http://themilitant.com/2016/8021/802150.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 21 May 30, 2016
(special feature)
Washington uses crisis to push for pro-US gov’t
in Venezuela
SETH GALINSKY
Growing shortages of basic goods and medicines, a drop in factory
production, out-of-control inflation and severe electrical shortages are
fueling a deepening social and political crisis in Venezuela. Meanwhile
Washington is tightening the screws, hoping to get a government there
more to the liking of U.S. imperialism.
In March President Barack Obama renewed an executive order declaring the
government of President Nicolás Maduro “an unusual and extraordinary
threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United
States." On April 28 the U.S. Senate approved a three-year extension of
sanctions against Venezuelan officials alleged to have violated “human
rights."
These measures “go against the principles of non-interference in
internal affairs and the sovereign equality of states," the Bolivarian
Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) declared May 5. The
alliance, initiated by the governments of Cuba and Venezuela, includes
13 Latin American and Caribbean countries.
“The Socialist Workers Party stands in solidarity with the working
people of Venezuela," SWP presidential candidate Alyson Kennedy told the
Militant May 18. “We demand Washington end its sanctions and oppose any
interference against Venezuelan sovereignty."
The pro-imperialist opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable — which won
the majority of seats in Venezuela’s legislature in January — turned in
more than a million signatures May 2 in favor of a recall of Maduro to
the National Electoral Board. The board has not yet ruled on their
validity, and Vice President Aristóbulo Istúriz said there won’t be a
recall vote, accusing the opposition of “fraud."
Maduro extended a “state of exception and economic emergency" May 13,
charging that opposition groups were promoting hoarding, boycott, usury,
shortages and inflation to destabilize the government. He said the armed
forces would be deployed to guarantee distribution of food and other
necessities. Maduro cited Obama’s executive order as an example of
imperialist intervention aiding the opposition.
Henrique Capriles, who lost the last presidential election, on May 17
called on the armed forces “to decide whether you are with the
constitution or with Maduro."
Since 1998, when Hugo Chávez was elected president, the government has
said that it was implementing a Bolivarian Revolution and 21st century
socialism. The U.S. government — which was never happy about close ties
between Chávez and the revolutionary government of Cuba nor Chávez’s
refusal to bow to U.S. demands — backed more than one attempt to
overthrow Chávez, including a 2002 coup that was reversed after
thousands of working people took to the streets.
But instead of mobilizing working people to take power out of the hands
of the capitalist class and organizing workers to control conditions on
the job — as Cuban revolutionaries did — Chávez put forward a course of
trying to manage the capitalist market in favor of the working classes.
Maduro has continued that course.
Cubans aid social programs
Chávez and Maduro used the nation’s oil profits — Venezuela has the
largest oil reserves in the world — to subsidize housing, food, health
care and social programs. Many of the social programs have been carried
out with the help of revolutionary Cuba, which has tens of thousands of
health-care workers, teachers and other volunteers who go to some of the
most impoverished and least accessible areas of the country.
The Venezuelan government in return has provided cheap oil to Cuba.
The world capitalist economic crisis has had a devastating affect on
Venezuela. A precipitous drop in the price of oil — which accounts for
95 percent of the country’s export earnings — was countered by printing
money. Policies aimed at managing the crisis, such as price controls and
a special exchange rate for dollars for companies that import and
export, fueled inflation and shortages of goods, as many capitalists
found it more profitable to speculate on the exchange rates instead of
manufacturing.
The country’s oil exports fell 49 percent in 2015, according to the
Inter-American Development Bank. A drought made matters worse, bringing
the water level at the Guri hydroelectric dam, which generates 75
percent of the country’s electricity, to a record low.
Venezuela’s currency, the bolivar, has tumbled in relation to the dollar
by 99.1 percent since 2012. Imports of basic foodstuffs, including
sugar, flour and eggs have declined. People have to stand in line for
hours hoping to buy products, often to find empty shelves. The inflation
rate is estimated at 720 percent — likely the highest in the world — up
from 180 percent in 2015.
Starting April 26, Maduro placed most government employees, more than 30
percent of the workforce, on a two-day workweek to conserve energy.
Public hospitals are exempt. The government has also initiated rolling
four-hour blackouts throughout the country, and pushed the clocks
forward 30 minutes to increase daylight hours.
Brewery shuts its doors
Polar, Venezuela’s largest food and beverage conglomerate, announced the
closure of four plants April 29, claiming it could no longer afford to
import barley, eliminating 10,000 jobs.
In response Maduro threatened to nationalize any company that does not
produce. A handful of companies have been nationalized previously,
carried out by the government without participation from workers. At the
same time Maduro said he would ease price controls on some industries to
encourage production and would eliminate middlemen in the sale of some
subsidized products.
According to the Washington Post, in recent weeks there have been
incidents of looting during electrical blackouts. AFP news agency
reported May 11 that hundreds of people broke into a market in Maracay
when they were told there were no subsidized products for sale, carrying
off boxes of corn, pasta and oil. The market was guarded by soldiers,
after authorities charged that products were being hoarded to sell later
at higher prices.
“You can hear the ice cracking," an unidentified U.S. official told the
Washington Post at a May 13 “briefing" for selected journalists.
But the pro-imperialist opposition is itself riven by factional disputes
and Washington has little confidence in the opposition’s ability to
stabilize the political situation, much less find a way out of the hole
in the midst of the capitalist economic crisis. And while workers’
support for the Maduro government has eroded, the parties that make up
the Roundtable are discredited. Workers know from experience that their
talk of democracy and promises to improve the economy are a cover for
defending the wealthy capitalists.
In an indication of the U.S. government’s hopes, Reuters reported after
the official briefing, that “one ‘plausible’ scenario would be that
Maduro’s own party or powerful political figures would force him out and
would not rule out the possibility of a military coup."
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