[News] Electoral Dien Bien Phu after Venezuelan Vote

Thu Aug 19 08:45:10 EDT 2004

An Electoral Dien Bien Phu for Bush
AFTER THE VENEZUELAN REFERENDUM
____________________________________________________________________

By TONI SOLO
http://www.counterpunch.org/solo08182004.html

Managua, Nicaragua -- For the Venezuelan government the result of the
recall referendum last Sunday was a triumphant validation of its
legitimacy, its policies and its President, Hugo Chavez. It amounts to an
electoral Dien Bien Phu (1) for the United States and its allies who have
worked determinedly to destabilize Venezuela's political life in almost
every conceivable way since George W. Bush and Dick Cheney took office. In
particular, the mainstream international media who have consistently
calumnied the Venezuelan State and its constituent entities, although
chastened by the referendum victory, remain mealy-mouthed or downright
hostile both in their news coverage and in their analysis.

The case of the London Independent--publishing a story on their web site
announcing an opposition victory and then pulling it with no apology or
comment (2) was perhaps the most egregious. But almost all the
international mainstream press , even while grudgingly recognizing the win
for Chavez, tended to recycle the same tired old chestnuts. Chavez has
divided the country, Chavez has close ties to Cuba, Chavez is a populist
strongman, Chavez depends on windfall oil revenues. Little or no mention
was made of three key recent policy achievements (apart from the
phenomenally successful educational and health campaigns) of the Venezuelan
government--the rapprochement with Colombia on infrastructure integration,
the association with the Mercosur trading block and the incredible
turnaround in oil production following the destructive opposition
management lock-out in 2002.

The plea Chavez has made for dialogue(3) with opposition leaders has so far
met silence or rejection. Large sections of the opposition continue making
absurd claims of massive fraud in the referendum. No matter how hard
President Chavez tries to promote reconciliation, the responses of much of
the opposition are likely to range from truculent obstruction to outright
sabotage. They may even reject the referendum result outright and act to
tip the country into chaos once more.

The Nicaraguan election of 1984 -- lest we forget

Despite obvious differences (Venezuela is not subject to daily terrorist
attacks organized by the United States) the political situation in
Venezuela continues to throw up parallels with Nicaragua in the 1980s.
Twenty years ago this November, the Sandinistas won a decisive electoral
victory. Prior to their success in staging the watershed 1990 election,
which as an organizational achievement more than stands comparison with the
extraordinary effort in Venezuela last weekend, the1984 vote was the most
free and fair election Nicaragua had ever had.

The Sandinistas won support from over 60% of the voters in that election.
Right wing opposition groups, organized and funded by the United States,
boycotted the vote. Other opposition parties fought the election and won
significant representation in Nicaragua's legislative assembly, especially
for the long marginalized Atlantic Coast.

Impartial foreign observers, including a delegation of UK parliamentarians,
declared the election to be free and fair. It decisively sealed the
legitimacy of the Sandinista government, especially in relation to its
Central American neighbours. But even at that stage the destructive US
terrorist war and the illegal trade boycott against Nicaragua had rendered
consolidation of the social and economic benefits of the revolution
impossible.

The US government organized attacks on fuel storage tanks in the main
Nicaraguan Pacific port of Corinto. US-laid mines damaged foreign shipping
in Nicaraguan waters. At the same time, the US was funding, training and
equipping Contra mass murderers who roamed remote rural areas in task
forces of up to as many as five or six hundred, attacking virtually
defenceless rural cooperatives, burning clinics and schools. They murdered
teachers and health workers, targeting farmers and their families just as
the Israeli-trained Colombian paramilitaries do today with the support of
the US and British trained Colombian army and the active collusion of the
Colombian government,

Leading Nicaraguan opposition political figures like Violeta Chamorro and
Arnoldo Aleman were complacent beneficiaries of the terrorist crucifixion
of their country by the United States, just as Alvaro Uribe and his
colleagues are currently in their country, Colombia. It is hard to believe
that these trajectories are not regarded as guiding stars by the
recalcitrant anti-democratic Venezuelan opposition. In 1984 the terrorist
Reagan administration ignored the November election result in Nicaragua and
proceeded apace with their policy of war, economic strangulation and
diplomatic isolation.

The Iran Contra team -- Presente!

The same strategy is likely from the current Bush administration as regards
Venezuela. The ouster of President Aristide in Haiti made clearer than ever
their total lack of respect for the legitimacy of elected governments. Many
of the people now in government in Washington, like Richard Armitage,
figured in the Iran Contra scandal involving illegal arms deals, money
laundering and drugs.

They bypassed due constitutional process so as more surely to destroy
Nicaragua. It is the presence of such people in government, not the attacks
of September 2001, that explain why the US Constitution is currently
trashed and in tatters. These same murderous white collar terrorists who
destroyed Nicaragua are now formulating US policy toward Venezuela and the
rest of Latin America.

On the other hand, little change can be expected in the event of John Kerry
becoming US President. The Democrats' Me-Too-But-More-So foreign policy
offers scant relief from US imperial greed in Venezuela or anywhere else in
Latin America. As Miguel D'Escoto Nicaragua's former foreign minister has
pointed out, "It would be a serious mistake to conclude that the current
behavior of the United States represents something temporary that will
change when George Bush Jr. leaves the presidency. Never in its history has
the United States taken a backward step in its drive towards universal
domination and never has it corrected its behavior, going from bad to worse
from the point of view of the rights of the rest of humanity."

Likely future patterns

The Venezuelan opposition may well try and hold out just as the Nicaraguan
opposition did after the 1984 election. They will hope for US money,
diplomatic muscle, covert action and economic strong-arming to help them
get their way. US government proxies like Colombia's President Uribe will
talk peace and act dirty-war, just as the presidents of Nicaragua's
neighbours in Central America did during the 1980s.

The standard imperial tool kit as deployed throughout the last century is
likely to be put to work to dent, damage and corrupt Venezuela's shining
example of participatory democracy. Although in Venezuela's case its huge
oil reserves make it likely that the heavier items in the tool kit, like
mass terrorism and illegal economic sanctions, will stay under wraps. For
Cuba, however, the empire's humiliation in Venezuela may mean yet more
turns of the sanctions screw and greater exposure to reckless US military
action or provocation.

For the US dominated international financial and trade institutions,
Venezuela's decisive defence of Latin American autonomy, dignity and
self-determination is a menace. It challenges the long standing
contradiction between their avowed espousal of poverty reduction and their
insistence on irrational deregulation and knock down auctions of public
resources. They cannot permit Venezuela's example to be copied elsewhere in
the continent and still maintain their current policies. So they are likely
to act swiftly and clearly to restrict the options available to heavily
indebted countries like Brazil or Argentina. Ecuador and Bolivia are
susceptible to the same treatment.

It will be interesting to see what happens in volatile Bolivia when people
ask why Bolivia's gas wealth cannot be used to build health and education
options for the poor majority just as Venezuela's oil wealth does. Already
resistance to President Carlos Meza's disingenuous manipulation of the July
15th gas referendum is taking the form of direct action with campesinos
taking over oil production facilities. (4) In Ecuador President Gutierrez
is finding it increasingly hard to stave off indigenous criticisms of his
current policy of collaboration with the United States policy in the
region.

Ever greater urgency can be expected on the part of US Trade Representative
Robert Zoellick and his team to push through "free trade" deals, fastening
in place on a permanent statutory basis US trade and investment advantages.
Zoellick's team may well try and put such deals, already programmed this
year for Andean countries like Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia on an even
shorter schedule than they are already. Venezuela's bilateral negotiations
with Argentina and its wider relationships with the Southern Cone trading
block Mercosur and the Caribbean economic community Caricom pose a dire
threat to the imperial neoliberal model that has had a free run in the
Americas for nearly 20 years.

In environmental matters, the implications of the Venezuelan authorities
commitment to major infrastructure projects are still not clear. They may
be tempted to follow the pattern of irresponsible displacement of
indigenous populations and environmental damage in search of the chimerical
macro-economic benefits giant infrastructure projects promise but generally
fail to deliver. But in the area of genetically manipulated seeds,
Venezuela's stance against environmentally dangerous and unproven
biotechnology may help stem the rampant proliferation of genetically
modified crops in other parts of Latin America too. So the referendum
result may be bad news for multinational bio-tech outfits like Monsanto,
Dupont and Dow as well as for the European companies Syngenta and Bayer
(Aventis).

Miltarily, as the US implements its recently announced troop re-deployments
and withdraws troops from Europe, some are likely to be moved to the Andes.
The defeat in Venezuela is a clear signal to the empire that a new urgency
may be needed to defend its hegemony. Under either Bush or Kerry the
options for defending US and allied imperial interests are the same as they
have always been, brute military force and shameless economic coercion. But
it may not be too far-fetched to believe the incredible creativity and
resilience of the Latin American peoples that dawned again in Caracas last
weekend will come to symbolise hope and reconstruction lifting us all out
of the current nightmare of neoliberal injustice and despair.

Toni Solo is an activist based in Central America. Contact via
www.tonisolo.net.

Notes

1. Fifty years ago in May 1954 the battle of Dien Bien Phu ended French
colonial rule in Vietnam.
2. Narcosphere. narconews.com "UK's Independent Newspaper Falsifies
Venezuela Election Results!" Ron Smith, Aug 15th, 2004
(http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2004/8/15/205259/595).
3. "Rueda de prensa desde Miraflores Presidente Chavez insiste en llamar al
dialogo y a la unidad Por: RNV" 16/08/04
(http://www.aporrea.org/dameverbo.php?docid=19604).
4. "CAMPESINOS TOMAN CAMPO PETROLERO EN BOLIVIA,"
http://www.econoticiasbolivia.com 16th August, 2004.

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