Trump Is Not The Venezuelan Supreme Court
Nicolas-Maduro-600x400
By Joe Emersberger, www.venezuelanalysis.com
July 31st, 2017
Above Photo: From venezuelanalysis.com
The Trump administration has threatened Venezuela with economic sanctions if
the government proceeds with a vote to elect a Constituent Assembly to
rewrite the constitution - the Venezuelan constitution that is. Venezuela is
not about to rewrite the U.S. Constitution or some other country's
constitution. That clarification is necessary because the Trump
administration and other governments (Canada, Colombia etc..) seem to have
collectively appointed themselves the Supreme Court of Venezuela.
It should also be noted that Venezuelan opposition leaders have effectively
been imposing economic sanctions on their own country for quite some time.
Since winning control over the National Assembly in 2015, Henry Ramos Allup
and Julio Borges (who have each been National Assembly President) have
boasted of blocking Venezuela's access to foreign loans. According to the
opposition-aligned pollster, Datanalisis, 55% of Venezuelans disapprove of
that opposition tactic and only 31.7% approve. As for the sanctions Trump
has threatened, 65% are opposed and only 26% are in favour. Unsurprisingly,
people living through a major economic crisis tend not to be in favor of
deliberately making it worse. All of this is taking the numbers of an
opposition-aligned pollster at face value. Public hostility towards economic
sanctions, whether imposed by Trump or by opposition leaders, is probably
even more widespread than what Datanalisis has reported.
These figures are known to many corporate journalists in Venezuela but good
luck finding them mentioned, never mind appropriately highlighted. What you
will - very often - find reported is a Datanalisis poll finding that 67%
"disagree" with electing a Constituent Assembly. I disagree myself. I think
it was a bad idea. It doesn't follow that electing one is unconstitutional -
much less grounds for foreign intervention. Datanalisis also reported that
39% think the opposition should participate in the Constituent Assembly
elections. Again, good luck finding that figure mentioned in the media.
In 1999, Venezuelans voted in a referendum to elect a Constituent Assembly.
The method for electing the Constituent Assembly was part of what voters
approved. After the constitution was drafted, it was then approved by voters
in a referendum and therefore entered into law. In 2000, Presidential and
National Assembly elections were held under the new constitution. This
extremely democratic process was constantly smeared in the international
media over the years by saying "Hugo Chavez rewrote the constitution". The
constitution of 1999 was briefly annulled during the short-lived Carmona
dictatorship which was backed by the opposition's core leadership of today
(Henrique Capriles, Leopoldo Lopez, Julio Borges, Henry Ramos, and many
others). That dictatorship was also backed by the U.S government and major
international media like the New York Times who gushed over Carmona.
Venezuela's President Maduro has alienated some chavistas by not following
the same process as in 1999 - specifically the initiating referendum where
voters are asked to approve both the general idea of electing a Constituent
Assembly and the general method for electing one. In fact, the constitution
is very far from clear that an initiating referendum is required, or even a
final referendum on the constitution that is drafted. However, Maduro has
committed to holding a referendum on the constitution that is drafted by the
Constituent Assembly. This is extremely important and routinely ignored in
media coverage about the Constituent Assembly. Hopefully one of the proposed
changes to Venezuela's constitution will be to make to make it crystal clear
(as is article 444 of Ecuador's constitution for example) that an initiating
referendum is required to convene a Constituent Assembly, as well as a final
referendum on what it drafts.
At any rate, the idea that foreign governments have the right to impose an
interpretation of Venezuela's constitution on Venezuela is ludicrous.
Presumably US citizens would say the same if Venezuela ordered the U.S.
Supreme Court to overturn Citizens United.
Voting in the Constituent Assembly will be voluntary and through secret
ballot. The international press has sought to discredit the vote in a few
ways. One is to claim that electoral sectors have been designed ensure the
government a majority. Torino Capital, no fan of the government, did an
analysis which concluded that the opposition could win control of the
Constituent Assembly with 58% of the votes. The media also reported a figure
of about 7 million participating in an informal plebiscite against the
Constituent Assembly without noting that there 20 million eligible voters in
Venezuela, or mentioning that millions turned out for a dry run of the
Constituent Assembly.
As always, the media has hyped claims that public sector workers are being
pressured to vote. The media has been vastly less interested in opposition
threats to forcibly impede people from voting. In Chavismo's worst defeat
(in December of 2015) 5.6 million people voted Chavista. There are only 2.8
million public sector workers in Venezuela, roughly 20% of the workforce.
Moreover, just taking by Datanalisis polls at face value, about 4 million
voters approve of Maduro's performance.
The mother of Orlando Figuera, a young man who died after being stabbed and
burned alive by opposition protesters, was fired from her job as a domestic
servant shortly after giving a TV interview in which she denounced the
opposition. How widespread is this kind of discrimination in a country where
millions work for employers who hate the government? Don't wait for the
international media to investigate. They've had a decade and a half to do
it. They could care less.
The media has referred to the broad powers the Constitution Assembly to
dissolve other branches of government. That is true, but other branches are
not automatically dissolved because a Constituent Assembly is elected, nor
is it clear that its decisions to do so would stand if voters reject the
constitution in the referendum Maduro has committed to holding. Maduro has
also very emphatically committed to holding presidential elections in 2018.
For the past fifteen years, the tactic of labelling Venezuela a
"dictatorship" has been central to whitewashing a violent and undemocratic
opposition leadership. Even during relatively calm years between 2004-2012,
when the opposition was much more divided between those who wanted to oust
the government by force and those who preferred an electoral path, hundreds
of Chavista peasant activists were assassinated by gunmen strongly linked to
wealthy landowners. Whether it takes power through votes or through a coup,
the possibility that the opposition will attempt large scale massacres of
Chavistas is very real, as is the possibility of armed resistance by
grassroots Chavista activists and supportive elements of the military.
International pressure on Venezuela's opposition leaders (basically exposing
what they are all about) is urgently required.
The US Empire consists of allied governments like Canada, private media
companies and prominent NGOs who all share its delusion that it is entitled
to decide which government is a "dictatorship" that "must go". It is a truly
formidable and lethal system of misinformation. Leftists should always have
done more to challenge the US Empire on Venezuela during the Chavista era,
and to challenge imperialism in general. We really need to step up now.