Venezuela's 'National Strike': Fabrica Cerrada - Fabrica Tomada

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

ZNet | Venezuela
Venezuela's 'National Strike'
by Justin Podur; ZNet; December 10, 2002

The 'general strike' called by the opposition in Venezuela is now on
its eighth day.  The strike is the fourth called by the opposition
over the past year, including the failed coup attempt in April.  The
economy is suffering.  There have been at least three killed in the
violence already, in a shooting on December 6 in Caracas, and
although it is unclear whether the opposition to the Chavez
government were responsible for the shooting, they have labeled it
the 'Altamira Massacre' and one of their leaders -- Carlos Ortega,
head of one of the opposition unions -- asked for an external
intervention to remove Chavez because of it.  On December 3, the
anti-Chavez forces stopped a bus, doused it with gasoline, and set it
on fire earlier today to enforce the strike -- only the driver was
inside, and he escaped unharmed.  On the fourth day of the strike the
captains of the oil tankers began a blockade on the transport of oil
to and from Venezuela.

The 'Bolivarians', who support Chavez and his reforms, are fighting
back.  On December 10, they surrounded the TV stations, a natural
tactic in a country where the mass media is openly for the oligarchy
and against the poor.  On December 7, a peace march brought 2 million
out in support of the government, an event barely covered by the
media.  Last week, workers at a Pepsi-Cola plant in Aragua,
Venezuela, took it over against the wishes of management in order to
not join a national strike.  Their slogan is "Fabrica Cerrada -
Fabrica Tomada", or 'Close the Factories?  We'll take them over!"
The government has sent troops to take over the oil installations and
there are reports that oil workers in some parts of the country are
working.  But the strike has slowed oil production and the economy in
general.

Much of this struggle is about oil.  Venezuela is the world's fourth
largest oil producer and its oil industry is critical to its economy.
Chavez's 'bolivarian revolution' argues for a role for the state in
the oil industry, the redistribution of oil income, and the use of
revenues from this resource to build economic independence.  But
since 1974, the oil industry has been moving in the opposite
direction.  At that time, the state-run-oil company kept 20% of its
revenue in operating costs and turned 80% over to the state.  In 1990
it was 50-50 and in 1998, when Chavez was elected, the company kept
80% and turned 20% over.  What the neoliberals had in mind in the
late 1990s was full privatization-not a reversal of the trend of the
previous 20 years.  Added to this, the administration of the oil
industry is in the hands of anti-Chavez forces, making it possible
for them to go on strike in order to promote privatization.

What are Chavez's other crimes?  Severance pay was restored in the
constitution of 1999, after being eliminated in 1997.  Social
security was set to be privatized in 1998, but was also impeded by
the constitution of 1999.  The Land Law, passed last year, was an
agrarian reform law that tries to make rural life viable for
Venezuelans and slow rural-urban migration at the expense of large
plantation owners and real-estate speculators.

What is going on in Venezuela is a reversal of the situation in most
of the countries of the world.  Elsewhere, governments quietly pass
neoliberal laws, privatize state assets, and undermine agrarian
reforms under the direction of local elites.  The people-and quite
often the employees of the state organs to be privatized-protest, and
are repressed by the government.  In Venezuela, the neoliberals tried
and failed to take over the government in April 2002.  Their
remaining weapons are the strike, the media, and the dream of
external intervention.

The strike is becoming a war of attrition.  Many workers defied the
strike from the beginning, but if the skilled work of the oil
industry is monopolized by the neoliberal opposition, the strike will
continue to hurt the economy.  The media continues to be a totally
partisan, active member of the opposition.

What about external intervention?  The opposition clearly isn't
hoping for external intervention from the Worker's Party government
in Brazil -- it is, instead, hoping for help from a northern country
that happens to be in the business of 'regime change'.  The United
States is militarily and politically preparing for a war in Iraq.
Many analysts believe that a US intervention in Venezuela shouldn't
be ruled out, and that Colombia's civil war will offer a pretext for
such an intervention. While the US has made it clear that it would
recognize a Venezuelan government that successfully overthrew Chavez,
preparations for a direct military intervention do not seem to be in
the works in the short term.

Hans Dieterich argues that the opposition's impatience is because
time is on the side of the government.  In January, the Land Law and
the Hydrocarbon Law come into effect, strengthening the government's
hand.  Last April, the coup plotters lost much of their support in
the middle class and the military during their 24 hour dictatorship.
The poor are committed to defending the gains they have made, and are
continuing to organize and learn from each attack of the opposition.

There is also a small, but growing movement of international
solidarity with Venezuelans.  There are solidarity committees that
have formed in the US and elsewhere since the coup in April, and
delegations traveling to Venezuela to exchange with the bolivarians.
It is to be hoped that the World Social Forum 3 in Porto Alegre does
a better job of hosting and hearing from people from Venezuela's
remarkable movement than it has in previous years.  Internationalists
can sometimes find it difficult to support a government, however
popular, out of a sensible desire to not become apologists for any
regime.  But so long as Venezuela's regime acts in the interests of
the people, it merits international support and solidarity, and needs
it.

Marta Harnecker, a Chilean sociologist, has been following events in
Venezuela closely and recently interviewed Chavez for 15 hours.  Just
two weeks ago she stated her belief that "if Chávez wanted to lead an
insurrection today, he would have the strength to do it. That is, the
people and the army at this moment would permit a victorious
insurrection. The problem is what will happen tomorrow. I think he's
sufficiently mature to understand the correlation of forces in which
he finds himself and to understand that insurrection would not be the
solution."  The solution, instead, is to continue with democracy, to
continue to struggle honourably against opponents who fight dirty.
Venezuelans should not have to face this battle alone.

See Znet's Venezuela Watch for more coverage of Venezuela.  Justin
Podur is a regular Znet commentator and can be reached at
justin.podur@xxxxxxxxxxx

<http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=2729>
--
Yoshie

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