Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega statements supporting the Gaddafi dictatorship in Libya are shocking. [View All]

[Better Believe It]

These are the views of a radical socialist who belongs to one political grouping within the international socialist movement. I think his criticism of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega regarding their position supporting the Libyan dictatorship is fully justified and warrants serious consideration by all progressives and socialists. BBI


Latin America and the Arab revolution: the bankruptcy of Chavism?
Ataulfo Riera
March, 2011

The attitude of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez concerning the events in Libya is particularly shocking. In a manner that is less pronounced in the case of the first and pretty consistent in the case of the second, they imply that the revolt of the Libyan people is the result of manipulation, of an imperialist plot aimed at overthrowing an enemy regime. Curiously, this “thesis” does not take up the official version of the Libyan regime itself, according to which it is on the contrary Al-Qaeda which is behind the “riots”! However, far from all these delirious conspiracy theories, there is nothing “singular” or “particular” about the revolution in Libya, no foreign plot directed by the CIA or Bin Laden; on the contrary, it is an integral part of the process of the Arab revolution which is breaking out throughout the region. Furthermore, this is not happening by chance, since the dictatorial Libyan regime is precisely geographically wedged between the Tunisian revolution and the Egyptian revolution.

.... according to this purely “campist” conception (“the enemies of my enemies are my friends”), on February 25 President Hugo Chavez has just, like Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, given his “support to the Libyan government”, at the moment when it is massacring its people with heavy weapons. Admittedly, there is no doubt that imperialism is lying in wait and hopes to take advantage of the slightest opportunity. Admittedly, we have to denounce the double morality of imperialism, which condemns civilian victims in Libya, but not in Iraq, Afghanistan or Palestine. But that does not at all justify support for a bloody tyrant, who is precisely giving imperialism a wonderful opportunity to regain its balance and who, in spite of his verbal outpourings about the so-called “green revolution", is at the head of a system of exploitation and a corrupt regime which is part and parcel of the imperialist network for plundering of the area and its resources.

In Venezuela, revolutionary organizations such as Marea Socialista have taken a clear decision in favour of the Libyan people and against the dictator Gaddafi. We can only hope that the Venezuelan and Cuban workers will be more capable of understanding what is at stake than their leaders are. But, even if he comes to his senses and corrects his position, there is no doubt that the catastrophic declarations of Chavez will immediately and lastingly ruin the immense prestige which he has up to now enjoyed among the Arab masses. This popularity came from his declared opposition to the war and the occupation of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, as well as Israel’s aggression against Lebanon in 2006. It reached its culminating point in January 2009, when he decided to expel the Israeli ambassador part of the embassy staff to protest against the massacre perpetrated by the Zionist state against the population of Gaza, thus marking his “unqualified solidarity with the heroic Palestinian people”. What is most serious is that, in the person of Chavez, it is the prestige of an alternative that is identified as progressive and seeking to build the “socialism of the twenty-first century” which is in danger of being deeply discredited in the Arab world.

This attitude constitutes a godsend for the reactionary and imperialist forces who, at present disorientated by the scale of what is happening, are trying at all costs to take the situation in hand, to control or to stop the Arab revolution. Moreover, by lining up shamefully alongside the Libyan tyrant, the Chavist leadership is shooting itself in the foot by offering ammunition to its own adversaries and detractors, who constantly make unfounded accusations about its “dictatorial” nature.

Please read the full article at:

http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1999

This article was first published in French on the website of the LCR_SAP, Belgian section of the Fourth International : www.lcr-lagauche.be

Ataulfo Riera is member of the national leadership of the LCR-SAP (Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire-Socialistische Arbeiderspartij), Belgian section of the Fourth International.