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Venezuela prepares for recall vote
 international |
miscellaneous |
news report
 Wednesday August 11, 2004 22:16 by venez
On the 9th of August as many as 1 million Chavez supporters filled the streets of Caracas in a huge show of opposition to Sunday’s schedualed recall referendum. Clad in red—the colour that has come to represent the movement that supports Chavez—supporters bore t-shirts, hats, berets, placards, puppets, and inventive home-made signs all uniformly declaring “No!” to the recall on Chávez’ mandate scheduled for next Sunday, August 15th
Chavez is a left populist who, with pressure from below, has implemented many reforms that have increased the living standards for the Venezuelan masses. Huge spending has gone into education, health care and housing programmes. As much as 80% of the profits from the state owned oil company PVDSA has been spent on these projects. In the past week Chavez has announced a further $500 million for housing.
These reforms, which have eaten into the profits of the ruling class and acted as a catalyst for a huge social movement has brought him into conflict with the rulling class and with US imperialism. Since his election in 1998 Venezuela’s opposition has tried ousting Chavez with a failed coup, a series of economically devastating general strikes and lockouts, and violent street protests and paramilitary activity. It is only since those efforts proved unsuccessful in defeating Chávez that the opposition has put its weight behind a constitutional effort in the form of the recall referendum.
With all credible polls showing Chavez winning the referendum by a margin of 8 to 31%, it is widely rumoured that the right wing opposition, backed up by US imperialism, will try to destabilise the country in the lead up to the vote. Recently Chavez’s Interior Minister Lucas Rincon alerted about possible terrorist acts that sectors of the opposition could be preparing to trigger a "Madrid effect" that could alter the outcome of the referendum.
As well as uncovering a plot to overthrow Chavez by an opposition group with the aid of Colombian paramilitaries, an arms cache valued at US$53 million was discovered in Brazil last month, which seems to have been destined for radical Venezuelan opposition groups seeking to sabotage the recall referendum. A large quantity of explosives and detonators have also been stolen from military bases.
Also recently Venezuelan opposition leader, and two time president Carlos Andres Perez, made a series of statements calling for violence and hinting at an eventual dictatorial period that the Venezuelan opposition must implement if current President Hugo Chavez is to be removed from office, opposition parties have been reluctant to distance themselves from these statements.
It is clear that the opposition and US imperialism want to see Chavez ousted from power. It seems likely that regardless of the result of Sunday’s poll the right wing will attempt to bring down Chavez by force. This highlights need for Chavez to take on the opposition head on. In order to defend the gains made and further increase the living standards of the Venezuelan masses Chavez and the movement which he represents must now organise, arm the people and nationalise the economy under democratic control.
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Comments (21 of 21)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21This might interest some!
I took a look at Palast's article on the Floridation of Venezuela, and I thought it superb. Thanks for the link.
yeah, there was a really good documentary done by a few lucky irish guys who were the only camera crew in the whole of venezuela (sic?) who had access to chavez and the ministers when the presidential lace was surrouded with them inside, when the american coup went down.
i think its called inside the coup, and its gotta be one of the best but disturbing views of who democracies can be fucked with
I think that an indymedia user should do a feature on Venezeaula, especially as we approach the re-call vote and the reation against Chavez's certain landslide. Before someone says it, I can't do it as I'm rather busy at work at the moment.
I think that this is one of the most interesting and significant international issues happening today. The situation in Venezeaula shows up the nature of US Imperialism, the nature of Capitalism, the nature of a reformist leader, etc. I think we need to have debates about Venezeaula. Does Chavez now need to set up workers' militia and to start a civil war and to nationalise? That's my opinion on it. The only way to counter the coming tide of reaction is to make a decisive move and to nationalise, to arm people, and to remove reactionary opposition.
I'm also interested in what Anarchists say about Venezeaula.
check out indymedia.org top story...
also bolivia recently had a referendum on nationalising oil experts it was fudged towards the multinationals
read
http://www.narconews.com/Issue33/article1006.html
What are the Anarchists saying about Venezuela, they are unusually quiet about it all.
I presume they have the ridiculous and infantile position of calling for people to stand aside and abstain from the vote. This is while Chavez and the movement which he is a manifestation of is being attacked by the capitalists and US imperialism. It is my view that the way socialists and revolutionaries should act is to campaign activly for a strong No vote, in doing this they should not be uncritical of Chavez - he has not gone far enough in tackling the capitalists and has and continues to persue incorrect tactics - Socialsits should also organise the arming of the people in order to defend themselvs from the inevitable coups and terrorist actions of the right wing CIA backed opposition.
A False Discourse
While there is a tradition of high abstention rates in Bolivian elections, some social movement spokespeople, unsuccessful in their boycott of the referendum, claimed that the real winner of the referendum was the blank, null, and invalid vote, together with abstention.
According to the initial data, abstention was as high as forty percent of the electorate. Bolivia has 4,445,090 registered voters, and 2,646,323 are expected to have gone to the polls. Abstention in the 2002 presidential elections was 28.1 percent, while in 1997 it was 28.9 percent.
Neighboring countries have also shown marked abstention rates in such polls. In Venezuela, the referendum to approve the new constitution in saw 55.63 percent abstention, while in Colombia a recent referendum on a number of reforms saw more than 75 percent abstention.
from the link below
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They are off to their summer camp. It's not in Caracas.
The anarchists being at their summer camp does not stop them having a position on Venezuela. Will they not be discussing Venezuela at their camp?
http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002319.html
and the other gobshites demanding an answer from Irish anarchists. I somehow doubt the Venezuelan people in the barrio's are patiently watiing for Irish anarchists to come on to Indymedia and say what they think of Chavez and his Bolivarian ideas.
Tell me Khalid will you be getting a crowd around over the weekend to discuss Venezuela and more importantly will you posting here your views on it.
Until then fuck up with the 'we must know what the anarchist think now' line.
I have posted some of my views on Venezuela ad I am wiling to discussing these issues on this forum and others.
I realise that the poor and working masses in the hillside barrios of Caracas will not by waiting with baited breath for the conclusions of the WSM at their summer camp in Newry, I am not a fool! But what I am saying is that events in Venezuela are significant, it is a revoltionary process, it raises important questions for the left in Ireland and internationally. These are questions that may arise sometime in Europe and it is importat therefore that we study and discuss what is happening in Venezuela now.
http://www.marxist.com/Latinam/caracas_august_8.html
http://www.aporrea.org
there was a column inch in the IT today saying that america is being very quiet less bullish about the venezuala situation at the mo cos otherwise it would raise oil prices even higher on the stock market....
Is iad na muca ciúine a itheann an mhin.
It is the quiet pigs that eat the meal.
Why is Americal always interfering in other countries? They're the greediest fattest nation on Earth. What more do they want?
http://www.rense.com/general24/hug.htm
in response to his deputy's catcall of "merry Christmas Emma!" that day in December 1919 that she, her long time lover and many hundres of other anarchists and social activists were deported on a specially chartered ship from New York City.
Hoover used the deportation to launch his BI department at the US Justice, which by 1924 became the FBI. He remained in his position as director general of the FBI till his death in the mid 1970s.
The CIA amongst other entities (certain prominent mafia families) defended itself from Hoover "it is said", with a photo of his deputy and himself engaging in felatio.
Stand Strong Diego!