Squaring off, again
Buoyed by the fall of Jean Bertrand Aristide in Haiti, Venezuelan opposition parties were back in the streets of Caracas last week in their latest attempt to topple President Hugo Chavez, writes Jaideep Mukerji
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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez looks out upon
his supporters with binoculars in Caracas
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Venezuela was again pushed to the brink of chaos last week as opposition parties seeking to oust President Hugo Chavez launched large-scale protests that turned violent, leaving at least eight dead and hundreds more wounded.
The unrest erupted after the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) announced that hundreds of thousands of the estimated 3.2 million signatures collected by opposition parties demanding a referendum on Chavez's leadership were suspect and needed to be authenticated.
The CNE, which has been working closely with representatives from the US-based Carter Center and the Organisation of American States (OAS) to verify the authenticity of the signatures, said that nearly a million people would now need to come forward and confirm that their names were willingly placed on the petition. The decision left opposition parties 600,000 signatures short of the 2.4 million needed to force a referendum on Chavez's leadership, whose tenure wouldn't otherwise end until 2006.
Furious at the setback to their plans to topple Chavez and emboldened by recent events in Haiti, opposition protesters took to the streets brandishing signs with slogans like "Bye-bye Aristide, Chavez you're next". Police were called in to disperse the crowds, which led to violent confrontations throughout Caracas.
The current civil unrest is a growing sign of the deep polarisation that has taken hold in Venezuela. Chavez, a former paratrooper who himself once led a failed coup attempt, came to power in 1998 after winning a landslide election victory. The charismatic leader's promises of greater wealth redistribution, land reform and a better life for Venezuela's poor won him a devoted following of supporters throughout the country. Chavez's left-leaning policies, however, also put him at odds with Venezuela's traditional ruling elite and wealthy business owners who chafed at Chavez's anti- neoliberal talk and insistence on cultivating close ties with countries such as Cuba and Libya.
In 2002, the growing tension boiled over when opposition parties succeeded in briefly ousting Chavez in a bloodless coup. Tens of thousands of Chavez supporters responded by putting on an overwhelming show of support that ultimately led to Chavez's return only a few days later. Then in late 2002, Venezuela was rocked by massive opposition-led strikes, paralysing the country and contributing to a staggering nine per cent decline in GDP for 2003.
A Caracas-based diplomat familiar with ongoing negotiations between the two parties told Al-Ahram Weekly that this latest round of unrest was equally -- if not more -- serious than the last two attempts to unseat Chavez.
"It's a mess," he said. "There are protests every other day; [the situation] is the worst it has been in three years. We have never seen anything like this week."
The violence prompted Venezuelan Ambassador to the United Nations Milos Alcalay to tender his resignation in protest over what he felt was the heavy-handed response from police in confronting protesters.
Saying that his decision was motivated by his love of Venezuela, Alcalay explained in his letter of resignation that a "situation has presented itself in the last few days that places in danger the three fundamental principles that dictate the functions of a diplomat: respect for human rights, respect for democracy, and the use of diplomatic dialogue as a norm."
Chavez, for his part, remains unfazed by the latest attempt to unseat him. Speaking to a group of 60,000 supporters last week the embattled leader told the US to "get its hands off Venezuela", warning that "Venezuela is not Haiti and Chavez is not Aristide." Then, in a fiery televised address to the nation last Sunday, Chavez warned of "a 100-year war" if the US attempted to invade Venezuela.
Chavez has long maintained that the US is actively involved in trying to topple him. "Mr Bush's government is financing this mad opposition," he said last week in Caracas, adding that, "I have quite a lot of evidence."
US government officials steadfastly deny involvement in trying to oust Chavez. A US State Department spokesperson told the Weekly that the US rejected such allegations claiming they were merely "an attempt to divert attention away from the Venezuelan people's continued efforts to overcome political polarisation and reach a peaceful solution to the impasse".
Despite the vehement denials, however, a 2002 report issued by the US State Department's Inspector General conceded that the National Endowment for Democracy, a private organisation funded entirely by the US government, "provided training, institution building and other support to individuals and organisations understood to be actively involved in the brief ouster of the Chavez government".
The US's support of anti-Chavez groups and the recent US military intervention in Haiti sparked hope in some opposition circles that the US was in fact considering taking similar action in Venezuela. However, Venezuela's ambassador to Egypt, Victor R Carazo, said he felt direct US intervention in Venezuela was highly unlikely.
"The situation in Venezuela is not at a point where there is a possibility of foreign invasion," he told the Weekly, adding that: "I don't think either the government or opposition parties would want -- or welcome -- US military intervention. Venezuelans want a peaceful and democratic resolution to this."
Carazo also expressed hope that the conflict would ultimately end peacefully, adding that Venezuela had suffered enormously over the efforts to unseat Chavez.
"Venezuela has previously lived with presidents that had very low popular support, as low as an 18 per cent in some cases, and yet [Venezuelans] let them finish their mandates," he said. "The truth is that the president needs time to be able to govern and implement his agenda, but for more than two years he has been spending his time dealing with people trying to topple him."
