progressive legislators will be headed to Washington, unfortunately some hawkish figures stand to influence Latin America policy. Unless he is upended by Representative Howard Berman, Tom Lantos will become the Chair of the House International Relations Committee.

Lantos, who represents California's 12th congressional district in San Mateo, supported the October, 2002 "blank check" resolution granting authority to George Bush to wage preemptive war. According to John Nichols of the Nation magazine, Lantos is "reasonably solid" when it comes to supporting a liberal domestic agenda. "But," Nichols comments, "It's a different story on foreign policy matters."

Back in 2002 Lantos ignored anti-war activists who protested at his office, preferring instead to pursue a pro-war agenda in Congress. According to Nichols, Lantos said it was his "privilege" to deliver 81 pro-war Democratic votes for Bush. More recently, Lantos has criticized the execution of the war, and claims that the White House misled him about pre-war intelligence. Nevertheless he supports Bush's moves to fund the U.S. military effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. Additionally, Lantos has been one of the House's consistent backers of the Patriot Act.

Congressman Lantos: Venezuela Hawk

Given his hawkish positions, it's not surprising that Lantos would take an aggressive position towards the leftist government of Hugo Chavez. The bad blood between the Venezuelan regime and Lantos goes back to 2004. Lantos, along with fellow lawmakers such as Republican Henry Hyde, sent a letter to Chavez complaining that the Venezuelan government was abusing its power when it accused Sumate, an opposition group, of conspiring with the U.S. to topple the Chavez regime.

In the letter, Lantos and others admit that Sumate had been financed by the U.S. taxpayer funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) but that this financing would help encourage Venezuelan democracy. Lantos's letter elicited a sharp rejoinder from Venezuela's ambassador to the U.S., Bernardo Alvarez, who commented that the U.S. government was inconsistent when it came to democracy, and that the U.S. was the only country in the hemisphere to recognize the illegitimate Carmona regime which came to power in a brief coup d'etat in April 2002.

Lantos Snubbed in Caracas

Things deteriorated further last year when Lantos was allegedly refused entry into Venezuela and was stopped at the airport. Lantos had gone to the South American country as part of a high-level delegation headed by Republican Henry Hyde, the same legislator who had defended NED the year before.

Lantos and the delegation claimed they were actually harassed and held onboard their aircraft by customs officials at Caracas's Simon Bolivar International Airport. The delegation, which sought to repair troubled U.S.-Venezuelan relations, was set to meet personally with Chavez himself. After two hours, the delegation claimed, they left when government officials said that they could not guarantee that the party would be allowed to disembark or pursue its schedule on the ground. The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry denies the charges, claiming that it never held the congressmen who simply opted to continue on their way.

The incident provided fodder for xenophobic nationalists like CNN's Lou Dobbs, who told his viewers that the Venezuelan government's actions constituted "a Chavez insult to America." El Universal, a conservative Venezuelan newspaper, suggested that Chavez may have wanted to snub the delegation as payback, since the U.S. had refused to grant a visa to many members of Chavez's security detail when the Venezuelan president went to visit the United Nations in New York.

Lantos Goes On the Offensive

Snubbed by Chavez, Lantos went on the rhetorical offensive this past summer. During a hearing of the House's International Relations Committee, the California lawmaker accused Chavez of financing the electoral campaign of Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua (the Venezuelan leader has denied the charges). Lantos added fuel to the fire by remarking that in Venezuela, "the basis of democracy is being systematically suffocated by a demagogic leader."

Lantos went on to demonize Chavez for his ties to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and for creating "a one party state in Venezuela." Lantos added, "To insure the recently elected and soon to be elected Presidents of Latin America are not pressured into accepting the oil slick promises of dictators with dollars, we must reengage with the region."

Lantos's remarks were countered by some other Democrats including Howard Berman, a fellow California legislator. The U.S. was hypocritical in harking on democracy in Latin America, Berman argued. "I was in Nicaragua during the last presidential election [in November, 2001]," he said, "and it appeared to me that the U.S. Embassy was very involved in guaranteeing the defeat of Mr. Ortega."

Berman is currently Lantos' rival to run the House's International Relations Committee. According to a recent article in the Jewish Daily Forward, Berman, who represents parts of Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, has often "been less conciliatory to the GOP" than Lantos. "Ousting Lantos," according to the Forward, " could signal that Democrat leaders, including presumed Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, intend to usher in an era of more overtly partisan confrontation."

Lantos and Democrats Provoke Chavez on Media

But in the end, will the new "Madame Speaker" have the nerve to stand up to the hawks in the Democratic Party? She herself called Chavez "a thug" when the Venezuelan leader recently traveled to the United Nations and insulted George Bush. Unfortunately, the Democrats hardly inspire confidence and have more often than not joined with the Republicans in bashing Venezuela. A key example of this is the Democrats' handling of the Venezuelan media issue.

I recently returned from an extended six week trip to Venezuela, where I was struck by the stridently anti-U.S. tone in much of the government media. One edition of the pro-Chavez paper Diario VEA had a screaming headline reading, "General Baduel Warns: Foreign Aggression is Possible." Again and again on Vive TV, a state owned station, the channel would broadcast a short segment showing stark, bombed out images of Iraq.

"Imagine if your city was invaded and destroyed by a foreign army," intoned a solemn voiceover. It had been some years since I'd been back to Venezuela, and the state media had clearly ratcheted up the rhetoric against the Bush administration's foreign policy.

Perhaps more controversially from the point of view of Washington, Chavez has also launched Telesur, a hemispheric wide satellite news station. Oil-rich Venezuela supplies 51% of Telesur's budget, with Cuba, Argentina, and Uruguay providing the rest of the funding. I frequently watched the station during my time in Venezuela and was struck by the coverage of the war in Iraq, which was much more graphic and critical of the conflict than our own U.S. media.

Since its initial launch in 2005 Telesur, which aims to rival other news stations such as Univision and CNN en Espanol, has certainly come a long way professionally. When I had first watched the station in the U.S. via Telesur's Web site, there had been frequent technical glitches. But now, I could scarcely tell the difference between Telesur and CNN from a technological standpoint.

In July 2005, Congressman Connie Mack, a right wing Republican from Florida, sponsored a measure to authorize U.S. supported radio and television broadcasts to Venezuela. Mack, a vocal critic of Hugo Chavez, has said that Telesur spreads "anti-American, anti-freedom rhetoric." Mack's legislation was approved as part of an amendment to the Foreign Relations Authorizations Act. Under the amendment the U.S. government could provide radio and television broadcasts, through the independent Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) for up to 30 minutes a day.

Though the legislation was supported by many Republicans, it also attracted support from Democrats and passed easily in the House. Again, it was Lantos who went on the attack, remarking that as Chavez "ramps up his information campaign, we should be prepared to present balanced news to the people of Venezuela." During the vote on the House floor on Representative Mack's media proposal, no Democrats spoke out against the measure. What's more, according to the Venezuela Information Office based in Washington, D.C., no liberal Democratic legislators have spoken out against Republican legislation designed to set up anti-Chavez media.

Predictably, Mack's amendment spread nothing but further ill will between the United States and Venezuela. Chavez called the amendment "a preposterous imperialist idea that should not surprise us because we know what the U.S. government is capable of." The Venezuelan president vowed to jam the signals if the U.S. tried to transmit broadcasts to Venezuela.

Colombia: An Opportunity for Democrats to Mend Fences with Chavez

Given all of the acrimonious history between Democratic hawks and Chavez, it is going to take a lot to restore trust. But perhaps, if the Democrats start to restrict U.S. aid to the Colombian military, Chavez's paranoia might be allayed somewhat. For years the U.S. has spent billions arming the Colombian military, ostensibly to fight drug trafficking. Chavez regularly denounces the drug war as a thinly disguised excuse to extend U.S. military control over the Andean region (for a more detailed discussion of Chavez's position on the drug war, see my recently released book, Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the U.S). The Venezuelan president recently charged that the Bush administration might even be considering an invasion of Venezuela through Colombian territory.

While such rhetoric might seem overblown, Chavez has some reason to feel concerned. Paramilitaries allegedly tied to the U.S. funded Colombian military routinely cross over the frontier into Venezuela, creating friction along the more than 1,200 mile border. The Paramilitaries have pursued refugees into Venezuela, where they have killed or kidnapped those fleeing the violence. Even worse, the Chavez government claims that Colombian paramilitaries cross the border and fire on Venezuelan security forces. Ongoing clashes have led to the untimely deaths of Venezuelan military personnel.

Chavez has claimed, plausibly, that he needs to protect the border. In recent years the Venezuelan leader has acquired military hardware from Spain and Russia. Prior to the Democratic takeover, the right wing Republican majority in Congress showed no sign that it was willing to change course in Colombia and vociferously supported President Alvaro Uribe's calls for greater military aid. In a recent move, the State Department inexplicably "certified" that the Colombian armed forces had improved their human rights record, thus freeing up frozen military aid.

To his credit, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont disputed the certification.

As the ranking Democrat in charge of foreign assistance, he temporarily halted the aid. Now that the Democrats have taken Congress, there is a possibility for greater scrutiny of human rights in Colombia as Leahy is now responsible for writing the basic draft of the foreign aid bill each year.

If Leahy and progressive legislators start to limit or put greater conditions on military aid to Colombia, tensions might be lessened in that war torn nation and this in turn could lead to greater peace and stability along the Venezuelan border. If Chavez perceives that Washington is serious about reining in the Colombian military, he might be prompted to reduce his own military expenditures.

Hopefully, Congress may restore some restore some semblance of rationality and humanity to U.S. policy in South America. The Democrats must now choose: will they continue the bombastic rhetoric that we have seen from the likes of Lantos? Will they promote counter productive legislation on the media which will only serve to agitate the Chavez government further? Will they continue to fund the Colombian military to the tune of billions of dollars with little oversight, leading to more strained relations with the Chavez government? In the weeks and months ahead, we shall see which wing of the Democratic Party prevails on these vital questions.

Initially, it seemed as if Chavez was perfectly poised to capitalize on a wave of anti-American discontent felt throughout the hemisphere. But then, a series of dramatic reversals cast doubt on Chavez's ambitions to become a truly hemispheric leader and a lightning rod against U.S. influence.

 

Over the last few months, I had begun to doubt whether Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez would indeed have the kind of political staying power that I described in my book, Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the U.S. (recently released by St. Martin's Press).

Initially, it seemed as if Chavez was perfectly poised to capitalize on a wave of anti-American discontent felt throughout the hemisphere. Throughout South America, Chavez exchanged oil for political influence with newly emerging leftist regimes in Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil; the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia, a key Chavez ally, seemed to underscore Venezuela's rising influence.

 

But then, a series of dramatic reversals cast doubt on Chavez's ambitions to become a truly hemispheric leader and a lightning rod against U.S. influence.

Chavez's Reversals, from Peru to the United Nations

 

In Peru, Chavez openly endorsed the nationalist candidate Ollanta Humala in the country's presidential election. But Chavez's strategy backfired when Humala's opponent, Alan Garcia, charged that the Venezuelan leader was interfering in Peru's internal politics. Garcia successfully exploited the issue to his advantage and went on to beat Humala in last April's election.

 

In Mexico, pro-business PAN candidate Felipe Calderon ran a negative campaign against his leftist challenger Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. In his TV ads, Calderon linked Obrador to Hugo Chavez, proclaiming "Lopez Obrador is a danger to Mexico." Though Lopez Obrador cried fraud in Mexico's July presidential election, the Electoral Tribunal ruled that Calderon had won the election and rejected Obrador's allegations. Calderon is set to assume office in December.

 

The next set back for Chavez came in Ecuador, where the Venezuelan leader's would be protégé, Rafael Correa, went down in defeat in the first round of the country's presidential election last month. A Correa win would have added another oil-rich country to Chavez's anti-American alliance.

 

Correa, a leftist economics professor, denied that Chavez had funded his campaign and the Venezuelan leader, chastened by his defeats in Mexico and Peru, was uncharacteristically quiet about the Ecuador election.

 

However, it's no secret that the two had a personal rapport. Correa in fact visited Chavez's home state of Barinas in August, where he met with the Venezuelan leader and spent the night with Chavez's parents. Correa, who opposes an extension of the U.S. lease at an air base in Manta, which serves as a staging ground for drug surveillance flights, has nothing but contempt for George Bush.

 

When he was recently asked about Chavez's "devil" diatribe against the U.S. president at the United Nations, Correa remarked amusingly, "Calling Bush the devil offends the devil. Bush is a tremendously dimwitted President who has done great damage to the world."

 

But Correa was shocked by a strong last minute showing by his challenger, pro-U.S. banana magnate Alvaro Noboa. Like Lopez Obrador, Correa has cried foul and declared that his campaign might have fallen victim to electronic fraud on the country's voting machines. He will face off with Noboa in another runoff election in November.

 

Then there was Venezuela's failed bid to secure a non permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. When the United States proposed its own candidate, Guatemala, things turned ugly. Chavez characterized the race as a struggle against U.S. domination throughout Latin America; Venezuelan diplomats went so far as to describe Guatemala as a U.S. stooge.

But in the end, Venezuela failed to come up with the requisite votes. Chavez could take some satisfaction that Guatemala too failed to come up with the necessary votes at the United Nations, and had to withdraw in favor of Panama.

 

The reality, however, is that despite Chavez's frenetic shuttle diplomacy throughout Africa and calls for Third World solidarity, he could not muster more votes than a small Central American country with very little regional influence and an appalling human rights record.

It was hardly an impressive showing.

The Chavez-Ortega Alliance

 

Events in Nicaragua, however, suggest that it won't be so easy for the Bush administration to roll back Chavez's ambitions. It now seems as if the Sandinista candidate Daniel Ortega will cruise to victory in the country's presidential election and avoid a run off. As of Monday night, preliminary results show Ortega with about 40 percent of the vote, more than enough to avoid a future runoff.

 

For the White House, it's a nightmare that officials had long sought to avoid.

 

Though Ortega, who was president from 1985 to 1990 during the U.S.-fueled Contra War, is a pale shadow of his former self, having jettisoned his leftist rhetoric and hostility towards his northern neighbor, nevertheless Washington must now recognize that it has patently failed to isolate Chavez diplomatically. Nicaragua now seems poised to join the wave of left leaning regimes throughout the hemisphere inspired by Chavez.

 

When Ortega traveled to Venezuela for a meeting with Chavez last year, the friendship between the two began to bear fruit. During the meeting at Miraflores, the presidential palace, Ortega remarked that Latin American unity was necessary to confront globalization. He added that Chavez's electoral victory convinced him that revolutionary change could be achieved through the ballot box. "I thought that they were going to overthrow Chavez," Ortega remarked, "and that he would meet the same fate as Salvador Allende."

 

Ortega later alarmed Washington by remarking that if he won the election he would make sure that Nicaragua would join ALBA, Chavez's Bolivarian Alternative for The Americas. Chavez's trading plan, which is designed to sideline traditional corporate interests and Bush's Free Trade Agreement of The Americas (FTAA), is based on barter agreements between Latin American countries. Recently, to the chagrin of U.S. policymakers, Bolivia joined Venezuela and Cuba in ALBA.

 

Chavez, Ortega and ALBA

 

"Without a doubt," Ortega declared during a Cuban summit meeting with Morales, Castro and Chavez, "we have to look towards the south, we have to look towards integration, and ALBA is an open door, it is Latin American and Caribbean integration."

 

Ortega later added that he opposed U.S.-backed trade deals. "Central America's trading future lies not with the U.S. but with Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina," he said.

 

Ortega, smarting from three successive electoral defeats after the fall of the Sandinistas from power, added that he was "convinced after 16 years of neo liberal policies in Nicaragua that the conditions are ripe for the Sandinista Front to retake power, now via the ballot box."

In the Plaza de La Revolucion in Havana, Chavez approached Ortega and remarked, "Daniel, we are inviting you next year to come here as the president of Nicaragua."

 

According to Ortega, Chavez followed up on his promising words by offering to help Nicaragua join in ALBA. Speaking before hundreds of workers in Managua, Ortega said that Chavez and the president of the Venezuelan Economic and Social Development Bank (known by its Spanish acronym Bandes) had pledged to help open a development bank in Nicaragua. "Venezuela is willing to provide support so that this bank will become a reality and campesinos will have credits and a secure market," Ortega told supporters.  According to Ortega the Venezuelan aid formed part of ALBA.

Chavez, Ortega and CAFTA

 

In seeking to recruit Ortega for his ALBA scheme, Chavez found a willing ally in Ortega. Indeed, Nicaragua's experiment in "neo-liberal" economics since the fall of the Sandinistas in 1990 has not been a very happy one. Like Venezuela, which experienced political unrest as a result of neo liberal policies pushed by Washington, Nicaragua has been buffeted by "savage capitalism," as Ortega has put it.

 

Today, Nicaragua is a bleak place. Per capita income is a paltry $700 and more than 70% of the population lives on less than $2 a day. Successive governments have failed to restore Managua from a 1972 earthquake. Within yards of the presidential palace lie slums and empty buildings; beggars and barefoot children splash around in the gutters of Managua instead of heading to class.

 

Like Chavez, Ortega has spent a lot of time over the past years criticizing U.S.-led free trade deals. For example, the Sandinista led the charge against CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Ortega pledged to pull Nicaragua out of CAFTA and "end savage capitalism when we win." CAFTA, Ortega argued, was an effort by the U.S. to exploit poor countries in a rush to the bottom and cheap labor.

 

"Bush is taking up CAFTA," Ortega remarked in an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, "because it is his way of keeping Central America from looking south." Ortega furthermore suggested that Washington was seeking to splinter Nicaragua's solidarity with the Left in Latin America such as Chavez's regime.

 

CAFTA was pushed ruthlessly by U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick over the objections of labor, environmentalists and human rights groups [for more on Zoellick, see my profile of the diplomat in my book].

 

"CAFTA is the opportunity of a lifetime," Zoellick remarked in an address given at the Heritage Foundation. "If we retreat into isolationism, Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez and others like them, leftist autocratswill advance."

 

Zoellick's efforts to link Ortega and Chavez in order to ram through CAFTA were echoed by paranoid, red baiting Republicans in the House and Senate. Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe warned his fellow Senators: "These Communists, these enemies of the United States, Chavez, Ortega, and Castro, are all in opposition to CAFTA. If you want to be on their side, you would vote against CAFTA."

 

In the House, Republican Rep. Mike Kirk of Illinois took the fear mongering prize by arguing that Chavez was "Venezuela's Mussolini." Chavez, claimed Kirk, was purchasing weapons in order to fight a new war in Central America. "Let us enact a free trade agreement with Central America to lock in democratic growth and stability," Kirk exclaimed, "and let us make sure that President Hugo Chavez's Venezuelan agents find no fertile ground in America's back yard."

 

In the end CAFTA passed narrowly in Congress. In Nicaragua, CAFTA was opposed by the Sandinistas in the National Assembly as well as key figures in civil society, including the president of the country's largest agricultural organization, who warned that the agreement would give rise to greater poverty in the countryside.

 

According to experts, CAFTA stood to encourage the growth of more maquiladora assembly plants, but any positive benefit would be offset by the loss in farm jobs as a result of the influx of cheap U.S. agricultural goods. Despite domestic opposition, Nicaragua passed CAFTA in October 2005.

Efforts to Demonize Ortega and Chavez

 

Despite its CAFTA public relations victory, the Bush administration was clearly still worried and kept up the pressure on Ortega during the run up to the presidential election. Paul Trivelli, the U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua, warned that Ortega's victory would signify "the introduction of a Chavez model" in Nicaragua.

 

Meanwhile the conservative press flew into a tirade against Ortega, with the Washington Times remarking that "Ortega will take Nicaragua out of CAFTA and into Mr. Chavez's Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, and almost synonymous with this is a move to nationalize industry, much like Evo Morales did in Bolivia."

 

The Washington Post was similarly hostile, remarking in an editorial that Ortega "is about to return to power and increase the alliance with non-democratic countries [such as] Venezuela." The Post, interestingly criticized the Bush administration for reacting too slow to the Chavez and Ortega threat.

 

On the pages of National Review, Otto Reich, a former State Department official who dealt with Venezuelan opposition conspirators in the run up to the coup against Chavez in 2002, remarked that "The emerging axis of subversion forming between Cuba and Venezuela must be confronted before it can undermine democracy in Nicaragua."

 

As per the case in Peru, the Nicaraguan right sought to link its Sandinista opposition to Chavez in an effort to instill fear in voters. Presidential candidate Jose Rizo remarked that Chavez and Ortega were "a threat to regional and hemispheric stability," and claimed that the Venezuelan leader was financing Ortega's campaign [both Venezuela and Ortega deny the accusation]. "Ortega will become Chavez's lieutenant in Central America and the Caribbean in the same way that he represented the extinct and failed Soviet Bloc," Rizo added.

Ortega Unlikely to Radicalize

 

Unlike Peru however the opposition's strategy of trying to scare Nicaraguan voters proved unsuccessful and at long last Ortega has prevailed in his drive to reach the presidency. Despite the hyperbolic claims by the U.S. and conservative politicians in Nicaragua however, Ortega is hardly in a position to become Chavez's steward overnight. Unlike Venezuela, Nicaragua is poor and foreign investment and aid accounts for 35 percent of the budget. That money could disappear if Ortega started to radicalize the country and expropriate industry.

 

In an effort to appease jittery investors, Ortega recently signed a pro-business pact in which he pledged to promote the private sector. Though he has spoken about the need to renegotiate aspects of CAFTA, Ortega now says he will build on free trade agreements. Ortega will have to tread lightly: the U.S. is Nicaragua's largest trading partner and accounts for about one fifth of the country's imports and approximately a third of its exports. About 25 wholly or partially owned subsidiaries of U.S. corporations operate in Nicaragua.

 

With so much at stake, Ortega has predictably moderated his rhetoric by stating that he would work with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and Inter American Development Bank.

 

Carlos Fernando Chamorro, son of former president Violeta Chamorro and editor of the weekly Confidencial newspaper, is not too concerned about a radical Ortega agenda. He argues that Ortega is a pragmatist and will try to appease the United States. Observers believe that the right wing Liberal Constitutionalist Party (known by its Spanish acronym PLC), the main opposition to the Sandinistas, will hold onto its many seats in the National Assembly following this election, which would further complicate any radical agenda.

 

But, Chavez's Oil Diplomacy in Central America Could Be a Factor

 

Nevertheless, Chavez seems to be trying hard to bring Nicaragua into its political orbit. Chavez has enhanced his stature in South America by trading oil for other goods, and seems to be pursuing a similar strategy in Nicaragua. Venezuela has in fact already provided cheap fuel to Nicaragua through Sandinista mayors. Speaking on his television and radio program Alo, Presidente!, Chavez told Ortega that Nicaragua could pay for Venezuelan oil with meat, milk, cheese and other goods.

 

Ortega and Chavez have held personal discussions about setting up a mixed Venezuelan-Nicaraguan company that would import the cheap oil. Chavez is apparently willing to invest in Nicaragua to set up necessary oil infrastructure. Best of all, Chavez's offer could prove politically beneficial to Ortega since restive students have protested any move to raise transportation costs. Farmers meanwhile would not have to increase their production costs.

What does it all add up to? Despite some setbacks, Chavez stands to at least gain some diplomatic and political leverage in Central America. Ortega will be hampered in bringing about radical change, but will at least look upon Venezuela as an important regional ally and friend. Try as it might, the Bush administration has not been able to isolate Chavez. To the contrary, the U.S., through its efforts to demonize both Chavez and Ortega, has unwittingly brought them together.

Located within the western provincial state of Zulia, Lake Maracaibo has long been a center of the petroleum industry.  Historically, the lake has been plagued by oil spills and pollution. 

Most recently, the lake has witnessed a profound catastrophe with the arrival of duckweed, a freshwater weed which has spread out across the surface of the water. Experts say that duckweed contributes to Lake Maracaibo's pollution.  Significantly, the weed could seriously change the habitat of various species of fish as it exhausts their oxygen supply and cuts off light from the depths of the lake. 

 

In Maracaibo, I interviewed Jorge Hinestroza, a sociologist at the University of Zulia and former General Coordinator of the Federation of Zulia Ecologists.  During the insightful hour long interview, Hinestroza illuminated many of the contradictions within the Chavez government's environmental policy. 

 

ICLAM and Lake Maracaibo

 

NK: Jorge, I have just been attending an environmental conference here in Maracaibo sponsored by the ICLAM (Institute For The Conservation of Lake Maracaibo, a government agency).  However, I see that some environmentalists in Zulia have been critical of the conference.  Why?

 

JH:  We could cite the case of Elio Rios, a doctor and veteran environmentalist.  Recently he sent out an e mail which accused ICLAM of excluding poor communities from the conference.  Rios is the Vice President of Azul (Environmentalists of Zulia).  Their group has been around for a long time, and probably has a couple of dozen active members.  Azul has made a name for itself by resisting coal exploitation in the Sierra of Perija [a mountainous area near the Colombian border]. 

 

Azul has undergone a very interesting evolution from the point of view of environmental politics.  Rios is himself a fervent follower and supporter of Hugo Chavez.  As a matter of fact, he participates in meetings of the Bolivarian Circles [pro-Chavez groups organized at the local level which carry out community projects with government assistance].  However, he has been one of the most vocal critics of the regime when it comes to the environment. 

 

When Elio says in the e mail that the ICLAM conference is elitist he's telling the truth.  The ICLAM conference was comprised solely of experts.  It is all rather ironic because supposedly in Venezuela we are living in an era which has opened the doors of science to the community.  But as this event makes clear, there is no link between the people and science. 

 

Environmentalism in The Chavez Era

 

NK: How have local environmentalists fared during the Chavez era?

 

JH:  As a result of the "Bolivarian Revolution," popular struggles have been frozen.  The expectation for change amongst the people has risen, and there is a great hope that the regime will resolve social problems.  Environmental concerns have practically been abandoned by popular struggles here.

 

NK: Could you comment specifically about communities within Lake Maracaibo and local environmental struggles? 

 

JH: The Chavez regime has sought to provide the immediate necessities of life for the people.  That is to say, the government offers large quantities of food and services, which in one way or another satisfies the most critical necessities of the people.  Government programs have dampened social tensions.  In various communities that I have visited, local struggles which confronted the great forces of transnational capital have been derailed. 

 

We might cite for example the case of the Olivitos Marsh, where a transnational company [Produsal, S.A., a company whose capital has been provided through Cargill and the state-run Pequiven or Petrochemical of Venezuela], produced salt [necessary for producing petrochemical products].  Produsal's arrival in Olivitos resulted in habitat fragmentation in the area.  The company also displaced fishing communities that were linked to the natural ecosystem. 

 

In response, local communities mobilized against the petrochemical transnational.  Local residents also struggled against the Ministry of Environment which for many years supported the company.  The Ministry handed out all the permits and supported big business, notwithstanding that it's a ministry pledged to protecting the environment. 

 

But with Chavez's political triumph, local communities practically halted their struggle.  The majority of the local fishermen were Chavistas.  They hoped that they would reclaim the waters that they had had traditionally used for fishing.  There was a lot of commotion when Chavez proclaimed the new Constitution which had important provisions favoring fishermen's rights.  However, local leadership later abandoned the struggle.

 

PDVSA and the Case of Lagunillas

 

NK: During the environmental conference, I participated in ICLAM visits to various companies around Lake Maracaibo.  During our visits, the managers presented a very clean corporate environmental image.  To what extent have they have really changed their environmental policies for the better? 

 

JH: As a result of industrial sabotage during the oil lockout of 2002-3, the government has spoken of the need for local communities to find out more about security and environmental risks within the oil industry.  Unfortunately, the government's promise to make the oil industry more transparent has not been met.  When we environmentalists complain about oil slicks for example, we get the same executives and environmental employees from PDVSA [Petroleos de Venezuela, the state run Venezuelan oil company] with the same rhetoric and discourse from the previous era before Chavez.

 

Another example of PDVSA indifference has to do with the actual sinking of coastal lands as a result of oil drilling around the town of Lagunillas [located along the east bank of Lake Maracaibo].  While I am sure there are new PDVSA executives with good intentions, basically environmental management is the same and the ideological orientation continues to be opaque. 

 

NK: That's interesting, I recently went on a tour of PDVSA installations in Lagunillas, but I didn't know anything about a relocation program.  What's it all about?

 

JH:  There are more than 60,000 people living along the east bank of Lake Maracaibo who are at risk from a serious disaster.  In the event of a large tremor, the Lagunillas protection wall could break and expose the people to dangerous flooding.  A relocation plan was developed more than 15 years ago.  The plan involved preparation of the community for an eventual disaster and evacuation contingencies.  As a matter of fact the authorities developed an alarm system and they had organized predetermined evacuation routes and secure relocation sites. 

Up to now, however, the authorities have only relocated between 10,000 and 15,000 people.  It seems to me that the relocation could have been carried out better in both quantitative and qualitative terms.  The point is that a technocratic vision still predominates when it comes to dealing with communities.  There should be more attention paid to social and environmental concerns, so that the relocation is carried out with a human face and not just in accordance with economic criteria. 

 

Moreover, through my discussions with local inhabitants I understand that the disaster contingency plans and alarm system was abandoned three years ago.  I have spoken with some PDVSA staff and they seem surprisingly uninformed about this serious matter.  A little while ago I spoke to a woman engineer from PDVSA.  When I brought up the issue of the Lagunillas protection wall and security risks she said no, that wall is not a risk, this wall is completely safe. This attitude indicates to me that something is gravely wrong. 

 

I believe that greater popular participation could minimize the risk of an eventual disaster.  If the Chavez government really takes its rhetoric seriously and promotes popular participation, this is the moment for greater dialogue on safety issues.

 

NK:  Through ICLAM, I was able to tour the PDVSA installations at Lagunillas and the control room which monitors seismic activity.  Outside of actually relocating people, is there anything else that PDVSA could do to protect the population? 

 

JH:  From a technical standpoint there's not much you can do.  We as environmentalists however pose the question of whether all this oil exploration along the east coast of Lake Maracaibo, which has affected 60,000 people and put communities at risk, has been worthwhile in a human sense.  We ask if the costs have been lesser or greater than the benefits.

 

Mining and The Sierra of Perija

 

NK:  What has been the situation within the Sierra of Perija and coal mining?

 

JH:  President Chavez once offered to halt coal production in light of the environmental disaster that would result.  Venezuelan coal production certainly pales beside domestic oil production in economic terms.  What is the advantage that coal mining brings for the Venezuelan economy and the Venezuelan people? 

 

Coal mining, from the outset, has caused considerable environmental destruction.  Not just that, but it's also affected the miners.  Workers have fallen sick with lung disease as a result of their work in the mines.  These workers have spent practically their entire lives in the mines and they are going to die young. 

 

I have also observed that around the mines, the rivers and forests have been destroyed.  Mining doesn't benefit the people nor the indigenous communities in the vicinity which have lost their agricultural way of life as a result of harmful ecological destruction. 

 

While it is true that the money from coal extraction has been used by Chavez for positive social works, the problem has to do with cost and benefit.  I wonder whether it is legitimate to destroy nature to favor a majority which is socially marginalized.  One must consider the plight of the next generation, the sons and daughters of the people who may benefit today.  What will they do when they find that the natural resource base has been destroyed?

 

NK: During my time at the ICLAM conference, I heard someone from the local development agency CORPOZULIA give a talk about ambitious new port facilities in the state of Zulia.  Could you comment about it and explain how it ties into the question of mining?

 

JH:  Currently we confront another environmental threat in the form of a newly proposed project, Bolivar Port.  Corpozulia and Bolivar Port are both linked to coal exploitation.  As a matter of fact, Corpozulia actually owns mining concessions.  This port which has been proposed for the mouth of Lake Maracaibo and the Gulf of Venezuela would prove catastrophic for mangrove vegetation in the area.  Suspiciously, we environmentalists have observed that many figures from the pre-Chavez era are pushing this project.  Investors and officials who are in favor of the port project sit on the government commission.  That is to say the same people who are interested in exploiting coal, which contributed to the displacement of Indians in the Sierra of Perija and the pollution of the soil and rivers, now proclaim that they are brothers of the Bolivarian Revolution. 

 

Lake Maracaibo and Duckweed

 

NK: What is the cause of the proliferating duckweed vegetation which has become a major environmental hazard in Lake Maracaibo? 

 

JH:  I believe that duckweed is not a chronic problem, because it abruptly emerged in 2003 and this points to sudden causes.  Sudden in the sense of an enormous deposit of nutrients in the lake, and a new economic component.  I believe that the new source of nutrients is the shrimp companies which proliferated in Lake Maracaibo starting in 2000.  Half the shrimp companies that exist in Venezuela operate in Lake Maracaibo.  Shrimp farming is sufficiently prolific to give rise to excess nutrients and the duckweed phenomenon.  I believe that ICLAM has sufficient data to prove this to be the case but doesn't pursue the matter for economic and political reasons.

 

NK: How has the Chavez government handled the duckweed problem?

 

JH: I think the official policy in relation to duckweed has been far from desirable.  We are dealing with a government that has revolutionary pretensions, but the Ministry of Environment adopts classic political posturing from the Fourth Republic [prior to Chavez's election] period.  In other words, only the experts know about this problem, while the communities are passive observers, assigned to pick up duckweed which provides employment for the community. 

 

The Chavez government says that environmental damage is inevitable and results from progress.  The government has even claimed that duckweed is beneficial, that it is good news for us.  Chavez, in 2003, said that the duckweed was benign.  The government said that duckweed would be very good for the population because it was going to serve as food for animals, and that it was almost a gift.

 

Fishermen, who number about 10,000-12,000 in Zulia, have been most affected by the duckweed phenomena.  Every year, every time that we go into the rainy season, duckweed invades the beaches.  Duckweed affects people living on the banks of the lake.  It is always the poorest fishermen who are most adversely affected, not the investors in the fish industry. 

 

Paradox of the Petro State

 

NK: Chavez constantly denounces the U.S. for wasteful consumerism and has warned of the green house effect.  But the irony is that Venezuela continues to be a major world oil producer.  Do you think Venezuela should be moving away from oil, in sync with the growing rhetoric?

 

JH:  I don't believe the peak oil theory is a fantasy; I think that by 2050 we will have exhausted oil as a viable energy resource and we will have to rely on new sources of energy.  What will happen to Venezuela, if we are not prepared to live from anything else besides oil?  In the next fifty years we should be going through a process of transition, to substitute oil for another source of energy.  I think from a scientific and technical standpoint we are not doing sufficiently enough to look for oil alternatives.  But the U.S. and its European partners are heading towards the substitution of oil.  And I believe the new energy paradigm will be hydrogen. 

 

In Venezuela we have developed a technological innovation.  It's a new way to take advantage of oil, in the sense of producing energy with less resulting pollution.  Venezuela could be a great producer of orimulsion, a product resulting from the mixture of water and heavy oil.  Orimulsion is less polluting than coal.  I don't understand why we produce coal, which is destroying the Sierra of Perija and the indigenous communities there, when we could develop orimulsion production plants.  We could develop orimulsion, which could compete with coal on the world market.  I am saddened that within the Chavez government officials have not chosen to sufficiently take advantage of orimulsion.

 

Jorge Hinestroza is professor of sociology at the University of Zulia.

Articles touting Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's political successes and social programs are a dime a dozen on left wing Web sites these days.  When I was researching my own book, Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and The Challenge To The U.S. (recently released by St. Martin's Press), I read a lot of these accounts and began to develop an exceedingly idealistic idea of what was happening in Venezuela.  Having just returned from an extended six week trip to the country, however, I feel that the political and social landscape is a lot murkier and more ambiguous than many have suggested.

 

As an admittedly "left wing tourist," I had the fortunate opportunity to participate in a delegation organized by Witness For Peace, a Washington, D.C. based group which has been working for more than twenty years to halt U.S. interventionism in Latin America.  As a member or our delegation, I had the rare privilege to interview figures from across the political spectrum.  After the delegation left, I stayed and conducted more interviews on my own. 

 

Housing: A Mixed Picture

 

One of the most daunting issues facing the Chavez government has been the dire shortage of housing in the country.  All over surrounding Caracas, brick houses lean precariously off the side of steep and eroded hillsides. 

 

To really get a sense of the magnitude of the problem one must first travel to the state of Vargas.  Located about an hour from Caracas by car, Vargas spans the coast and has a brutal tropical climate.  Today, the state is still reeling from a tragic natural disaster which occurred years ago.

 

On December 14, 1999 intense rains fell across the state.  For four days, the rains continued.  On the 17th, massive landslides shook the area, with rivers of dirt and mud falling down the mountain slopes.  The avalanche brought with it collapsed houses, creating a human catastrophe of epic proportions. 

 

Traveling with my delegation to the site of the devastation, we saw a gully where the landslide had washed out houses, mud and earth.  A group of construction workers were laboring in the torrid heat.  They were removing rocks from the area and building a dike further down below. 

We spoke to a middle aged Afro-Colombian woman whose house was severely damaged by the landslide.  "When the landslide arrived," she told us, "it took everything away and anything that was left we had to sell in order to eat." 

 

To the side of the gully, there were still people living in rudimentary cinder block houses with no access to public services.  There was no garbage pick up, forcing local residents to burn their refuse in a gigantic pile.  Looking up the side of the hill, I feared that the earth might collapse on top of the houses in the event of further heavy rains.

 

Seven years later, local residents in the area complained that the government still had not processed their paperwork so they might relocate to safer housing away from the disaster area.  One young man with three children said that he and his family were ready to relocate, but that the authorities had delayed and delayed. 

 

"Chavez has never come here to see what's going on," he complained bitterly.

To be fair, the housing problem predates Chavez's arrival as president.  Prior to his election, there was a great scarcity of housing in the country.  The Vargas tragedy, which occurred scarcely a year into Chavez's first term, compounded the housing situation yet further. 

Nevertheless, the government has brought some relief and has enjoyed some notable successes.

 

Traveling in a blue van rented by our delegation, we traveled to the state of Miranda near Caracas.  There, we saw a model housing program called Ciudad Miranda, consisting of dozens of tall apartment blocks and smaller houses.  A local guide explained that people had been relocated to Ciudad Miranda from unsafe housing in Caracas and Vargas.  Once residents were ensconced in Ciudad Miranda and had been awarded an apartment, they would have twenty years to pay back government housing loans. 

 

As I walked up to the apartment blocks, I noticed that on the first floor many residents had set up cooperative businesses.  According to our local guide, the government had provided start up money for the new cooperatives.  What is more, on one corner the authorities had almost finished constructing a local school.

 

I spoke with the owners of one local grocery who had been refugees from Vargas.  They told me of their harrowing tale of escape, and how their entire house had been swept away by the landslide.  The residents were pleased to have left Vargas behind, but Ciudad Miranda was not immune from social problems. 

 

Store owners told us that some people had moved into Ciudad Miranda without proper documentation and there was little security in the housing complex.  Additionally, from a purely aesthetic point of view Ciudad Miranda left something to be desired: the apartment blocks were unattractive, and the small houses were not much more appealing.

 

On the other hand, in the hills surrounding the town of Charallave in the state of Miranda, the government has tried a different approach.  There, the authorities have built housing on a much smaller, human scale.  Local residents had traded in their ranchitos or rudimentary shacks for charming looking houses. 

 

I admired one house, freshly painted on the outside in red and white.  Walking inside I observed a modern kitchen and bathroom.  The local woman who was set to move in to the house beamed proudly as she guided us around the premises.  She denied that there had been any favoritism in the allocation of housing and that members of the Chavez opposition would be able to acquire a house. 

 

On the other hand, it had been a battle to get the authorities to construct the housing.  According to our guide, the authorities had only been spurred to construct the new houses after local residents mobilized and successfully lobbied the media to draw attention to their plight.      

 

Back in Caracas, I asked Rafael Uzcategui, the media coordinator of the human rights group Provea, what he made of the government housing program.  My old acquaintance was critical of the authorities for what he called an overly quantitative approach.  "The government says it will build, say 100,000 houses.  But more thought needs to go into planning.  New housing needs to be more conveniently located to services, employment, and medical facilities." 

Rafael was also critical of government inefficiency.  Recently, he said, the housing minister was sacked after only one year.  Whenever a fresh minister was appointed the new official would bring a different agenda and separate programs, thus encouraging bureaucratic inefficiency and waste.

 

Seven Years After: Chavez's Mixed Record

 

During a meeting with our delegation, Marino Alvarado, the coordinator at Provea, soberly evaluated Chavez's tenure in office.  While Chavez's victory in 1998 held out the possibility of overcoming traditional social problems, after seven years of the Chavez regime many hopes had not been satisfied. 

 

"There are some policies that are very positive," Marino remarked.  However, he added, "in other areas things are pretty much the same." 

 

Marino conceded that there was a great willingness within the government to help the poorest and historically most marginalized sectors of society.  On the other hand, there was great government inefficiency and "the willingness on the government's part to carry out policies is not enough to make the policies happen."

 

Marino explained that the country was awash in oil money, and people's expectations were high.  However, due to inefficiency public discontent was mounting.

 

"There's a lot of social protest," Marino told us, "calling on the government to comply with promises that haven't been met.  These are not opposition protests against Chavez, we're talking about sectors of the population that are supportive of the government.  They are calling for the authorities to actually implement programs.  They are calling for the right to health care, the right to housing, the right to work."

 

Leaning forward, Marino confided to us, "if you go to the presidential palace right now I'm sure you'll find people there.  Every day there is another protest."

 

Chavez had been fortunate in that he'd enjoyed a kind of cult of personality.  When something went wrong, Marino said, the poor tended to blame inefficient government bureaucrats and not the president.  The problem was that cases of corruption were mounting at the highest levels of government. 

 

Politically, Marino said, Chavez would win the December presidential election. 

 

However, he added, "there could be a moment when people start to point to Chavez as the figure that's responsible for government inefficiency.  If there aren't solutions to social problems very soon, it would not be strange to think that there might be a popular uprising against the president."

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