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<big><b><big><span class="style1">Violent Protests in Venezuela Fit a
Pattern</span></big></b></big><br>
<br>
<b><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2014/beeton190214.html">http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2014/beeton190214.html</a></small></small></b><br>
<span class="style2">by Dan Beeton</span>
<p>Venezuela's latest round of violent protests appears to fit a
pattern and represents the tug-and-pull nature of the country's divided
opposition. Several times over the past 15 years since the late,
former president Hugo Chávez took office in 1999, the political
opposition has launched violent protests aimed at forcing the current
president out of office. Most notably, such protests were a part of
the April 2002 coup that temporarily deposed Chávez and then
accompanied the 2002/2003 oil strike. In February of 2004, a
particularly radical sector of the opposition unleashed the "Guarimba":
violent riots by small groups who paralyzed much of the east of Caracas
for several days with the declared goal of creating a state of chaos.
As CEPR Co-Director <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TMOAoqNPqI" class="style5">Mark
Weisbrot</a> has explained, then -- as now -- the strategy is clear: a
sector of the opposition seeks to overturn the results of democratic
elections. An important difference this time of course is that
Venezuela has its first post-Chávez president, and a key part of the
opposition's strategy overall has been to depict Nicolás Maduro as a
pale imitation of his predecessor and a president ill-equipped to deal
with the country's problems (many of which are exaggerated in the
Venezuelan private media, which is still largely <a
href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/media-bias-in-venezuela"
class="style5">opposition-owned</a>, as well as the international
media).</p>
<p>Following Maduro's electoral victory in April last year (with much
of the opposition <a
href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/a-timeline-of-venezuelan-opposition-reactions-to-the-recent-elections"
class="style5">crying "fraud"</a> despite there being <a
href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/a-statistical-note-on-the-april-14-venezuelan-presidential-election-and-audit-of-results"
class="style5">no reasonable doubts</a> about the validity of the
results), the opposition <a
href="http://www.noticias24.com/venezuela/noticia/171703/la-mud-esta-lista-para-las-elecciones-municipales-vamos-a-participar-con-todos-los-hierros/"
class="style5">looked</a> to the December municipal elections as a
referendum on Maduro's government, vowing to defeat governing party
PSUV and allied candidates. The outcome, which left the pro-Maduro
parties with a 10-point margin of victory, was a stunning defeat for
the opposition, and this time they did not even bother claiming the
elections were rigged. <br>
</p>
<p>According to the opposition's own pre-election analysis, support for
Maduro had apparently grown over the months preceding the election. As
we have <a
href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/long-awaited-apocalypse-not-likely-in-venezuela"
class="style5">pointed out</a>, this may be due in part to the <a
href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/venezuela-leads-region-in-poverty-reduction-in-2012-eclac-says"
class="style5">large reduction in poverty in 2012</a> and other
economic and social gains that preceded the more recent economic
problems.</p>
<p>Defeated at the polls, the anti-democratic faction of the opposition
prepared for a new attempt at destabilizing the elected government, and
promoted relatively small, but often violent student protests in early
February. They then called for a massive protest on February 12,
Venezuela's Youth Day in the center of Caracas. The demonstrations
have been accompanied by a social media campaign that has spread
misinformation in an attempt to depict the Maduro administration as a
violent dictatorship instead of a popular elected government. <a
href="http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=180977" class="style5">Images
of police violence from other countries and past protests</a> -- some
several years old -- have been presented on social media as having
occurred in recent days in Venezuela. A <a
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFS6cP9auDc" class="style5">YouTube
video</a> that has been watched by almost 2 million viewers presents a
one-sided portrayal of the situation and falsely states that the
Venezuelan government controls all radio and television in the country,
among other distortions. Similar disinformation occurred in April 2002
and in other past incidents in Venezuela, most notably when <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etbEQcA7jUA" class="style5">manipulated
video footage</a> was used to provide political justification for the
coup d'etat.</p>
<p>While some in Washington foreign policy circles may attempt to
portray the leaders of this new wave of protests as persecuted
pro-democracy heroes, they in fact have histories of supporting
anti-democratic and unconstitutional efforts to oust the government.
Both Leopoldo López and Maria Corina Machado supported the 2002 coup;
in López's case he participated in it by supervising the arrest of
then-Minister of Justice and the Interior Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, when
López was mayor of Chacao. <br>
</p>
<p>Police dragged Rodríguez Chacín out of the building where he had
sought refuge into an angry mob, who physically attacked him. Corina
Machado notably was present when the coup government of Pedro Carmona
was sworn in and signed the infamous "Carmona decree" dissolving the
congress, the constitution, and the Supreme Court. The <em><a
href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2014/0218/What-s-going-on-in-Venezuela-video"
class="style5">Christian Science Monitor</a></em> reported yesterday:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[T]he opposition has a touchy protest history in Venezuela. Early
on in former President Hugo Chavez's administration, the opposition was
consistently on the streets calling for an end to his presidency. In
2002, they organized a coup that briefly unseated the president.
Though the opposition leadership is not calling for a coup, the
reputation the group made for itself barely a decade ago may be
haunting it as it vocally pushes back against Maduro's administration.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Venezuela's opposition receives funding from U.S. "democracy
promotion" groups including the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
and core grantees such as the International Republican Institute (IRI)
and the National Democratic Institute (NDI). The NED, which the <em>Washington
Post</em> noted was set up to conduct activities "much of" which "[t]he
CIA used to fund covertly," has made <a
href="http://ned.org/where-we-work/latin-america-and-caribbean/venezuela"
class="style5">a number of grants</a> directed at empowering youth and
students in Venezuela in recent years, and USAID has also <a
href="http://www.foreignassistance.gov/web/Agency_USAID.aspx?budTab=tab_Bud_Impl"
class="style5">given money</a> to IRI, NDI, and other groups for
Venezuela programs. These organizations have a history of
destabilizing elected governments and working to unify and strengthen
political opposition to left-wing parties and governments. IRI notably
played <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/international/americas/29haiti.html?pagewanted=all"
class="style5">a key role in destabilizing Haiti ahead of the 2004
coup there</a> and also has engaged in <a
href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/why-washington-cares-about-haiti-honduras"
class="style5">activities aimed at weakening Brazil's governing
Workers' Party</a>, to name a few. In Venezuela, they <a
href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/11/coup-connection"
class="style5">funded groups involved in the 2002 coup</a>, and IRI
spokespersons infamously praised the coup after it happened.</p>
<p>The Haiti example is instructive. The parallels are numerous:
notably, a key part of the strategy was to exaggerate and fabricate
killings and other human rights abuses, which were blamed on the
elected government (while truly horrific atrocities committed by the
armed wing of the opposition were generally ignored). Researchers --
including some from the U.N. -- have <a
href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/bad-news-from-haiti-us-press-misses-the-story"
class="style5">since debunked</a> the most widely-circulated accounts
of rights violations, but of course the democratically-elected
president (Jean-Bertrand Aristide) had long since been forced from
office by then.</p>
<p>The U.S.-funded destabilization of Haiti in the early 2000s also
offers lessons as to the endgame of this strategy. As the <em><a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/international/americas/29haiti.html?pagewanted=all"
class="style5">New York Times</a></em> reported and as scholars such
as <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=ikxwRQAACAAJ"
class="style5">Peter Hallward</a> and <a
href="http://monthlyreview.org/press/books/pb3003/" class="style5">Jeb
Sprague</a> have documented, the IRI counseled its Haitian partners not
to accept any compromises from the Aristide government (which made many
concessions, including agreeing to a power-sharing arrangement) and to
continue to press further.</p>
<p>But the Maduro government is of course in a much stronger position
than Haiti's government ten years ago. A key factor is that while
Aristide was relatively isolated politically, Latin American
governments, through <a
href="http://www.unasursg.org/inicio/centro-de-noticias/archivo-de-noticias/comunicado-de-la-uni%C3%B3n-de-naciones-suramericanas-sobre-la-situaci%C3%B3n-en-la-rep%C3%BAblica-bolivariana-de-venezuela"
class="style5">UNASUR</a> and <a
href="http://en.mercopress.com/2014/02/17/mercosur-condemns-violence-in-venezuela-and-calls-for-dialogue"
class="style5">MERCOSUR</a>, have condemned the violent protests and
the opposition's calls for Maduro to leave office and have expressed
support for the Venezuelan government. In this case, when the Obama
administration continues to <a
href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/us-indicates-support-for-regime-change-in-venezuela-once-again-south-america-says-no"
class="style5">signal that it sides with the violent protests</a>, it
is an outlier in the region.</p>
<hr>
<p><span class="style3">Dan Beeton is International Communications
Director for the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Follow
Beeton on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/Dan_Beeton"
class="style5">@Dan_Beeton</a>. This article was first published in <a
href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/violent-protests-in-venezuela-fit-a-pattern"
class="style5">CEPR's <em>The Americas Blog</em></a> on 19 February
2014 under a Creative Commons license.</span>
</p>
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