Coup D'Petrol in Venezuela

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg@tin.it>]

By Gregory Wilpert  ZNet

Caracas. Exactly one year after the opposition's first "general strike," on
December 10, 2001, which launched the campaign to oust the democratically
elected president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, the opposition is engaged in
its fourth "general strike" and has come very close to finally achieving its
goal. The fourth employer-sponsored general strike, which began on December
2, seemed to have a strong start, as traffic resembled a Sunday and many
stores and practically all private schools throughout the country were
closed that day. However, by the second day it was clear that the strike
would not last. Still, the opposition continued to extend the strike for an
additional day every day, each time finding new reasons to continue the
strike, even though it was clear that the strike had very little ongoing
support beyond a few large businesses, such as McDonald's and other fast
food chains, the supermarkets, and the private schools. The opposition,
which consists of the main Chamber of Commerce Fedecameras, the union
federation CTV, the coalition of opposition parties and organizations
gathered under the "Coordinadora Democratica," and the private mass media
kept claiming that the strike was a resounding success nonetheless.

The opposition's fortunes turned, however, when it pulled its trump card on
the fourth day of the strike: the managers and administrative workers of
Venezuela's oil company, PDVSA. Following a suspicious break-in at a
manager's home and the government's raid of a tanker captain's home,
managers and other white-collar workers of PDVSA staged a protest in front
of the oil company's headquarters. The National Guard immediately broke-up
this strike with tear gas and plastic bullets because the headquarters had
several months earlier been declared a "security zone" and off limits to
demonstrations, since it is of vital economic interest to the country.
Despite PDVSA's president's continuous efforts to negotiate with dissident
managers, these decided that it was time for them to join the strike, given
the recent events. The management and white-collar worker strike, however,
did not gain much momentum until tanker captains and dock workers joined it.

The opposition received an additional and tremendous boost when the
opposition's leaders and the media took advantage of a terrible tragedy, in
which a gunman opened fire on a peaceful opposition rally and killed three
and wounded about 30 others. Opposition leaders immediately argued that the
government was responsible for this atrocity. For the next two days the
media continuously repeated the images of the chaos and confusion and of the
dead and wounded that were recorded immediately after the shooting. The
gunman was apprehended at the scene of the crime and within two hours of the
shooting, amateur video footage surfaced that supposedly showed the gunman
in the presence of pro-Chavez mayor Freddy Bernal a day earlier.

Investigators of the crime, however, have said that there is proof that the
gunman, Joao de Goveia, a Portuguese national, entered Venezuela from
Portugal the day before the shooting, but well after the footage of the
amateur video was taped. In other words, either the video image is not of de
Gouveia or the video might have been faked, which would not have been too
difficult, since the image is very grainy and dark because it was filmed in
the middle of the night. Apparently, de Goveia was living and working in
Venezuela, but had been abroad for a while, just before the shooting.

As is usual in such high profile cases, the truth will probably never be
known beyond a reasonable doubt, since there are too many interests at stake
and too many people willing and in the position to forge evidence or
testimony. Still, there can be little doubt that this attack was of
absolutely no benefit to the government, since it rekindled a strike that
was faltering. As a result, it provided a big boost to the opposition's
campaign to oust President Chavez.

Opposition leaders' taking advantage of the attack and the relentless media
campaign of the five private television stations and eight or so major
newspapers, which consistently present only one perspective for interpreting
all events that take place in Venezuela, upset many pro-Chavez Venezuelans
even more with the media than they had already been. On the eighth day of
the strike, "Chavistas" surrounded the headquarters of all of the major
television stations in the capital and of several in the rest of the
country, staging loud pot-banging "cacerolazos." (The opposition had already
pioneered such protests on a regular basis at the building of the state-run
television channel, ever since the two-day coup in April, but this never
received any media attention, not even from the affected station.) After a
couple hours of pot-banging, the demonstrators withdrew, at the behest of
pro-Chavez legislators and OAS general secretary Cesar Gaviria. To the
media, these protests were additional proof that Venezuela is a totalitarian
country, of which Chavez is the dictator. Journalists argued that their
lives were threatened, even though it was quite clear that these were
peaceful protests. Still, the director of one TV channel even went so far as
to argue that the protests constituted "genocide."  One unoccupied station
outside of Caracas did get looted, for which Chavistas blamed radical
elements of the opposition, since witnesses say that there were no protests
at that station that night.

Once again, these protests provided the ammunition the opposition needed to
justify he continuation of the strike. While the strike has been relatively
ineffective in the general population and especially among the poor, it has
had its most devastating effect in the state-owned oil company, PDVSA. With
the complete shut-down of Venezuela's main oil refinery, which is also one
of the largest in the world, the walk-out of key dock workers, and the
anchoring of tankers off of Venezuela's main ports, the supply of oil has
been halved, from 3 million barrels per day (bpd) to 1.5 million bpd.
Meanwhile, PDVSA's president, Ali Rodriguez, announced that a continued
stoppage of oil production and shipments would seriously harm the Venezuelan
economy, which is losing around $50 million per day as a result of the
strike. Also, nearly all of Venezuela's economic activity depends in one way
or another on the steady supply of oil from its own refineries, such as
gasoline for the transportation food to cities or of supplies to factories,
for the filling of airplanes that land in Venezuela with jet fuel, or for
the generation of electricity. Rodriguez also warned that Venezuela would
lose international oil customers and could default on debt payments, if oil
production was not restarted soon. So far the restriction of oil supplies
has had most of its impact on the lack of gasoline at many gas stations,
especially in the country's interior, leading to long lines at gas stations
throughout the country, due to consumer fears that their local gas station
would soon run out of gasoline.

As of this writing (Dec. 16), the government claims that it has by and large
managed to regain control over the oil production and shipping process, with
the help of the military, so that oil supply should be back to normal within
a few days. The opposition, however, denies this and warns that serious
industrial accidents could result because unqualified personnel are taking
control of the installations.

Both the opposition and the government are keeping up their efforts to
mobilize their supporters through large mobilizations. On December 7 the
government organized a large demonstration at the presidential palace, which
attracted several hundred thousand supporters, at which Chavez promised that
just as he had defeated the opposition in the seven elections of 1998 to
2001, he would defeat them again in the current confrontation. The
opposition, for its part, organized a massive demonstration of its own, also
attracting hundreds of thousands of its supporters, on December 14th. These
demonstrations proved, once again, that both the government and the
opposition enjoy widespread popular support. Of course, the private media in
Venezuela does not reflect this and covers only opposition demonstrations,
leaving the impression to non-participating observers that only the
opposition has popular support.

It would seem that where the opposition's efforts to oust Chavez via a
non-stop media campaign, large demonstrations, a coup, and four "general"
strikes have largely failed, the management take-over, or coup, of the oil
company might succeed. The scenarios for doing so are still murky, though.
Many among the more radical elements of the opposition, to which the main
actors behind the "general strike" belong, such as Fedecameras President
Carlos Fernandez, CTV President Carlos Ortega, and Caracas Mayor Alfredo
Peña, seem to be hoping for another military coup attempt. These three
continuously issue calls to the military to "abide by their mission," to
"defend the constitution," and to avert Venezuela's "castro-communist
dictatorship." The more moderate elements of the opposition, such as CTV
general secretary Manuel Cova and NGO-leader Elias Santana of "Queremos
Elegir," seem to placing their bets on a negotiated settlement for early
elections. However, the OAS-mediated negotiations have so far stalled and it
is far from certain that they will reach any kind of agreement before
Christmas. What is for sure, however, is that the opposition and a
significant number of Venezuela's businesses prefer to commit economic
suicide, in its efforts to oust Chavez, and to drag the country down with
it.


Gregory Wilpert is a sociologist and freelance journalist living in
Venezuela. He is currently working on a book on the Chavez presidency, which
will be published by Zed Books in 2003.

**************************************************
Nello

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