Interview with a leader of the Bolivarian Movement, Rome, 10 January 2003
What is the situation in Venezuela after 42 days of general strike by the Opposition Coordination?
These 42 days have deeply affected the Venezuelan economy which is mainly based on oil.
Nevertheless, the PADVSA, the national oil company, did not succeed in its plan to overthrow president Chavez and stop the Bolivarian process.
Just in these days the government is removing from the PDVSA those officials belonging to the merit-reward system based oligarchy; it is an important change within the PDVSA structure.
Actually, the subversive plan was conceived by Luis Giusti, former PDVSA president, who announced in an American newspaper, the Miami Herald, how it was possible to destabilize and overthrow the Venezuelan government. The first step, according to this plan, consisted in stopping oil foreign exports.
Consistently to this plan, the PDVSA began by stopping the activity of all its sea boats. Oil barrels filled up the storehouses, wells were closed down. Then also gas production had to be stopped. As a consequence no gas was anymore available for domestic use, electricity power stations, water purification stations and oil refineries. Finally it became impossible to produce also other oil derivates: cars, trucks and buses had to stop. The whole productive system of the country was thus affected.
We know that the Bolivarian resistance movement is strong. Is it also largely widespread? What is the real nature of this popular movement?
The base of the Bolivarian Movement are the huge popular masses of Venezuela. But not only the less educated and less economically productive sectors support it, as the opposition claims. Entrepreneurs, professionals, teachers, students and wide sectors of the middle class also support the Bolivarian process and have recently given birth to a movement called “Positive Middle Class”.
Which is the propulsive force of the Bolivarian Movement, its vanguard?
The most important force is the popular class, but as middle class we have the duty to reactivate and to rethink the productive process in Venezuela, to engage ourselves in the Bolivarian movement.
The trade unions which sided against Chavez do actually represent the working class or not?
No, they don´t.
So, it isn´t true that they have a working class base and that the working class is taking part in the general strike?
They are a cupola of professional trade unionists which took hold of Venezuelan trade union organisms and sided with the most reactionary sectors of our country.
What about the 200.000 oil workers of the PDVSA: do they represent a working class aristocracy and do they actually benefit by privileges the other Venezuelan workers have not?
Yes they do.
Oil workers earn three times more than common workers. But the backbone of the strike were engineers and workers of the technical sectors. An oil engineer earns 15 times more than a common worker: if it works in the industry, he can earn up to 5000 dollars. An oil worker earns 700/800 dollars while a textile or building worker earns about 350 dollars.
You said the Bolivarian Movement has a wide social base. What about its political nature? What are the parties which belong to it or support it?
First of all there is the 5th Republic Movement founded by Chavez inside the Bolivarian Movement. It can be defined as a leftist inter-class party. Then we have the movement Homeland for Everybody which has a more popular and humble social base and is more radical. Finally we have the movement called Podemo, which sprang out from the Movement towards Socialism (MAS) – a historical party – when its leadership decided to ally with the reactionary sectors and to adhere to the Coordinadora (Coordination).
And the Venezuelan Communist Party?
It is an integral part of the Bolivarian Movement.
We all know Red Flag. Can you explain its origins and its actual position?
Red Flag is one of the historical revolutionary left organization of Venezuela. In the conflict between the Bolivarian Movement and the Opposition its majority decided to side with the Opposition, while only a minority decided to support the Bolivarian Movement. Red Flag is actually the armed front of the anti-Chavez movement. I was once a militant of Red Flag, but when the Bolivarian process started, I began to dissent with the line its leadership was pushing on. I cannot accept that revolutionary leaders such as Gabriel Puerta can now be part of the Democratic Coordination which is formed by the most reactionary and fascist sectors of Venezuela and of the world. I think corruption has played an important part in this and it can somehow explain why they are siding with the opposition against the same popular masses they once supported.
How is it possible that two important organization of the revolutionary left, whose leaders were in the Seventies guerrilla fighters, have now passed to the putschist and oligarchic forces?
MAS (Movement to Socialism) resulted from a split inside the Communist Party of Venezuela in 1968. Since then it went closer and closer to the most reactionary sectors and it took also part to reactionary governments.
When did it happen?
In the Eighties. In 1980 they formed an alliance with Democratic Action, the historical party of the reactionary bourgeoisie. The Communist Party, on the contrary, maintained its revolutionary line and has never supported any Venezuelan government nor made alliances with Democratic Action.
What was the social base of MAS and Red Flag? Where they poor people of the barrios or was it the middle class?
As concerns Red Flag, its social base was very popular and its cadres came from the lower working class.
Does the presence of Red Flag and of MAS in the Coordinadora give it a stronger influence over the popular sectors?
No, it doesn´t. The group of Red Flag which has actually adhered to the Coordinadora is not very big. A large part of its base has in fact adhered to the Tupamaro Movement and the Tupamaro Movement is part of the Bolivarian Movement. The Tupamaro Movement is a radical left organization. Other members of Red Flag, and I am one of them, founded the movement Bolivarian Flag.
How is the Bolivarian Movement organized?
The Bolivarian Movement is undergoing a process of re-organization. It is defining its ideological orienteering. It is structuring class alliances. All this viewing a new phase of development in our country, where all the social strata can leave in the framework of a common project.
Just to make it clear for our readers: the Bolivarian process views at a radical social change of Venezuela but within the framework of a wide and inclusive alliance, which goes from the poorest sectors to the most progressive sectors of the Venezuelan national bourgeoisie. That´s right?
Yes, that´s right.
What about these progressive and democratic sectors of the Venezuelan national bourgeoisie?
The Venezuelan national bourgeoisie is not very big. They are mainly oligarchic groups and families. Nevertheless, some of them support the Bolivarian process. They are aware of the popular nature of the Bolivarian process and of the consensus it has. The Bolivarian process showed its popular nature in June 2001, when President Chavez promulgated 49 new land laws through which he promoted a reform in the system of land ownership. Until 2001, 60% of the Venezuelan land was owned by 1% of its population. The “land laws” represented a step towards the democratization of land ownership. They gave a new impulse to farming providing technical assistance and subsidies to the small peasantry and granting low rates loans. This caused the reaction of the landowning class.
There are families in Venezuela owning each up to 40 thousands hectares of land. Of these large landed estates only thousand hectares are actually farmed. All the rest is enclosed and left uncultivated.
Another popular law is the one concerning the ownership of building-land in urban areas. As many other towns all over Latin America, also Venezuelan towns are surrounded by favelas, poor downtowns where wretched people coming mainly from the countryside gather living in subhuman conditions. Thanks to the new law, these people can obtain by the Popular Bank and by other State institutions loans to build stone houses replacing their huts. Besides this building measures we have institutional educational structures teaching people how they can create the best conditions to community living.
This means that president Chavez also promoted urbanization there by bringing electricity, water, a sewage system and other services?
Exactly.
Can you give another example of these reform laws?
Yes, of course. The Fishing Law is also very important. Multinational fishing companies used to fish indiscriminately and intensively in the Venezuelan sea, even using illegal fishing methods. The new law forbids them to fish near the coasts so that these waters are now reserved to traditional fishing. Venezuelan fishermen could immediately see the difference: there has never been such plenty of fish before near the coasts. The result is clearly an economical benefit for the Venezuelan fisherfolk.
Then we have the Oil Law which promotes the investment of national private capitals in the oil transformation process. Everybody can form a society, implement a refinery, buy oil from the Venezuelan state and produce oil derivates.
Who controlled until now the refinement process?
The Venezuelan State. But now it will keep in his hands only the primary phases of oil extraction and production. Oil distribution, for instance, is considered as a post-production phase to which private societies can have access. The law is in fact meant to encourage the growth of capitalist national societies.
The State also supports the growth of cooperatives in the fields of direct production and distribution. As concerns agricultural cooperatives it finances the organizational phase, gives them the land and grants them a role in the market helping them in the distributional phase.
Which sectors have been negatively stroke by the Bolivarian reforms and are for this reason against Chavez?
The reform laws do not particularly penalize any social sector.
So why have they provoked such a strong resistance?
President Chavez won the elections of 1998 and 2000 with a very high percentage, each time more than 50%. In 1998 he obtained 57% of votes, in 2000 he obtained up to 63%. And the percentage of voters in this last occasion was of about 80%, the highest in the Venezuelan history.
It is a very important result if compared to the USA where Bush represents only 35% of the American population.
The Bolivarian process succeeded in bringing people back to the streets. Who opposes Chavez belongs to those 2.3 million persons who voted against him. The political parties they support are the most corrupted parties: Democratic Action, Copei, Venezuela Project, Convergence and other local movements. They are very radical and militant parties. They represent those people who have been exploiting the resources of the country for the last 40 years, who made their richness out of it. It is clear that these parties are reacting to their loss of power. No doubt they also have a popular base, a very disciplined and militant one. These militants are ready to obey the orders they receive not questioning them. An Italian journalist wondered about their language, so violent, fanatical and vulgar. We Venezuelans know very well where this kind of language comes from. It is typical of anti-Castro groups living in Miami. They trained our opponents, they taught them this aggressive language made of lies, they financed the intromission of international reactionary monopolistic capital, mainly of the United States. And let me remind you what happened in Florida where the greatest electoral fraud in the American history has imposed George Bush for president, a fascist and criminal president.
What are the big economical foreign and national interests the opposition is defending?
The media, for instance, are controlled by the anti-Castro groups of Miami, as the Gustavo Sisneros group and the TV channel Venevision. In April last year, when the fascist putsch against Chavez was in full swing, the opposition assaulted and occupied the Cuban embassy. The assault was led by anti-Castro Cuban terrorists. During the whole period instructions to many Venezuelan opposition groups were given by telephone by these Miami anti-Castro groups. The financial support given by the Republican Party of the United States to some members leading the Workers Confederation of Venezuela is also a well known fact. This destabilizing process, these 42 days of uninterrupted coup – the first attempt was made on 2 December 2002 – have been stopped by the popular sectors. But the Venezuelan oligarchy has not played the title role in organizing the putsch and has not the leadership of it. The leadership of it is in the hands of oil multinationals, the American Seven Sisters. It is a Golpe Petrolero, a putsch in the name of oil.
What way out do you see from the actual crises?
The Bolivarian government – at the presence of the general secretary of the Organization of the American States (OEA), Cesar Gaviria – entered into negotiations to find, within the framework of our constitution, a settlement. We believe that the majority of the progressive sectors of Venezuela and of the opposition are accepting the idea of a pacific settlement. Venezuelans have never fought each other violently. The possibility of a civil war is being pushed forward in the media by the anti-Castro fascist groups of Miami. They are using all their contacts inside the Venezuelan governmental power (ministries, trade unions, etc) to overthrow president Chavez. The opposition does not abandon the negotiations only because of the popular resistance of the Venezuelan people and the international public opinion which has been obliged to recognize the legitimacy and legality of Chavez government. A more and more general consent to a pacific settlement is now beginning to isolate the more extremist sectors which are still occupying Altamira Square, where the putschist officers have their headquarters. The country is going back to its every day life and the Bolivarians control again parts of the PDVSA.
How would you explain to a common citizen what Bolivarism is both from a political and an ideological point of you.
Let´s take my personal case as an example. I am an engineer of electronics, but I am also an oil entrepreneur. Bolivarism is a process that aims at integrating all Venezuelans in the development of their country, giving to each social sector opportunities, without social exclusions. All those sectors that were traditionally kept out from political decision taking, for the first time have been involved in this process. The State itself promotes this process of social involvement / inclusion.
The constitution of the Bolivarian Republic states that we are a democratic, participative and protagonist State.
