[nasional_list] [ppiindia] Hugo Chávez and Petro Populism (3/3)
- From: "Ambon" <sea@xxxxxxxxxx>
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- Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 12:01:58 +0200
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Hugo Chávez and Petro Populism
T he organized opposition to Chávez is rather thin on the ground these days,
having been largely discredited by the right-wing extremism of their coup and
the economic devastation caused by their oil strike. So I visit the offices of
the right-wing tabloid Así Es la Noticia, owned by one of Venezuela's
top-circulation dailies, El Nacional.
"Look, Chávez won the referendum. People have to accept that," says the editor,
Albor Rodriguez. She is in her early 30s, an escuálido all the way, but she
respects the facts.
Standing erect at her desk, one black-clad shoulder tipped forward, she takes
long drags on her cigarette between comments. "There is no 'Castro communist'
here. That's ridiculous. They say there are Cubans in the government and the
security. But there is no proof. However, does Chávez have autocratic
tendencies? Yes! He comes from the military. Does his government, or he
himself, know what they are doing? No! His head is a mix--a marmalade of
notions and slogans. He speaks without thinking. He makes innuendoes about
Condoleezza Rice being in love with him. That's insane. He's totally erratic."
Albor, to my surprise, is almost as harsh on the opposition: "They lost because
Chávez has a deep emotional connection with the people, and they have no
connection with the people. Also, he has spent a lot of money on the barrios.
He pours money into the barrios."
She explains that when her paper reported on the real work of the missions,
some readers accused her of lying and "having gone to the moon to find these
things." She explains: "The opposition lied to itself. They were deluded and
now they are smashed." With that rather definitive summation, she puts out her
cigarette and invites me to lunch.
There are some in the opposition whose critique focuses less on Chávez's
supposed abuses of power and more on the government's alleged mismanagement and
left-wing economic tomfoolery. Oscar Garcia Mendoza is president of Banco
Venezolano de Credito, a very old and conservative bank. He's what Chávez would
call an "oligarch," the official enemy: a capitalist financier. But when I meet
him in his beautiful corner office on the ninth floor of a Modernist highrise,
he is beaming. He wears a dark blue suit, his gray hair is cropped stylishly
short and he has that healthy look that seems to come from being rich and
relaxed.
Classical music filters out from speakers in the ceiling; on the table are fine
Cuban cigars. We sit in bent plywood and leather Herman Miller chairs, and gaze
out across the city through a glass wall lined with thick green plants.
"Business has never been better," says Garcia. "This government is totally
incompetent. They have no idea what they are doing. The head of their land
reform, Eliezer Otaiza, is a former male stripper. And did you see they just
appointed Carlos Lanz, a former terrorist kidnapper, a communist, as head of
Alcasa, our largest aluminum company?" Through it all, Garcia wears a slightly
suppressed grin as if he thinks the whole thing is hilarious. "I mean, can you
imagine that?"
In a way, Lanz's appointment is not so outrageous: Another former guerrilla,
Ali Rodriguez Araque, once minister of mining and energy, then head of OPEC, is
now foreign minister and widely respected as a level-headed negotiator.
Garcia also has some very concrete criticisms. He says that the current
economic boom is a chimera based on oil prices. In 2004 government spending
jumped 47 percent, much of which went to pay for healthcare and education--the
missions. But despite the oil windfall, the government has had to borrow
heavily. Instead of turning to international financiers, it has increased its
internal debt to Venezuelan banks.
Garcia says that in the past four years this internal debt has gone from $2
billion to more than $27 billion. The Finance Ministry confirms these figures
and says that 60 percent of this debt is held in government bonds.
"But what makes this really crazy," says Garcia, "is that the government is
depositing all its oil revenue in the same banks at about 5 percent, then
borrowing it back at 14 percent. It's a very easy way for bankers to make
money. That's why I say this is a government for the rich."
Last year Venezuelan banks made $1.38 billion in profits, just a bit more than
they did the year before. And most of that money came from lending to the
Chávez government and trading in special government-approved,
dollar-denominated bonds, a legal loophole in the new currency-control law.
Garcia's bank actually does no business with the government, but the huge
increase in oil revenues has doubled his loan portfolio. The economy is awash
in money: Growth was 17.3 percent in 2004.
So if the economy is booming, why does Garcia dislike Chávez?
"These people are crooks," he says. "Look, Venezuela has always been corrupt,
but these guys are the worst." When I point out that the government just fired
120 managers in Zulia state for corruption, Garcia waves it away as
insufficient.
"What are they doing with all the money? They are not investing. They spend it
all on food and medicine. As soon as oil goes down, their party is over." So
what should the government do to avoid this? "They should privatize
everything."
Getting a Chávez government response to charges of mismanagement, corruption
and overdependence on freakishly high oil prices is difficult. My inquiries are
fed into the labyrinthine bureaucracy of the Information Ministry, where every
few days a new official loses my paperwork and needs a full CV and another
letter from my editors and another complete written explanation of my project.
After three weeks no one in the Chávez government has come forth with an
on-the-record statement except for one laid-back spokesperson at the Higher
Education Ministry.
Finally an old friend gets me an interview with his boss, Jorge Giordani, a
former academic who befriended Chávez during the rebellious paratrooper's stint
in jail and is now the planning and development minister. On matters of
economic development, Giordani is the revolution's brain. We meet in his office
near the top of South America's tallest building, one of a pair of towers, the
other of which stands half-burned, its gold-tinted, mirrored windows blown out
and black, the result of a recent accident caused by bad maintenance.
Giordani is tall, gray and hunched. He wears big glasses, a tie, a brown
cardigan sweater and has a short white Abe Lincoln beard. He evades most
specific questions. As for corruption, he says simply: "We are not doing
enough. It is a very serious problem."
Mostly he offers a long but interesting explanation of Venezuela's historical
development and its lack of internal economic integration. We move from map to
map as he explicates the economic geography of various regions.
Many Chavistas hope that investing in physical infrastructure, health and
education will open new, nonpetroleum industries in high technology, business
services, healthcare and agriculture. When I ask Giordani how the country plans
to wean itself from oil, about land reform and about the many so-called
"endogenous" development projects being promoted, he sighs and shakes his head
as if I am naïve.
"We've been fighting political battles for most of our time in office. Many
people have learned to read in the last few years, but how long will it take
for them to work in high technology, or medicine, or services? Ten years? A
generation? We are fighting a very individualistic, rentier culture. Everything
has been 'Mama state, Papa state, give me oil money.' To organize people is
extremely hard."
After a long, roundabout discussion in which I press him on the question of
import substitution and new industrialization, he settles on one key point:
Venezuela's only real hope lies in regional economic integration. Only then
will internal markets be big enough to nurture alternative technologies and new
industries that might otherwise threaten current multinational monopolies.
Giordani seems weary and cynical. "No, I am just practical," he says with a
chuckle. "Development in Venezuela will take at least fifty years."
And how long will the oil last?
"Maybe twenty years, maybe thirty."
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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