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<font size=3><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>November 28,
2007<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000"><b>
COUNTERPUNCH EXCLUSIVE!<br><br>
<br>
</font>Counterattack as Fateful Referendum Looms<br><br>
<br>
</i><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">CIA
Venezuela Destabilization Memo
Surfaces</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5>By
JAMES PETRAS<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">O</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>n November 26, 2007 the Venezuelan government
broadcast and circulated a confidential memo from the US embassy to the
CIA which is devastatingly revealing of US clandestine operations and
which will influence the referendum this Sunday, December 2,
2007.<br><br>
The memo sent by an embassy official, Michael Middleton Steere, was
addressed to the Director of Central Intelligence, Michael Hayden. The
memo was entitled 'Advancing to the Last Phase of Operation Pincer' and
updates the activity by a CIA unit with the acronym 'HUMINT' (Human
Intelligence) which is engaged in clandestine action to destabilize the
forth-coming referendum and coordinate the civil military overthrow of
the elected Chavez government. The Embassy-CIA's polls concede that 57
per cent of the voters approved of the constitutional amendments proposed
by Chavez but also predicted a 60 per cent abstention. <br><br>
The US operatives emphasized their capacity to recruit former Chavez
supporters among the social democrats (PODEMOS) and the former Minister
of Defense Baduel, claiming to have reduced the 'yes' vote by 6 per cent
from its original margin. Nevertheless the Embassy operatives concede
that they have reached their ceiling, recognizing they cannot defeat the
amendments via the electoral route.<br><br>
The memo then recommends that Operation Pincer (OP) <i>[Operación
Tenaza]</i> be operationalized. OP involves a two-pronged strategy of
impeding the referendum, rejecting the outcome at the same time as
calling for a 'no' vote. The run up to the referendum includes running
phony polls, attacking electoral officials and running propaganda through
the private media accusing the government of fraud and calling for a 'no'
vote. Contradictions, the report emphasizes, are of no matter.<br><br>
The CIA-Embassy reports internal division and recriminations among the
opponents of the amendments including several defections from their
'umbrella group'. The key and most dangerous threats to democracy raised
by the Embassy memo point to their success in mobilizing the private
university students (backed by top administrators) to attack key
government buildings including the Presidential Palace, Supreme Court and
the National Electoral Council. The Embassy is especially full of praise
for the ex-Maoist 'Red Flag' group for its violent street fighting
activity. Ironically, small Trotskyist sects and their trade unionists
join the ex-Maoists in opposing the constitutional amendments. The
Embassy, while discarding their 'Marxist rhetoric', perceives their
opposition as fitting in with their overall strategy.<br><br>
The ultimate objective of 'Operation Pincer' is to seize a territorial or
institutional base with the 'massive support' of the defeated electoral
minority within three or four days (presumably after the elections though
this is not clear. JP) backed by an uprising by oppositionist military
officers principally in the National Guard. The Embassy operative concede
that the military plotters have run into serous problems as key
intelligence operatives were detected, stores of arms were decommissioned
and several plotters are under tight surveillance.<br><br>
Apart from the deep involvement of the US, the primary organization of
the Venezuelan business elite (FEDECAMARAS), as well as all the major
private television, radio and newspaper outlets have been engaged in a
campaign of fear and intimidation campaign. Food producers, wholesale and
retail distributors have created artificial shortages of basic food items
and have provoked large scale capital flight to sow chaos in the hopes of
reaping a 'no' vote.<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000"><b>President Chavez
Counter-Attacks<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Verdana" size=2>In a speech to pro-Chavez,
pro-amendment nationalist business-people (Entrepreneurs for Venezuela
EMPREVEN) Chavez warned the President of FEDECAMARAS that if he continues
to threaten the government with a coup, he would nationalize all their
business affiliates. With the exception of the Trotskyists and other
sects, the vast majority of organized workers, peasants, small farmers,
poor neighborhood councils, informal self-employed and public school
students have mobilized and demonstrated in favor of the constitutional
amendments.<br><br>
The reason for the popular majority is found in a few of the key
amendments: One article expedites land expropriation facilitating
re-distribution to the landless and small producers. Chavez has already
settled over 150,000 landless workers on 2 million acres of land. Another
amendment provides universal social security coverage for the entire
informal sector (street sellers, domestic workers, self-employed)
amounting to 40 per cent of the labor force. Organized and unorganized
workers' workweek will be reduced from 40 to 36 hours a week (Monday to
Friday noon) with no reduction in pay. Open admission and universal free
higher education will open greater educational opportunities for lower
class students. Amendments will allow the government to by-pass current
bureaucratic blockage of the socialization of strategic industries, thus
creating greater employment and lower utility costs. Most important, an
amendment will increase the power and budget of neighborhood councils to
legislate and invest in their communities.<br><br>
The electorate supporting the constitutional amendments is voting in
favor of their socio-economic and class interests; the issue of extended
re-election of the President is not high on their priorities: And that is
the issue that the Right has focused on in calling Chavez a 'dictator'
and the referendum a 'coup'.<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000"><b>The
Opposition<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Verdana" size=2>With strong financial backing from
the US Embassy ($8 million dollars in propaganda alone according to the
Embassy memo) and the business elite and 'free time' by the right-wing
media, the Right has organized a majority of the upper middle class
students from the private universities, backed by the Catholic Church
hierarchy, large swaths of the affluent middle class neighborhoods,
entire sectors of the commercial, real estate and financial middle
classes and apparently sectors of the military, especially officials in
the National Guard. While the Right has control over the major private
media, public television and radio back the constitutional reforms. While
the Right has its followers among some generals and the National Guard,
Chavez has the backing of the paratroops and legions of middle-rank
officers and most other generals.<br><br>
The outcome of the Referendum of December 2 is a major historical event
first and foremost for Venezuela but also for the rest of the Americas. A
positive vote (Vota 'Sí') will provide the legal framework for the
democratization of the political system, the socialization of strategic
economic sectors, empower the poor and provide the basis for a
self-managed factory system. A negative vote (or a successful US-backed
civil-military uprising) would reverse the most promising living
experience of popular self-rule, of advanced social welfare and
democratically based socialism. A reversal, especially a military
dictated outcome, would lead to a blood bath, such as we have not seen
since the days of the Indonesian Generals' Coup of 1966, which killed
over a million workers and peasants or the Argentine Coup of 1976 in
which over 30,000 Argentines were murdered by the US- backed
Generals.<br><br>
A decisive vote for 'Sí' will not end US military and political
destabilization campaigns but it will certainly undermine and demoralize
their collaborators. On December 2, 2007 the Venezuelans have a
rendezvous with history.<br><br>
<br>
<b>James Petras</b>, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton
University, New York, owns a 50 year membership in the class struggle, is
an adviser to the landless and jobless in brazil and argentina and is
co-author of
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1856499383/counterpunch">
Globalization Unmasked</a> (Zed). His new book with Henry Veltmeyer,
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745324231/counterpunchmaga">
Social Movements and the State: Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia and
Argentina</a>, will be published in October 2005. He can be reached at:
<a href="mailto:jpetras@binghamton.edu">jpetras@binghamton.edu<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
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