Venezuela+-+Solidarity+in+Struggle,+James+Tweedie,+YCLUK

Young Communist League (Britain), 25th September, 2006
=Venezuela: Solidarity in Struggle=


 * James Tweedie**

Having just returned the from Young Communist League’s delegation to the tenth congress of the Juventud Communista de Venezuela (Communist Youth of Venezuela), my already strong sentiments of solidarity with the struggle of the Venezuelan people for social and economic progress have been greatly reinforced.

Venezuela has long been a nation divided by sharp contrasts of wealth and poverty. The post-Second World War development of the oil industry brought European levels of prosperity to 20% of the population while leaving the remaining 80% in abject poverty. State employees and the small national business class thrived, but transnational corporations pocketed the majority of the nation’s wealth. A sum of money equal to fifty times that of the post-war Marshall Plan has been exported from Venezuela in the last half-century, while the vast majority of people live in miserable poverty in the //barrios// or shantytowns of the cities and rural communities.

Since the election of president Hugo Chavez and his coalition government of social democrats, socialists and communists in 1998 and 1999, the poor of Venezuela have seen a steady improvement in their lot. The nation’s oil revenues have been taxed to provide universal free education, healthcare (with the help of 20,000 volunteer Cuban doctors) and new housing to replace the unhealthy and dangerous //barrios//. Poverty has been reduced by 30%. Adult illiteracy has been eradicated, rough-sleepers are being assisted in rebuilding their lives, and subsidized state food shops and free meals for schoolchildren and the elderly have allowed the poor to eat three square meals a day, rather than the one occasional meagre ration many were forced to survive on. Chavez himself talks of building “Socialism for the 21st Century”.

The previously excluded and disillusioned masses have engaged with the political process through a variety of local participatory democratic bodies and a new enthusiasm for the electoral process, inspired by a government that truly represents their interests for the first time. The economy is in its third consecutive year of 10% growth and Chavez and his coalition have won ten elections in eight years.

The Venezuelan government has signed mutually beneficial trade and co-operation agreements with countries across the world. Through the Petrosur and Petrocaribe initiatives it has supplied oil at discounted rates to developing nations in Latin America and the Caribbean, alleviating the problems of high international energy prices. Venezuela is to assist Vietnam in the building of a series of oil refineries to process that country’s natural resources. Citgo, the US subsidiary of the Venezualan state oil company PDV-SA, provides cheap domestic heating oil to impoverished US citizens. Hugo Chavez even offered aid to the poor of London on his visit to the city in May of this year.

Yet not everyone has welcomed the undisputable achievements of the Bolivarian Revolution (named for Simon Bolivar, the hero of Venezuelan independence from the Spanish Empire) in social progress and international solidarity. The US government is openly hostile to its Venezuelan counterpart, and supported the April 2002 military coup against the democratically elected government of Venezuela. The US State Department’s so-called National Endowment for Democracy and the state development agency USAID are openly funding opposition political parties. Investigations have found that Sumate, a right-wing pressure group that played a part in the coup, has been funded through a series of intermediaries by the US Department of Health.

The White House National Security Strategy report of March 2006 claimed, “In Venezuela, a demagogue awash with oil money is undermining democracy and seeking to destabilise the region”. The CIA has this year established a special “task force” on Venezuela. Pat Robertson, the US evangelist and supporter of the Republican Party, has twice called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez without censure from the US government.

Hugo Chavez has been openly critical of the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and of attempts to impose economic and political hegemony on Latin America and the world. During the recent war in Lebanon, Venezuela cut diplomatic relations with Israel in protest at the slaughter of the Lebanese people.

The right-wing press in Britain and the US have published a litany of anti-Venezuelan propaganda. They quote discredited Venezuelan politicians and commentators who claim that Chavez is an autocratic dictator (who has been directly elected twice), that the government perpetrates human rights abuses (by putting those implicated in treason on trial), and that dissent is suppressed (in a country where 90% of the media is privately owned and intensely anti-Chavez).

Prime minister Tony Blair seems to have been seduced by such propaganda. In an answer to a parliamentary question from the Leeds MP Colin Burgon, asking if he welcomed to advances made by the Venezuelan government, Blair bizarrely replied that “Venezuela should abide by the rules of the international community”.

Hugo Chavez is seeking a third term in office at the December 3rd presidential elections. Support for Chavez is running at between 59% and 75% in the polls, but the Venezuelan Left know that his defeat would mean the death of their struggle for progress. We must expect the propaganda war to escalate in the run-up to the election.

If the opposition smell defeat they may attempt to discredit the elections through boycott, as they did in the December 2005 national assembly elections. In such circumstances it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the foreign powers that oppose the Bolivarian Revolution would attempt to destroy it through economic sanctions or even military action. It is imperative that we build the broadest possible solidarity movement in Britain to prevent government support for such actions.

You can help by:


 * Joining, and asking your trade union branch, trades council and political party to affiliate to, the Venezuela Information Centre solidarity campaign
 * Forming a local Venezuela solidarity group
 * Organise and attend local solidarity events, such as public meetings, fundraising events and screenings of the film “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” (the documentary of the April 2002 coup)
 * Move and support resolutions in support of Venezuela to your trade union and political party
 * Write to your MP urging them to sign Early Day Motion 1644 on developments in Venezuela, and (if they are a Labour MP) to join the parliamentary Labour Friends of Venezuela group
 * Write letters to newspapers correcting any misinformation they may print about Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution
 * Educate, agitate and organise for solidarity with Venezuela!


 * James Tweedie** is a member of the Young Communist League and the Venezuela Information Centre. E-mail: **info@vicuk.org**. Website: **[|www.vicuk.org]**.

The British YCL web site is at **http://www.ycl.org.uk/**.

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