Forwarded from Anthony (Venezuela)

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Re Venezuela.

Fred Feldman's post (Subject: Venezuela Conflict: Who Is Gaining Ground?
From:"Fred Feldman"feldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 22:36:45
-0400) raised a lot of important questions, about what is going in in
Venezuela. Although I can not answer all his questions, I can give you an
impression gleaned from the media in Colombia, and from different online
sources in Latin America. 

About the Bolivarian circles. According to the media in colmbia, they are
growing, mostly through of neighborhood organizing around cultural
activities, and neighborhood improvement that is the center of their
activities. Although this takes up most of the press coverage here, El
Tiempo also aserts that the key activitists of these circles are recruited
and trained as political cadre, and also given some sort of military
training. No doubt El Tiempo is trying to justify armed attacks against the
circles, so who knows whether this report is true or false.

Ominously a group claiming to be a clandestine organization of army
officers is sending threating letters and other threatening communications
to the Circles, and to leading supporters of Chaves.

Pedro Carmona is in Bogotá, where he has the support of the Colombian
government, and is giving interviews to the press. The Venezuelan busniess
federations are intact, and orchestrating a media campaign against Chavez.
They are highlighting accusations of financial mismangement and corruption
made against chaves by opposition members of Congress. At the same time
they have a campaign accuinsg Chaves of causing unemployment in Venezuela.

Chaves is organinzing some kind of national convocation. This seems to be
an effort to split the coup coalition, neutralizing or winning over the
softer supporters of the coup, including some of the proimperialist unions,
by attaching them to some sort of joint program with the Chavistas. but I
havene't read much about this effort, so don't fully understand it.

As for the connection between Colombian and Venezuelan events, there
definitely is a strong one. After Uribe Velez, Carmona is the darling of
the Colombian busniess federations. On the other hand, the FARC is
concentrating on securing more control over the Eastern Llanos - which are
contiguous with Venezuela.

All the best, Anthony


Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org



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