BBC (early Saturday): Chavez supporters bid to sack MPs

[Jack Rabbit]

From the BBC Online
Dated Saturday November 22 02:02 GMT (Friday 6:02 pm PST)

Chavez supporters bid to sack MPs
By James Menendez
BBC correspondent, Caracas

A big drive is under way in Venezuela to collect signatures for a referendum to remove 38 opposition deputies.
Some of these were allies of President Hugo Chavez, but defected reducing the government's majority in parliament.
The petition comes a week before the opposition hold their own signature drive to try to get rid of the president himself.
They accuse him of behaving like a dictator who has done little to fight rampant crime and a stagnant economy.

Read more.

[pescao]

1. i think Alfredo Pena is on the list

the anti-chávez caracas mayor who's in control of the metropolitan police. it would be great if they got rid of him.

[Jack Rabbit]

2. The article says MPs

That would indicate that el senor Pena is not on the list, unless in Venezuela is is possible to be an MP and Mayor of a large city at the same time.

[pescao]

5. well, that's what the title says

but the constitution states that any elected official can be recalled halfway through their term, which includes mayors. so either they're doing the non-parliamentarians later or the bbc got it wrong. other media refer to 'lawmakers' - do mayors count as lawmakers in venezuela?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/11/21/international1458EST0633.DTL

Facing possible recall vote, backers of Venezuela's Chavez sign petitions against opposition lawmakers

ALEXANDRA OLSON, Associated Press Writer
Friday, November 21, 2003

(11-21) 11:58 PST CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) --

Hugo Chavez's government staged a massive petition drive Friday to revoke the mandates of opposition lawmakers, hoping to derail a similar effort to force a vote on the president's rule.

Under the gaze of rifle-toting soldiers, thousands of Venezuelans signed petitions demanding recall votes for 38 lawmakers. Results were expected within a month.

The four-day sign-up, a bid to strengthen Chavez's hold on Congress, came as his opponents gear up for their own petition drive -- also a recall campaign -- set to start next Friday.

...

Venezuela's Constitution allows recalls halfway through an elected official's term. At least 20 percent of a constituency must sign to force a vote, and Chavez supporters needed more than 60,000 signatures in some states. Government officials predicted a turnout of more than 2 million.

...

Ruling party leaders and observers from the OAS and the Georgia-based Carter Center monitored the petition drive, which runs through Monday.

[HairyPoppins]

3. Off to a good start on a dictatorship

Get rid of the opposition first and then he will have complete control. Next will be the military.

[ret5hd]

6. hahahaha....

chavez a dictator?

what kind of dictator refuses to silence a virulently oppositional media?

what kind of dictator is elected by a majority that makes bush* blush in envy?

what kind of dictator believes that the welfare of the common man supercedes the enrichment of corporate coffers and elite pockets?

usually, i have found that a little research keeps me from making a fool of myself.

[Name removed]

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[ret5hd]

9. he's had plenty of time...

and plenty of excuses.

Chavez and Lula are this hemispheres best hope for a future that is at all equitable.

valid comparisons can only be made to governments that were overthrown by our cia (as chavez almost was)

come, let us hear your praises of pinochet, let us hear of the glorious kissinger.

[Name removed]

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[AP]

26. Would you consider FDR a dictator?

?

[Name removed]

48. Deleted message

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[AP]

53. The kind of RW'ers who call Chavez a dictator called FDR a dictator in the

30s. In fact, they recruited Smedley Butler to help them with a Wall St backed coup. Smedley blew them in. FDR didn't arrest a single one of them. The media pretends this never happened.

There are striking paralles between FDR and Chavez. Chavez is WAY closer to FDR than he is to Allende (and Pallast says that Chavez would have fit in very well with JFK's Alliance for Progress), yet the right wing has planned for him Allende's fate. Actually, they have planned for him the fate they planned for FDR, yet, as it failed with FDR, hopefully it will fail with Chavez so that Venezuela can experience the same economic boom the US experienced throughout the 40s and 50s thanks to FDR's wealth-expanding, and middle/working-class enriching policies.

[pescao]

8. this would be the same military that kidnapped him last year?

and if u really want to see what a dictator he is, just look at the terrible repression the kidnappers suffered when he was restored to power (house arrest for coup-leader, who promptly flew to miami via colombia, and forced retirement for the coup-plotters in the military; not one political prisoner - this guy's worse than stalin!)

but maybe ur still crying over those poor oil execs who were sacked for sabotaging the national oil industry, bringing venezuela to a standstill for over a month and nearly crashing the whole economy. i'm still choked up about how they had to move out of their plush company-owned houses...

[Name removed]

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[AP]

18. You haven't seen the Chavez movie have you.

There's a great scene where Chavez's AG reads the coup leaders their constitutional rights...those would be the rights in the constitution that the coup leaders had declared torn up earlier that day.

You got your dictators and your democratic leaders mixed up.

[Name removed]

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[AP]

21. Only someone who hasn't seen this movie would say that.

You're allowed to say whatever you want, here.

[ozone_man]

52. Its good to be on the same side of an issue.

I guess I'm going to have to see this documentary. Next weekend, probably.

Take it easy on Dean, at least for Thanksgiving. But I might take a pot shot at that turkey in your signature line. :)

[AP]

24. Anonymous interntet postings are often much less real than documentary

films made on the scene with interviews from people on both sides.

I'm not saying that there isn't editorializing by documentary filmmakers, but I have het to see the other side of this argument, the coup leaders and their US enablers, rely on facts to make their arguments about Chavez. At least the filmmakers gave us facts and reality.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

40. Of course you are.

Disallowing people to see Elvis, flying saucers, a dictator growing in Chavez, and other improbable things would be extremely antidemocratic.

[Classical_Liberal]

44. You're seeing things alright!

.

[Classical_Liberal]

43. How is his petition drive to remove them

any different then their petition to remove him? They started the petition drive first.

[SharonAnn]

46. Guess you're not too well-informed.

Maybe you could read up on things.

[goforit]

4. Here comes Bush vs. Chavez ...".Part 42"

* is feeling so cocky his skin is about to burst!!!

[HawkerHurricane]

10. I hate to get involved...

But Chavez is not worthy of our support. My many relatives in Venezuala (in laws), all of whom voted for him the first time he ran, all are now afraid of him. He is going to far, and driving the professionals (Doctors, Architechs, Geophysics) out of the country in his hunt for the 'Hidden Oligarcha' who supposedly run the country.

[Name removed]

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[ret5hd]

15. really?

even if every point made by HH is true, how does a (even misguided) search for a "hidden oligarcha" make for a dictator?

and the only "point" made by your earlier posts was "chavez bad" with no backup. At least HH has arguable points that can be discussed. you just got "chavez bad" and "yeah, thats what i meant"

[HawkerHurricane]

17. Any support of me by

HairyPoppins is not to imply my support for any of HP's positions, including this one.

I've looked around, HP seems to be a apologist for certain unnamed reich wingers.

[ret5hd]

23. hahaha...

i never even slightly suspected anything differently, HH.

[ret5hd]

14. Sorry that I disagree with you on this one HH,

I usually agree with most of what you write but...

1) we have witnessed in our own country the existence of a "VRWC" (well, maybe richer than "vast", but certainly vastly influential). To dismiss such a phenomenon in Venezuela is poor judgement, IMHO.

2) I can only imagine how entrenched such a "hidden oligarcha" would be in a country such as Venzuela

3) If the "true", hidden or not, oligarcha were as concerned about the future of their country as Chavez is, well, maybe they should call a truce. But I think we can both agree that his opposition is in no way concerned with anything other than their own status, power, amd wealth.

4) (more speculation than opinion or fact) : would the status of your in-laws have anything to do with their opinion? From my reading, the main beneficiaries of his policies will be the truly poor.

[HawkerHurricane]

16. You don't have to agree with me...

I'm just giving it from my point of view, is all.

Answering you point by point...

1) Whether or not thier is a hidden oligarchy running things, my family is not members of it. And targeting the professional class is a good way to ruin a country. These are not MBA's and CEO's here: these are doctors and lab techs and a architech and a geoligist. People from a middle class backround (Father in Law was a geoligist) who, in this country, would be middle class also.

2) My families opinion is that Chavez IS working for the Oligarcha, and targeting the middle class on purpose... The main threat to the Oligarchy is not the poor, who have no energy left after making a living to revolt, but the middle class...

3) His opposition, as represented by my family, is concerned about their life and livelyhood. They have been threatened with bodily harm for opposing the government. Thier jobs are threatened, since all but the architech work for the government (and the architech does much government contracting). The doctor has been threatened with firing (he's a brain surgeon) for DARING to point out that the Cuban doctors working in his clinic are incompetent.

4) The main beneficiaries of his policies have been the truly rich. HOWEVER, he makes it sound like he's trying to help the poor. Sounds like someone else we know?

[ret5hd]

20. Please don't take my question above as an accusation or attack.

But to ask other questions:

How does land redistribution benefit the rich?

How does a vastly expanded education system for the poor benefit the rich (hey, i realize that it might not be "up to par" per our standards, but it is greater than before)

How does an expanded system of indigent healthcare help the rich? I won't attempt to answer the anecdote from the brain surgeon, but i do know that i would prefer ALMOST any doctor to none if my leg was broke, even if he was considered incompetent by a brain surgeon.

And, if he is truly working for the oligarchy, why would the media (who i think we could agree is one of the true power centers of the oligarchy) so virulently and constantly attack him? Who are they trying to fool? The "unitiated" rich? The poor? (if its the poor, why? he's doing what the oligarchy wishes, right? wouldn't it be better to tell the poor "he's a great guy"?)

why would the U.S. gov't risk backing a coup against a guy that is actually doing what they wish? Unless you're saying that the coup was actually a staged event?

Sorry, a lot of your argument doesn't jibe with logic.

[HawkerHurricane]

27. I don't claim to be a expert...

The land distribution is taking land from middle class farmers, giving it to thier tennants, who then go bankrupt and have it sold out from under them.

The education improvements are a good thing. But Lenin also put in universal education.

You break your leg. The clinic head says 'splint it for now, and I'll get back to it shortly.' The Cuban doctor looks at it, decides it can't be saved, and amputates. Because of the clumsy amputation and infection, it needs to be re-amputated even higher.
(Based on a real incident)

Actually, I don't think he is working for the Oligarcy. I think he is out for himself. But that's me. And by 'out for himself' I include the possiblity that he is working at becoming a Hero.
Now the Media in the country DON'T oppose him (according to my relatives), just as the media in this country don't oppose Bush. BUT that's not to say that the Oligacha is one big group; it's possible that there are different branches of the Oligarcha fighting it out with each other.

He's not doing what the US wishes; he's working to keep the oil wealth 'in country'. Whether he is keeping it 'in country' to help the poor or the wealthy is the arguement.
To oppose (and be opposed by) Bush is not proof of good intentions.

[AP]

28. Before you say one more thing about this, you need to see the movie.

You need to get some facts from a different perspective.

I'd love to hear your opinion, AFTER you see the movie.

[Name removed]

49. Deleted message

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[Judi Lynn]

50. It was a documentary

Not like "Gone With the Wind," actually.

[AP]

54. anonymous postings, anonymous postings, anonymous postings.

If a documentary came out which tried to portray Bush as a saint, I presume I wouldn't check my critical faculties at the door, just as didn't when I went to the Chavez documentary.

Is there anything SPECIFIC you'd like to challenge in that documentary. I can't make you "unanonumous." However, I can make you back up your claims.

Pick one scene in the film you didn't like. You think Carmona didn't rob that safe in the palace? You think there weren't millions of people in the streets? You think those private stations aren't disgusting shit-peddlers?

[ret5hd]

29. again, i can't answer every piece of anecdotal evidence, but...

1) from what i have read, land redistribution was enacted against "absent" landlords with large holdings that were allowing the land to go fallow. If some go bankrupt, hey, they were bankrupt before. At least they had a chance. (And as an aside, I would go even farther, give them some basic business training, and give them another shot.)

2) yeah, so did the U.S. (but now there seems to be a large number of people who feel that public education is not only not desirable, but evil.)

3) We could banter back and forth with anecdotal evidence, so i will stop on this subject after my own: wasn't it here in the U.S. recently where the doctor removed the wrong breast from a woman with breast cancer? and where a doctor removed a man's penis after wrongly diagnosing penile cancer? My point being, do i doubt that there are incompetent cuban doctors? No. But neither do i think that all of venezuela's native doctors are competent. And I have to at least wonder whether your in-law's feelings might be a little prejudiced (not racially, but professionally)

4) Hey, i don't mind if he wants to be a hero. I'm one of those that doesn't really care who gets the glory, just get the job done.

5) A cursory look at the contemporary view of chavez by the media would answer this. As probably neither one of us has access to tonights venezuelan newscast, I will have to rely on my latest info (as it filters in). My latest info right now is that ALL of the privately owned radio and TV is heartily against him, and is constantly advertising for the recall.

6) Whether he is doing it to help the poor or the wealthy will be evident in time. Neither of us is clairvoyant. But I will venture that the fact that he is trying to keep it "in country" is better for venezuela, regardless.

On edit: and now i must sleep. Later, HH.

[AP]

30. Good post. Now we just have to get JudyLyn (sp?) in this thread to really

put the nail in the coffin of this idea that Chavez is bad for Venezuela.

[Classical_Liberal]

45. The land redistibution law only takes land that has been idle for

years. how could that possibly affect a middle class person?

[AP]

25. You and your relatives need to see the Chavez documentary.

And once you see it, you'll udnerstand why so many people are so misinformed about reality in Venezuela.

If Chavez had been working for the Oligarcha, he wouldn't have been kidnapped and taken to an island on route to Honduras, or wherever, with the assistance of the CIA.

And, without cell phone technology, millions of people on the streets, and palace guards who were more loyal to Chavez than to the US Dollar, the coup would have succeeded.

[AP]

22. I wish people int he barrios in Caracas had relatives in the US

who posted to the internet.

HH, have you seen the Chavez movie yet?

[Judi Lynn]

31. Hi, AP. Just got to this thread a moment ago.

I have NEVER read anything which lead me to imagine Chavez could ever be considered ANY kind of dictator.

The issues of racism, of the right-wing strangle hold on the country, and almost all the country's media speak for themselves.

Gustavo Cisneros, wildly wealthy friend of George Bush senior owns so many media outlets, and his reach even extends into our own country through Univision.

He has had private vacation time, and meetings with Bush since the coup. One was at the private property of the Fanjul brothers, the Cuban "exiles" who own sugar plantations in Florida and the Domican Republic. They are all grotesque creatures, and not at all disposed to care for the 80% Venezuelan population living in poverty, who voted Chavez IN, in a landslide, and who seriously support him.

NOTHING the right-wing element of our country supports is clean in my view.

People need desperately to start reading Latin American history, and I mean NOW. They need to get an overview, some goddamed PERSPECTIVE on things. Jeez. (Whew!)

Still haven't seen the documentary. I'm coasting on the vapors of your review!

On edit again:

We have had a couple of pro-coup posters drop off the Chavez threads, f'r crying out loud. Hope it wasn't anything we said. There were two, and they used to work like a wrestling tag team. Hmmmm. I guess it's always possible they will return with different names, and resume their struggle!

[muriel_volestrangler]

32. Chavez isn't a saint

He did try a coup (and failed) in the early 1990s. But I have seen that film, and think he's probably better for the Venezuelan people than the alternatives. I'd like to see him hold on by legitimate means.

[sujan]

33. he was elected

[AP]

35. Actually, I think Chavez has performed a bigger miracle than most

of the beatified in the last century or two. He probably has a better claim on sainthood than anyone alive today.

It's a fucking miracle that he defeated that coup.

He was right to attempt a coup when he was in the army. He was attempting a coup agains the same lawless oligarchs who ripped up the constitution Chavez'z government wrote when the oligarchs tried to depose him. As sujan points out, Chavez was democratically elected, and the constitution was passed democratically.

Since you have seen the movie, you can appreciate the scene where the coup leaders are in the palace negotiating with Chavez. He says he won't step down, so they threaten to bomb the palace with all the ministers of the democratically elected government in it. Wasn't that unbelievable? Didn't that remind you a little of Chile?

[AP]

34. So glad to see you here!

Thanks for reducing this to its essence.

[bemildred]

36. Obligatory posting of Greg Palast on Chavez:

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16255

[Judi Lynn]

37. Greg Palast has the story here

They haven't been able to shut him up yet, knock on wood.

From the beginning of the article:

(snip) For five centuries, Venezuela has been run by a minority of very white people, pure-blood descendants of the Spanish conquistadors. To most of the 80 percent of Venezuelans who are brown, Hugo Chavez is their Nelson Mandela, the man who will smash the economic and social apartheid that has kept the dark-skinned millions stacked in cardboard houses in the hills above Caracas while the whites live in high-rise splendor in the city center. Chavez, as one white Caracas reporter told me with a sneer, gives them bricks and milk, and so they vote for him. (snip)

Found a photo that looks like a good illustration of his description of Caracas:



The world needs to be able to see a real leader succeed, rather than being replaced by a mouthpiece for people who work AGAINST their fellow man. This guy has such ease, grace, charisma. He IS a leader.
No wonder our pasty-faced, pudgey, rigid right-wingers hate him. They hate him for his freedom!

[Jack Rabbit]

38. This is still my favorite Palast piece about Venezuela

The latest version of this piece is dated October 7; however, the main part of the story was published after the attempted coup in the Spring of 2002.

Venezuela and Argentina: A Tale of Two Coups
2004 Project Censored Award
The Guardian - New Internationalist Magazine - BBC Television
By Greg Palast

The big business-led coup in Venezuela failed, where international finance's coup in Argentina has succeeded. Greg Palast gives us the inside track on two very different power-grabs.
On May Day, starting out from the Hilton Hotel, 200,000 blondes marched East through Caracas' shopping corridor along Casanova Avenue. At the same time, half a million brunettes converged on them from the West. It would all seem like a comic shampoo commercial if 16 people hadn't been shot dead two weeks earlier when the two groups crossed paths.
The May Day brunettes support Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. They funnelled down from the ranchos, the pustules of crude red-brick bungalows, stacked one on the other, that erupt on the steep, unstable hillsides surrounding this city of five million. The bricks in some ranchos are new, a recent improvement in these fetid, impromptu slums where many previously sheltered behind cardboard walls. 'Chávez gives them bricks and milk,' a local TV reporter told me, 'and so they vote for him.'
Chávez is dark and round as a cola nut. Like his followers, Chávez is an 'Indian'. But the blondes, the 'Spanish', are the owners of Venezuela. A group near me on the blonde march screamed 'Out! Out!' in English, demanding the removal of the President. One edible-oils executive, in high heels, designer glasses and push-up bra had turned out, she said: 'To fight for democracy.' She added: 'We'll try to do it institutionally,' a phrase that meant nothing to me until a banker in pale pink lipstick explained that to remove Chávez, 'we can't wait until the next election'.
The anti-Chavistas don't equate democracy with voting. With 80 per cent of Venezuela's population at or below the poverty level, elections are not attractive to the protesting financiers. Chávez had won the election in 1998 with a crushing 58 per cent of the popular vote and that was unlikely to change except at gunpoint.

Read more.

[Judi Lynn]

39. This point from the article seems to escape a lot of people

(snip) I interviewed Carmona while I leaned out the fourth floor window of an apartment in La Alombra, a high-rise building complex. I spoke my pidgin Spanish across to his balcony on the building a few yards away. The one-time petrochemical mogul was under house arrest - the lucky bastard. If he had attempted to overthrow the President of Kazakhstan (or for that matter, the President of the US), he would by now have a bullet in his skull. Chávez, in a gracious if strained nod to the ultimate authority of the privileged, simply confined Carmona to his expensive flat.(snip/)

AP has mentioned it, as well. Chavez has been unbelievably gentle with these murderous beasts.

Thanks for posting this article.

[Jack Rabbit]

41. You're welcome

Chavez might be advised to do more to crack down. It would be perfectly justifiable. Moves against elected representatives may not be the best way to go about it (that's open to discussion) and certainly putting a bullet through el senor Carmona's head is unnecessary. However, there is a case that Carmona conspired with foreign agents -- from the Bush administration -- to overthrow the government of Venezuela. Perhaps treason charges against Carmona would be in order?

[AP]

42. Chavez just needs to stay cool. If a Dem gets elected next November, I...

...suspect everything will be cool for him.

In fact, I imagine that the oligarchs will get increasingly desperate in inverse proportion to Bush's likelihood of winning the next election.

[Jack Rabbit]

47. Yes, but there's a year between now and then

And several more weeks before our new President will be inagurated.


Otto Reich can still make life interesting for Cahvez and Venezuelans between now and then.

[Judi Lynn]

51. Really wish any pro-Venezuelan right-wing posters

would take a moment to recognize most Democrats don't support right-wing extremists' causes.

One of those posters called Hugo Chavez a "dictator" earlier. I just snagged this article which addresses the right-wing campaign against him:

(snip).....The opposition's strategy appears to be to make the country as ungovernable as possible in the hope that most people will vote against Chavez in attempt to restore stability, or create a pretext for another coup.

The wealthy opposition leaders believe that they are Venezuela's rulers by birthright. Chavez was elected in a landslide result in 1998. The oil-rich Latin American country's capitalists have been appalled by the fact that the Chavez government has begun to organise the poor on a mass scale with the aim of realising Chavez's dream of a genuine “participatory democracy”.

The great irony is that for all the opposition's rhetoric about Chavez being a “dictator”, the government has shown remarkable tolerance. Much to the frustration of the anti-Chavez forces, not a single person has stood trial, much less being punished, for their involvement in the April attempt to install a military dictatorship.

No action has been taken against the privately owned media, which openly collaborated with the coup plotters, other than verbal condemnation by Chavez. Top ranking military officers implicated in the April coup have been offered an amnesty.

Chavez has made repeated calls for dialogue, with the aim of reaching a compromise and draw the country back from the brink of civil war. The secretary-general of the Organisation of American States, Cesar Gaviria, has been invited to broker talks between the government and opposition. (snip/...)

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2002/519/519p19.htm