Report from Veneezuela in 'The Militant'

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

   Vol.66/No.30           August 12, 2002


'We're fighting to defend
workers in Venezuela'
(front page)

BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS,
OLYMPIA NEWTON
AND CARLOS CORNEJO
VALENCIA, Venezuela--"During the April coup we placed ourselves under the
military command of Chávez and his people, and we'll do it again, if
necessary," said Orlando Chirino in an interview here July 18. "But we don't
agree with many policies of the Chávez government, before and after the
coup--especially more conciliation with the oligarchy since April 11. We are
fighting to defend the interests of working people. There is more space to
do this now, compared with what we faced before 1998."
Chirino is the executive secretary of the Workers Federation of Carabobo
State (FETRAC). He was a textile worker for more than 20 years before
becoming full time for the union. An affiliate of the Confederation of
Workers of Venezuela (CTV), FETRAC includes most unions in the state of
Carabobo, one of the most industrialized in the country. Valencia, Carabobo'
s capital, is the country's largest industrial center.
The union leader's remarks were indicative of similar opinions expressed by
most workers interviewed by the Militant here and in Caracas, the country's
capital, in mid-July. Political discussion and debate over how working
people can defend themselves against the increasingly harsh economic and
social conditions are widespread in the country today. In addition, protests
by peasants, workers, and youth around the need to push ahead with an
agrarian reform, for jobs, and against ongoing probes and assaults by the
bosses take place on a daily basis.
Tens of thousands of youth and working people are joining the Bolivarian
Circles, initiated last November, after a call by Chávez for more popular
participation in solving social problems. They are loose formations
organized on a voluntary basis at workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, and
elsewhere mostly to do social work and organize defense guards. Many,
however, assume a more overtly political character.
There are more than 100,000 of these circles around the country, and their
number has increased substantially since the April coup, we were told.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, elected with a large popular vote in 1998,
was deposed April 11 in a short-lived military coup backed by Washington.
This was preceded in March and early April by bosses' "strikes" and large
street cazerolazos, or pot banging protests, made up overwhelmingly of
middle and upper classes demanding the president's resignation.
Fedecámaras, the country's main business association, called for a
nation-wide shutdown of companies April 8-11 to bring down Chávez. The CTV's
officialdom backed the reactionary bosses' strike, giving popular cover to
the employers' drive to get rid of Chávez. Violence erupted during a
demonstration of hundreds of thousands called by the bourgeois opposition
April 11, with 18 people killed and dozens wounded, many by gunfire.

Reactionary coup
The top military brass seized on the shootings as a pretext to intervene.
The generals who led the coup installed an "interim administration" headed
by Pedro Carmona, a wealthy oil man and president of Fedecámaras. The next
day, Carmona announced his regime had annulled the country's
constitution--approved with a 71 percent vote in a referendum in December
1999, dissolved the National Assembly, ended oil shipments to Cuba on
favorable terms, and revoked 49 laws approved by the government last year.
These overturned measures included a land reform program and limits on the
ability of foreign investors to extract profits from superexploitation of
Venezuela's resources and labor. A number of these laws benefited Venezuela'
s toilers and were despised by the bourgeoisie. Carmona's sweeping
moves--announced as the businessmen and generals who seized the presidential
palace held a celebration with whisky glasses held high--shed a spotlight on
the reasons for and character of the reactionary coup.
Within two days divisions in the armed forces and huge popular mobilizations
throughout the country demanding Chávez's reinstatement caused the coup to
collapse. Chávez returned to Miraflores, the presidential palace, April 13.
Since then, the Chávez administration has shifted to the right, seeking
conciliation with the employers, who still have a firm hold on the country's
economic power. Measures along these lines have included virtual immunity
for the coup plotters, appointments of new ministers with ties to the
employers, reversal of the previous decision to bring the state oil company
under government control, and a halt of oil shipments to Cuba.
Despite this turn by the president, and because Chávez's term in office has
raised expectations and self-confidence among working people, the capitalist
class continues to try to find ways to undermine his regime and eventually
overthrow him.

How working people fought back
Chirino; Ismael Hernandez, a textile worker in Valencia; Abel Bovada, who is
an independent truck driver here; and others explained what they did to
resist the drive to oust Chávez in April.
On April 8, the beginning of the bosses' strike, workers gathered outside
MAVESA, a condiment-producing factory, and other nearby plants, Bovada said.
"We had signs saying: 'Chávez, we want to work' and 'Down with the bosses'
strike.'" Up to 3,000 workers demonstrated that day, he said. The next day
many leaders of FETRAC organized a caravan of 600 vehicles throughout
Valencia with the same demands. A similar car caravan April 10 was shot at
and dispersed by the police.
"On the morning of April 11, before any news arrived from Caracas, we held a
press conference at the union hall stating our belief a coup was in the
works and explaining we would fight against it," Chirino said. Next day more
than 5,000 people, mostly workers and students, gathered around the local
army barracks, defying police blockades and fraternizing with the soldiers.
Similar mobilizations took place in nearby Aragua, where 20,000 people
poured into the local army garrison. Similar actions took place across the
country, we were told.
Meanwhile, up to 200,000 people were protesting in the streets of Caracas,
demanding the reinstatement of Chávez. Buses from Valencia and many other
cities were stopped by the police from transporting workers from the
provinces to the capital to fight the coup, Hernandez said.
Opposition to the coup was strong throughout the working class, including
workers who have turned against Chávez. "The government is only words and no
action," said Nicolas Contreras, who transports vehicles for Hyundai of
Venezuela. "I don't support Chávez, but I was against the coup. That would
have been a big step backwards for us."
"We were elated after we brought Chávez back," said Abner Lopez, an
assembly-line worker at the Chrysler auto plant here. "We thought now is the
time to take more radical measures against Fedecámaras, the bosses, and all
their lieutenants. But that's not what has happened."

No plotters jailed
None of the coup plotters have gone to jail, Lopez, Chirino, Hernandez, and
others said. The Supreme Justice Tribunal held an initial hearing July 18 to
determine whether there is sufficient evidence to try four of the 127
military officers involved in the April coup on charges of leading a
military rebellion. "No one knows what will happen to these generals," Lopez
said. "They should have been in jail already, and all the others, including
Carmona, who was allowed to leave the country and move to Miami. Already,
people are protesting this."
Hundreds of people protested outside the court hearing in Caracas July 18,
hurling cans, eggs, and blunt objects over National Guard cordons and
demanding justice against the coup organizers.
Hernandez added that Fedecámaras is now pushing new antilabor measures, with
the support of some government ministers, such as increasing job probation
from three to nine months.
"Chávez dismissed his former finance minister for repeated acts of
corruption, but instead of going to jail he was given another lucrative job
at a state bank," Chirino said. "The new finance minister and the minister
of planning are now telling us to tighten our belts to deal with the
economic crisis. We will pay for this, not these ministers or the bosses.
These people are from the oligarchy."
According to the July 19 El Nacional, one of Venezuela's main dailies, and
other press reports, Minister of Planning and Development Felipe Pérez, and
Finance Minister Tobías Nóbrega, are pushing the National Assembly to raise
value-added-tax from 14.5 percent to 16 percent and to increase interest
rates. These tax reforms must be approved immediately, Pérez reportedly told
parliamentary deputies, "regardless of the political cost of this decision,
and we must all tighten our belts."

Deep economic crisis
Venezuela is the fifth largest oil-producing country in the world. It has
many mineral resources and a relatively high level of industrialization for
Latin America. At the same time, it is ranked among the top one-fifth of
countries in the world on class inequality. While the top 10 percent of the
population of 23 million receives half the national income, 40 percent lived
in "critical poverty," according to a 1995 estimate. The official poverty
level is expected to rise to between 50 percent and 60 percent this year. An
estimated 80 percent earned the minimum wage--about $150 per month in today'
s figures--or less in the mid-1990s, and this figure has not improved.

Economic crisis deepens
The country's foreign debt has risen to $35 billion. Capitalists in the
United States and other imperialist countries use Venezuela's debt bondage
to suck billions of dollars in wealth out of the country, as they do
throughout the semicolonial world. To pay the bondholders and imperialist
banks, Venezuela's rulers have cut wages and social programs. As a number of
workers pointed out, there is no unemployment insurance for those laid off.
Over the last year, the country's economic crisis has deepened considerably,
mainly as a result of the normal workings of capitalism accelerated by the
efforts of the employers' drive to oust Chávez. The country's Gross Domestic
Product is expected to drop more than 3 percent this year, partly as a
result of the oil industry and other work stoppages organized by the bosses.
Investors have spirited more than $80 billion in capital out of the country
this year. A continued devaluation of the bolivar, the country's currency,
has dealt further blows to working people by raising prices on many basic
goods, since most finished manufactured products are imported. Inflation is
running at nearly 25 percent, double the rate in 2001. Nearly one-fifth of
all workers are unemployed and many companies are planning additional
layoffs.
The bosses at auto assembly plants, for example, laid off 14,000 workers in
the first quarter of this year out of a workforce of 93,000. This has dealt
serious blows to working people in Valencia, where General Motors, Ford, and
Chrysler have large car assembly factories.
The bourgeois opposition that has tried to bring down Chávez has attempted
to capitalize on this by blaming the government for the crisis.
This was a theme of the latest anti-Chávez march in Caracas July 11.
According to various accounts, more than half-a-million people took part in
this action demanding Chávez's resignation. Juan Pablo Torres, attorney for
the Liberator municipality of Caracas and a supporter of the government,
said in a July 15 interview that "for the first time it wasn't just the
middle and upper classes marching against Chávez. Some contingents of the
humble classes were also visible." It was a typical observation among other
defenders of Chávez interviewed by the Militant.
The CTV leadership has also tried to use the economic downturn to put a
popular veneer on its reactionary call for organizing a new general strike
to bring down the president. "The proposal of the CTV is to call a national
civic strike to demand the resignation of President Hugo Chávez," said CTV
general secretary Manuel Cova July 15. "We have over 2 million people that
are without work. Jobs are being destroyed."

Workers blame bosses and capitalism
Most workers interviewed by the Militant, however, blamed the bosses, not
the Chávez government, for the deteriorating recession.
"The problem in this country is that the bosses make millions of bolivars a
month in profits and we workers can barely survive," said José Sanchez, who
works in a carton manufacturing plant in Valencia. "I support Chávez because
even though he hasn't done everything he promised he has put the breaks on
the bosses. They can't do anything they want against us as they did before."
On May 1, under increasing pressure from workers, Chávez signed a decree
prohibiting further layoffs for 60 days. The labor movement succeeded in
winning an extension of the decree to July 28. "When that expires, we expect
many firings, especially of union militants," said Abner Lopez. "They are
already preparing the lists, as they did in June when they posted the
layoffs the day before Chávez extended it another month.
"This is true especially of the Yankee bosses," Lopez added, expressing his
deep anger at Washington's intervention in support of the April coup, a view
held by many workers Militant reporters spoke to.
"It's capitalism that's leaving us and our families on the streets, not
Chávez," said Wilmer Mejias, a former auto worker at GM who now works as a
truck driver after being laid off. Pointing to the recent closing of
Sudantec, a textile company that received subsidies from the government and
employed about 5,000 workers, Mejias said the government should take over
such companies and ask workers to run them.
Such proposals for nationalizations of companies that shut down are a
minority view. "But demands like these will grow," said Chirino.
Workers have increasingly rejected the CTV leadership's call for another
nationwide strike. "The CTV never did anything for workers," said Pedro Jose
Rodriguez, a truck driver, in a typical comment. "Now they are somehow
concerned about unemployment. I've been working for 38 years and the CTV
never did anything for workers. It went with the bosses April 11. No worker
in their right mind wanted these 'strikes.'"

Strike call loses steam
Under increasing pressure from workers, the CTV campaign for another
nationwide antigovernment strike is rapidly losing steam. Between July 15
and July 19, officials of Fedepetrol, the oil workers union, Fedeunep, the
600,000-strong United Federation of Government Workers, the steelworkers
union, and the Union of Workers of the Metro in Caracas denounced the CTV's
call for a strike.
A number of those interviewed said that it was Chávez's earlier labor
policies that gave the CTV tops some legitimacy for a period of time. "The
labor policy of Chávez was reactionary, trying to tie the unions to the
state and telling workers he would not honor labor contracts," Chirino
stated.
Chirino was referring to the December 2000 referendum organized by Chávez to
suspend the national leadership of the CTV until elections would be held.
The majority of the CTV officialdom supports the social-democratic
Democratic Action Party (AD). A minority backs the Social Christian COPEI
party, or the Venezuelan Communist Party and smaller groups in the workers
movement. That referendum was approved by a 65 percent majority, but only 22
percent of the 11 million eligible workers turned out to the polls. The
referendum was opposed by officials of the four established trade union
federations. Officials of a fifth, the Bolivarian Workers Force (FBT)
founded that year, align themselves with the Chávez regime. Chávez won some
support for his attempt to shackle the unions more tightly to the state by
taking advantage of widespread hatred for the labor bureaucracy, which he
termed "corrupt and rotten."
Opposition to this move, however, by the bosses and most trade union
officials, along with many workers, forced the government to shelve
implementation of the referendum's result. Chávez recently recognized the
CTV with its current leadership as legitimate.
"We can only overthrow the CTV leadership from within," said Chirino, "while
supporting complete independence of the trade union movement from the
state."

Bolivarian circles
The CTV's outright sellout to the bosses has led a number of working people
seeking ways to defend their interests to turn to other forms of
organization.
As José Bonilla, a truck driver for a large transportation firm in Caracas,
put it, "We never succeeded in bringing a union to the company, so a number
of us have now organized a Bolivarian circle."
The Bolivarian circles are nationally coordinated out of Caracas, from what
is called "the political command of the Bolivarian revolution." While
largely organized by the Movement for the Fifth Republic (MVR), Chávez's
party, the circles include a range of political forces and many working
people and youth who have no political affiliation.
At the University of Carabobo in Valencia, for example, there are more than
51 Bolivarian circles incorporating a large percentage of the student body.
Each focuses on different tasks--from scientific seminars in the evening, to
social work in the community, to volunteer labor to repair houses or
infrastructure in working-class neighborhoods, to street protests against
police repression.
The police in a state whose governor Romer Salas is a prominent figure in
the bourgeois opposition, has tried to brand them as "terrorist cells."
Joel Panton, a leader of the Alma Mater student group, has helped initiate
several of these circles. He said the authorities organized a provocation
June 20 in which four assailants entered a school bus full of students,
poured gasoline on the floor, and lit a fire. A number of students, and the
bus driver, were seriously injured in the arson attack and are still in the
hospital. The bus driver, though, succeeded in capturing one of the
arsonists who later confessed that the operation was organized by a
paramilitary group financed out of the governor's office and organized in
collaboration with the police, Panton said.
The intent was to blame the attack on the Bolivarian circles, but with the
capture of one of the assailants this has backfired on the local
authorities. Panton said a number of the Bolivarian circles have organized
street protests in recent weeks to demand that all responsible be brought to
justice.
Members of these circles have also organized unarmed defense squads around
the presidential palace since the April coup and similar activities in
working-class neighborhoods.
This is an uneven development, still in its infancy. The almost weekly
meetings and swirl of activity of the Bolivarian circles at the University
of Carabobo, for example, contrast with a similar group of municipal workers
in Caracas that has only met twice since it was founded in April. These
circles had a prominent role in mobilizing hundreds of thousands for the
June 29 pro-Chávez march in Caracas, the largest pro-government
demonstration since the coup.





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