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The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 27 July 24, 2017
(feature article)
US-backed opposition seeks to oust Venezuela government
Capitalist economic crisis wears on working people
BY SETH GALINSKY
The U.S.-backed opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable coalition (MUD)
in Venezuela is escalating protests aimed at blocking a July 30 vote for
delegates to a new constituent assembly and at bringing down the
government of President Nicolás Maduro.
For the last three months, these opposition forces have stepped up
protests across the country designed to provoke violent clashes with the
police and National Guard. They seek to open divisions among the
Venezuelan armed forces and government officials in the hopes of
fomenting a coup.
Their actions are encouraged by the financial and travel sanctions
imposed on some Venezuelan officials by the U.S. government.
Washington has sought to replace the Venezuelan government since 1998
when Hugo Chávez was elected president. While both Chávez and Maduro,
who he chose to succeed him as president, left most industry and
agriculture in the hands of the capitalist class in Venezuela,
Washington saw what Venezuelans called the Bolivarian Revolution as an
obstacle to imperialist domination of the region.
The U.S. rulers especially hated the Venezuelan government’s close ties
to revolutionary Cuba, the oil it provided Cuba and other Caribbean
nations at preferential prices, and the use of oil profits to subsidize
social welfare programs. Tens of thousands of Cuban internationalist
doctors, nurses and teachers have volunteered to provide low cost
medical care and literacy programs, often in the poorest and hardest to
reach parts of the Venezuelan countryside.
Washington — and many of the leaders of the opposition Roundtable —
backed a military coup in 2002 and a “strike” by oil bosses in 2003,
both of which were defeated by massive popular outpourings.
Over the last few years, opposition groups have been able to take
advantage of the deepening capitalist economic crisis — including their
own sabotage of government measures — to bolster their position. Runaway
inflation and constant shortages of food and other goods have made life
increasingly difficult for Venezuelan working people. Many pay less
attention to politics today, consumed by the struggle to survive.
MUD candidates won a majority in the December 2015 legislative elections
bringing the National Assembly under their control.
Opposition plans provocations
In April, after the Supreme Court backed off on its attempt to take
away the National Assembly’s legislative powers, the Roundtable launched
a campaign of anti-government demonstrations that have resulted in more
than 70 deaths, including both supporters and opponents of the
government as well as bystanders.
On May 1 Maduro announced July 30 elections to a 545-member Constituent
Assembly — with delegates elected both by region and by “sector,”
including slots for students, retirees, peasants and fishermen, workers
and bosses — which will have the power to revise the constitution and
pass laws, bypassing the opposition-controlled legislature. MUD calls
for a boycott, saying the election is unconstitutional and rigged.
The group has set its own unofficial referendum on July 16, in which
voters will be asked for their opinion on whether they reject Maduro’s
call for a Constituent Assembly, and on the opposition’s demand that
government and armed forces officials defend the 1999 Constitution and
back the decisions of the National Assembly.
The political polarization has continued to deepen as both sides engage
in violent confrontations. Opposition demonstrators with their faces
covered routinely throw Molotov cocktails and fire homemade mortars at
police and National Guard sent to break up the protests.
The Roundtable is also taking advantage of a dispute between the Maduro
government and Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz. Government officials
began an investigation June 20 that could lead to her removal from
office. Previously a supporter of the Maduro government, Ortega has
spoken out against some of his measures over the last several months,
including the call for the Constituent Assembly and against brutality by
the police and National Guard.
A violent attack by pro-Maduro forces on Roundtable legislators inside
the National Assembly in Caracas July 5 left several of them bleeding
and battered. The attack handed Washington and the opposition a weapon
to use against the government at home and abroad. Maduro said he
“absolutely condemns” the assault.
Meanwhile, the Maduro government surprised many by unilaterally
commuting the sentence of opposition leader Leopoldo López, transferring
him from a military prison to house arrest. López had been imprisoned
for over three years.
“Now is the time for sustained pressure on Maduro,” López’s U.S. lawyer
Jared Genser said after the release. “Relentless pressure is working.”
Working people bear brunt of crisis
It’s workers and farmers in Venezuela who are paying the price of the
capitalist crisis.
The gross national product has fallen an estimated 30 percent over the
last four years. The worldwide drop in oil prices and a drop in
Venezuelan oil production, which accounts for more than 70 percent of
the country’s hard currency, have made it harder to fund welfare programs.
The crisis is worsened by pressure from Washington, rampant inflation,
hoarding of basic goods by capitalist companies, and anti-social
problems bred by the crisis, including one of the highest violent crime
rates in the world.
Nonetheless foreign speculators see Venezuelan bonds as a good
investment because of the government’s commitment to make every payment,
despite the crisis.
In addition to shortages of food at government-set prices, there is a
drastic shortage in medicines, from basic antibiotics to drugs for AIDS.
The government announced a 50 percent increase in the minimum wage for
government employees July 1, the third increase this year, but it isn’t
nearly enough to keep up with inflation — estimated at 720 percent this
year.
CubaDebate, a Cuban website, ran an article June 30 highlighting some of
the challenges in Venezuela. It noted that the government, first under
Chávez and continuing today, set up a low, parallel exchange rate for
dollars for companies that import goods. But many companies instead sell
the dollars on the black market, fueling inflation and worsening the
scarcity of basic necessities. Corruption in the government is also a
problem that alienates working people, CubaDebate said.
Government tries to combat scarcity
In March last year the government launched Local Food and Production
Committees (CLAP) to combat scarcity and high prices.
“In every neighborhood, especially the poorer ones, local committees
distribute a monthly bag of basic, subsidized products,” Ana Graciela
Barrios, who works with a community group in the San Agustín del Sur
neighborhood, told the Militant by phone from Caracas June 30. “It
helps, but it only lasts a week. And not all the committees work as well.”
Other workers report that products designated for CLAP distribution all
too often end up on the black market instead.
Shortages of medicine hit workers the hardest, Barrios said.
Cuban-staffed medical missions, like Cuba’s other internationalist aid,
continue and are popular among working people. But they have difficulty
getting needed medicines and supplies.
“There’s tremendous discontent among working people,” Barrios said.
Nonetheless a significant section of the working class still sees the
Maduro government as their government, or at least a lesser evil to the
U.S.-backed opposition. Barrios said she supports the Constituent
Assembly, “but it won’t solve Venezuela’s problems.”
Cuba protests U.S. interference
The revolutionary government of Cuba has condemned the violent protests
and outside interference in Venezuela. Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign
Affairs June 28 expressed “its strongest solidarity with the Bolivarian
Revolution and its leaders.”
Granma, daily paper of the Communist Party of Cuba, featured an
interview June 30 with Rogelio Enrique Suárez, a Cuban doctor who has
been volunteering in Venezuela since 2014. Suárez notes that the Barrio
Adentro joint Cuban-Venezuelan medical mission works in the areas “where
the population needs us the most” and plans to continue doing so.
Venezuela is “in a war of attrition,” he said. The Cuban volunteers
aren’t afraid, but “we have to be aware of the dangers.”
“We are committed, all of us,” he said, “to keep working and giving our
best to maintain the advances” made by Barrio Adentro.
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