Regime change in Venezuela

"There are two reasons for their impatience: first, the economy is in a
deep recession right now, and it could very well recover by
August...Second, the recession is prolonged and deepened because
investors are essentially on strike against the government, taking money
out of the country and withholding investment in hope of getting a new
President. Like any strike, it cannot continue indefinitely."

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/1211-03.htm

Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services
December 11, 2002

Bush Administration Pushes "Regime Change" in Venezuela

by Mark Weisbrot
It's 10 p.m. -- do you know what your government is up to? It seems
that Iraq is not the only "regime change" that the Bush Administration
is working on. The US government has apparently decided that President
Chavez of Venezuela must go, one way or another.

True, Saddam Hussein is a brutal tyrant who has invaded and threatened
neighboring countries -- whereas Hugo Chavez was democratically elected,
has shown no ill will toward any of his neighbors, and tolerates a
steady barrage of virulent, hate-filled propaganda against his
presidency from the major Venezuelan media.

But these distinctions can be blurred, because both have offended the US
government, and both are sitting on a lot of oil. So most Americans can
be forgiven for having similar impressions of the two leaders, given
what they hear from the US media. A recent op-ed in the Washington Post
referred to the Chavez government as a "dictatorship."

This week the country's main business federation, supported by some
union leaders, called once again for a general strike against the Chavez
government. They are apparently following the same scenario that led to
the military coup on April 11.

In our amnesiac political culture, half a year can be an eternity, more
than enough time for history to be rewritten and slates wiped clean. But
it was barely more than six months ago, on April 11, that opposition
forces overthrew the democratically elected government of Venezuela.
They installed the head of the business federation as president and
dissolved the legislature and the Supreme Court.

The Bush administration at first welcomed the coup, retreating the next
day after it became clear that other countries in the Americas were not
going to recognize the illegal government. And of course administration
officials denied having anything to do with the coup.

There is a pile of evidence to the contrary, indicating that they had a
lot to do with it. There were numerous meetings between Bush
administration officials and coup leaders in the months preceding the
coup. We also know that the opposition received money from the United
States government.

But even more important is the political support and encouragement that
Washington provides. Those who are trying to overthrow the government of
Venezuela at this very moment know that the United States will do its
best to recognize and support any resulting dictatorship. They know this
because neither the White House nor the State Department has indicated
that a coup would result in any diplomatic or commercial sanctions
against an illegal government.

It would be a simple matter for the Bush Administration to make such a
statement. But even in the recent mobilizations of October 21 and
December 2, with rumors of coup attempts flying everywhere, our top
officials have maintained a telling silence, and carefully avoided
saying anything that would discourage the violent opposition.

The US also supports the opposition's call for early elections. Although
the Venezuelan constitution provides for a recall election halfway
through the President's term, the opposition does not want to wait until
August.

There are two reasons for their impatience: first, the economy is in a
deep recession right now, and it could very well recover by August.
Venezuela's economy would get a tremendous boost from an increase in oil
prices that would likely result from a war with Iraq. Second, the
recession is prolonged and deepened because investors are essentially on
strike against the government, taking money out of the country and
withholding investment in hope of getting a new President. Like any
strike, it cannot continue indefinitely.

Of course it does not make any more sense for Chavez to hold early
elections than it would have for President Reagan to have done so in
1983, when -- due to a recession and high unemployment -- his approval
rating bottomed at 35 percent.
But the US press -- together with the Bush administration -- pretends
that this is a perfectly reasonable demand.

A little noticed retraction published in the Chicago Tribune on April 20
summed up the extreme prejudice of our major news organizations against
the president of Venezuela:

"An editorial on Sunday mistakenly said that Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez had praised Osama bin Laden. The Tribune regrets the error."

Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy
Research, in Washington D.C.
(http://www.cepr.net)

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)