What Is Really Happening in Venezuela?
By
Jorge Martin
March 31, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- “There’s been a coup in Venezuela! Maduro
has carried out a power-grab!” Just a few
days before the 15th anniversary of the
short lived coup against the democratically
elected president Chavez (11-13 April,
2002), those who carried out that coup (the
Venezuelan oligarchy, their masters in
Washington and its lapdogs in Buenos Aires,
Brasilia, Santiago de Chile and Lima,
cheered on by the media wolf pack in Madrid
and the US) are now shouting and screaming
like hyenas against an alleged “self coup”
by president Maduro.
What
are the facts? The immediate cause of this
hypocritical outcry is the ruling of the
Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) on March 29
which said that since the National Assembly
is in contempt of court, the TSJ will
henceforth take over its powers for itself
or another power it determines. Immediately,
the president of the National Assembly,
Julio Borges, declared this as a “coup
d’Etat” and Organisation of American States
general secretary Luis Almagro described it
as a “self coup” and called for the urgent
convening of the OAS Permanent Council in
order to activate its Democratic Charter
against Venezuela. The Peruvian government
decided to withdraw its ambassador from
Venezuela.
What
are the roots of this ruling? Since the
victory of the right wing opposition in the
National Assembly elections in December
2015, there has been a sharp conflict
between the different powers of the state.
Already at the end of December 2015, the TSJ
ruled that there had been irregularities in
the election of deputies in the Amazonas
state and declared the election null and
void and ordered it to be re-run. Proof was
presented that opposition politicians had
been involved in vote-buying. This affected
four deputies, two from the opposition, one
from the PSUV and another one elected in the
indigenous list (also a supporter of the
opposition). However, these three opposition
deputies were key as they would have given
the opposition a two thirds majority and
therefore much wider powers. The National
Assembly refuse to obey the order of the TSJ
and swore in the three opposition deputies
for Amazonas in January 2016. Again the TSJ
declared the act as null and void and in
contravention of its earlier ruling. The
National Assembly retreated. Then, in July,
the National Assembly swore in the three
deputies again. In August 2016, the TSJ
declared that the National Assembly
Presiding Council and the opposition
deputies were in contempt of court for
having broken two of its rulings.
In a
further escalation of the institutional
conflict, in October 2016, the National
Assembly voted to initiate proceedings for a
“political trial” of president Maduro and
also proceedings to declare that Maduro had
“abandoned his office”. Amongst the reasons
given for these actions was the allegation
that Maduro is not a Venezuelan citizen and
therefore unable to be president (!!).
Finally in January 2017, the National
Assembly declared that president Maduro had
indeed “abandoned his office”. How can he be
accused of “abandoning his office” and of
“carrying out a power grabbing coup” at the
same time is anybody’s guess. The National
Assembly furthermore called on the
Organisation of American States to invoke
its Democratic Charter against Venezuela, in
effect calling on foreign powers to violate
Venezuelan sovereignty, something which
reveals clearly the character of the
Venezuelan oligarchy. The attempt to use the
Democratic Charter was defeated at the OAS,
despite direct threats from Washington
against a number of member countries.
Finally, the government enquired from the
TSJ whether it needed to send its decision
to create joint venture companies in the oil
sector to be ratified by the National
Assembly. The TSJ replied with its ruling on
March 29, that, since the National Assembly
was in contempt of court and had not taken
any actions to rectify that, the government
did not have to send its decisions to it and
that the TSJ was taking over National
Assembly legislative powers to exercise them
directly or through any other organ of power
it would determine. That ruling had been
preceded by one a day earlier in which the
TSJ ruled that since the National Assembly
was in contempt of court, its members could
not enjoy parliamentary immunity.
If the
opposition National Assembly wanted to
actually use its powers, it would be easy to
abide by the TSJ ruling on the three
Amazonas deputies and then start
legislating. However, the opposition is not
really interested in that, but rather wants
to create an incident as big as possible, to
justify the removal of Maduro from the
presidency.
We
must oppose the hypocritical campaign of
those who actually did carry out a coup in
Venezuela in 2002, who now want to remove
Maduro from power and to invoke foreign
intervention against Venezuela. If they were
to achieve their aims, we know clearly what
would be the consequences: all of the gains
of the Bolivarian revolution would be
destroyed, the social missions abolished,
nationalised companies and landed estates
returned to their former owners, the labour
law would be abolished allowing for mass
layoffs in state and private enterprises,
old age pensions massively cut, health care
and education slashed and a regime of
assault on basic democratic rights
instituted. If anyone doubts this, you just
need to see the initial measures taken by
right wing governments as they have come to
power in Argentina and Brazil. In Venezuela
it would be ten times worse.
However, this is not just a question of who
is right and who is wrong from a legal or
procedural point of view. Like all
fundamental issues in society, this is going
to be resolved on the basis of who holds
real power, in terms of the armed forces
and/or mass mobilisation of the people in
the streets which can break that state
power. At the moment it does not seem that
the reactionary opposition holds either.
They have made constant appeals to the Army
to come out “in defence of the Constitution”
(read: to remove Maduro) which have so far
fallen on deaf ears. Their most recent
attempts to bring people into the streets in
September and October 2016 completely
floundered for the lack of a clear and
decisive strategy. Some of the opposition
leaders called for a march on the Miraflores
presidential palace, but when the day came
they backed off, provoking anger and
demoralisation from their own followers.
Concessions to capitalists undermine the
revolution
Maduro
Announcing concessios to capitalists
screengrabBeyond the legal and institutional
questions, we have to ask ourselves what is
Maduro’s government doing with its power?
What is its strategy? A few days ago,
Nicolás Maduro made a number of statements
at the Expo Venezuela Potencia 2017 trade
fair, which leave no doubt as to the fact
that his strategy is one of making ever
growing concessions to the capitalists,
national and international. He rejected what
he called was a “dirty campaign which says
that we have a Communist model and we reject
private enterprise”. On the contrary, he
said, “90% of the economy is in the hands of
private companies” (In fact what he meant to
say was that 90% of all companies are in
private hands, though they represent a
smaller percentage of the economy.) He then
proceeded to announce further concessions to
the capitalists, national and foreign, by
giving them loans from state owned banks,
both in Bolivars and in dollars, and by
further liberalising the foreign exchange
controls so as to allow private companies
easier access to dollars (which come from
the profits of the oil industry).
These
statements and actions have provoked
widespread anger and unease amongst the
ranks of the Bolivarian movement. They are a
continuation and a deepening of the policy
which the Maduro government has been
following since it was elected: to respond
to the attacks of the opposition in the
political and institutional arena, while
making ever more concessions to the
capitalists in the economic field.
That
is a policy which leads directly to
disaster. The Venezuelan economy is in a
deep crisis, with hyperinflation, serious
scarcity of basic food products and
medicines and a paralysis of production.
This crisis is the result, in the last
instance, of the rebellion of the productive
forces - which continue to operate under the
framework of a capitalist market - against
the attempts of the government to regulate
them, through price controls and foreign
exchange controls. This has been aggravated
and multiplied by the collapse in the price
of oil in the world market. Faced with
severely limited hard currency reserves and
oil revenue, the government has resorted to
prioritising the payment of foreign debt
over imports, which have been severely cut,
further aggravating scarcity. At the same
time in order to pay for the state budget,
where there is a running deficit amounting
to 15-20% of GDP it has resorted to a policy
of printing money which in turn has led to
hyperinflation. What has failed in Venezuela
is not socialism, which never existed, but
rather, the attempt to regulate the
capitalist economy through state
intervention and make it work in the benefit
of the majority.
There
are only two ways out of this economic
crisis: one is to lift all regulations and
allow the capitalist market to work
“normally”, which would mean that the
workers will be made to pay the full price
for the crisis. That is the direction the
government of Maduro has been progressively
taking. The other is to expropriate the
capitalists and run the economy on the basis
of a democratic plan of production which can
satisfy the needs of the population, while
at the same time making an internationalist
appeal to the workers and peasants of the
region to come to the aid of the revolution
and defeat the attempts of their own ruling
classes to smash it. That would mean to make
the capitalists pay for the crisis.
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The continuation of the current policy
of the government will only aggravate
the crisis from the point of view of the
working people, thus further eroding
support for it amongst the Bolivarian
masses. The government has the idea that
this year will see oil prices climb up
to a level around 70 to 80 dollars a
barrel and that this would give it the
necessary margin to invest in social
programs again, and thereby recovering
popular support. After that it would be
able to call for elections under better
conditions. This is a pipe dream. Oil
prices climbed slightly after the
OPEC-Russia deal to cut production, but
this has been cut across because as oil
prices were rising, fracking became
profitable again in the US, thus
increasing global production and sending
the prices down again.
How to fight the offensive of
imperialism and the oligarchy
If
we are to be frank, the policy of the
government represents a betrayal of the
legacy of president Chavez. In his last
statements before his death, the Golpe
de Timón (Turn the Rudder) and the Plan
de la Patria Socialista (Socialist
Country Plan), Chavez stressed two key
ideas: a) we are still in a capitalist
economy and we must move towards
socialism, and b) we must destroy the
bourgeois state and replace it with a
“communal state” (that is, one based on
the Socialist Communes). With all its
limitations, these were correct ideas.
The current leadership of the Bolivarian
movement and the Maduro government have
moved in the opposite direction: in the
economic field they have been making
more and more concessions to the
capitalists, while in the political
field they have stifled all avenues of
popular participation, workers’ control,
rank and file power.
Regardless of their intentions, we must
say it clearly: these policies will lead
directly to the defeat of the Bolivarian
revolution and the taking of power by
the bourgeois opposition. This would be
a disaster. In order to avert it we must
return to the struggle for socialism and
against the bourgeois state.
Faced with the onslaught of imperialism
and the Venezuelan capitalists, what
would be the most effective way to fight
them? First of all, Venezuela should
break diplomatic relations with
Washington which is leading and
coordinating this campaign. Second it
should expropriate the property of all
multinational companies from any country
involved in this gross interference in
Venezuelan national sovereignty.
Thirdly, it should expropriate the
properties of the Venezuelan oligarchy
which has been constantly plotting
against the will of the people for the
last 15 years. Fourthly,
anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist
committees of workers, soldiers and
peasants should be formed in every
company, factory, barracks and in the
countryside. These committees should be
armed and exercise workers’ control
against the sabotage of the oligarchy.
Finally, the Bolivarian revolution
should make an appeal to the workers and
peasants of Latin America and the
working class of the world to come to
its aid and block the attempts of
reactionary governments to intervene
against it.
That is the only policy which can
guarantee the defence of the revolution.
This article was first published at
In Defence of Marxism
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
Venezuela Fake News
Debunked: Assembly Not Annulled, No Coup:
The U.S. issued a condemnation saying that
the "Venezuelan Supreme Court's March 29
decision ... usurp(ed) the power of the
democratically-elected National Assembly."
Opposition leader Julio Borges,
Brazil Coup Architect
Eduardo Cunha Sentenced to 15 Years for
Corruption:
The man who led a campaign to paint Dilma
Rousseff as a corrupt politician has drowned
in his own fraud scandals.
