 Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez greets Gloria La Riva as she pins a “Free the Cuban Five” button on his shirt. Photo: Courtesy Venezuelan Pres. Office |
[Gloria La Riva first visited Venezuela in 2001. She returned in July 2004 as a member of the Coordinating Committee of the International Committee in Defense of Humanity.]
The first four and a half years of Hugo Chávez’s presidential term have been marked by one challenge after another from the U.S.-backed Venezuelan oligarchy. A right-wing coup removed him from power for 48 hours in April 2002. Oil bosses shut down production as economic sabotage in December 2002.
In 2001, 49 new progressive laws were approved by popular referendum and signed by Chávez to transform the economy and society. But few were fully implemented because of opposition within Chávez’s own government and in the National Assembly.
Some politicians elected to national or state offices started as supporters of Chávez, but later joined the other camp and worked to block Chávez’s “Bolivarian revolution,” as the process underway in Venezuela is known.
Social-political organizations called Bolivarian Circles, which were meant to organize people in their neighborhoods and empower them politically, were still in an embryonic stage, and had insufficient resources to develop more fully.
However, in 2002 the millions of “Chavista” supporters who immediately fought back to restore Chávez to the presidency with in 48 hours of the coup, showed the world the power of the people to fight back.
They discovered in those 48 hours their own revolutionary potential.
It is really just since April 2003 that a qualitative leap in economic and social development has taken place among the historically marginalized of Venezuela’s population, in the working class and in the Black and Indigenous communities. For the first time in the country’s history, the exploited and disenfranchised are now deeply immersed in action to transform their lives and communities.
Social projects called Missions have been launched in healthcare, literacy and education campaigns, housing, jobs, food and cultural development.
CHÁVEZ GOES TO THE MASSES
There are three key factors for this change: the harnessing of Venezuela’s oil revenues for public use; Cuba’s concrete contributions of doctors, teachers and revolutionary experience; and organizing people at the base.
There is one more factor, unknowingly contributed by the right wing opposition. With each attack by the opposition, the masses have become stronger and learned to defend their interests.
Chávez was forced to go around the opposition in his own government and go directly to the masses. He began to initiate the Missions, with the idea that the people themselves will become the organizers and leaders.
In April 2003, one year after the attempted fascist coup, the first team of 58 Cuban doctors arrived. This experiment quickly became a nationwide healthcare system that has saved the lives of over 16,000 Venezuelans since its inception.
Today there are 13,823 Cuban doctors assigned throughout the country in the poorest urban neighborhoods and in the most remote indigenous areas in the mountains and jungles, setting up provisional clinics. Out of a population of 24 million in Venezuela, 17 million people are now being served by Cuban doctors.
The new healthcare system is called Misión Barrio Adentro, “inside the neighborhood.” Now Barrio Adentro, with the help of thousands of Cuban sports and physical trainers, is setting up exercise programs for the people as part of preventive care.
Barrio Adentro was also possible because of the great voluntary efforts of the Venezuelan people, who literally opened the doors of their homes to create the thousands of “clinics” for the Cuban doctors to operate. Lacking the infrastructure, their will found a way.
Each Cuban doctor is accompanied by a team of Venezuelans, the very people in the neighborhoods who assist the doctors in community outreach and logistical support.
On August 2, at a mass rally of thousands of Cuban doctors and Venezuelan community volunteers in Teresa Carreño Theater in Caracas, roaring cheers reverberated in the hall as Venezuela’s Minister of Health, shouted, “Long live the Cuban revolution! Long live Fidel Castro!”
Months earlier a massive literacy project was announced, called Misión Robinson.
Cuba greatly assisted Venezuela in launching the Robinson literacy project. In 1962 Cuba was, after all, the first country in the western hemisphere to wipe out illiteracy.
Cuban professor Leonela Relys developed the Robinson I campaign. Entitled “Yo Sí Puedo” (yes, I can), a total of 1,908,000 Venezuelans learned reading and writing with the help of 126,000 volunteers, nearly all high school students or graduates.
Seventy-five percent of the teaching places were in people’s houses, showing the high level of popular participation. Now Robinson II, “Yo Sí Puedo Seguir” (yes, I can continue) is underway to raise the educational level to sixth grade.
As our delegation drove through parts of Caracas and Vargas state, we could see huge banners and signs saying, “This Territory Free of Illiteracy.”
Misión Ribas encourages high school dropouts to come back to school. It is estimated that five million Venezuelan youth had left high school before graduating. Now 400,000 have been re-incorporated into high school.
Misión Sucre helps youth to attend college who didn’t have opportunities before, with the granting of scholarships and creation of universities.
Misión Guaicaipuro is directed toward the indigenous peoples of Venezuela, to give entitlement to their traditional lands, and promote development of their communities with resources and political support. For example, an urgent campaign for healthcare and food has been launched to combat widespread malnutrition, illness and high infant mortality among the Yanomami people.
The minimum wage has been increased very recently by 30 percent. And as Hugo Chávez said on his 200th “Alo Presidente” (Hello, President) television program, a value equal to the minimum wage in the form of assistance is provided in food-supplement programs to minimum-wage earners.
The workers’ movement has also advanced qualitatively in recent years. In 2001, pro-revolution workers formed the Bolivarian Workers Force (FBT) to combat the corrupt, pro-imperialist leadership of the largest union federation, the Venezuelan Workers Federation (CTV).
After the FEDECAMARAS bosses’ federation and the CTV tried to sabotage oil production in 2002, oil workers rescued production in the country’s most important economic sector. It became clear to the increasingly radicalized workers that a new union formation was necessary.
Now, roughly one million workers have left the CTV to join the new Bolivarian National Union of Workers (UNT). More developed ideologically and more determined than ever to defend the economy, the workers are increasingly in control of strategic areas of the economy like the oil industry.
New government ministries are being formed, like the New Ministry of Culture, two months old, meant to promote all the culture of the country and provide a lasting alternative to the capitalist culture.
Inspired by everything we saw, our delegation, composed of Latin American and other progressive intellectuals, authored a declaration in strong defense of the Bolivarian revolutionary process.
 Tens of thousands of Chávez supporters storm into Altamira Square in Caracas, Dec. 6, 2003. Photo: Jorge Silva |
FIGHTING THE CAPITALIST MEDIA
Probably one of the biggest obstacles is the venomously anti-Chávez bourgeois media. The elite have almost total control of the TV stations, the radio and the main newspapers. In the early years of Chávez’s administration, there was almost no way to reach the population and counter the lies. Now there is a State TV channel, Channel 8, that reaches the whole country.
The very popular TV show “Alo Presidente” airs each Sunday, and can last from two to seven hours. There Chávez explains the latest processes, dispels the rumors and has guests on who explain the economic and social campaigns.
I appeared on the show with other members of my delegation in the state of Vargas; the show lasted five hours. We were flown by military helicopter to reach the program, which was broadcast live. Hundreds of people came out to see Chávez from the nearby areas. They chanted and cheered him the whole time.
ANTI-IMPERIALIST PERSPECTIVE
Chávez and other revolutionary leaders have unequivocally identified U.S. imperialism as their nemesis, and their revolution as anti-imperialist. There is also strong solidarity with the Cuban revolution.
Similar to the way the Cuban people received great solidarity from the Soviet Union and developed a strong mutual relationship, Chávistas love Cuba, and feel their bonds are unbreakable.
The foundation of any state, either capitalist or socialist, is the police and military which defend the corresponding system. The question of the state in Venezuela looms large. What has taken place in Venezuela?
We know that in Chile in 1973, the military—mistakenly identified by Salvador Allende as patriotic and true to the Constitution—carried out a bloodbath and fascist coup that destroyed the gains of the people and murdered tens of thousands of workers and leftists. On the other hand, important sectors of the Venezuelan military helped restore Chávez to office in 2002 after the coup, announcing they were acting in defense of the new Bolivarian revolutionary constitution.
The general view in Venezuela is that most of the military today stands with Chávez, although it is understood that there are some hostile elements. One byproduct of the April 2002 coup was that it exposed approximately 60 officers who staged the coup.
Of particular note is Chávez’s decision to remove all Venezuelan military officers from the U.S. School of the Americas, the notorious officer-training school for Latin American militaries whose role has been to carry out U.S.-backed repressive campaigns.
The question of state power has not yet been resolved in favor of the working class and oppressed masses. The Caracas Metropolitan police, 21,000 strong and heavily armed, are in the hands of the capitalists and reactionary mayor. The state of Carabobo has the second largest police force, roughly 15,000, which is also reactionary and heavily armed.
We witnessed a confrontation late one night in Caracas before the referendum. Dozens of people gathered for a pro-Chávez rally in a city square. The Metropolitan police, about 30 in riot gear, arrived to expel the Chavistas from the plaza.
After a hostile standoff, the police retreated to the shadows and finally left. But it was extremely threatening and shows the constant danger that exists for the revolutionary forces.
The people’s struggle in Venezuela deserves the fullest solidarity from all progressive forces, especially those in the U.S. The task of the U.S. antiwar movement is to educate the people in the United States about what is really developing in Venezuela. In this way we are better able to defend the Venezuelan revolutionary process against U.S. intervention and destabilization.
We invite you to join with us in that struggle.
