Nikolas Kozloff

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has never lacked a sense of theatricality -- that is for sure. He recently shocked his diplomatic counterparts in the middle of a Latin American summit held in Caracas. In the midst of the proceedings Chávez turned to his ally, Bolivian President Evo Morales, and remarked "You brought me coca, I want the coca that Evo produces there."

 

Chávez's stimulant of choice is coffee. A year and a half ago, I saw him speak at Cooper Union in New York. At one point, he paused in the middle of his speech to drink a cup of espresso. Chávez, who is totally hyperactive, is reportedly a caffeine fiend and sleeps very little. Now, however, the Venezuelan leader's favorite fix seems to be changing. Before his audience of sympathetic Latin leaders, Chávez popped a coca leaf into his mouth
while defending use of the plant.

"Capitalism and international mafias have converted (it) into cocaine, but coca is not cocaine," Chávez remarked. Bolivian President Evo Morales, himself a former labor leader of a coca growers' union, had personally brought the coca leaves to Caracas for Chávez. In recent years, Chávez has sought to further his strategic alliance with Bolivia in an effort to further his socialist agenda and to counteract U.S. economic and political influence. 

 

"I knew you wouldn't let me down, my friend, I was running out," Chávez said as he received the leaves from Morales. 

 

As Chávez chewed the coca, he drew applause from the audience.

 

Even before the Caracas summit, Caracas had revealed that he chewed coca "every day in the
morning." The Venezuelan leader said that he received ice cream and other items from Fidel Castro, but Morales sent him coca paste.

 

Coca paste is a highly addictive substance made from coca leaves that serves as a base for cocaine.  It is sometimes smoked -- not chewed -- by drug users. Apparently Chávez misspoke and meant instead to say that he chews coca leaves, which have been used for centuries by indigenous peoples in the Andean highlands to boost energy and ward off
hunger.

 

"I Recommend Coca"

Coca leaf, which was domesticated over 4,000 years ago, is usually chewed with a bitter wood-ash paste to bring out the stimulant properties, which are similar to caffeine or nicotine. For Andean Indians, coca leaf is closely tied to the spiritual world.  Offerings to Pachamama, the Mother Earth, begin in August to scare away malevolent spirits of the dry season and to encourage a good harvest. Offerings consist of llama foetuses, sweets of various colors, coca leaf and other herbs. The yatiri, or indigenous priest, burns the offerings in a bonfire while
muttering prayers to the achachilas, Gods that inhabit the mountains.

 

Chávez has praised the health benefits of chewing coca and refers to the plant as the sacred leaf of Bolivia's Aymara Indians. In a speech delivered to the Venezuelan National Assembly
no less, Chávez brazenly remarked "I recommend it [coca] to you" (Chávez's admission prompted a Venezuelan opposition leader to accuse the Venezuelan leader of being a "drug consumer." Chávez, charged the politician, ought to submit to a drug test). In his search to legitimize and rehabilitate coca leaf, Chávez has been joined by Morales. The Bolivian President says that coca in its natural state does not harm human health, and that scientific research has demonstrated that the plant is "healthy."

 

When drug smugglers change coca into cocaine, Morales says, they change the plant's chemical composition. While Morales condemns such practices, he also touts the commercial uses of coca leaf. In a riff on Chávez's earlier misstatements, Morales said that one could indeed consume coca in paste form, that is, through coca toothpaste.

 

In praising the therapeutic properties of coca leaf, Morales echoes claims made by the Coca
Research Institute in La Paz. According to the organization, coca has nutritional and pharmaceutical uses. For example, coca flour is rich in iron and helps balance blood sugar. Additionally, coca tea can counter altitude sickness. David Choquehuanca, Bolivia's foreign minister, claims that coca leaf is so nutritious that it should be included on school breakfast menus.

 

"Coca has more calcium than milk," he told the Bolivian newspaper La Razón. An eight ounce glass of milk contains 300 milligrams of calcium. According to a 1975 study conducted
by a group of Harvard professors, a coca leaf weighing 3.5 ounces contains 18.9 calories of protein, 45.8 milligrams of iron, 1540 milligrams of calcium and vitamins A, B1, B2, E and C, which is more than most nuts.

 

"Before, the coca leaf was totally satanized, penalized," Morales has said. "But we respect the doctors and scientists who have begun to industrialize it." During the colonial period the Spaniards looked upon coca leaf as a symbol of native people's inferiority, but today Morales employs coca as a potent political symbol. When speaking before adoring crowds, he drapes a garland of coca leaves around his neck and wears a straw hat layered with more coca.

 

Morales has even appointed Felipe Cáceres, a coca growers' union leader, as his point man in halting drug trafficking. Those types of moves play well at home, where the cocalero movement preaches indigenous ethnic pride as well as anti-globalization.  On the floor of congress, representatives of the cocaleros frequently deliver speeches in native languages while chewing coca.

 

Life in the Coca Market

Currently under the Morales administration, coca in its natural state is sold through markets established and controlled by the government. The regulation forms part of a government plan to industrialize and export coca to other countries such as Argentina.  Under the initiative, legally established companies, cooperatives, or organizations may opt to acquire coca, according to the quantity needed for consumption, from legal markets without any interference from retailers.

 

Though Bolivian officials claim not to possess information about the relative importance of coca in the Bolivian economy, clearly the leaf plays a vital role for many. The Adepcoca market in La Paz is the largest coca market in the country. A constant stream of poor Indians arrives here, day and night, seven days a week, to weigh and sell coca.  Women dressed in traditional Aymara clothing haul 23-kilo taquis,or sacks of coca leaves, to waiting vans. All the buyers are registered and the coca they buy is supposed to be used for chewing or tea.

 

Morales recently inaugurated the first coca industrialization plant in the town of Chulumani. The plant will produce and package coca and trimate (herbal tea made out of anise, chamomile, and coca leaves). In a snub at Washington, Chávez has even donated $125,000 to the Chulumani coca industrialization plant.

 

Chávez and Morales Speak Out Against the Drug War

Morales claims that the United States seeks to intervene in Latin American countries by playing up the drug war. Washington's policy, Morales has charged, is merely "a great imperialist instrument for geopolitical control." The Bolivian President argues that the only way to do away with drug trafficking is to cut off demand. Currently under Bolivian law, 29,600 acres of coca may be cultivated for traditional use and consumption.

Though Morales is expected to receive $30 million for coca eradication in Bolivia in 2008, his incendiary rhetoric and toleration of limited coca cultivation does not go over well in Washington.  To make matters worse, Chávez has long charged that the United States is destabilizing the Andean region by funding the drug war and arming the Colombian
military.

 

Colombian violence has in turn spilled across the Venezuelan border, creating chaos and lawlessness. The Venezuelan authorities combat drug trafficking, but Chávez has long
since severed any collaboration with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).  He has also moved to prohibit U.S. over flights of Venezuelan airspace to combat drug trafficking and has railed against aerial fumigation of coca leaf in Colombia.

Washington has hit back, claiming that Venezuela does not do enough to combat the drug trade. According to U.S. officials, Venezuela has become a key transshipment point for Colombian cocaine.

 

Chávez Promotes Cultural Independence

Surely, by attacking the drug war Chávez scores points amongst many in the region who view U.S. militarization as a menace. But by going even further and promoting coca leaf as
a cultural symbol, Chávez hopes to encourage cultural nationalism in South America in opposition to the United States.

For years, the Venezuelan leader has railed against the homogeneity of U.S.-inspired globalization. Chávez denounces shopping malls and rejects consumerism while promoting Venezuelan art and music. Under the Law of Social Responsibility, 50 percent of what DJs play must be Venezuelan music. What's more, under a cultural law approved in 2004, at least 50 percent of all that music must be "folkloric."  As a result of the new laws, llanero (rat-a-tat ballads or mournful love songs from the Plains region) and gaita (lilting music from the city
of Maracaibo) musicians have been doing a thriving business.  Chávez has even founded his own publishing house, El Perro y La Rana, which publishes books on Marxism.

 

Meanwhile the government has promoted Ávila TV, a cultural TV station.  Additionally, Chávez has inaugurated a spanking new film studio, Villa del Cine, designed to encourage the growth of Venezuelan and Latin American cinema as a counterweight to Hollywood.

 

Encouraging Latin American Cultural Nationalism

By rehabilitating the coca plant, Chávez also hopes to foster cultural unity amongst sympathetic regimes throughout the region. Chávez's ALBA (or Bolivarian Alternative
for The Americas), a counterweight to U.S.-sponsored free trade schemes such as the FTAA (or Free Trade Area of The Americas) is an initiative which promotes reciprocity, solidarity, and barter trade amongst left wing Latin American nations such as Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia.  In recent years, Chávez has sent oil to Cuba. In exchange, Fidel Castro sent health professionals to Venezuela who attended to millions of poor Venezuelans.

 

ALBA, however, also has an important cultural component. In early 2006, Venezuela and Cuba agreed to set up a cultural fund under the scheme. The two countries will create an ALBA publishing house designed to showcase the work of prominent intellectuals and also promote an ALBA record label. Other South American countries have expressed interest in signing cultural agreements with Venezuela. Francisco Sesto, the Venezuelan Minister of Popular Power for Culture, is particularly interested in setting up a network of "ALBA houses" in Buenos Aires, Quito, and  La Paz.  More than mere bookstores, exhibit halls, or movie theaters, the ALBA houses would spur dialog among intellectuals in the region and facilitate integration of peoples throughout the hemisphere.

 

During a recent gathering, the ministers of culture from Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia met to discuss their future plans. Abel Prieto, the Cuban minister, described the countries of the region as locked in a struggle to preserve their cultural diversity against the forces of globalization.

 

"The defense of our own multiple identities and traditions is a priority," Prieto
said. "It was a necessity," he added, "to confront racism as well as all forms of colonization and exclusion."

In the wake of President Hugo Chávez’s stinging defeat in Sunday’s constitutional referendum, it’s incumbent on the South American left to take stock of events in Venezuela and learn from the Chavistas’ mistakes. It’s the first time that Chávez has lost an electoral contest, and the Venezuelan President no longer looks as invulnerable as he has in the past. Foreign policy hawks in Washington will surely feel emboldened by yesterday’s electoral debacle in Venezuela; they may see it as an opportunity to go on the offensive and to turn back many of the progressive accomplishments of the Bolivarian Revolution. It’s a dangerous time for the South American left, which must guard against U.S. machinations as well as its own domestic right opposition while simultaneously avoiding the pitfalls of demagogic populism.

Having recently won reelection to a six year term by a wide margin, Chávez had the opportunity to deepen the process of social and economic change occurring throughout the country. But his constitutional referendum confused voters with a host of contradictory measures. The opposition did not increase its voter share, but was able to squeek out a tiny margin of victory when some of the Chávez faithful grew disenchanted and failed to turn out to vote. True, the U.S. Agency for International Development funded vocal anti-Chávez students who campaigned against the referendum and the CIA could have played a role in helping to strengthen the opposition. But no matter how much the Venezuelan President railed against the United States and outside interference, ultimately the Chavistas lost because of their own tactical missteps. What went wrong?

Though Chávez and his followers had already enacted a new constitution in 1999, the President claimed that the document was in need of an overhaul so as to pave the way for a new socialist state. Chávez sought to reduce the workweek from 44 to 36 hours; to provide social security to informal sector workers such as housewives, street vendors and maids; to shift political power to grassroots communal councils; to bar discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or health; to extend formal recognition to Afro-Venezuelan people; to require gender parity for all public offices; to formalize the right to adequate housing and a free public education; to protect the full rights of prisoners, and to create new types of property managed by cooperatives and communities. The progressive provisions, certainly glossed over in the mainstream American media, would have done much to challenge entrenched interests in Venezuela and encourage the growth of a more egalitarian and democratic society based on social, gender, racial, and economic equality.

Unfortunately, Chávez sabotaged any hope of success by simultaneously seeking to enhance his own personal power. Over the past few years, the fundamental contradiction of the Bolivarian Revolution has been the constant tension between grassroots empowerment, on the one hand, and the cult of personality surrounding Chávez, on the other. In pressing for his constitutional referendum, Chávez played right into the hands of the opposition. Under the provisions, Chávez could declare a state of emergency and the government would have the right to detain individuals without charge and to close down media outlets. Chávez’s own term limit would be extended from six to seven years, and he would be allowed the right to run indefinitely for president. On the other hand, inconsistently, governors and mayors would not be allowed to run for reelection. Perhaps, if Chávez had merely backed the progressive provisions within the referendum and not tried to increase his own power, the vote would have tipped the other way. But by backing the retrograde measures, Chávez gave much needed ammunition to the opposition.

It’s a severe setback for Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution, but does not necessarily represent a total rout. Chávez still retains the presidency until 2012, and the Chavistas control the National Assembly, state governments, and the courts. While opposition media such as Globovisión routinely attack Chávez, the government has been able to level the playing field somewhat through sponsorship of state media. What’s more, the opposition, which has historically enjoyed little credibility, still lacks a charismatic leader who might rival Chávez in stature and popularity.

On the other hand the opposition, having sensed victory, might launch another recall referendum in 2010, halfway into Chávez’s term in office. Meanwhile, for the Venezuelan President prominent defections from within the Chavista ranks such as General Raúl Baduel must come as an alarming sign. It would be tempting for the State Department to try and pry off former Chavistas in an effort to derail the Chávez experiment (if it hasn’t already tried). If a well known figure such as Baduel or an ex- Chavista like him should emerge, he might garner more of a popular following than polarizing figures from the more traditional opposition. A more moderate ex-Chavista politician, if he or she ever succeeded in coming to power, could do a lot of damage by derailing radical reform under the guise of reconciliation and bringing pro- and anti- Chávez forces together.

In order to head off political disaster, Chávez must take immediate measures to ensure that yesterday’s victory doesn’t turn into a future rout. While the cult of personality around Chávez helped to solidify his movement in the early years, his demagogic populism and centralizing tendencies have now become a serious liability and must be jettisoned as soon as possible. If he follows through on promises of fostering greater "participatory democracy" through the more progressive measures called for under the referendum for example, then he may be able to prevent the opposition from turning the clock back on the Chávez experiment.

Failure to do so would almost surely have dire political consequences for the entire region. For all its internal contradictions, ridiculous missteps and even failures, Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution remains the most progressive hope for change in the hemisphere. If it should sputter or get somehow derailed, then Brazil would become the dominant South American player and would advance a much more conservative social agenda. As I describe in my upcoming book, Revolution! South America and The Rise of the New Left (Palgrave Macmillan, April, 2008), there is now a kind of battle for hearts and minds in the region; it’s a contest to see which nation can have the most influence on the smaller countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Right now Chávez, who seeks to reverse U.S.-style "neo-liberal" economic initiatives, enjoys warm economic and political ties with Bolivia and Ecuador, two nations which are advancing a more radical political and social agenda. In contrast to Chávez, Brazilian President Lula favors something called the "Santiago Consensus," a kind of watered down neo-liberalism with a human face and some social protections. The idea of Brazil taking the regional lead with help from U.S. ally Chile is a depressing prospect. On the other hand, if Chávez can learn from yesterday’s debacle and successfully re-energize his political movement, then Venezuela could still represent a strong countervailing force within South America. If he fails, then Bolivia and Ecuador, chronically unstable nations facing strong domestic right wing opposition, will be isolated and the prospects for spearheading a more radical social agenda throughout the hemisphere will be greatly reduced.

It’s been almost two hundred years since Venezuela first declared its independence from Spain, but over the past few days Hugo Chávez stoked Venezuelan nationalism again by attacking King Juan Carlos of Spain. The spat, which could damage diplomatic relations between the two nations, began over the weekend during a hemispheric summit held in Santiago, Chile, during which Chávez called ex-Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar a "fascist." In one of his typical rhetorical flourishes, Chávez added, "fascists are not human. A snake is more human."

Moving to damp down the escalating rhetoric, Spanish Prime Minister José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero then remarked: "[Former Prime Minister] Aznar was democratically elected by the Spanish people and was a legitimate representative of the Spanish people." Insensed, Chávez wouldn’t let go. Though his microphone was turned off, the Venezuelan leader repeatedly tried to interrupt.

Finally, Juan Carlos leaned forward and said, "Why don’t you shut up?" According to reports, in addressing Chávez Juan Carlos did not use the formal mode of address in Spanish known as usted but rather the familiar form or tú, which is generally reserved for close acquaintances or children, not a head of state.

Aznar and the 2002 Coup

The summit ended in fiasco, as Juan Carlos stormed out of the meeting while Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega rushed to embrace and defend Chávez. Meanwhile, Chávez said the king was "imprudent" and asked if Juan Carlos knew in advance of the brief coup against him in April, 2002. As he left Santiago, Chávez openly questioned whether Spain’s ambassador had appeared with Venezuelan interim president Pedro Carmona during the 2002 coup with Juan Carlos’s blessing.

"Mr King, did you know about the coup d’etat against Venezuela, against the democratic, legitimate government of Venezuela in 2002?" he asked. "It’s very hard to imagine the Spanish ambassador would have been at the presidential palace supporting the coup plotters without authorisation from his majesty," he insinuated. The Spanish paper El Mundo quoted Chávez as saying that the king had "got very mad, like a bull. But I’m a great bullfighter – olé!" The Venezuelan firebrand added, "I think it’s imprudent for a king to shout at a president to shut up. Mr King, we are not going to shut up."

Though Chávez enjoys warm ties to the socialist Zapatero, the Venezuelan leader has long lambasted the previous Spanish regime. During Bush’s first term the United States enjoyed a willing foreign partner in Spain. José María Aznar, who had reorganized Spanish conservatives into the People’s Party (Partido Popular or PP) had been Prime Minister of Spain since 1996. Though Chávez exaggerated in calling Aznar a fascist, the Spanish politician’s family certainly had clear fascist ties. Aznar’s grandfather, in fact, served as Franco’s ambassador to Morocco and the United Nations and his father was a pro-Franco journalist.

In 2002, Aznar was Washington’s willing ally in opposing Chávez. Prior to the April 12 coup, Venezuelan businessman Carmona visited high level government officials in Madrid as well as prominent Spanish businessmen. Though it’s unclear whether Juan Carlos gave his blessing as Chávez suggested, once the coup had been carried out Carmona called Aznar and met with the Spanish ambassador in Caracas, Manuel Viturro de la Torre. The Spanish ambassador was accompanied at the meeting by the U.S. Ambassador, Charles Shapiro. As Chávez languished in a military barracks during the coup, PP parliamentary spokesman Gustavo de Arístegui wrote an article in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo supporting the coup. According to anonymous diplomatic sources who spoke with Inter Press Service, the Spanish foreign ministry holds documents which reveal the Spanish role. The documents reportedly prove that de la Torre had written instructions from the Aznar government to recognize Carmona as the new president of Venezuela.

Diplomatic Fall Out

The diplomatic tit-for-tat continued after the coup. After defeating the coup attempt, Chávez detained the president of Fedecámaras, Carlos Fernández, who was accused of helping to foment a lock out which reduced oil output in 2002-03. Fernández was charged with inciting unrest and sedition. In February 2003 Ana Palacio, the Spanish Minister of External Affairs, criticized the detention. During his Sunday radio and TV show, Chávez angrily shot back that Spain should not interfere in Venezuela’s internal affairs. "We must respect each other," said Chávez. "Don’t get involved in our things and we won’t involve ourselves in your things. Is it necessary to remember that the Spanish ambassador was here applauding the April coup?" Chávez added, "Aznar, please, each one in his own place."

The diplomatic chill continued late into 2003 when Aznar criticized Chávez for adopting "failed models" like those of Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Chávez retorted that Aznar’s statements were "unacceptable" and added that "perhaps Aznar thinks he is Fernando VII and we are still a colony. No, Carabobo [a battle of independence] already happened. Aznar, Ayacucho [another battle during the wars of independence] already occurred. The Spanish empire was already thrown out of here almost 200 years ago Aznar. Let those who stick their noses in Venezuela take note that we will not accept it." In a further snub Chávez stated that Aznar should respond to the Spanish public which protested PP support for the invasion of Iraq. "He should definitely take responsibility for that," Chávez concluded.

Miguel Angel Moratinos, the Spanish Foreign Minister, has accused the previous PP administration of supporting the failed coup d’etat against Chávez in April 2002. Speaking on the Spanish TV program 59 Segundos, Moratinos remarked that Aznar’s policy in Venezuela "was something unheard of in Spanish diplomacy, the Spanish ambassador received instructions to support the coup." Before the cameras Moratinos declared, "That won’t happen in the future, because we respect the popular will." Adding fuel to the fire Chávez remarked "I have no doubt that it [the Spanish involvement] happened. It was a very serious error on the part of the former government." Chávez declared that Venezuela had no problem with the PP nor with Spain, and that for a brief moment the two countries enjoyed good relations. But later Aznar’s political as well as personal views changed. "With Aznar," Chávez stated memorably, "there was neither chemistry, nor physics, nor math."

Needless to say, Chávez’s retort to Juan Carlos has not been embraced by all. In Spain, the press has rushed to defend the King against Chávez, while the Spanish community in Venezuela called for a protest march against the President. Peru and Chile, strong U.S. allies in the region, have also expressed support for Juan Carlos and have criticized Chávez’s reaction at the summit.

Still, Chávez has gained welcome political mileage from the incident, which has stoked unpleasant memories of Spanish monarchical rule. United Left, a Spanish political party, qualified Juan Carlos’ statements as "excessive." Willy Meyer, spokesperson for the party, said that Juan Carlos behaved as if he was still in the 15th or 16th centuries. "The King can’t tell the Spanish President to shut up," he said, "and doesn’t have the right to do this to others outside of Spain."

For the past eight years, Chávez has sought to build up the cult of Simón Bolívar, a Venezuelan who liberated the country from Spanish rule. Books on Bolívar are selling like hotcakes in Caracas, hardly surprising in light of the political importance which Chávez has attached to Bolívar in his public speeches. By attacking Juan Carlos, Chávez may cast himself as a true Venezuelan patriot fighting against the domineering attitude of the old Spanish Empire. It’s a move that plays well to the Chavista base and Venezuelans’ sense of national pride.

When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez recently took his oath of office for a second term, he swore it in the name of Jesus Christ, who he called "the greatest socialist of history."  It's hardly an accident that Chavez would hark on Christianity in addressing his people.  For years, Venezuela has been a religious battleground, with Chavez pursuing a combative relationship with the Catholic Church. 

 

In Venezuela, Catholics have a potent political voice and make up about 70% of the country's population.  Ever since taking office in 1999, Chavez has repeatedly clashed with the clergy.  The President frequently chastised Venezuelan bishops, accusing them of complicity with corrupt administrations that preceded his rule.

 

To a certain extent, a clash was inevitable.  Unlike some other Latin American countries which were characterized by so-called liberation theology, the Venezuelan Church has never had a leftist tendency.  According to observers, as few as one in 10 priests identify with the left and out of more than 50 bishops only a handful are sympathetic to Chavez.

 

The Venezuelan Church: A Bastion of Conservatism

 

Despite the conservative nature of the Church, relations between the clergy and the Chavez government got off to a reasonably good start.  After he was first elected in 1998, Chavez proclaimed his devotion to the Church and Catholic social doctrine.  Venezuelan bishops in turn supported the social programs that Chavez had outlined during his presidential campaign.  Bishops welcomed Chavez's calls to end corruption, to foster a more equitable distribution of wealth, transparent voting, and an end to the ruling class' special privileges. 

 

Thing went awry, however, in July, 1999 when Chavez personally met with Monsignor Baltazar Porras at the headquarters of the Episcopal Conference.  Porras, the Archbishop of the Andean city of Merida and chairman of the Episcopal Conference, met with Chavez for two hours. Emerging from the meeting, Porras declared that the Venezuelan government had opted to cut its traditional subsidies to the Church by up to 80%.  The new rules, Porras said, would oblige clerical authorities to adjust to "the new realities of the country, and to figure out how to search for self financing."  Porras became a vocal critic of the regime; in Caracas he received the backing of the Papal Nuncio, Monsignor André Dupuy.

 

Another point of friction was Chavez's calls for a new Constitution.  Church leaders feared that Chavez's secret agenda in calling for the new constitution was the imposition of a Cuban-style communist regime.  Porras declared that Chavez was fomenting "fear and hate" and dividing Venezuelans in his campaign to draft a constitution.

 

Traveling to Merida

 

Recently I was in Caracas to give a talk and decided to take a night bus to Merida, a city located about seven hundred kilometers south-west of the capital.  I was eager to learn more about the Church in Venezuela, and how its relations had deteriorated so dramatically with Chavez.

 

I drifted off to sleep in the bus.  Climbing up and down through the mountains, the landscape was dotted with cacti.  By the next day, exhausted from the trip, I made my way to a posada or inn near the Central Square.  Five years earlier, I'd stayed in the same place while pursuing research for my dissertation on the foreign oil industry in Venezuela. 

 

Merida is a favored tourist destination and feels like a Venezuelan version of Switzerland with hotels, cyber cafes and vegetarian restaurants appealing to foreigners.  In the main square of the city, Venezuelan hippies in their twenties play guitar and sell artisan work.  Despite its traditional religious outlook, Merida also has a university which has had a long tradition of leftist politics.

 

A few days after recuperating from my long trip, I headed to the Cathedral in Merida's central square.  There, I spoke with Monsignor Alfredo Torres, General Vicar of the local Archdiocese.  A long time fixture of the local church establishment, Torres went into the seminary when he was fifteen years old. 

 

When I asked Torres how relations had deteriorated so badly between Chavez and Porras, the local clergyman explained, "The militarist, socialistic bent of the government was always a critical point for the Archbishop."

 

Church-Military Relations Break Down

 

By 2000, the role of the military had certainly become a controversial political issue.  During his first year in power, Chavez, himself a former paratrooper, faced a very unenviable political environment.  Congress and the Supreme Court were in the hands of the opposition, as were the majority of mayoral districts and governorships.  Meanwhile, oil stood at only $7 a barrel. 

In desperation, Chavez called on the armed forces to carry out ambitious public works projects---the so-called Plan Bolivar 2000.  The plan proved reportedly divisive within the military, with some soldiers feeling uncomfortable in their new social role. 

 

The Church missed no opportunity to criticize Chavez's military policy.  Caracas Archbishop Ignacio Velasco remarked publicly that "something is making the armed forces nervous."  Velasco recommended that the armed forces should meet to decide whether soldiers should have the right to express themselves openly. 

 

Furthermore, Velasco remarked sarcastically, the Minister of Defense, Ismael Hurtado Soucre, always tried to smooth over problems and make believe that nothing was wrong within the military ranks.  That elicited a sarcastic rejoinder in turn from Hurtado, who remarked that the Church certainly had its own share of problems.

 

Chavez vs. Castillo Lara

 

Chavez did not assuage the Church's fears when he declared famously that several bishops and the Vatican's former representative in Venezuela, Cardinal Rosalio Castillo Lara, had allied with the country's "rancid oligarchy."

 

"It would appear," said Chavez, "that a very small group of bishops has something personal against the President."

 

Even more inflammatory still, Chavez suggested that priests such as Castillo ought to subject themselves to an exorcism because "the devil has snuck into their clerical robes."  

 

In a personal riposte, Chavez sought to link Castillo with earlier corrupt administrations.  "Where were you when the bankers robbed more than $7,000,000,000 under the government of Rafael Caldera, your personal friend, during the financial crisis of 1994?  Did you say anything when the police massacred the people on the 27th of February [during the Caracazo, massive urban riots in Caracas in 1989]?"

 

Incensed, Castillo compared Chavez to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

 

Meanwhile, the Church grew increasingly more concerned about the Constitution, which failed to guarantee the protection of life beginning at conception.

 

War of Words Escalates: Vargas Tragedy

 

In the midst of the escalating battle over the Constitution, disaster struck when rains hit the state of Vargas, on the coast near Caracas.  I had the occasion to visit the area over this past summer, and what one is immediately struck by is the precarious housing built on steep hillsides.  When the rains hit, they created massive landslides that swept away everything.  A catastrophe of epic proportions, the Vargas rains led to the deaths of between 10 and 20,000 people.

 

In Vargas, I spoke with people who were still, seven years later, waiting to be evacuated.  Living in dilapidated housing and mired in poverty, their plight was certainly depressing.  Nevertheless, it should be said that the government carried out a Herculean job, evacuating 190,000 people.  I visited one recently built housing complex, Ciudad Miranda, which housed many of the refugees.

 

At a moment of crisis, the Church insinuated itself into the Vargas crisis by making critical public statements.  In a reference to Chavez, Archbishop Velasco remarked that the Vargas tragedy was the "wrath of God," because "the sin of pride is serious and nature itself reminds us that we don't have all the power or abilities."

 

Chavez's Papal Gambit

 

As prominent Church figures such as Castillo and Velasco became more combative, Chavez sought to override local opposition by traveling personally to Rome where he met with Pope John Paul II.  Venezuela has attached much importance to its relationship to the Vatican and has an Ambassador there. 

 

Chavez took advantage of his Papal interview to confess.  "It was extraordinary for me, a practicing Catholic," Chavez remarked, "…to have words with the Pope."

 

Chavez, who discussed controversial issues with the Pope such as abortion, also sought to court the Pontiff by emphasizing common concerns such as the "savage" neo-liberal economic order, "which had brought people to misery, especially in the Third World."

 

A month after his trip to Rome, the Papal Nuncio in Caracas, Leonardo Sandri, brought Chavez a verbal message from the Pope regarding the constitutional process in Venezuela.  According to Sandri, the Sacred See expressed its concerns about guaranteeing life from its original conception within Venezuela's new constitution. Later, Chavez met with Archbishop Velasco, who also expressed his concerns about the right to life.

 

Church-State Relations Break Down in Merida

 

Back in Merida, I query Torres about the breakdown in relations.

 

"Here in the archdiocese," Torres remarked, "we got into a very precarious financial situation.  We receive money from the parishes, cultural and academic activities and the well organized Archdiocese museum.  We get financing from private companies and banks, but the government doesn't help."

 

Torres said that the government had withdrawn funding from the archdiocese and seminary.  He claimed, moreover, that the Church had experienced some financial turmoil.  The Church, he said, had media enterprises in Merida including print, radio, and TV. 

 

However, he declared that recently El Vigilante, a Church newspaper, had been forced to close for economic reasons.  Meanwhile, the TV and radio station had very few financial resources to continue their work.

 

There were other disputes early on which set the course for future conflict.  For example, a quarrel over the Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Hospital Foundation, which had been managed by the Merida clergy since the mid 1990s, turned nasty. 

 

"The Church managed the local hospital," Torres explained.  "The government provided the money for the staff.  The archbishop sought equipment abroad.  But, the government disregarded our contract after Chavez assumed power."

 

In Merida: Porras vs. Chavez

 

According to the government, Porras was corrupt.  The Merida State Governor, Florencio Porras [a long time Chavista, retired Captain and active participant in Chavez's aborted 1992 coup against then President Carlos Andres Perez], declared that public funding as well as private donations which were supposed to go towards the maintenance of the hospital had disappeared and Baltazar Porras was responsible. 

 

Baltazar Porras shot back that there was a "witch hunt" against him.  Chavez was personally apprised of the matter and the Attorney General proceeded with an investigation into Porras' bank accounts.

 

Dramatically, the police as well as the Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services, a special police and intelligence force [known by its Spanish acronym Disip] moved into the hospital and confiscated the facility's records.  The action was coordinated by federal authorities including the office of the national Comptroller General.   

 

In a further move which antagonized the Church, state authorities actually took over the management of the Hospital Foundation.  Torres bristles when discussing the incident.  Porras, he says, was accused of being a thief when in actuality it was the state which had behaved crookedly.  The authorities, he said, confiscated the hospital's equipment. 

 

Even as the government moved to clamp down on the Church in Merida, Chavez himself was heating up the rhetoric.  The President accused Porras of being an "adeco [members of the discredited and corrupt political party Accion Democratica, which had ruled the country for years prior to Chavez's election] with a cassock."  Adding fuel to the fire, Chavez remarked that the Church was "an accomplice in corruption."

 

Papal Intrigue

 

Chavez's holy war threatened to spill over and destabilize relations with the Vatican.  In late 2000, John Paul II remarked that "a democracy without values becomes authoritarianism."  The Pope made his remarks during an accreditation ceremony for the Venezuelan Ambassador to the Vatican, Ignacio Quintana. 

 

In Venezuela, politicians tried to make sense of the Pope's comments.  Jose Vicente Rangel, the Minister of External Relations, declared that he agreed with John Paul's statement.  "In that sense I am more Popish than the Pope," Rangel said.

 

In speaking with the press, Quintana assured journalists that the Pope "respected" the Bolivarian Revolution.  The new ambassador claimed, furthermore, that high authorities within the Vatican sympathized with Chavez and the social changes taking place in Venezuela. 

 

Lurking in the background however, Porras added his own spin to John Paul's address.  When the Pope said "a democracy without values," Porras said, the Pontiff was clearly referring to Venezuela.

 

While it's unclear what the Pope exactly meant, the Vatican sought to appease conservatives by giving the nod to Ignacio Velasco.  In early 2001 the Archbishop of Caracas was named a Cardinal by the Pope.  As such, he represented a dangerous potential enemy for Chavez. 

In a gesture of congratulations for his new position, Quintana, the Venezuelan Ambassador to the Vatican, gave the Caracas Archbishop a pectoral cross made out of gold. 

 

Chavez himself traveled back to the Vatican shortly after the 9-11 attacks to meet with the Pope.  In an effort to smooth relations and emphasize common ground, Chavez remarked, "The Pope has declared in the last few days something that we have also said: that we do not support war…The war is against hunger…The Pope has said that one cannot respond to violence with more war.  I also say the same, for that reason I came to seek his guidance."

 

Lead up to coup

 

In late 2001, Chavez was confronting an angry opposition led by old guard labor, business and oil executives at the state run oil company, PdVSA.  The Church seemed to be moving towards the opposition camp.  In January, 2002 Andre Dupuy, the Papal Nuncio, told Chavez that he was worried about a possible "radicalization" of the internal conflict in Venezuela. 

 

Chavez in turn shot back that Dupuy was interfering in the country's political affairs.  In another address the same month, Chavez characterized the Church as a "tumor" on society.  A few days later, perhaps recanting that he had gone too far, Chavez invited Venezuelan bishops to participate in a dialogue, an offer the clergy rejected.

 

From there it was all downhill.  The Church joined forces with the CTV, a large labor union, and Fedecamaras, the business federation.  The outspoken Porras declared that, "governments that are democratically elected which do not comply with their promises become illegitimate."

 

The President of the Episcopal Conference added that anti-government strikes and protests, which had intensified, were not part of a conspiracy but the consequence of Chavez's own dogged behavior.

 

Chavez responded with more hyperbolic rhetoric of his own, suggesting that archbishop Velasco "pray a little" and "look into his conscience."  Speaking during his radio and TV show, Alo, Presidente!, Chavez criticized Velasco's interference in the political arena.  Chavez praised the Pope, while criticizing what he called "a small group of clergy that doesn't amount to more than five people."

 

The Chavez/Porras Interview

 

It wasn't long, however, before the "small group" actively moved into the camp of those seeking to overturn Chavez's government.  During the April 2002 coup, prominent Catholics such as Velasco sided with the opposition against the president.  Velasco, who had earlier met with Chavez during the constitutional controversy, even offered his residence as a meeting place for the coup plotters. 

 

What is more, he signed the "Carmona decree" that swept away Venezuela's democratic institutions.  Senior Catholic bishops themselves attended the inauguration ceremony for Pedro Carmona, Venezuela's Dictator-For-a-Day.   

 

In an ironic twist, Chavez personally called Porras from the presidential palace, Miraflores, and the Archbishop agreed to act as the President's personal custodian and guarantor in the midst of the coup.  On April 12, Chavez was brought to Tiuna Fort, a military facility in Caracas. 

There, at 3:40 PM Chavez was received at the doors by Porras himself as well as José Luis Azuaje, the Secretary General of the Episcopal Conference.  According to Porras, who was later interviewed by the Spanish newspaper El Pais, the two spoke for hours in the midst of the tense political situation.

 

"He [Chavez] was serene," Porras explained, "very serene, and spoke to us in an intimate, confessional tone…We wanted to give him strength and energy to examine the present and to be able to look towards the future."

 

Porras added, "Chavez asked me for forgiveness for the way he had treated me."  According to the Archbishop, Chavez moreover expressed sorrow that he had not been able to achieve a more amicable relationship with the Church.

 

Poisonous Relations Return

 

After his interview with Porras, Chavez was taken to the remote island of Orchila.  Cardinal Velasco later confirmed that he too went to Orchila, where he spoke with the Venezuelan President.  According to Velasco, Chavez forgave himself and the two reportedly even prayed together.

 

Shortly thereafter Chavez was triumphantly restored to power.  Later, he clutched a crucifix when giving evidence to a televised parliamentary commission investigating the deaths of 17 marchers who participated in an anti-government demonstration and later coup attempt.

Meanwhile, the Episcopal Conference drafted a statement condemning the "tragic occurrences" of April, 2002.  Bishops stated, however, that "in the current moment of uncertainty and tension it is necessary for the government and society to open a space for real dialogue."  Porras added that the goodwill of the president should be demonstrated with concrete deeds.

 

In an effort to appease the Church, Chavez later requested that the Church help to mediate in the ongoing conflict with the political opposition, which heated up later that year during an oil lock out.  Bizarrely, the opposition called on the Church to exorcise Chavez in an effort to counter possession by demons. 

 

Velasco, who apparently thought the request went too far, ruled out the possibility but was still critical of the government.  In the midst of the escalating war of words, John Paul II called for peace and reconciliation.

 

Whatever goodwill had existed following the coup quickly dissipated.  Chavez later stated that "there are bishops from the Catholic Church who knew a coup was on the way, and they used church installations to bring coup plotters together ... those clerics are immoral and spokesmen for the opposition." 

 

Meanwhile, a government commission recommended that the Attorney General's office open an investigation into Cardinal Velasco and Baltazar Porras for presumed participation in the April coup.  Velasco claimed to have received death threats.  When the Cardinal died about a year after the coup, removing one of the key opposition figures in the Church, riot police had to disperse crowds with rubber bullets at the funeral. 

 

As the funeral procession proceeded, Chavez supporters shouted insults such as "Justice has been done---he was a coup plotter!", and "The rats bury their rat!" Reportedly, pro-government demonstrators also stormed the cathedral where Velasco lay in state. 

 

Merida: an Embattled City

 

During the tumultuous days after the coup, Porras found himself besieged even within his home town of Merida.  A manifesto soon appeared in the city, published by the "Revolutionary Justice, Truth and Dignity Movement." 

 

In the pamphlet, the group declared that Porras was persona non grata, a traitor and a political fanatic.  The manifesto claimed that Porras was "a destructive, disruptive, agitating, subversive element" for society.  The group also attacked Velasco, who was referred to as "Judas."

 

In late 2002, Porras was verbally insulted by Chavez followers in the Merida State Legislature.  Porras had been invited to speak on the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Merida Cardinal Jose Humberto Quintero.  Chavez officials from the State Legislature held banners and interrupted the proceedings by shouting. 

 

I have always been struck by the religious tone in the city of Merida.  When I was first there as a graduate student, in 2001, I observed many shops selling religious artifacts and candles.  Over this past summer, when I returned, I saw the main church full of people during Sunday mass.  Speaking with local residents in Merida, I learned that the city had been touched by political change. 

 

The woman who managed the posada where I was staying remarked that social programs initiated after the coup had made a modest difference in the lives of meridenos.  Her children, for example, were now attending some of the new Bolivarian schools (she complained, however, that parents had to shell out money of their own to maintain the school).

Poor people, she said, were now receiving food at the local government sponsored soup kitchens.  Near to the posada on a side street, I saw a cooperatively run restaurant sponsored by the government's vuelvan caras or "turning lives around" program.

 

To get more information about changes in Merida society, I headed to a government building on the main square, near the Cathedral.  Peering around inside, I noticed that the offices were plastered with posters of Chavez, Che Guevara and Simon Bolivar. 

 

Upstairs, I spoke with Ruben Aguila Cerati, Director of Electoral Politics for Chavez's MVR party in the State of Merida, and a former member of the Venezuelan Communist Party.  Cerati, a colorful, jolly man who had been a guerrilla fighter himself, explained to me that gender relations had changed dramatically. 

 

"Today we have 153,000 meridenos registered in the MVR [Chavez's political party].  Fifty three percent of these people are women.  In the political assemblies, women are the dominant force.  I can't say there is no machismo here in Merida, but women have been liberated."

 

Merida Church and Social Reforms

 

Not everyone has embraced the social changes in the city, however.  Back in the main cathedral, Torres spoke of chronic poverty in Merida's barrios, remarking that "change for the better has not reached the people, who continue to search for a means of survival."

 

Torres, echoing the criticisms of the opposition, also touched on the issue of insecurity.  "There's been an increase in criminal activity," he said.  "Merida used to be a very safe area." 

"That's the government's fault?" I asked.

 

"The government hasn't acted to adopt the necessary measures to stop crime," he replied. "People are afraid to go out at night.  You didn't notice this before, there wasn't so much violence." 

 

I asked Torres about the controversial role of Cuban doctors who had come to Venezuela to provide medical assistance for poor residents.

 

"We think that…this assistance has not resolved the health problem amongst the people," Torres answered.  He criticized conditions in a local hospital, remarking that "the service is horrible; people need to buy sheets, medicine and other necessities."

 

"Would you prefer that the Cuban doctors leave the country?" I asked.

 

"The doctors have helped," Torres conceded.  "However, the overall health situation hasn't changed." 

 

I turned the discussion towards education, a historically contentious issue between the Church and Chavez authorities.  Torres admitted that the Bolivarian schools had set up new cafeterias, a positive development.  In an echo of what the Senora had said in the posada, however, he criticized the government for not providing necessary assistance to local schools.

"A sign of this phenomenon," Torres exclaimed, "is that if you want a place in a Catholic school they are all filled up.  Everyone wants to get a spot." 

 

Government and Church Spar Over Land

 

Another controversial measure pushed by Chavez has been land reform.  I had wanted to tour the countryside but unfortunately fell sick with an acute case of bronchitis and had to curtail my trip.  I did, however, query Torres about the issue.

 

The clergyman voiced serious reservations.  In the wake of the land reform, he said, the campesinos had become radicalized and this had led to a serious confrontation "and an invasion of farms which brings problems and puts a break on development."

 

I wanted to get Torres' views on land reform as well.  Before conducting my interview with the local priest, I had read an article in La Frontera, a local opposition paper, arguing that local cattle ranchers had been obliged to hire hit men to defend themselves, ostensibly against kidnapping. 

 

The Minister of Interior accused the ranchers of inflating the kidnapping figures in an effort to justify the hiring of hit men, who had in turn killed campesinos [the secretary of the campesino federation has said that his colleagues have been killed by the hit men "as a result of the campesino struggle for land"].

 

Torres conceded that violence had escalated in the countryside.  However, he said the government was responsible for encouraging an overall climate of delinquent behavior which did not help the situation. 

 

"I think all of this government rhetoric starts to generate violence," he said.   

 

Across the square I spoke with Cerati about the rural situation.  He began first by extolling Chavez's various "mission" programs which had transformed the countryside.

 

"The campesinos now know how to read and write," he exclaimed enthusiastically.  "Here there is no longer any illiteracy: that is extraordinary."

 

The discussion then turned to health matters, and I queried Cerati about the Cuban doctors.  "Campesinos," he noted, "who had never seen a doctor now have them right at their side.  The Cuban doctors have incorporated themselves into the peasantry.  The campesinos are not suspicious of communism."

 

Unlike Torres, who blamed the government for rural violence, Cerati pointed the finger at powerful interests.  "Campesinos," he said, "have been killed and assassinated by these landlords.  This has happened in the south of Lake Maracaibo, in Barinas, and in Yaracuy.  The land belongs to the campesinos, the revolutionaries." 

 

"Merida has traditionally been very conservative and dominated by the Church," I remarked.  "How do you see the situation in the countryside, is it the Church supporting the landlords, and the government supporting the campesinos?"

 

"The clergy has always been right wing," Cerati answered.  "It's always represented the oligarchies, the bourgeoisie.  But, now the majority of the lower tier clergy are with the Bolivarian process.  There's an incredible difference between the clergy here in the city of Merida and the priests out in the countryside." 

 

Castillo Lara Turns Up the Pressure

 

Porras meanwhile backed efforts to recall Chavez as president.  In 2003 he remarked that Chavez had abused his power and his regime was a profound "social failure."  Chavez shot back that Porras had become a spokesperson for the opposition and should take off his cassock because he was not a dignified man of Christ.  "God is with the Bolivarian Revolution," Chavez said, "and here there are people with cassocks who oppose the political changes that we are carrying out."

 

In his own retort, Porras responded that in Venezuela peace and goodwill had deteriorated, while poverty, unemployment, corruption, violence, homicides and kidnapping had increased. 

Porras warned about the rise of cults inspired by 20th century fascist leaders, and went so far as to equate Chavismo with Franco, Nazism, and fascism.  Porras' frontal offensive was echoed by other Church leaders such as Cardinal Rosalio Castillo Lara, who called for civil disobedience against the Chavez government. 

 

With Velasco now gone, high Church officials looked isolated within the new political environment, characterized by a fractured opposition and ascendant Chavez.      Porras, though, denied any significant political division within Church ranks.  The archbishop met personally with John Paul II, who was reportedly very worried about political conflict in Venezuela and sought a peaceful solution to the polarization.

 

Pope Benedict: A New Direction?

 

After John Paul II died in April, 2005 Chavez again went to Rome, this time to meet with the new Pope Benedict XVI.  According to Father Pedro Freites, who heads the Venezuelan School in Rome and had formerly been the head of Vatican radio for Latin America and the Caribbean, Castillo Lara did not represent the Church when he called for civil disobedience in Venezuela. 

 

However, in an interview with the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional he remarked that Benedict was "aware of the situation in Venezuela and of the serious danger posed to democracy."  Castillo Lara, he added, had ties with all cardinals and had been the governor of the Vatican State.  He had submitted reports, and the Pope was concerned that a dictatorship might be imposed in Venezuela.  Ratzinger himself, Freites remarked, was close to Castillo Lara and had also spoken with Porras.

 

During his meeting with the Venezuelan leader, Benedict handed Chavez a letter outlining the Church's concerns.  In the note, the Pope raised fears that religious education was being squeezed out of some Venezuelan schools.  He also touched upon Venezuela's public health programs, expressing concern that the right to life be maintained "from its inception."

Chavez reportedly sought to overcome his government's differences with the Church.  At the end of their meeting, Chavez presented the Pope with a portrait of Simon Bolivar, the mythical Venezuelan independence leader who Chavez idolizes.  The picture bore an inscription from Bolivar's will, saying that he remained, at long last, a Catholic.

 

Following the meeting, Chavez declared that the crisis between his government and the Church had its "limits in time, space, and personalities."  The conflict that had existed, Chavez continued, had to do with a very small group of people.  Moreover, he was committed to "turn the page" and start over, owing to his "sense of responsibility" towards Venezuela and the doctrine of Christ. 

 

Church Hardliners Isolated

 

Indeed, Chavez had just reason to feel relieved.  Already, the Church had seemed to adopt a more conciliatory stance when it replaced the hard line French conservative Papal nuncio, Monsignor André Dupuy, with the Italian Giacinto Berlocco.  Reportedly, the new nuncio was instructed to seek a less confrontational policy towards Chavez.  

 

When Castillo Lara said that Venezuelans should "deny recognition" to the Chavez government, Berlocco stated that the Venezuelan Cardinal did not reflect the position of the Catholic Church in Venezuela.  Chavez praised Berlocco for carrying out what he called "quiet and patient work." 

 

What's more, after his visit with the new Pope Chavez also expressed pleasure with other new Church appointments such as Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, who in his first address called on the Church to work for unity and understanding in Venezuela, and Ubaldo Santana, the new president of the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference.

 

In the political reshuffle, conservatives had been sidelined.  In the race to pick a new cardinal for Venezuela, Savino, the bishop of Maracaibo, had edged out his more outspoken competitor, Porras.  According to the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal, some bishops opposed Porras for taking such a radical anti-Chavez stance which had imperiled relations with the government. 

 

In early 2006, Castillo Lara once more attacked Chavez but his influence seemed to be much reduced.  Speaking in the west of the country before thousands of worshippers participating in a pilgrimage to the Virgin Mary, the Cardinal said the country was undoubtedly becoming a dictatorship.  When Chavez claimed there was a conspiracy in Rome to damage his government, Archbishop Urosa quickly grew concerned and condemned Castillo Lara's remarks. 

 

Moving To the Future

 

On my recent trip, I traveled with a peace delegation to Charallave, a town outside of Caracas.  Sitting in a Mennonite church, we spoke with Jorge Martin, president of a local group of pastors.

 

"Chavez," he told us, "has said that Church work should complement government efforts.  We recognize that the church needs to do social work and that the church has a role in this area."

Indeed, even as Chavez has sparred with the Church, Protestants have become a key pillar of the president's political support.  Back in Caracas, in fact, our delegation had observed a Protestant church which prepared government provided food for the poor.  Martin called Pat Robertson's calls to assassinate Chavez "unfortunate." He said that in Venezuela, Protestants of all denominations had rejected the minister's comments. 

 

Over the last few years, Chavez has done his utmost to cultivate the support of Protestants, which make up 29% of the population.  He even declared that he was no longer a Catholic but a member of the Christian Evangelical Council. 

 

In his speeches, Chavez hardly flees from religious themes and frequently quotes from the Bible.  Bizarrely, he also tells his supporters in speeches that Christ was an anti-imperialist.

Chavez's rhetoric, not surprisingly, has alarmed the Catholic clergy.  Freites believes that Chavez's long-term goal is to "create a parallel Church…that identifies with the revolutionary process."

 

While such views may be exaggerated, it is impossible to overlook religious overtones in everyday Venezuelan politics.  During my visit to a government housing project in Ciudad Miranda outside Caracas, I spotted banners on the street reading, "With Chavez, Christian Socialism."

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.

For Hugo Chavez, large, industrial mega projects could turn into a political mine field. The contradiction between Chavez’s rhetoric stressing social equality, on the one hand, and environmental abuses on the other, was driven home to me over this past summer when I attended the first ever environmental conference of Lake Maracaibo. The event was held in the city of Maracaibo itself, the capital of Zulia state, and organized by the government’s Institute for the Conservation of Lake Maracaibo (known by the Spanish acronym ICLAM).

Somewhat oddly, outside of the dining hall where conference participants ate lunch mining companies had set up promotional booths. Walking through an adjacent hallway, scantily clad women working for mining and oil companies plied me with glossy pamphlets and even candy. Later during the conference itself, one panelist, a representative from the local development agency Corpozulia, gave a rosy presentation about new port and infrastructure projects planned for the state of Zulia.

Later, I went back to the luxurious Hotel Kristoff where the government had put me up for the duration of my stay. One morning, sitting at a table overlooking the hotel pool, I was joined by Jorge Hinestroza, a sociologist at the University of Zulia and former General Coordinator of the Federation of Zulia Ecologists.

Sierra of Perija: Area of Conflict

Hinestroza spoke to me of destructive coal mining in the Sierra of Perija, a mountain range which marks a section of the border between Venezuela and Colombia. The area, which is home to large coal deposits, has suffered severe deforestation.

Industrial coal production, Hinestroza explained, had damaged Indian lands. He complained that America Port, a new project proposed by Corpozulia, would prove "catastrophic for mangrove vegetation in the area." The project, he continued, was linked to coal exploitation. What’s more, Corpozulia itself owned the mining concessions.

According to reports, the Añú community, comprised of 3,000 people living around the Lake Sinamaica region in Zulia, is concerned about the devastation that would result from the construction of a deep-water port in the area, for exporting coal.

If Chavez does not attend to rising calls for greater environmental controls, he will lose support amongst one of his most loyal constituencies, the indigenous population. Already, industrial mega projects have led to angry protest and undermined public confidence in the regime. For Chavez, it is surely one of the thorniest problems that his government must confront.

Launching Raids into Indian Country

Though Indians inhabiting the Sierra of Perija have had to confront extensive coal mining in the Chavez era, it’s not as if indigenous peoples living in the area are strangers to conflict. In the first half of the twentieth century, Motilon Indians [also known as the Bari], which included several indigenous groups inhabiting the area of Perijá, confronted British and American oil prospectors.

In 2001, I was living in Maracaibo doing research for my dissertation dealing with the environmental history of oil development in Lake Maracaibo. Working in the historical archive, I was struck by historical accounts of oil prospectors headed to Indian country.

In 1914, for example, one oil expedition marched into the jungle accompanied by a large company of 50 peons. In seeking to penetrate Motilon Indian country, oil prospectors were aided by the Venezuelan government. As one oil pioneer put it, "we had for arms 12 Mauser military rifles from the government. Every man had either a revolver or a rifle."

Oil prospectors on one expedition discovered a Motilon house, but were forced to make a harrowing escape in canoes along river rapids when Indians appeared. The oil men shot back, hitting at least twelve men.

One oilman commented: "I do not like the idea of destroying a whole community of men, women and children. But this would be the only thing to do unless peace is made … If oil is found up the Lora [River], peaceful relations with the Indians would be worth several hundred thousand dollars to the company."

"It Would Be Convenient to Suppress Them with Gas or Grenades"

Eventually, oil infrastructure in Indian country proceeded. Indians had to contend not only with armed prospectors but also growing contamination from open earth oil sumps and dwindling hunting grounds.

For the growing American community in Maracaibo, the Motilones were a nuisance. One English language paper, the Tropical Sun, remarked, "It would be convenient to suppress the Motilon Indians by attacking them with asphyxiating gas or explosive grenades."

There are no documented cases of large scale artillery attacks on the Motilon Indians. However, Father Cesareo de Armellada, a Capuchin priest who later played a pivotal role in contacting groups of Motilones, claimed that

"It was said by some sotto voce and others even admitted publicly that in the Colombian region [of Perija] thenational army organized raids under the slogan of: there is no other way. And it is also saidthat in the same region the Motilones were bombed by airplanes. The same thing has been repeated to me by many people living within the Venezuelan region of Perija and Colon."

De Armellada continued that "Secret punitive expeditions" were organized against the Motilones.

Oil Companies: Bombing the Indians

Some reports suggest a fair degree of cooperation between the government and oil companies in organizing armed expeditions. Not surprisingly, the government’s policy of allowing oil companies to enter Motilon territory led to greater violence. The U.S. Consul in Maracaibo, Alexander Sloan, noted that a state of open warfare existed in Motilon territory:

"During the last year the Indian attacks have increased in frequency and bitterness. On several occasions lately boat crews have abandoned their tows, because they were attacked so fiercely and so persistently by the Motilones [sic] that they considered it necessary to get away as speedily as possible."

Even more alarming, "attacks on trains have been made only within recent months, and in these attacks the Indians have shown a persistence that they never exhibited before."

According to de Armellada, in the 1930s and early 40s the oil companies were able to encircle the Motilones in a tighter ring stretching over several hundred square kilometers. However, this had resulted in many deaths.

There is some evidence that the oil companies even resorted to aerial bombardment. One British diplomat noted that the Motilones hated strangers, and were "embittered" as a result of an attempt by an American company to bomb their settlements.

The diplomat did not specify which company was involved in the attacks, although it would seem at least possible that this was Creole Petroleum Corporation, an American company which sought to open up Motilon territory to oil expansion, and which had planes.

Overflights of Indian Country

De Armellada sought support from the oil companies in the form of over flights of Indian villages. The over flights were accompanied by a propaganda effort launched by de Armellada, who sought to present his ideological justification for the expeditions. De Armellada promoted the Motilon effort through Topicos Shell, a glossy Shell company magazine.

In May 1947, Creole Petroleum Corporation provided de Armellada with a twin engine flying boat. The company was a powerful subsidiary of Standard Oil of New Jersey and was in a position to lend credibility and resources to the Capuchin priest. Creole’s head of public relations, Everett Bauman, recalled later that de Armellada came up with the idea of dropping bundles of gifts as well as his own picture from a plane. By dropping gifts to the Indians, de Armellada hoped, Motilones would later prove receptive to missionary efforts. With his newfound support, de Armellada organized an over flight of Motilon villages in an effort to establish peaceful relations.

Shortly after one of de Armellada’s flights took off, the expedition sighted Motilon dwellings from the air, consisting of rudimentary thatched shelters. Noted Caracas Journal, "The Indians were nowhere to be seen, having rushed to hide in the undergrowth, in alarm at the roar of the plane’s motors."

The plane dropped a number of goods on the village such as cloth, salt, flour, hoes, needles, thread, and mirrors as tokens of good will. The airplane was also careful to drop De Armellada’s photo, "thus ensuring the missionary a gentlewelcome when he arrives accompanied by two other monks, into their [Motilon] territory." Throughout 1947, the Capuchins continued their over flights of Motilon territory, dropping similar "bombs" of gifts and boxes.

Triumph of Missionaries and Big Oil

Fortunately for de Armellada, on the fifth flight in December 1947 Motilones no longer hid in the jungle but stepped outside their huts accompanied by their pet dogs. Encouraged, de Armellada picked up the pace of the overhead flights, which ran weekly for the following three months. "The enthusiasm displayed by the Indians," noted de Armellada, "increased as much as ours."

The Indians lost their fear, and Motilon children began to play with the parachutes which accompanied box gifts. Observing that the Indians had taken to their gifts, the Capuchins dropped pre-made clothes, large dolls, and even two goats. According to de Armellada, the Indians waved donated Venezuelan flags in the air when missionary flights passed overhead.

Meanwhile, De Armellada made a plea in Topicos Shell for more assistance. Anyone who considered themselves a proper Christian had a "sacred duty" to help the effort. With the help of Creole Petroleum Corporation, which drew up a map of Motilon areas based on aerial photographs, de Armellada was able to locate 14 Motilon huts along the Lora River and northwards. Various families lived in each house, with a variable number of individuals oscillating between 20 and 50.

De Armellada’s successes paved the way for future missionary efforts in Motilon country, and by the early 1960s the Capuchins had established various missionary centers within Indian territory. The missionary advance was accompanied by yet more intrusion by oil companies and landowners, and Motilones were displaced towards nearby towns.

Chavez: A New Beginning for Zulia Indians?

In the mid-1990s, Indians in the Sierra of Perija continued to face daunting challenges. For example, Wayuu and Yupka peoples lost their lands to large, state-controlled coal mines and oil drilling.

In 1998, the election of Hugo Chavez to the presidency stood to dramatically change the plight of indigenous people. In contrast to earlier regimes, Chavez took a more anti-missionary stance on indigenous policy. For example, he expelled the New Tribes Mission, an American missionary group working with Venezuelan indigenous communities. Chavez accused New Tribes of collaborating with the CIA.

Chavez’s 1999 Constitution represented a big step forward for Indians. Under article 9, Spanish was declared the official language of Venezuela, but "Indigenous languages are also for official use for indigenous peoples and must be respected throughout the Republic’s territory for being part of the nation’s and humanity’s patrimonial culture." In chapter eight of the constitution, the state recognized the social, political, and economic organization within indigenous communities, in addition to their cultures, languages, rights, and lands.

What is more, in a critical provision the government recognized land rights as collective, inalienable, and non-transferable. Later articles declared the government’s pledge not to engage in extraction of natural resources without prior consultation with indigenous groups.

Chavez himself has distributed millions of acres of land to indigenous communities. The move forms part of the so called Mission Guaicaipuro which shall provide land titles to all of Venezuela’s 28 indigenous peoples.

Indians to Chavez: Land Policy a "Fraud"

Despite the passage of the new constitution, however, Indians from the Sierra of Perija have protested the government which they claim does not pay sufficient attention to their needs.

In 2005, hundreds of Wayuu, Bari and Yukpa Indians traveled to Bolivar Square in Caracas. Bare-chested, wearing traditional dress and wielding bows and arrows, they denounced mining operations in Zulia.

Interestingly, the indigenous protestors were staunch Chávez supporters and most sported red headbands with pro-government slogans, while others wore red berets, symbolic of Chavez’s governing Fifth Republic Movement party.

One protest sign read, "Compañero Chávez, support our cause." Another declared, "Vito barí atañoo yiroo oshishibain (We don’t want coal mining)".

Despite their pro-government leanings, Indians said that efforts to formalize their ancestral lands constituted a "fraud." In a statement they declared, "They will allocate lands to us but later try to evict us to exploit coal."

The leader of the Wayuu delegation, Angela Aurora, said that coal mining in Zulia had deforested thousands of acres of land as well as contaminated rivers. Mining additionally had killed or sickened local residents with respiratory diseases caused by coal dust.

Sierra of Perija and Contradictions of Chavismo

Though Chavez has derided globalization and large financial institutions, the case of the Sierra of Perija reveals a fundamental contradiction within Chavismo. In fitting irony, Douglas Bravo, a former communist guerrilla from the 1960s and 70s, was also present at the indigenous protest in Caracas. Bravo now devotes his time to promoting environmental groups.

"This is a manifestation of an autonomous and independent revival of the popular movement," he said. "At the same time," he added, "it is the beginning of a new stage in the independent environmental movement, against globalization and the multinationals."

In a sense, Bravo is right. The Sierra of Perija is in the crosshairs of important economic development. The government has sought joint ventures between the public coal company Carbozulia and various foreign companies including Vale do Rio Doce of Brazil, the British-South African Anglo American, the Anglo-Dutch Shell, Ruhrkohle from Germany and the U.S. Chevron-Texaco.

On the one hand, Chavez needs political support from indigenous peoples. But he also seeks important hemispheric integration, which could jeopardize this support. The Venezuelan northwest is vital to solidifying ties with Brazil and Mercosur, a South American trade bloc [for more on these inherent contradictions, see my earlier Counterpunch article, "The Rise of Rafael Correa: Ecuador and the Contradictions of Chavismo," November 27, 2006].

"If We Have to Die For Our Lands, We Will Die"

Some government officials have big plans for Zulia. In 2004, Carbozulia and Companhia Vale do Rio Doce of Brazil created a new consortium, Carbosuramérica, to undertake additional mining operations in the region. Activists fear that Zulia is fast becoming an exit platform to the Caribbean Sea, and that the area is serving the interests of transnational companies. While the companies seek to get their products out, the environment is being sacrificed.

Mining and ports projects within Zulia in turn form part of the IIRSA, Initiative for South American Regional Infrastructure Integration (promoted by Brazil and the new South American Community of Nations).

Chavez, who is trying to construct an alliance of left leaning regimes in South America, knows that he must secure vital diplomatic support from President Lula of Brazil. But if the Venezuelan government presses ahead with its development agenda in the Sierra of Perija, the regime will have to reckon with severe domestic opposition.

During the indigenous protest in Caracas, Cesáreo Panapaera, a Yukpa leader, declared, "We want the government to hear us: we don’t want coal. Here are our bows and arrows, and we will use them against the miners if they come to our lands. And if we have to die fighting for our lands, we will die."

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.

Venezuela was hardly the foremost topic on my mind when I recently traveled to Venice, Italy. All throughout the fall, I had been writing articles about political developments in South America and promoting my book, Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the U.S. (St. Martin’s Press). I had gone to Venice to forget about my book for awhile and to attend an art exhibit put on by my mother, Joyce Kozloff.

One day I decided to go to the famous architectural biennale, located close to San Marco Square. To get to the exhibit, I took the vaporetto, a public boat used by Venetians to get around town. I was less interested in the usual architectural pavilions organized by individual countries than the rest of the show entitled "Cities, Architecture, and Society."

The exhibit addressed population growth in major world cities and its likely impact on people and the environment. After passing through separate rooms dealing with Bogota and Sao Paulo, I came to a section on Caracas.

As someone who has spent a decent amount of time living and working in the Venezuelan capital, I was intrigued to learn more from the exhibit. Caracas had always struck me as one of the least appealing South American cities. Loud, crime-ridden, polluted and anarchic, Caracas was in dire need of urban planning.

Smog, Buoneros, and Disorder

In 2000-2001, while pursuing research for my dissertation, I spent many months living in San Bernardino, a neighborhood located not too far from downtown Caracas. Next to my landlord’s condominium building stood an informal barrio. The housing there was improvised and was built up on the side of a steep hill.

Though San Bernardino was considered unsafe at night and the streets became deserted after 7 PM, one could at least breathe the air. The same could not be said of downtown, where my eyes and throat frequently felt sore from the smog. There, I could not walk down the street as it was clogged with so-called buoneros or informal street vendors.

After carrying out my research in downtown, I would take the subway to the Bellas Artes stop, located beneath San Bernardino. The subway came as a welcome respite to me after the relentless and daily assault on my senses. One of the few bright spots in the city, the subway system was clean and efficient.

Unfortunately, one had to get out of the subway at Bellas Artes and transfer to a bus to reach San Bernardino. Very early during my stay in Caracas, I was pick-pocketed by a gang of thieves as I was riding up the escalator in Bellas Artes. They had distracted me with a ruse on the escalator and I had little chance to see their faces.

Distressed by my experience, I found a cop and told him what had happened. We went back to the subway station, where the policeman pointed at a middle-aged man.

"That was the person who robbed you?" the cop asked.

I scrutinized the man’s face.

"I’m sorry officer," I replied after a moment. "I was robbed so fast that I couldn’t identify the thieves."

The cop was unconcerned by what I had said and took the man down to the station for questioning. As the two marched off down the platform I grew a little concerned and wondered what kind of treatment the man would receive.

For the rest of my stay in Caracas I had no more run-ins with the police. In fact, the cops seemed largely absent from the city’s streets (except for Altamira, an upper class district where they wore nifty outfits and rode bicycles). With a little effort, the police might have brought some security and order to Caracas. In San Bernardino, bunkered down in my room, I would hear the sound of distant gunshots. But, I never saw the police patrolling the neighborhood.

After my unfortunate encounter in Bellas Artes I exercised caution and did not run into more thieves.

Despite this, I had other problems. My daily bus ride to San Bernardino, for example, always proved to be a free for all. There had seemingly been little effort invested in urban planning in and around Bellas Artes, and chronic traffic would delay my trip home by up to an hour.

For relief from the smog and traffic, I would frequently go to Altamira or to Centro Comercial Sambil, a shopping mall.

2006: Return to Caracas

I left Caracas in 2001 and didn’t concern myself much more with the city’s affairs. Years later, now back in New York, I saw a harrowing film entitled Secuestro Express about kidnapping and police corruption in Caracas. The film was directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz, who himself had been kidnapped. He and his friends had been grabbed, robbed of their money, ATM cards, and clothes.

The film fell under withering criticism from the government, which blasted it as an attack on life under the Chavez regime. Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel denounced Secuestro Express as a "miserable film, a falsification of the truth with no artistic value."

Officials even threatened Jackubowicz with imprisonment, while the government’s film commission declined to submit the movie for Academy Award consideration. Despite this, Secuestro Express became the most popular movie in Venezuelan history.

This past summer, I received an invitation to speak in Caracas. Perhaps, I reasoned, the capital city had improved since 2001. The vision presented in Secuestro Express, I thought, must surely have been sensationalized in line with government claims. Maybe, more politically and socially conscious officials had addressed chronic problems and made Caracas a more habitable city for all. I headed back to the capital city with high hopes.

I was sorely disappointed.

To me, the city seemed more polluted, congested and unsafe than ever. Even more glaring, I saw more people than I remembered in 2001 sleeping in the street around Bellas Artes. At one point, exiting a restaurant near my hotel, a security guard warned me to exercise caution. It was about 9 PM and I felt like taking an evening walk. I didn’t see any cops anywhere in the vicinity and decided to beat a hasty retreat to the hotel.

Indeed, during my entire stay in Caracas I rarely saw policemen patrolling the streets. I quickly reverted to my usual pattern of heading to Altamira and the shopping mall in an effort to escape.

In the run up to the recent presidential election, the opposition media on TV was screaming about the lack of security under the Chavez government and urban crime.

Provea Paints a Bleak Picture

For a less biased view, I turned to Marino Alvarado, the Director of Provea, a respected human rights organization in Caracas. Provea’s office was located downtown near the National Library where I used to conduct research.

The area was scary: nearby, I spotted a young man who was drugged out of his mind and wildly gesticulating in the street.

"During the Chavez mandate," said Marino, "the security situation has worsened. We’ve seen a significant increase in homicides and robberies. The police cooperate quite a lot with criminals. Every day there’s another item in the press about another member of the police who is involved with common crime, drug trafficking, bank robbery, and rape. It’s very difficult to fight crime when the police are part of the problem."

"There are both national and municipal police forces in Caracas," Marino continued. "Nevertheless there is no coordination amongst the different police forces. Every day the violence becomes bloodier. One form of crime that has increased considerably is kidnapping. The criminals in Caracas are well armed. At this point, robbery at knife point is incredibly outdated. There are a lot of firearms on the streets. Almost always in the polls, insecurity is rated as the number one concern amongst the public."

Talking with Marino was a sobering experience. Despite the many social programs undertaken by the government, clearly much more needed to be done in Caracas to encourage a sense of civic mindedness and restore public confidence.

After several weeks in Caracas, I left the city and continued my travels. It was a relief to be rid of the paranoia, pollution and congestion in the capital.

Caracas and Its Historical Evolution

Though Venice has its own urban problems having to do with overcrowded tourism, the city has an organized system of public transportation: the water vaporettos. In contrast to Caracas, crime was not an issue in Venice and I took in the sites at a relaxing and leisurely pace.

At the architectural biennale, I read more about the urban history of Caracas. The problem, according to the exhibit, was that Caracas, originally founded in the 16th century, expanded dramatically during the 1950s oil boom. It was then that the city absorbed many rural residents who moved into informal barrios.

To this day, the city’s fabric is characterized by the barrios, which dot the steep green mountains around Caracas. Currently, 40% of city residents live in barrios. Nevertheless, Caracas is smaller than many other Latin American mega-cities, and has been blessed with a tropical climate, abundant fresh water, and fertile soil.

I was surprised to learn that prominent architects had played a role in the city’s urban planning. Robert Moses, for example, advised the city about its freeways while Le Corbusier sketched out a modernist vision that later materialized into the immense 23 Enero housing project.

Despite these early efforts at fostering order, the city grew anarchically. In the Petare district, multi-story housing grew along steep inclines. Problematically, new housing projects lacked access to public transportation. Meanwhile, the affluent, who built gated homes and golf courses, turned their back on the poor who had little access to basic services such as water, sewage, schools and jobs.

The exhibit presented some startling statistics concerning Caracas. For example, at times over 100 people were murdered in one week in the Venezuelan capital, many under the age of 18. In line with what I had witnessed and heard, Caracas was said to have weak law enforcement and a flourishing drug trade.

Saving the Barrios

I browsed the exhibit further, where I was intrigued by a multi media display showing photos and video of Caracas barrios. According to the display, local authorities had refrained from demolishing the barrios, instead embracing a "retrofitting" strategy. Today, there are small medical centers, gyms, and community kitchens that foster a sense of civic pride in poor areas.

I was particularly struck by a video dealing with a poor barrio called San Rafael/La Vega. The neighborhood, which I was unfamiliar with from my various stays in Caracas, was located in mountainous terrain. According to the exhibit, San Rafael/La Vega is one of the largest spontaneous settlements in Caracas, occupying over 400 hectares and housing some 95,000 residents.

The World Bank has sought to integrate San Rafael/La Vega, physically and socially, with the rest of Caracas. Residents themselves helped to plan the project and carry out construction. The goal of the plan has been to improve services and transportation while building new public spaces.

Gimnasios Verticales: An Innovative Strategy

In an effort to curb violence in Caracas, local authorities have pushed an innovative strategy: construction of new gyms. Informal settlements in the city have historically lacked access to sports facilities. One pioneering project, "Bello Campo," transformed a pre-existing soccer field in the municipality of Chacao into a multi-level sports complex or gimnasio vertical.

The complex, which accommodated up to 200 people, was located in between formal and informal neighborhoods. Free to all residents, Bello Campo has succeeded in bringing together a wide range of local residents. Every year, according to the exhibit, Bello Campo receives 180,000 visitors. Most importantly, since the inception of the gym crime has decreased by 45% in the neighborhood, which has become one of the safest in Chacao municipality. According to the exhibit, Bello Campo is not unique: a video display screen showed additional city locations for other gimnasios verticales.

Solving Caracas’s social problems will surely prove to be one of the most vexing and daunting challenges for President Chavez in his second term. Gimnasios verticales and urban redesign at San Rafael are promising developments. The government will have to do its utmost to integrate other barrios into the urban fabric. Failure to do so will provide further ammunition to the opposition, which will charge that the Chavez government has failed to rein in crime and insecurity.

Now that Robert Gates has been confirmed by the Senate, the question becomes: what does the emergence of the new Defense Secretary mean for Latin America? Under Gates’ disgraced predecessor Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. pursued a bellicose stance towards leftist regimes such as Venezuela. Rumsfeld led the charge against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, remarking that "He’s a person who was elected legally, just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally."

Predictably, Venezuela’s response was not long in coming. Vice-president José Vicente Rangel categorized Rumsfeld’s statements as "desperate" and "irrational." He strongly attacked the U.S. Defense Secretary, commenting that it was Bush, not Chavez, who most resembled Hitler. "If some politician or President can be compared with Hitler, it is Bush, because he [Bush] has invaded countries, he has massacred people, he has created prisons in various parts of the world," Rangel said.

Undeterred, the indefatigable Rumsfeld barreled onwards, making completely unsubstantiated claims that Chavez had sought to foment unrest in Bolivia. At one point, he told reporters in Paraguay that "there certainly is evidence that both Cuba and Venezuela have been involved in the situation in Bolivia in unhelpful ways."

Rumsfeld’s comments prompted concern on Capitol Hill, even amongst fellow Republicans. Senator Arlen Specter, a member of the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. Congress, grew alarmed that Rumsfeld’s hot headed stance towards Chavez was complicating joint U.S.-Venezuelan counter-narcotics efforts. In a letter to Rumsfeld, Specter said diplomatically, "it may be very helpful to U.S. efforts to secure Venezuela’s cooperation in our joint attack on drug interdiction if the rhetoric would be reduced."

Gates’ Predecessor: Ratcheting Up the Pressure on Venezuela

Even as the U.S. moved to arm the Colombian army to the teeth, Rumsfeld blamed Venezuela for destabilizing the Andean region. "I can’t imagine why Venezuela needs 100,000 AK-47’s.," he said during a news conference in Brasília. "I just hopethat it doesn’t happen I can’t imagine that if it did happen, that it would be good for the hemisphere," he added.

Needless to say, that kind of rhetoric didn’t help to smooth tensions. For years, authorities in Caracas have been worried about the lawless and violent 1,200 mile Colombian-Venezuelan border. Political violence from Colombia has spilled across the border, with the U.S.-funded Colombian military and right wing paramilitaries routinely making incursions into Venezuelan territory.

The paramilitaries, allegedly tied to the Colombian armed forces, have pursued refugees into Venezuela, where they have killed or kidnapped those fleeing the violence. Even worse, the Chavez government claims that Colombian paramilitaries have fired on Venezuelan security forces. Ongoing clashes have led to the untimely deaths of Venezuelan military personnel. Chavez has claimed, plausibly, that he needs to modernize the army so as to defend Venezuela’s westernmost frontier.

Chávez, angered by the ex-Secretary of Defense’s efforts to demonize Venezuela, called Rumsfeld a "war dog." In yet another memorable Chavez quip the Venezuelan President remarked, "The dog says in a cynical way that he knows no one who is threatening Venezuela, so he does not know himself. We should give the little dog a mirror so that he can see his face."

Rangel added to the anti-Rumsfeld broadside in Venezuela by remarking that the U.S. Defense Secretary was "The Lord of War." He then pointed to U.S. hypocrisy as regards arms buildups. "In Venezuela," he declared, "we are worried about the elevated military spending by the United States, which stands around 450 billion dollars what are they fearing in order to justify such high military spending?"

Gates: Bombing Nicaragua

On the surface at least, Gates’ ascendancy would seem to underscore a move away from the aggressive foreign policy espoused by neo-conservatives. Chavez himself has rejoiced in Rumsfeld’s political demise. The Venezuelan leader beamed as he read aloud a news story about the ex-Defense Secretary’s resignation. "Heads are beginning to roll," he said during a news conference. "It was about time he resigned. The president should resign now."

Chavez should think twice, however, before rushing into celebration. Robert Gates’ background suggests that he may pursue just as aggressive a policy as his predecessor in Latin America. Of particular concern is Nicaragua, where the Sandinistas recently returned to power under the leadership of Daniel Ortega. Given Gates’ historic opposition to the Sandinistas, it’s possible that the U.S. may try to destabilize the poverty-stricken Central American country once again.

In 1984, Gates, who was then CIA Deputy Director, recommended to his boss, William Casey, that the United States use air strikes to destroy Nicaragua’s "military buildup." In his memo, Gates remarked that he was advocating "hard measures" that "probably are politically unacceptable."

That kind of rhetoric and approach suggests that Gates may prove just as bellicose as the neo-conservatives. When he was queried about the Gates memo, Thomas Blanton, Director of the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C. (an organization pledged to uncovering and declassifying information at the highest level of government), remarked "It sounds like Donald Rumsfeld. It shows the same kind of arrogance and hubris that got us into Iraq."

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Blanton added that Gates’ advocacy of bombing Nicaragua was extreme at the time. "It sure wasn’t a mainstream opinion," he said. "Most Americans thought we shouldn’t be doing anything in Nicaragua. How possibly was our national security interest at stake?"

When Congress forbade funding the Nicaraguan Contras, Ronald Reagan used the proceeds of arms sales to Iran to fund the rebels. According to documents, Gates apparently knew about Oliver North’s efforts to raise money for the Contras; critics claim that the new Secretary of Defense did not undertake sufficient measures to stop the scheme from going ahead. Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh, who investigated the Iran Contra scandal, remarked that Gates was "less than candid" about his role in the affair but did not bring charges.

Gates, SAIC and Venezuela

The question now is whether Gates has changed his views regarding Latin America or still wants to provoke confrontation with leftist regimes. That issue has now become a prominent one, given the reemergence of Gates’ old nemesis, Daniel Ortega. Though Ortega has jettisoned much of his earlier anti-U.S. rhetoric, the Sandinista leader has cultivated a budding alliance with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez (for a detailed analysis of these developments, see my earlier Counterpunch piece, "In Nicaragua, a Chavez Wave?"). Nicaragua is dirt poor and wracked by debt, but Ortega can now count on oil shipments from Venezuela, a country which is wielding its political influence throughout the region.

Blanton has claimed that it would be a mistake to look at Gates’ 22-year old memo as a reflection of his current day thinking. When Gates came under scrutiny for his alleged role in Iran Contra and his bid to become CIA Director in 1987 proved unsuccessful, the ambitious intelligence man became, in the words of the Los Angeles Times, "chastened" and his earlier arrogance was "diminished." According to Blanton, Gates changed once he became CIA Director in 1991. "Very possibly," noted Blanton, "the Robert Gates nominated for secretary of Defense is the Robert Gates who is the best CIA director we ever had, and not the Robert Gates who was a ‘mini-me’ Rumsfeld."

Gates’s background, however, suggests that he may not significantly alter Rumsfeld’s Venezuela policy. In 1993 Gates left government after working 27 years in the intelligence business. But, he was never far from the corridors of power. Gates joined SAIC (Science Applications International Corp.), a shady contractor for the Pentagon, CIA and other federal agencies, where he served on the board of directors. SAIC, which reported $7.5 billion in earnings in 2005, is involved in everything from intelligence gathering to Iraqi reconstruction for the Pentagon.

Gates’ tenure at SAIC should give Chavez pause. As I document at great length in my book, Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the U.S. (recently released by St. Martin’s Press), SAIC has played a dodgy role in Venezuela. In 1996, SAIC signed a joint venture with PdVSA (the Venezuelan state oil company) to handle the firm’s IT operations.

According to Chavez, however, the joint venture, called Informatica, Negocios y Tecnologia (known by its Spanish acronym INTESA), had ties to the CIA. SAIC, charged Chavez, was using INTESA as a means of conducting espionage. During the confrontational oil lock-out of 2002-3, when the Venezuelan opposition sought to bring the economy to a halt and force Chavez from power, PdVSA sustained serious damage to its IT system. The Chavez government claimed that INTESA was involved in the sabotage. When the lock-out fizzled, Chavez promptly discontinued INTESA.

Gates Sails through Senate Confirmation

Though Gates’s tenure on SAIC’s board of directors proved brief, he maintained ties to the company even after leaving when he joined the advisory board for VoteHere, an electronic voting machine firm tied to SAIC. Given his past involvement with SAIC, one would think that the Senate would have at least touched on the issue during the extraordinarily brief one day confirmation hearing.

I have reviewed the transcript from the hearing and neither the words "SAIC" nor "Venezuela" was broached by any Senator (not to mention Nicaragua). Gates was resoundingly confirmed by a vote of 95-2 in his new position. The two dissenting votes, in fact, did not come from Democrats but from pro-war Republican Senators Rick Santorum and Jim Bunning, who disliked Gates’ criticism of the war in Iraq.

The Democrats, coasting on their recent victory in the mid-term elections, had the opportunity during Tuesday’s confirmation hearing to show the American public that they were concerned about the direction of U.S.-Latin American relations. Though Rumsfeld, through his public utterances, did much to erode trust between Venezuela and the United States, the new Secretary of Defense could chart a new course. By failing to question Gates on his past or his views on Latin America, the Democrats have signaled that they are not overly concerned with reining in Bush’s hawkish foreign policy 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."