[Marxism] Ven. govt. stymied HRW effort to spur liberal capitalist opposition

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think the Venezuelan government should be congratulated and supported for
the way they handled the HRW operation.

The key moment in this scene, as described by a leading operative in the
current New York Review of Books reprinted below, is when the HRW operatives
reached for their cell phones to call the embassy, the news media, etc., and
thus created both an international diplomatic incident and an organizing
center for the opposition around themselves. This was well handled by the
troops on the scene and the attempt was forestalled.

This is another reminder that there is no such thing as a viable
revolutionary workers and people's democracy in the world today that does
not have to take measures of revolutionary dictatorship to defend itself.

The HRW operative points out that they take the same approach to the
government of Colombia as Venezuela. This may or may not be true, not
knowing the details. His idea is to suggest that people who support the
Venezuelan government and oppose the Colombian one are being hypocritical or
at least inconsistent.

But the Colombian government is based on terrorizing and crushing the masses
of workers, peasants, common people and others whose interests and human
rights have been defended and advanced by the government in Venezuelans.
This is a fundamental, not a secondary difference. And the same battle is
being fought out in Bolivia. And taking shape in Ecuador as well. If HRW's
efforts to organize liberal opposition have the effect of destabilizing the
death-squad Colombian government, I'm for it.


In Cuba, the Castro regime has always and necessarily combined elements of
revolutionary democracy and revolutionary dictatorship. In today's highly
unresolved wars, civil wars, revolutionary struggles, and other crises, you
cannot have one without the other -- period. I admit I tend to give the
Cubans even more of the benefit of the doubt than before as they have moved
ever further away from attempts to restrict literature, art, music, and
cultural expression, and have steadily expanded the area of sexual rights.
But as far as keeping the (in this case almost entirely US organized and
financed) bourgeois supposedly democratic opposition off balance, I support
the Cubans.

Will measures of revolutionary dictatorship lead to excesses? Does it
contain dangers of many kinds? Everything we know says yes. Does that mean
that the Cubans should let down their guard and throw the door wide open. I
suspect that would be a mistake. At any rate, I definitely don't take it
upon myself to recommend it.

Today, Venezuela is facing a period of heavy sledding and higher tension.
Until now, it has been largely possible, due to high oil prices and growing
world trade, to improve the conditions of the workers and oppressed, without
too directly challenging the profits of capitalist class, some sections of
which have been thriving. No complaints from me about that, since the time
bought seems to have been used to better organize the masses for further
steps forward, including militarily.

But oil prices are plummeting now.  A pro-worker, peasant, Black, and
indigenous variant of "a rising tide lifts all ships" may not work much
longer. Choices between classes are going to have to be made more sharply
and painfully for the losers in a time when resources are tighter. In that
context, the necessity of defending revolutionary democracy by measures of
revolutionary dictatorship is likely to come more into play. This also seems
true to a considerable degree

The Chavez government claims that HRW is US-financed. I know of no evidence
for this, but then I am hardly in the best position to know. But I do know
that there are people who work in the service of imperialist democracy for
no extra charge. They are truly dedicated to this cause. This is my basic
impression of HRW, and has been for a long time.

I will be glad to be corrected about the details, but it is my impression
that HRW arose among civil libertarians who saw Amnesty as taking a too
passive, defensive role in defense of human rights, focusing on individual
cases rather than in organizing opposition to regimes held to be
dictatorial. HRW gets actively involved in fostering, supporting and
politically arming liberal procapitalist forces. In the Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe, HRW worked in this direction through the Helsinki process, 
Solidarity, etc.

And also more than Amnesty, HRW accepted the neoliberal ideology that
identifies capitalism as the precondition for democracy.

HRW's campaigning against the Venezuelan government is part of this pattern,
it seems to me.  And I expect to see it extended to Bolivia (how can these
totally sincere bourgeois civil libertarians resist the sacred right of
autonomy or not combat anti-white, pro-indigenous "racism in reverse"} and
perhaps also to Argentina.

This is speculative, of course. Anyway, their treatment in Venezuela seems
to be what was called for in the given situation.
Fred Feldman







http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22033

Volume 55, Number 17 · November 6, 2008
Hugo Chávez Versus Human Rights
By Jose Miguel Vivanco, Daniel Wilkinson
On September 18, we released a report in Caracas that shows how President
Hugo Chávez has undermined human rights guarantees in Venezuela. That night,
we returned to our hotel and found around twenty Venezuelan security agents,
some armed and in military uniform, awaiting us outside our rooms. They were
accompanied by a man who announced?with no apparent sense of irony?that he
was a government "human rights" official and that we were being expelled
from the country.

With government cameramen filming over his shoulder, the official did his
best to act as if he were merely upholding the law. When we said we needed
to gather our belongings, he calmly told us not to worry, his men had
already entered our rooms and "packed" our bags.

But when we tried to use our cell phones to get word to our families, our
colleagues, and the press, the veneer of protocol quickly gave way. Security
agents surrounded us, pried the phones from our hands, and removed and
pocketed the batteries. When we then insisted on contacting our embassies,
they shoved us into a service elevator, took us to the basement, and forced
us into the back seat of an SUV with tinted windows. When we asked where we
were headed, they told us only that we were going to the airport.

Three security agents sat behind us, at least two with weapons drawn. One
used a cell phone to receive and relay orders as we raced through the
streets of Caracas and out onto a highway. At one point an order came to
turn on the SUV's radio so we could listen as the state news agency
announced our expulsion. The announcers told their captive audience?which
also included every other Venezuelan listening to the radio, since all
stations are required to broadcast such messages?that our organization was
funded by the US government and that we were part of a campaign of
aggression against Venezuela.

Human Rights Watch does not and has never accepted funding from the US or
any government, directly or indirectly. But we are accustomed to such false
accusations, especially coming from authoritarian governments. Venezuelan
officials have repeatedly denounced us as CIA stooges, right-wing partisans,
and, more commonly, "mercenaries of the empire." (By contrast, in
neighboring Colombia, officials have repeatedly sought to discredit us with
labels like Communist, guerrilla sympathizer, and even terrorist.) Once,
after releasing another report in Caracas, one of us was publicly and
falsely accused by Chávez's vice-president of having collaborated with
former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. This time, a close Chávez ally in
the legislature suggested on national TV that the two of us had been sharing
a single hotel room where we were indulging our "weaknesses."

The official reason we were given for our expulsion was that we had violated
the constitution by criticizing the government while on tourist visas. It
was a curious allegation since our immigration cards included a "business"
box, which we had dutifully checked off. In any case, Venezuela's foreign
minister, Nicolás Maduro, made clear the next day that the government's
decision had nothing to do with our visa status. "Any foreigner who comes to
criticize our country will be immediately expelled," he declared. Of course,
had the Chávez government actually been interested in upholding its laws, it
would have respected our rights?enshrined in the Venezuelan constitution?to
immediately contact our embassies, obtain legal counsel, and receive a fair
hearing. Instead, as we discovered only after we were finally ushered onto a
plane at the airport, it bought us a one-way trip to Brazil.

The ease with which the government disregarded these rights only reaffirmed
the central finding of our report: the Chávez government is more than
willing to violate the country's constitution in pursuit of its own
political agenda. Ironically it was Chávez himself who first championed that
constitution a decade ago, after he was swept into office promising to
overhaul the country's largely discredited political system. Enacted in
1999, the "Bolivarian" Constitution offered a unique opportunity for the
country to shore up the rule of law and strengthen human rights protections.
But that opportunity has since been largely squandered. The most dramatic
setback came in April 2002, when opponents of Chávez temporarily ousted him
in a coup d'état. Fortunately, the coup lasted less than two days.
Unfortunately, the government has exploited it ever since to help justify
policies that have degraded the country's democracy.

Today Venezuela is hardly the brutal dictatorship that some critics of
Chávez paint it to be. Yet the country's democratic institutions have
suffered considerably since the coup. Chávez and his allies have effectively
neutralized the judiciary. While some newspapers and broadcasters are still
independent and some are outspoken in their opposition to Chávez, the
President and his legislative supporters have strengthened the state's
capacity to limit free speech and created powerful incentives for
self-censorship. They have, for example, expanded laws making "contempt" for
government officials a criminal offense, increased prison sentences for
criminal defamation, and abused the state's control of broadcasting
frequencies to intimidate and discriminate against stations with overtly
critical programming. While there are independent labor unions, the
government has systematically violated workers' rights and fostered
pro-government unions. There are dedicated human rights advocates. But they
have been subjected to a virulent barrage of verbal assaults and even
harassment by prosecutors.

A central goal of the "Bolivarian" Constitution is the promotion of a more
inclusive democracy in Venezuela. In view of the history of exclusion and
the glaring inequalities that plague Venezuela and countries throughout
Latin America, it is a goal that deserves to be taken seriously. Yet
Chávez's own professed commitment to this vital and ambitious aim is
contradicted by his government's willful disregard for the institutional
guarantees and fundamental rights that make democratic participation
possible.

In the more than twenty years that Human Rights Watch has worked in Latin
America, no government has ever expelled our representatives for our work,
not even the right-wing dictatorships guilty of far more egregious abuses
than those committed by Chávez. Presumably they knew better. After all,
Chávez's decision to expel us merely served to confirm the central message
of our report and ensure that it received extensive coverage around the
globe.

Why did Chávez do it? One Brazilian on the plane on which we were forced to
leave Venezuela offered a view that is increasingly widespread throughout
Latin America: "Chávez is crazy." But the human rights defenders we work
with in Venezuela have drawn a far more sobering conclusion. Chávez, in
their view, was sending a deliberate message to his fellow countrymen: he
will not allow human rights guarantees to get in his way, no matter what the
rest of the world may think.

If their interpretation is right, it does not bode well for the future of
Venezuelan democracy.

?October 9, 2008 



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