[mobglob-discuss] Report from Venezuela, 28/11

[michael a. lebowitz]

         Today, the opposition signature campaign to recall Chavez opened; 
it will continue until Monday. Before it began, though, there was a bit of 
a surprise. President Chavez was scheduled to close the Bolivarian Congress 
of People last night. In the morning, however, it was learned that he would 
not be there, that he would fly instead to the state of Bolivar. What he 
had gone to do became clear last night on TV with a chain linking the 
private TV stations. There he was, addressing the Bolivar division of 
Fedecameras (the business organisation active in the coup in April 2002 and 
in the general lock-out of December-February) and receiving applause as he 
talked about how Venezuela's opposition to FTAA was in the interest of 
endogenous development and economic diversification. You could not have 
asked for a stronger message of reconciliation to communicate to the whole 
country on the eve of the recall campaign.
         Also surprising was that government supporters have delayed in 
delivering their petitions to the Electoral Council from last weekend's 
campaign to remove 38 opposition legislators. Originally scheduled for 
Wednesday, yesterday (after several hours delay) they delivered the 
signature sheets for only one legislator (with overwhelming results). They 
pledged to continue to deliver these and to have a major celebration on 6 
December. Whether this delay was due to technical difficulties, serious 
problems in the sheets or to a strategy to have continual media events is 
not clear.
         Today, there have been charges and countercharges. One continuing 
issue relates to the pressure being placed on workers by private sector 
employers. In particular, government supporters and officials attacked the 
signature cards (described yesterday) that were distributed by the 
companies to be validated at the signature tables. According to the 
opposition newspaper eluniversal, 'in a press conference from the National 
Electoral Council (CNE), Venezuelan Labor Minister María Cristina Iglesias 
announced the beginning of an investigation against several private 
companies, which were not named, that are supposedly pressing their 
employees to participate in the signature collection to be held this 
weekend to back a recall referendum on the presidential mandate.'  They 
quoted her as saying, "We want to tell the workers that they have two 
options: one is to file a claim to the Labor Inspector's Office, the CNE, 
and the Ombudsman's Office. The other one is what we can call an active 
silence: those who are afraid of submitting a claim, can go and sign (the 
recall petition) twice in order to invalidate the signature." "If I were 
forced to sign, I would file a claim, but I would also sign wrongly, I 
would make a mistake filling the form, I would simply sign twice to 
invalidate the signature. This is the way the worker can democratically 
rebel to an employer that acts immorally and illegally".
         Government supporters also attacked the appearance at the tables 
of a separate organisation, Sumate, which has worked with the opposition in 
the past. Sumate representatives sat behind computers containing a voters 
list (which actually is out-of-date), asked for the details of everyone who 
came to the tables and handed them a slip with their registration 
information. Government supporters denounced the presence of this 3rd party 
and, in particular, the additional pressure being placed upon those who 
were signing under duress.
         The Electoral Council responded by asking Sumate to remove its 
computers but also indicated that counselling people to sign the petition 
twice was counselling an 'illegal act.'
         The tensions surrounding this campaign against Chavez were clear 
from a number of incidents. One report from the state of Zulia was that 
pro-government observers were forced from the area of the signature table 
by armed gunmen. Closer to home, though, were several incidents in the 
barrios of Caracas itself. In what can only be regarded as deliberate 
provocations, leading opposition figures entered strong Chavist areas 
accompanied by many TV cameras to sign for Chavez's recall.  The response 
of the communities was predictable. The Mayor of Metropolitan Caracas, 
Alfredo Pena (who controls the feared Metropolitan Police), went to the 
community of Petare, and was driven out. Similarly, the head of COPEI (the 
Christian Democratic Party) went to Carapita and also was driven out. Also 
in Carapita, according to the opposition paper eluniversal the following 
occurred:


>2ff77789.jpgMiguel Henrique Otero, editor of newspaper El Nacional, was 
>attacked by pro-government demonstrators when he attended to a signature 
>collection center located in Carapita, Caracas, to sign recall petitions 
>to revoke the mandates of President Hugo Chávez and pro-government 
>parliamentarians.
>While Chávez' followers attacked Otero, the military protection Plan 
>República officers seemed more interested in preventing the media from 
>covering the events than in controlling pro-government protesters.
>Chavistas threw bottles to the Chávez' foes lining up outside the 
>signature collection center. The violent protesters tried to dismantle and 
>take away the microwave equipment installed by several TV crews in the 
>signature collection center. The Plan República officers were not capable 
>to preserve public order.
>Earlier on Friday, some 50 people supporting Chávez attacked this Carapita 
>signature collection center where Juan Fernández, leader of civil 
>association Gente del Petróleo, was scheduled to sign the recall petition. 
>Fernández was attacked and hit. Some people tried to protect him by taking 
>him to a nearby subway station, but it was closed.
         Again, these reactions were not surprising. As one community 
member involved in chasing the COPEI leader declared, how could these 
people show their face here after what they have done to the country!
         How the signature campaign went on this first day is, not 
surprisingly, in dispute. The private TV stations have run continuous 
coverage showing long lines of people around the country waiting to sign up 
to recall Chavez. As the camera pans, the crowd cheers (recognising allies 
in the private TV cameras) and the atmosphere appears genuinely happy and 
triumphant. Opposition spokesmen speak throughout the day about how well 
the campaign is going, and there is no question that the message being 
communicated on all private stations is that the removal of Chavez is well 
underway.
         In contrast, the public statements of Chavez,  Vice-President 
Rangel and numerous other government supporters seems almost smug--- as if 
they know that the opposition campaign is failing. On the ground, there 
seems to be some reason to think that the opposition campaign is not as 
successful as portrayed on TV. In some cases, the long line-ups reflect the 
limits on the number of collection centres. (Eg., one area in Caracas had 
34 collection centres last weekend and only 4 this time.) I observed an 
interesting line-up at Parque Cariboba in downtown Caracas between 4 and 5 
this afternoon. The 4 people taking signatures became 2, then 1 and then 
none at all. For 30 minutes, no signatures were taken. The argument was 
that they had run out of their collection sheets and had to obtain more. 
Perhaps. What I found interesting, though, was that if the table had been 
open in that 30 minutes, the 80 people waiting would all have been 
accommodated--- along with the 10 others that came during this period. 
Clearly, the absence of a line-up at this peak period as people left work 
would have been quite embarrassing. Another interesting situation at this 
site was that a signature sheet was removed and taken to a nearby business 
where signatures of workers were taken on the spot. This was discovered by 
the pro-government observer when there was an attempt to return the sheet; 
the opposition observer agreed that this was a violation and the 30 
signatures were nullified.
         According to one government supporter I know who visited the 
Chavist barrios, the tables there were basically empty, and that people who 
were from those areas were signing up downtown (eg., at the site I was 
observing). His comment was that when you recognise that an area liked 
Petare has 2 million voters and you see how little support the opposition 
has there, it looked to him at this point as if the opposition would fall 
far short of the numbers it needs in Caracas (600,000) to force a 
referendum. Another government supporter who was looking at the entire 
country also suggested privately that the opposition was going to fail.
         But, what if the opposition comes to the same conclusion as it 
analyses today's results? Remember, this is an opposition that has 
determined to remove Chavez by all means necessary--- and which has already 
tried a coup in April 2002 and a shutdown of the economy last winter (with 
the state oil company revenues being the main target). Remember, too, the 
opposition has access to vast amounts of arms ( a new cache of which has 
just been discovered). If the opposition comes to the conclusion that its 
effort at removing Chavez peacefully has failed, how long before they turn 
to Plan B?
         Stay tuned.
                 in solidarity,
                  michael
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Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Office Fax:   (604) 291-5944
Home:   Phone (604) 689-9510