[News] The Script of Destabilization as Applied to Venezuela

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The Script of Destabilization as Applied to Venezuela
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/print.php?artno=1118


Wednesday, Mar 03, 2004



By: Dario Azzelini

These days the audience of Venezuela's four most important private 
TV-channels must have the impression that there is a popular revolt against 
the Chávez government going on. Globovision is in a leading position with 
an uninterrupted live program. The local news-source for CNN is selling the 
idea of street fighting throughout the whole country. Even images of two 
burning litterbags or simply some rocks lying around are supported with 
dramatic music while aggressive politicians from the opposition talk about 
a supposed dictatorship and make calls for disobedience. Reporters of the 
same channel are filmed in front of a completely normal city highway and 
declare with a certain flavor of invitation: The protests here will begin 
about midday, were gonna stay here until the blockades start.On Venevision, 
also an organ of the coup-friendly sector of the opposition, we can observe 
messages of supposed calls of the audience on the bottom of the screen: Out 
on the streets!Fight the dictatorship.Blockades with any means.Shame! 
Nobody can stay at home!And a hysteric voice declares in a phone call: 
People have to wake up! The regime is executing people on the streets all 
over the county!

Reality on streets is obviously different. Several members of the 
opposition have been arrested during violent acts, while Carlos Melo, a 
former leader of Causa R(CR Radical Cause), was arrested by the 
investigative police (DISIP) with two automatic high-powered rifles in his 
car.

But just as during the April 11th 2002 coup attempt, the mass media, 
controlled by rightwing businessmen, play a central role in the 
destabilization strategy of the opposition. So the virtual reality of the 
opposition, which is mainly formed by the same sectors that robbed the 
country for 40 years and kept most of those who now support the Chávez 
government in poverty and controlled them with repression, finds an echo in 
the international mass media.

The documentary The revolution will not be televisedwon several 
international prizes and was shown all over the western world; in some 
countries such as Germany and Britain even on public television. 
Nevertheless, very few journalists seriously thought about the virtual 
set-up of the coup. The same politicians that participated in the coup are 
today once again presented as the democratic oppositionand the same TV 
channels that helped organize and support the coup are today once again the 
main source of information for the international press.

The mass media and the US government are following the destabilization 
script together with different opposition sectors that have no political 
program apart from getting rid of Chávez. Opposition politicians threaten 
via the private TV channels to create a situation like in Haiti.William 
Lara, member of Venezuelas National Assembly, even denounced that the 
ongoing actions correspond to the guidelines of a CIA counterinsurgency 
handbook.

After the coup of April 2002 and the sabotage of the oil industry and the 
lockout of workers by national and transnational enterprises in December 
2002/January 2003, we actually face once again a strategic culmination 
point of opposition activities. Facing the debacle of the two attempts to 
force Chávez out of office, in May 2003 the opposition apparently accepted 
the idea of following the constitutional path of a referendum against 
Chávez. To call for a referendum, 20% of the electorate, about 2,45 million 
people, must sign a petition. The details had to be set by the National 
Election Council (CNE), which had to be elected by the National Assembly. 
While the opposition on the one hand spoke out in favor of a referendum, on 
the other hand it blocked the naming the new election council within the 
National Assembly.

When the Supreme Court decided to overcome the blockage and name the CNE 
members, the opposition applauded the decision. But the happiness didnt 
last for long. When the opposition recognized that the CNE wouldnt decide 
in their favor, but based on the constitution and the law, it started a 
campaign to undermine the CNEs credibility.

By the beginning of December the petition was signed. At the same time that 
the opposition turned over the signed petition to the CNE, it strengthened 
its campaign against the CNE. Apparently it was conscious of not having 
collected enough signatures. Finally the opposition declared that it turned 
over 3.4 million signatures to the CNE for verification but the real number 
was just about 3.1 million. Right from the beginning a growing number of 
denunciations and reports indicated major fraud on the part of the 
opposition. And while the government immediately declared its acceptance of 
any CNE decision, the opposition didnt pronounce itself about until today. 
Some opposition representatives even declared in a more or less diplomatic 
manner that they will just accept decisions that are in their favor.

In the course of several months we also saw an ever-repeating game of 
public declarations from US government officials. First an article was 
published in the US press, citing unnamed or low-profile US government 
representatives who make declarations about Venezuelas supposed ties to 
international terrorism, reaching from the Colombian FARC to Al Qaida. This 
is followed by an official protest from the Venezuelan government and after 
that a higher-ranking representative of the US administration declares that 
nothing indicates such ties.

The decision of the CNE was originally announced for the middle of 
February, but verifying the signatures lasted longer than planned, so that 
it finally was announced on March 2nd. The strategy of the opposition is 
thus to present the result, which validates only 1.89 million signatures 
and sends 870.000 of them to be publicly re-certified between the 18th and 
22nd of March, as an arbitrary decision of a dictatorship. On the other 
hand, the opposition wants to create the impression of instability and 
generalized ungovernability on the streets of Venezuela and to increase 
international pressure on the Chávez government. This way the leading 
sectors of Venezuelas opposition hope to stimulate once again a military 
coup or even a US intervention. A few hundred even demonstrated in front of 
the US embassy in Caracas in favor of an intervention, holding up posters 
saying 1. Hussein; 2. Aristide; 3. Chávez.

Coup and intervention both seem fairly unrealistic at the moment. Apart 
from all polemics and propaganda, even Washington should be conscious of 
the enormous support the deep political and social transformations carried 
out by the Chávez government have. But the fact that the US administration 
is playing an important role in the script of the destabilization of 
Venezuela is obvious. Apart from the direct involvement in the April 2002 
coup attempt, the US government finances, via the National Endowment for 
Democracy (NED), different opposition organizations. One of them is the 
private enterprise Sumate, which, in cooperation with various companies, 
put pressure on thousands of workers to sign against Chávez. Sumate 
distributed, near the collection centers, cards confirming the signature 
against Chávez, while the companies asked their workers for the card to 
keep their jobs.

We can find other financiers of the script in the European Union. For 
example, the Spanish government or the German Christian-democratic Konrad 
Adenauer Foundation, which provides economic support to the new party 
Primero Justicia(PJ Justice First). PJ participated in the coup and party 
representatives arrestedministers of the Chávez government at that time. 
Finally, PJ representatives apparently coordinated the attacks and the 
destruction of a building of the Movimiento V. Republica(MVR - Fifth 
Republic Movement), Chávezs party, which was set on fire during a so-called 
peaceful demonstrationof the opposition on Friday, February 27th. The 
peaceful demonstrationalso attacked another building of a 
government-friendly party and open fire on the National Guard.

At the same time, little opposition groups acted violently in different 
parts of the capital, especially in the wealthy areas of El Hatillo, Baruta 
and Chacao, and set up road blocks with burning barricades. The National 
Guard and Military Police, which tried to disperse the peaceful 
demonstrationswere attacked with rocks, Molotov cocktails, and gunfire.

Only a few hundred people participated in these activities, but they can be 
prevented only with difficulty, since the police force of the capital 
Caracas (which has a mayor who was elected on the Chavez ticket, but later 
switched over to the opposition) and of the three above-named districts do 
not intervene. They either remain out of sight, actively support the 
violent protesters, or participate in civilian clothes. Several police 
officers have been arrested by the National Guard.

The police force of the citys largest district, of Libertador, which is 
governed by a pro-Chavez mayor and which, with its over two million 
inhabitants, has more inhabitants than all of the other districts put 
together, is not allowed to be active in the rest of the city. And the 
National Guard and the military police are, as long as there is no state of 
emergency, only allowed to protect the main thoroughfares and city 
freeways. So as to provide the necessary mood during the demonstrations, 
the oppositional company Polar, which is the largest beer producer in 
Venezuela, has been distributing free beer to the demonstrators.Also 
noticeable is that numerous freeway blockages are being organized with 
Polar trucks. In this way small groups can, at least in the virtual reality 
of television, plunge the city into chaos.

An important goal of the street violence is also to provoke reactions among 
the large masses of people who support the government and to this achieve 
an armed conflict on the streets and generate the impression of civil war. 
The government thus constantly issues calls to its supporters to maintain 
their calm. That the population has so far not fallen into the oppositions 
trap probably has to do with the same collective intelligence that already 
on the second day of the coup managed to mobilize millions of people to 
chase away the coup government, without the help of a mass media and 
despite massive repression and 45 deaths.

In some cases members of the opposition have fired shots from buildings and 
have wounded at least two National Guard soldiers and two journalists. 
Tuesday morning two bodies of individuals from the barrios appeared, which 
showed evidence of having been tortured. People in the area suspect the 
metropolitan police to be responsible for the murders. At the same time, 
the democratic oppositionappears in the media, saying that the presence of 
National Guard and Military Police are proof that Venezuela is a military 
dictatorship. This is a solid film, in accordance with the script of 
destabilization, which is being sold with much success to the international 
media.

Dario Azzelini is a freelance journalist and filmmaker.


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