Unión
del Barrio on The People’s Resistance in Latin America
The following presentation
was made at the Uhuru House, office of the African People’s Socialist
Party on March 9, 2003, at a regular Sunday community mass meeting.
by Harry Simón
We, in Unión del Barrio,
came from the Chicano Movement, but our roots and our spirit and our political
culture are very much linked to the movements of South America —
Latin America in general, and of course, particularly in Mexico.
We don’t see ourselves
as separate from the Mexican National Liberation Movement in the south.
We see ourselves as a continuation to the northern front of the Mexican
National Liberation Movement within Mexico.
That’s not just an ideological
statement. It’s a practical commitment, an organizational commitment
within a lot of the national liberation coalitions and frentes. They call
it a frente process, which is very common in Latin America.
It’s a united front that’s
come out of Mexico. We’ve participated as northern sectors of the
Mexican National Liberation Movement. It’s one sector of our work.
Part of that work is traveling and introducing ourselves and promoting
relationships as fruitful — I don’t know if that’s possible
— as the relationship with the Uhuru Movement, with our brothers
and sisters in the southern part of our hemisphere.
That’s led to a lot of
traveling for our compañeros y compañeras. Obviously there’s
always travel to Mexico, whether it be for purely political causes or
to visit family. All of us have our families for the most part in Mexico
proper. So, it’s an ongoing relationship.
Last year, in 2002 and early
2003, we dedicated a lot of time and energy to going into South America,
because right now South America is on the cutting edge of the world revolution
for oppressed people. It’s on the cutting edge! We know from what
we saw and what we experienced in South America that this is a beautiful
and intense transformation of every level of society.
I want to go briefly into the
overall situation in South America, but focus on Venezuela.
Brazil
I hope you all understand, especially Africans in the crowd, Brazil is
an African country. You have to understand that. Brazil is an African
country! I’m not just saying that because they think of themselves
as African, but in terms of the culture itself. It’s African and
you can see it! It permeates every aspect of the country.
Brazil is just coming out of
one of the most horrendous dictatorships suffered in South America. For
so many years, you never heard of any kind of huge mass struggle in Brazil,
but you always did hear about mass poverty and the terrible injustice
the Brazilian people suffered. Throughout this time, the only thing you
heard about Brazil was sexy women on beaches in G-strings and soccer and
Samba, right? If you are the kind of person who got your information from
the news, that’s all you heard.
In fact, beginning in the late
`70s going into the `80s, a compañero who was nicknamed "Lula,"
Ignácio da Silva being his real name, organized from the base upwards.
He connected to the movements of the past, of course, but he also organized
from the base upwards. He organized a party called Partido dos Trabalhadores
(PT), or Workers Party.
He has run for election about eight times. He was not able to win any
of those times. In the election before the last, he actually had won,
but had his election stolen.
In the most recent election,
the corruption couldn’t cover up his victory. Fifty-two million Brazilians
voted for Ignácio da Silva, "Lula." Fifty-two million!
That means he’s the most democratically elected official, government
official or institutional official, in the Western hemisphere, maybe in
the world.
Fifty-two million people supported
his party — which is a Socialist party that promotes socialism —
on a platform with a fundamental priority for feeding, educating and providing
healthcare for Brazil’s masses. It is a platform for changing and
overturning the structures of oppression in Brazil. This is the promise
of Lula. This is the vision of the PT.
They won with the support of
another very important group: Movimiento Los Sin Tierra, (MST) which loosely
translates to the Movement of Non-Landowning Peasants. He has the masses
of workers and peasants as his base. They will hold Lula accountable whether
or not Lula wants to be held accountable.
Brazil is the eighth largest
economy in the world. I believe it has a nuclear capacity. What you might
have at one time assumed was a backward former colony, is now called "el
Caballero de Esperanza" throughout Latin America. They call Lula
and the process in Brazil "the Horseman of Hope" or "the
Hope of Latin America." That’s one of the Horsemen. Because,
you know, horsemen always come in groups. I’ll talk about the other
Horsemen. That’s what’s happening in Brazil.
I emphasize again that Brazil
is an African country. Please don’t forget that. This is part of
the Uhuru struggle. Whether or not the Uhuru Movement is on the ground
there or not is irrelevant. This is part of the Uhuru struggle!
Please, keep an eye on Lula.
As soon as you are informed and start forming opinions let us know, because
we’re watching that very closely. Right now we support Lula and we
support the process.
Colombia
In Colombia, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) is
the oldest, the best armed and the best prepared of guerilla formations.
The name translates loosely into the "Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombian People’s Army." They have been and are now in control
of at least one third of the country. There is no military defeat for
the FARC.
I want to expel the myth and to put this out to you right now so that
you will understand very clearly. The FARC are accused of being narco-
terrorists, or terrorists dealing in drugs. I want to put that to rest
because that is not true. It is a fabrication, an absolute fabrication.
I want everyone here to understand that there is only one armed group
in Colombia that has lost blood and shed blood in the fight against the
drug cartels: That is the guerrillas. That is the FARC.
They’re the only ones
that have gone toe-to-toe and militarily struggled against the drug cartels.
It has been the U.S. government and its allies under the paramilitaries,
led by a guy named Castaño, and the current president, Alvaro Uribe,
who have united with the drug cartels. In fact, they have drug warehouses.
There is documented proof that
CIA agents, with President Uribe and paramilitary groups — which
are the death squads, the ones who tie dynamite to people’s heads
and use car bombs — have warehouses of cocaine that they draw from
to trot out and put in front of the television to say that the war against
drugs is happening. Then they put it back in the warehouse and they trot
it out again.
This is an agreement between
the drug cartels, the CIA, and the president there, to justify "Plan
Colombia," which has the U.S. sending billions of dollars to Colombia
to finance, to back up, to try to promote and hold up this puppet government
in order to take the power away from the guerrillas.
Now understand something: death,
misery and hunger are what the current government offers the Colombian
people. Education, a future and hope are what the guerrillas offer the
Colombian people. The policy of the U.S. is to hold a gun to the Colombian
people’s head, forcing them to decide to side with Alvaro Uribe.
So, when you hear the positions
and statements in the media, understand that this is what’s occurring.
Understand they are lying.
Just pay attention to the media
and what they say about the marches here. When there are 250,000 people,
they say there are 25 people. They always at least say that there are
half of what there is. If these are the lies told when you are there [at
the marches], imagine the lies they say about things that are happening
in South America or Africa or Asia. You have to understand that.
You know, sometimes it’s
hard for people to think outside of what you see on television, because
as soon as it’s projected on you, you think there has to be some
semblance of truth to it. But there’s not.
Ecuador
In Ecuador, another guerilla leader, Lucio Gutiérrez, just won
a landslide election and assumed power. In Ecuador, Lucio Gutiérrez
was one of the leaders of what they called a "coup d’etat."
They say it was a coup d’etat, but actually there were massive protests
in the streets, led by an indigenous national coalition of Indian people
that led to his election.
Ecuador is an indigenous country. The people got together in massive protests
and circled the presidential palace and ejected Jamil Mahuad, the president
at the time. He had imposed all sorts of terrible austerity measures —
raising prices on everything, lowering salaries and making poor people
send all their money to the wealthy here in the U.S. and to the insignificant
upper class in Ecuador.
In fact, Ecuador doesn’t
even have its own currency. They use the U.S. dollar as their official
currency. That’s how terrible the economic situation was.
Lucio Gutiérrez was
the military support for this indigenous peoples’ protest and recently
swept the elections on a people’s program. We’re watching Gutiérrez
very carefully. He promises to bring about some true reforms. We expect
that this will be the case whether he likes it or not because the indigenous
people have spoken through him. It’s not that they have shut their
mouths and stopped speaking. The fact is, they have chosen to speak through
him. You have to understand the power that he holds is of the indigenous
peoples.
Argentina
In Argentina, there is total anarchy. The banks have frozen everybody’s
assets. The Argentinean people were some of the most "uppity"
people in South America today. There was this conference where some of
our compañeros were in South America. The Argentinean delegation
used to come in all sliced out like they had just got in from Paris or
whatever. Now they come in all rag-tag. I hate to make fun of them, but
it’s almost like poetic justice in the case of Argentina, because
they have not played a positive cultural and historical role within Argentina,
nor as a country.
Of course, Argentina is very
famous for its exports. Its most famous export was Ernesto "Che"
Guevara. But, Che had to leave Argentina for the revolution to take place.
That’s another story, too. Keep an eye on Argentina. It’s very
volatile there. It can go either way. We expect that it will go on the
side of the people.
Peru
In Peru, there’s another president, Alejandro Toledo, on the ropes.
Keep an eye on Peru. There is a tremendous crisis in Peru and the indigenous
people are about to seize the time.
Bolivia
In Bolivia, keep an eye on a gentleman by the name of Evo Morales.
He is the leader of the campesino peasant farmers union. They present
him in the U.S. press as the leader of the coca growers, where the cocaine
comes from. They say, "He’s a drug union leader!" But he
is a peasant leader, and that includes the peasants that grow the coca
leaves.
Now the coca leaves are not
the white stuff that we see on our streets. Coca leaves go back thousands
of years. Coca is a very precious and even a ceremonial plant. If any
of it gets processed and transported to the U.S. as cocaine, it’s
not the campesinos that do it. The campesinos barely survive on their
coca leaves. It is actually the CIA and everybody else. Don’t connect
Evo Morales or the FARC with the drugs we have to suffer under in our
streets. That’s not relevant to any of this discussion.
Evo Morales is an amazing leader.
He came out and said in his last presidential campaign that the first
thing he’s going to do is eject all of the imperialist puppets. He’s
going to get them the hell out of Bolivia and have Bolivia for the Bolivian
people. That was one of his first promises in his campaign platform.
Of course, the imperialists
didn’t allow him to win after he said that. They stole the election
and they did not tolerate that kind of speech. I assume they expected
him to tone it down because it had been beyond a shadow of a doubt that
he was going to take the election. He did take the election, and it was
stolen from him.
Now there is a very serious
crisis within Bolivia. The current government has absolutely nothing to
offer. They have no legitimacy. It seems that more likely than not Morales
will have that election recognized one way or the other.
Venezuela
So that takes me to Venezuela. Last summer a contingent of compañeros
from Unión del Barrio and supporters — there was 90 of us
— had the opportunity to travel to Venezuela. We had been tangling
with this issue within Unión del Barrio to define our position
on South America in general, but Venezuela in particular, because some
changes had been going down. We weren’t sure. There’s no way
to be informed by word-of-mouth or by literature or by what’s happening
on the Internet or anything like that. When we did get authentic information
about Venezuela, it was so difficult to understand because it was very
national in character.
Venezuela is essentially super-important
to the industrial situation because of its oil. Up until 1974, Venezuela
was the number one oil exporter on Earth. In 1974, the Middle Eastern
countries took that rank away and right now it’s the fifth largest
oil exporter in the world. It’s in the crosshairs of U.S. imperialism.
It’s very much in the crosshairs and under the pressure of U.S. imperialism.
When they finish — if
they finish, hopefully they won’t be able to finish — the genocide
in Iraq, and I say that with an ironic hesitation because that’s
a frightening idea, they plan to move on to South America, and more than
likely Venezuela will be one of their targets.
Venezuela has a very interesting history. It’s the birthplace of
Simón Bolívar. Simón Bolívar is one of the
main figures identified as the liberators of five countries in South America.
Simón Bolívar’s army was made up of mostly African
and indigenous soldiers, which was different from any other general’s
independence liberation fighters of the time. That has made it something
very different and very special to Venezuela. That history, that legacy
of struggle continues in Venezuela.
Even today the Venezuelan military
is an exceptional military in its composition of officers of the working
classes and African and indigenous peoples of Venezuela. It’s exceptional
in that case, and that’s going to play an important factor later
on when I describe current issues in Venezuela. That’s why I raise
it.
Up to 1958, after many struggles,
modern contradictions in Venezuela were created around a dictator named
Marcos Pérez Jiménez.
Jiménez was one of the
most terrible dictators of South America during that period of anti-communist
dictatorships throughout Latin America. As people’s struggles started
to rise in resistance, and support for dictatorships throughout Latin
America started to decline, by 1958 Pérez Jiménez had built
an oil power within Venezuela. Venezuela was already a rich country in
terms of its oil.
On January 23, 1958, Pérez
Jiménez was ejected from the country by a mass uprising of Venezuelan
peoples — especially and specifically in Caracas — and a military
uprising by some of the patriotic military forces. By that point a pact
of official political parties known as the "Adecos" and the
"Copeyanos" came together in a meeting in New York City, in
a meeting called the "Punto Fijo." The Adecos are the social
democrats and the Copeyanos are the Christian democrats. They came together
to set up what they called "alternancia," a thing in South America
identical to the Republican and Democrats. It’s two heads of the
same horse, eating out of the same trough. There are two parties and they
go over the presidential chair or they trade the presidential chair off
between each other. The same thing happens in this country. But, the same
people keep the power.
This is actually documented.
They called it "Pacto de Punto Fijo." "Punto Fijo"
means a moving dog that stays within a certain space. It goes back and
forth. They actually called it that! They called themselves "puntofijistas."
They kept the masses and the
popular parties out of the picture. So they were ready as soon as the
dictatorship was out. They jumped in there and assumed power.
For forty years, the Adecos
and Copeyanos stole everything that wasn’t nailed to the ground.
Venezuela was one of the most corrupt, terrible, sick, openly corrupt
governments in the entire world. It was so corrupt that corruption seemed
all right because the other guy was doing so much worse. You didn’t
even have a name for it. They assumed, "Hey, I won the election,
let’s see how much money I can get, that’s why I ran."
That’s what they would do. They would rip off everything.
The last President of the Pacto
de Fijo was Carlos Andrés Pérez. By 1988 everybody was extremely
sick of the Punto Fijo parties. This guy actually got elected with quite
a bit of support, but that support dwindled immediately, especially after
he came to an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for
austerity measures.
The number one austerity measure,
I think was a 15 percent hike in all basic foodstuffs and services like
electricity, gasoline food and everything like that went up 15 percent.
But the thing that really upset the people was the 30 percent hike in
public transportation, the Metro. Everything gets around on the Metro.
Everything else was going to
take place within six months to a year, but when he came out and made
this speech to the people, the 30 percent hike in transportation was going
to start immediately, as soon as he ended his speech. So, all the prices
were going to go up right?
Pérez turned off the microphone after he made his speech and he
went home. The next morning at 5 a.m., thousands of Caracanos are raising
hell. The Venezuelans- they’re beautiful people man. They’re
just expressing raising hell. They are chanting "rahayo, rahayo,"
and it looks like they’re fighting, but they’re just kicking
back talking, right? They’re coming out talking. Nobody went to work.
The prices were all too high on the Metro.
So, the people came out into
the streets. Some people say that by around noon there were 50,000 to
100,000 people assembled around the "caso de centro" –
the center of the city. The city of Caracas has four million people. By
around 3 or 4 p.m., people say that half the population of the city —
two million people — was in the streets, raising hell and protesting.
They were busting windows on banks. They were really angry and furious.
Caracas is a city shaped like
a cigar. It’s long and thin. It’s surrounded on all sides by
mountains and hills. Shanties populate all of those hills and mountains
where the masses of the people live. They live in the shantytowns, right?
That’s the great majority of the population of the city. You might
have a million people living down in Caracas central. Then around the
outside you have three million people. Then outside of that, there are
even more poor people.
The rich people live scared
as hell looking up at the mountains all the time. They have their apartments
and in the center of Caracas and they’re surrounded on all sides.
On this day, the people started
coming down from the mountains. They call them "ranchos."They
started coming down from their apartments and they were protesting.
Well, Carlos Andrés
Pérez gave the order for the military to open fire on anything
that moved. Now, from what I understand, up to half the men refused and
didn’t leave the barracks. The other half that was loyal to Carlos
Andrés Pérez, went into the most combative sectors.
They went in there and opened
fire with their machine guns, and anybody who was caught in the streets
was "toque de guerra." I think that translates roughly into
"martial law." Isn’t that martial law when no one has the
right to be anywhere, but inside the house? (Audience: yeah).
They opened fire. Official
estimates said four hundred people were killed. This was 1989. People
who experienced it say that there were 10,000 people killed.
Helicopters continuously came
into the center of the city. One of the military bases, La Gabota, is
in the center of the town. Helicopters would leave loaded with bodies
and they would dump them into the ocean and other mass graves. It was
one of the most horrible massacres in all of South America and of course
in the history of Venezuela – 10,000 people.
I want to have a notable mention
here. There was one community, which has a quarter of the population of
Caracas living in it. That’s got to be 650,000 to a million people
living in this "paroquia, " or neighborhood. They’re very
huge areas organized in the old Spanish way according to which church
you go to.
This particular paroquia is
called "Veintetres Enero," or January 23, named after the date
that they ejected the old dictator, Andres Pérez Jiménez.
This is the most combative community. It is probably one of the most combative
in the world. It is, without a doubt, the most combative community in
Caracas. A lot of the people’s national leadership comes out of this
neighborhood. There’s a parallel government that functions in the
neighborhood.
It is called La Maros, an armed revolutionary organization, that’s
originally from Lumubai, which Sundiestas Lumubai came and pioneered organizing
that neighborhood, organized people who had already fought for many years.
They have a parallel government. They charge the taxes. They patrol the
streets. The police don’t enter Veintetres Enero.
During the rebellions against
the austerity measures, Veintetres Enero hunkered down. The community,
with thousands and thousands of people, was entrenched.
Veintetres Enero is just an
amazing place to be. You have these giant projects. They’re around
twenty stories tall. On the side of the buildings they have giant murals.
You can imagine Che, 17 stories tall, standing there overlooking the city.
On another one you have Parcero de Ceros. For nearly half a mile, you
have murals of all the martyrs, and all the people who have struggled
to build Veintetres Enero; people from all over the world.
I want to emphasize that the most significant one is Cumpa Maros. They
have youth brigades who paint the murals. There are only three entrances
and three exits to the paroquia. That’s also strategic for the State.
But when you enter, there’s this huge mural. It’s got the face
of a Cumpa Maro woman. She’s wearing a mask. Across the top of the
mural it says, "Veintetres Enero, bienvenidos entienen en paz, pero
si vienen en guerra comparteneros." Now let me translate that to
you. It means, "January Twenty-three, if you come in peace you are
welcome, but if you come in war we will fight you." That’s the
first thing you see if you go into the neighborhood.
When we arrived there, I just
thought, ‘Wow!’ I have to emphasize to you again that Veintetres
Enero is an African/Indigenous neighborhood. The Uhuru Movement has got
to go see Veintetres Enero.
So in Veintetres Enero there
was a caracaso, a massacre. They call it caracaso. In Veintetres Enero,
the military, the national guard — forget about the police, the police
don’t even try to get in there — tried to get into Veintetres
Enero. From the roques, they rained down not just a hail of armor piercing
bullets against not just all the military equipment, but also beds, chairs
and tables.
We were talking to people who
were there and they remember. The soldiers were patrolling the streets
and they would have a flowerpot hit them on the head and a lady would
laugh — the people were dropping stuff on them.
They would run out of there
with their tails between their legs. Veintetres Enero stood firm against
the state repression.
There are mountainous parts.
The "mastresto" starts right next to Palace Unida, the government
palace.The mountain range is very tall. They officially changed the name
in Venezuela of these mountains to the Sierra Maestra in honor of the
mountain rangers, Fidel Castro and Che, who led the revolution to take
over Havana, the Cuban revolution. In Venezuela, they named the mountains
in honor of them. In fact, when Fidel goes to Caracas, if I’m not
mistaken, that’s where he spends the night. He doesn’t go to
the hotels because that’s a big risk. So, he goes where he is most
secure.
After that the whole situation
in Venezuela changed, Carlos Andrés Pérez was the most heinous
and hated man in Venezuela. There were clamors, rumors and struggles in
the streets everyday. There were rumors of the coup being planned. A conspiracy
was born. It had already existed for numerous years, but only in words.
But it actually started to be planned out in 1989 into 1990. This was
called the MBR 2000. It was the Movimiento Boliviano de Revolucionario,
the Bolivian Revolutionary Movement.
It started happening among
the patriotic sectors of the military. The masses of people already were
organized, especially in Veintetres Enero. Within the military, they officially
say up to 30 percent of some of the high-ranking officials, but mostly
middle and lower military soldiers and officials, organized into this
conspiracy to overthrow Carlos Andrés Pérez. This is significant.
By 1981, the conspiracy had
spread throughout all the sectors, including the civil organizations and
popular organizations (including Veintetres Enero.)Other urban and rural
guerilla groups also joined this conspiracy called Movimiento Boliviariano.
It had the unity of all the people’s organization, including this
Bolivarian sector of the military.
This real shady, secretive
person was organizing it all. Nobody knew his name. People considered
his name as "Raphael," others as "Juan." They had
invented all sorts of names. Nobody knew who he was, but people who met
with him were trying to figure it out and started to put a face to this.
By February 1992, the Movimiento
Boliviariano gave them the password. I think it was something like "It
is now 11:00am." Phone calls went around to all the leadership throughout
Caracas and the country, to military bases that had been part of this
conspiracy, and they rose up in a coup d’etat against Carlos Andrés
Pérez.
It was not a traditional coup
d’etat. This was a coup d’etat, which had the backing of popular
organizations. Not only did it have the backing of popular organizations,
but also once the people had realized that the coup was here, the people
came out into the streets and said, "Yes! Let’s get rid of this
sucker!" They called him "El Gocho." "We’re gonna
take his head!"
They surrounded the presidential palace. Everybody was ready to get down
and support what they called, and still call "el Aliancia Civico
Mita," the Civic-Military Alliance.
Sad to say, the conspiracy
that the military had planned failed. Very important sectors of the military
got cold feet. When Carlos Andrés Pérez called them in to
attack, they didn’t attack. At the same time they didn’t offer
to come in with their support for the Bolivarians. Those Bolivarian military
officials that didn’t come out to support this coup had turned over
arms to the people. I want to emphasize this. Those arms were never returned!
Now when the coup had been
put down, and everyone knew that it happened, the leader of the coup presented
himself. It was Hugo Chávez Frias. Teniente Coronel Hugo Chávez
Frias, who was a Lieutenant Colonel. He was a paratrooper and the symbol
of a paratrooper was a red beret.
He came out and said "I
take responsibility for the coup. Stop your shooting, stop your killing."
I believe 400 people were killed in the Bolivarian attempt to overthrow
Carlos Andrés Pérez., Chávez came out and said, "You
know what? I did it."
Some of the Bolivarians were
still fighting. The fighting was still going on after Chávez turned
himself in. He had actually gone into hiding for several days in Veintetres
Enero. The Veintetres Enero was guarding him. He actually decided to turn
himself in after a few days when the fighting was still going on in the
streets of Caracas and throughout the country.
He turned himself in on a condition. He said to the government —
to Carlos Andrés Pérez — "I will turn myself in
only if you allow me space on the national television station, and on
that space, when I get that time to speak directly to the Venezuelan people,
I’m going to be wearing my military uniform and my red beret and
all my rights, all my insignias. Under any other condition, I’m not
going to turn myself in. In fact, you’re going to have to kill me."
Carlos Andrés Pérez
understood how weak his position was, especially within his military.
Fearing further outbreak, he decided to support this idea. He put Chávez
on television. They only give him fifteen minutes on national TV. Chávez
made a speech expressing and explaining the goals of the Bolivarian process,
the Bolivarian Revolution, using the language of the people. He said,
"Compañeras y compañeros, we have failed. The attempt
to overthrow this corrupt dictatorship has not occurred. The Puntofijistas,
the Adecos and the Copeyanos, remain in power – for now!"
That was how he ended his speech!
"For now!" Then the TV went off, or the interview went off and
the statement went off. He made the speech. He called for his forces to
put their arms down. Then he said "but, for now." That’s
how he ended his speech! Super-important!
He was put in prison. The next morning, the walls throughout the city
of Caracas were covered with graffiti: "For Now," "For
Now," "For Now," "For Now," "For Now,"
"Por Ahora," "Por Ahora," "Por Ahora".
This is true! I’m telling
you. This really happened.
While Chávez was in
prison, tens of thousands of people would surround the prison and try
to visit him. They would surround the prison and chant in support of him.
It was a beautiful process. He became a national figure. He continued
to organize and agitate while he was in prison.
He was released two years later
in 1994. He was forced to leave the country for a short while due to assassination
threats and attempts. He returned to Venezuela in 1996 and started to
mobilize something called the "Movimiento Quinta República,"
the Movement of the Fifth Republic. This was a new political party.
The way the Venezuelans consider
their history, is that they consider that there have been four republics:
going back to the time of Simón Bolívar and the founding
of Venezuela and the wars of independence up until the elections. So,
Chávez was calling for the formation of a new republic, the Quinta
República.
He formed this party and won
the election by a landslide. The people supported him. From that point
forward, things started to move very rapidly.
He won the presidency. Immediately,
the new government called for a national constituency to rewrite the constitution
of Venezuela. There’s a 90 percent approval rating on the rewriting
of the constitution.
They formed a national constituency.
Of the 130 delegates to the constituency to rewrite the constitution,
128 are Chavistas. They call the Bolivarians "Chavistas" now.
One delegate is an Adeco and another is a Copeyano.
They rewrote the constitution.
It calls for another presidential election. This time, Chávez won
by another extra 10 percent. The second election was in the second year
of his presidency.
With that second election and the new constitution, they called for new
elections at every level of government — down to the community level,
to the municipal level, to the state level and to the national level in
the national assembly.
In all of those elections,
the Chavistas got 98 percent of all the public official seats throughout
the country! Two percent remained in the old parties. 98 percent were
Chavistas!
They swept away, completely annihilated, the old punto fijo parties. Those
parties ceased to exist. In fact, if you say on the streets of Caracas
today that you’re a Copeyano or an Adeco, they’ll throw rocks
at you! They’ll get you with sticks. They can’t even show their
faces.
So now the entire government
is in the hands of the Bolivarians. They call it "the Process."
Some people call it the revolution, but most people who are more aware,
call it the Bolivarian Process.
And Bolivarianism swept the
elections. It swept Venezuela, and the people are out in the streets.
They say "through Chávez the people speak." This is what
the slogan is.
Now, I want to emphasize a
few things very briefly. The ruling class obviously didn’t sit on
its hands through this whole time, especially when they realized they
weren’t going to be able to control Chávez. They immediately
started to agitate. But, they didn’t have the political parties anymore,
and they didn’t have the government, but they still had the State.
The Chavistas – the Bolivarians
– don’t have the State of Venezuela. They have the government,
but not the State. You have to understand the difference.
The difference is the institutions:
the Supreme Court, the police, all of the things that define what the
government is. It’s actual physical presence is in the hands of the
old republic. The new republic – the Bolivarians, the Chavistas –
they just have the government. They have the posts. So, there’s this
ongoing battle, right?
Well, the ruling class immediately
mobilized itself. Their main tool is the media. The media — the newspapers,
television stations, and the radio stations — assumed the role of
opposition parties. In fact, the media, through the newspaper and the
television, on a daily basis attacked the government. They called for
a coup d’etat, called for the assassination of Chávez and,
in fact, they go even further.
I mean, I don’t know if
there’s anything worse than calling for assassination, but check
this out. They’re so sick – you have to understand that the
ruling class of Venezuela is one of the most corrupt, reactionary, racist,
non-cultured ruling classes in all of Latin America. They haven’t
got any kind of culture. They spend half their time in Miami and the other
half in Caracas. They don’t know what Venezuela is.
These people, who have grown
accustomed to ripping off everything that wasn’t nailed down –
especially the oil money, were making so much money they got super-angry.
I want to emphasize this. Chávez
is an African-indigenous president. If you look at him, he’s almost
the perfect mixture of an African-indigenous man. The reactionaries, the
ruling class hate him so much that on a daily basis the newspapers and
the television call him "the savage." They call him "the
monkey." They call him the most vicious, terrible things.
Check out how it works. 80
percent of the people of Venezuela support Chávez. 50 percent are
African and 45 percent are indigenous. So when the ruling class calls
him a "monkey" and a "savage," the rest of the people
take it as the ruling class calling them that. They know that an attack
against Chávez is an attack against all of them. The hatred that
had already existed for so many generations gets even more concentrated
and it comes to even more of a head. You understand what I’m saying?
So, this whole time the ruling
class is trying to agitate some kind of hatred towards Chávez,
and the only thing they’re doing is directing or attracting more
hatred — class hatred or national hatred — against themselves.
So it’s an amazing dynamic that’s going on there.
The only way that Chávez has to speak directly to the people is
a Sunday show going on right now at this minute. It’s called "Aló
Presidente." On "Aló Presidente," he comes out and
speaks for about three hours about anything. He makes references to government
policy and the direction of the Bolivarian Process. He also talks about
his childhood growing up. He goes on about suffering racism and his experiences
as a cadet. He talks about the world situation. He makes fun of Bush or
he speaks against the war in Afghanistan. Really what you have is an informal
weekly political education session every Sunday.
The show is supposed to start
at noon, but usually it starts at 12:45 or later and it goes to 5:00 or
6:00pm. During that time, Caracas stops. Everybody’s watching. Even
the people who hate Chávez watch. They ask, "What’s this
psycho saying today?" This is "Aló Presidente".
We missed out. We had an invitation
to go and meet Chávez and attend a session on "Aló
Presidente." Because there were problems in our time schedule, we
weren’t able to attend.
I believe 30 percent of the country has already been organized, either
into community assemblies – with whatever names and whatever principles
of unity they might form – or into "Circulos Bolivarianos,"
formations that are promoted by the government to support the Bolivarian
Process, or the revolutionary process as you might call it. It is revolutionary
in the context of Venezuela. We have to recognize that.
These assemblies are local
levels of government. You can get together from eight to 100 people, I
believe in an assembly. You have official recognition as either an assembly
or a "Circulos Bolivarianos." There are certain principles of
unity. They are political in character, but they are mostly communitarian
in practice.
Those things are from organizing
for community patrols and around food, shelter and clothing – the
basic needs of the community. They’re also political in character.
They involve political education. They call it participatory democracy.
Once they get recognition by the government, they get government funding
and are supported by the government institutions.
When we were there, I went to at least 30 meetings, several in a day.
I was there for a month. So, I went to at least 30 meetings of these assemblies,
and they were very beautiful and very mass-based in character.
I went to one that was an assembly
of assemblies. There were around 700 people from different areas. It was
in the heart of Veintetres Enero, the combative neighborhood I told you
about.
Another thing that’s very
important is the new constitution. There is cultural and political representation
to the oppressed masses through this participatory democracy. Also, every
oppressed sector of the population is guaranteed a certain consistent
representation within the national assembly. The indigenous sector and
the different paroquias have consistent representation within the national
assembly. That’s something that hadn’t occurred before. It’s
written in the new constitution.
Since the time that Chávez
came in, 500,000 housing units have been built. The budget for education
has multiplied by 600 percent. One million new students have been enrolled
into Escuelas Bolivarianas, Bolivarian Schools. In these schools, they
feed the children at least one meal a day and sometimes up to three meals
a day.
There’s a health campaign
within the schools. The schools have many different functions. There’s
over one thousand Bolivarian Schools and thousands of old schools have
been repaired. Again, that’s a 600 percent increase in the budget
for education.
In the national campaigns for
health, one million children have been vaccinated. Old medical associations
have been torn apart. They’ve built up new medical associations with
the most progressive sectors of the medical industry. They’ve sent
them out to the countryside. This health campaign has reduced the infant
mortality rate by 20 percent over the last four years.
Those are some of the basic victories and gains of "el Proceso Bolivariano"
or "la Revolucíon Bolivariana." It was a beautiful, beautiful
experience to visit Venezuela. The people there are just so beautiful
and wonderful. They’re developing a new level of consciousness, a
new culture of struggle. I’ve never seen anything like that in my
life! I tell you there’s no going back for Venezuela. Venezuela is
forever transformed!
It’s not just the beauty
of the transformation of society there. They have the most beautiful beaches.
We went down to this beautiful little fishing town called Choní.
It’s an African town. It’s just the most amazing, with the most
incredible beaches and the most incredible dynamics. So, we also got to
enjoy ourselves in that sense.
I really highly recommend any
of you to travel if you ever get the opportunity. However, it is also
a dangerous place to be. I actually forgot to mention the April 11, 2002
coup d’etat. This is a fundamental issue and I forgot to mention
this.
On April 7, 2002, the bourgeoisie
— the oligarchy — had done so much agitation and had raised
so much anti-Chávez fear, especially in saying that Chávez
is going to turn Venezuela into a Castro-communist State because he was
friends with Fidel Castro. They were organizing larger and larger protests.
These were significantly attended by the people of Venezuela. At the biggest
one, they had about 500,000 people marching against the government.
In one of the editions of Aló
Presidente, the President’s show, he called the opposition "escualidos,"
which means squalid — very thin and emaciated. He meant that politically
and physically.
They had marches up to 500,000
people. In the next few days, ten times as many Chavistas, or Bolivarians,
marched against that previous march. So there had been a war of marches
going on for many months, and this culminated on April 11, 2002.
On April 11, both sides were
scheduled to march. When they arrived about three blocks from the Presidential
Palace, one march on top of the bridge and the other down underneath on
one of the main streets of Caracas, bullets started to rain down from
sharp shooters from four different buildings. The bullets were raining
down against the Chavistas, against the Bolivarians.
Now, the military came out
and the international press came out and said that the government had
opened fire against the opposition, against the escualidos, against the
people who hate Chávez. That was what was spread around the world.
In fact, 11 Chavistas were
murdered that day, assassinated that day, shot down that day. One of the
opposition people was shot. That person was shot because he was too damn
close to the Chavista march. They dragged his body back to where the other
marchers were.
They caught the sharp shooters.
They included a Panamanian and two Salvadorians. People were saying that
the CIA had trained the sharp shooters. That was common knowledge.
Using that terrible thing that
had occurred in the center of Caracas, a small group of military officials
who had conspired to rise up entered the palace. Some of them being very
close to Chávez arrested him, putting him on a helicopter. They
took him out to an island.
By that evening, the loyal
military forces of Chávez opened up the forts. They had gone out
to the streets and started spreading out weapons into the streets. They
surrounded the palace. They say at least one million people came down
again into the streets. This was just last year on April 11, 2002.
At least one million people
surrounded the palace. Some people say that it was up to four million
people. I don’t know how that’s possible. There are only four
million people in Caracas, but they say people came around from outside
of Caracas, too.
They surrounded the Presidential
Palace, while the conspirators were holed up inside the palace. This is
all on video. The conspirators were looking out the window and they knew
that the people were going to take their heads.
The lynchpin was that the loyal
sector of the Venezuelan Air Force gave a phone call to Palacio Miraflores,
one of the Air Force commanders. He told the coup plotters, "either
you bring Chávez back alive within hours, or we’re going to
scramble our F-14s and we’re going to bomb you and the Presidential
Palace, and you all can die."
They were already surrounded
from the outside and now they were risking being bombed from above. So
they got together, packed up their stuff, got into their cars, went out
and escaped through a tunnel underneath that comes out a block away at
another government building. Then you could see the cars coming out in
a caravan and getting out of there!
At around 4:00 a.m. a helicopter
came in with Chávez. On the video, you see the masses of people
are in the streets. The helicopter flew in low, and everybody was yelling
"Yeah!" because they knew Chávez was coming back!
They landed him on the lawn
of the Presidential Palace, which is the center of Caracas. He came out
and all hell broke loose in the city! Chávez was back.
He came out and addressed the
population, obviously having been tortured. His face was very swollen.
He had on overalls, covering his body, and he reassumed control of Venezuela.
Recently, there was another
"general strike." It was a takeover. The escualidos are very
desperate, and they held Panavesa, the national oil industry, hostage.
They wouldn’t release any of the oil.
That’s one of the reasons
that gas prices are so high right now. It’s because they shut down
all the oil processing plants. They shut down all the tankers. But Chávez,
with the support of Lula, broke the strike. Lula sent technicians to get
the machines running and Brazilian tankers to transport the oil.
Now Chávez has regained
control — the people have regained control of Venezuela’s natural
resources.
This brings you up to date
on what’s occurring. Before they left, the escualidos destroyed all
the technical equipment within Panavesa. That’s why the oil hasn’t
reached the same capacity that it had before the strike.That’s one
of the reasons. I shouldn’t say it’s the reason why gas prices
have gone up. That’s one of the reasons. That’s an excuse to
gouge the prices by oil companies.
So, in a long presentation,
that’s what’s happening in Venezuela.
Unión del Barrio is
a Mexican Liberation Organization whose struggles for self-determination
and the return of the land stolen from Mexico by the U.S. in 1848 is a
continuation of the Chicano Power Movement of the 1960s and `70s. Founded
in 1981 in San Diego, California, Unión del Barrio’s fight
in the interests of the working class Raza people has been informed by
the necessity of the reunification of México under a socialist
economic and social system for there to be national liberation for the
Raza people. For more information on Unión del Barrio write to
P.O. Box 620095, San Diego, Califas 92162 or email: info@uniondelbarrio.org
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