Editorial Comment: With Chile being drawn into the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA)our Western Hemisphere is indeed shrinking, with increasing
pressure to lower health , environmental and labor standards to the least
common denominator. Some articles reprinted here speak of 'Neoliberalism'; we
would probably say 'corporate globalization,' with its drive for
privatization, deregulation and the belief that market forces should
determine public policy and social conditions. But increasingly the folks in
George W. Bush's 'backyard' are developing their own plans for a just and
humane future.

Argentina:

US, protecting friendly regime, kept secret information on 1978 Argentine
murders
<http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/national/ap_junta12162002.htm>
Associated Press, December 16, 2002

Washington - A few weeks after the bodies of seven women who led a crusade to
free their loved ones washed up on a beach in southern Argentina in 1978, the
US government learned the probable culprits: the junta whose leaders it was
cultivating. It kept quiet about that discovery, a former US diplomat now
says. Raul Castro, then US ambassador to Argentina, said he felt it was more
important to work behind the scenes to improve the anti-communist regime's
human rights performance than to rebuke it publicly. ``We were trying to do
human rights on the quiet side of it,'' Castro, a former Arizona governor now
in a private law practice in Nogales, Ariz., said in an interview. Castro
discussed the episode last week after the private National Security Archive
published declassified documents it amassed indicating the US government
found that junta officials had been holding the women. The junta's
responsibility in their deaths was not confirmed until after it fell in 1983.
The seven women were among the leaders of the ``Mothers of the Plaza de
Mayo,'' representing relatives of the thousands of ``disappeared'' -
perceived enemies of the military regime who were kidnapped, never to be seen
again. ...

Argentina on Edge as It Awaits Massive Protest
<http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-argen19dec19,0,5973574.story>
Hector Tobar, Los Angeles Times, December 19, 2002

Buenos Aires - For days, this metropolis of 11 million people has been
preparing for the worst. Come Friday, the rumors go - or maybe even as early
as today - Argentina will be plunged into a replay of the violent protests
and rioting that brought down its president a year ago. On the fringes of the
city, next to the neighborhoods called villas miseria (towns of misery), many
businesses have shut down for the week lest they be sacked by hungry slum
dwellers. The national Chamber of Commerce reports a boom in the sales of
firearms - mostly to worried shop owners. Thousands of people are expected to
descend on Buenos Aires beginning Friday for a massive downtown rally to
demand that the government provide jobs and food for the unemployed.
Organizers of the protest say they are working to prevent any violence.
Behind the fear lurks the shadow of Argentina's most powerful leaders,
including former President Carlos Menem, who ruled the country amid a flurry
of scandals from 1989 to 1999. Menem is running for president again and is
locked in a bitter fight for control of the ruling Peronist movement with
current President Eduardo Duhalde. ...

Huge Demonstration Demands Political, Economic Change
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/oneworld/20021223/wl_oneworld/

1032_1040645376>
Marcela Valente, Inter Press Service, December 20, 2002

Buenos Aires - Hundreds of thousands of people in Argentina held a peaceful
march Friday to demand changes in the country's economic policy and political
leadership, a year after the massive protests that toppled the government of
Fernando de la Rúa. ''People are tired of the current way of doing politics.
The government (of Eduardo Duhalde) has to go,'' Jorge Ceballos, the national
coordinator of the ''Barrios de Pie'' movement, told IPS as he marched
towards downtown Buenos Aires along with thousands and thousands of other
demonstrators. Barrios de Pie (Neighborhoods on their Feet), an organization
that groups unemployed families from slums and lower-income neighborhoods,
was one of the many social organizations and leftist parties which called the
two-day march that set out Thursday from Argentina's main cities. The calm
surrounding the protests was a far cry from the climate that reigned a year
ago, when demonstrators took to the streets spontaneously, expressing their
outrage at the leaders of the traditional parties, who they blamed for the
country's economic collapse. ...

Colombia:

10 December - International Human Rights Day:
151 trade unionists murdered in Colombia this year
<http://www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?Index=991216910&Language=EN>
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, November 10, 2002

Brussels (ICFTU OnLine) - Jorge Humberto Marín Henao, President of the
Municipal Employees Association (ADEM), a Public Service International (PSI -
a Global Union Federation) affiliate in Medellin, Colombia, was at the union
office when an unknown man came in and asked to see him. On entering, the man
said "Don Julio Cesar has asked me to tell you that you must leave the city
and this is your last warning." With this, he pulled out a revolver and
slammed it down on the Humberto's head. Later the same day, another man came
to the office and said that Jorge had 3 days to leave the city. Humberto has
since fled the country, taking temporary asylum abroad with the help of PSI
and other public sector trade unions. In Colombia, he is one of the
fortunate. According to a list compiled by the ICFTU and sent to President
Alvaro Uribe, by International Day of Human Rights on 10 December 2002, 151
trade unionists had been murdered in Colombia. ...

Perú:

Perú's top court strikes down Fujimori's antiterror laws
<http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/361/nation/Perú_s_top_court_strikes_down_Fu

jimori_s_antiterror_lawsP.shtml>
Jude Webber, Reuters, December 27, 2002

Lima - In a complex ruling, Perú's top court has found tough antiterror laws
decreed by former president Alberto Fujimori unconstitutional - meaning
hundreds jailed in the 1990s, including top rebel leaders, will now face
retrials, court sources and jurists said yesterday. The Constitutional Court
is expected to formally issue the 80-page ruling today, striking down four
legislative decrees signed by Fujimori in 1992 that allowed rebel suspects to
be tried by hooded military judges with no due process. ''They've reached
the conclusion that the laws are unconstitutional,'' one court source said,
requesting anonymity. The ruling is designed to bring Perú's legislation in
line with international human rights requirements. The Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights, a watchdog arm of the Organization of American
States, has already found that Fujimori's antiterror laws ''per se violated
human rights'' and some rebel convictions - notably that of 33-year-old New
Yorker Lori Berenson - have already been challenged. ...

Venezuela:

Chávez Calls on the People to Defend the Constitution
Venezuela, December 5, 2002

President Chávez announced overwhelming measures, employing the four
components of the armed forces to protect the national oil industry. "There
is under way a plan which seeks, as in April, to destabilize the country and
tries to steal from us Christmas, destabilize the Venezuelan family and fill
Venezuelans with terror, even the children who are thinking at this time of
year of the child Jesus and of vacations."

He denounced the sabotage of several managers and workers of PDVSA, who have
ben sabotaging the operation of the company or preventing others from doing
their work. "The one who has to press a button so that the tankers in
Maracaibo are restocked, doesn't press the button, or, if he is there doesn't
want to press it (...) we have had to go with the National Guard to give
protection to the managers, or place guards in each gondola because they have
threatened to burn the gondolas. But I guarantee that they will receive the
protection they request. The main garrisons in States where there are oil
facilities are ready to defend them.

"Regarding the ship Pilar Leon, and any other ship which they attack in
actions of piracy," he stated that, "Already yesterday a ship of the armed
forces stationed itself beside that ship and is taking actions to recover its
control. The Army is ready to reinforce the administrative and operative
installations of the PDVSA with security troops.

"The Navy is also ready to reinforce the security of the petroleum
installations.

"Today a group of aviators left for the lake because I ordered that, if the
captain refuses to hand over the ship, we will take it with a commando group
which has already been sent to the area, because this ship belongs to all
Venezuelans." Chávez issued a proclamation to the Venezuelan people to be
ready to defend the Constitution:

"We must make ready once more for the defense of the Constitution. A plan is
in motion which attempts of bring down the national government, using any
method whatever. For those who are directing this insurrection, methods don't
matter, and they have already demonstrated it. We must make ready to confront
whatever situation these destabilizing and subversive groups want to create".

He reported that, "ten commanders were called on the telephone from Altamira
offering them X things any time they would take arms and rise against the
government."

"What these good patriots did was report the news. We remember what was found
in the house of a high functionary of the previous governments (referring to
Tejera Paris). It is necessary to put a stop to this impunity, dangerous for
all Venezuelans, but it is beyond my qualifications as President of the
Republic."

"Peace is for everyone or it is for no one. You see cases where countries of
this region went on the road of a fratricidal war of brothers killing
brothers."

He referred to the case of El Salvador and reminded also of Alexis Cova.
"Millions had to leave the country and hunt for other places. Hundreds of
thousands had to go to the mountains to protect themselves. Here they are
going ahead building themselves up again. But this is not the road of
Venezuela, nor the road for any people of the world."

The Class Trade Union Bloc of Carabobo calls for a general mobilization
against the coupist strike. (Their statement follows)

This other insurrectional strike, imposed by the employers, pandered by the
bureaucrats of the CTV and Fetracarabobo, supported by the parties of the
Democratic Coordinator and encouraged by the private media, after three days
has shown that it does not have the support of most of the workers and of the
people. Therefore we demand an end to this employer strike. The enterprise
owners and the commercial centers are those who have closed the work centers
and businesses, not the workers.

Those sectors who maintain this strike indefinitely at all costs want to
produce acts of violence, destabilization and shortage of food and products,
so that the town is drained and the people rebel, so that transportation and
the industries do not function and the PDVSA comes to a virtual halt. They
seek with this to sow chaos and a major political instability which would
impose itself on the table of dialog or by direct intervention of the OEA or
the UN of the government of the United States, impose the revocatory
referendum, disguised as consultative, approved illegitimately by the CNE,
and give themselves with this the resignation of President Chávez, and the
convening of some advanced elections, on their terms, under the control of
the present administration of the CNE, endorsed by the OEA.

Defeated up to now, in the coup d'etat via military rebellion, defeated in
the "Institutional" coup d'etat by route of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice
or the National Assembly, they have launched this unemployment blackmailer,
which is nothing more than another variant of a new coup d"etat.

The objective of these sectors, who have ruled for 40 years, is to try by
whatever method and cost to impose a new President of the Republic and
government which will obey the interests of Fedecamaras, Fedenaga, the
Executive Committee of the CTV, of the insider clique which has enriched
itself with the PDVSA, and of the coupist military who now have asylum in the
Plaza Francia de Altamira. To these sectors it matters little the people's
democratic liberties or the rights established by the Constitution. Much less
does the will of the Venezuelan people's majority mean to them. What
interests them is to return to power.

We, leaders of the Class and Democratic Trade Union Bloc and social and
popular leaders of different political tendencies, call for taking to the
streets to defend the decision of the majority of Venezuelans, to defend
democratic liberties, the right to work, to health, and to free movement. We
can not hope that others will defend our liberties for us.

We call on the government and the parties which support it to call a
mobilization of the people to confront this coupist stoppage. We demand an
end to the impunity and the jailing of the main individuals responsible for
the conspiracy, such as Carlos Fernandez and Carlos Ortega. Immediate control
of the private media of communications so they do not continue inciting
strikes and destabilizing actions!

The people will defend the oil installations.

Thousands of Bolivarians, protected by trucks of the National Guard and of
the Police of the Liberation Municipality, are surrounding the La Campina
installations of the PDVSA. IT WILL NOT BE PERMITTED that the march of the
opposition arrive at that place.

The commercial media are criticizing the supposed "militarization of
industry" (only those sites of the PDVSA where there are problems are being
occupied), and that the opposition is not being permitted to reach PDVSA
LaCampina. They object that they are labelled "coupists".

A recording of the brothers Ochoa Antich recognizes that the strike is a
failure.

A conversation between the brothers Henrique and Fernando Ochoa Antich which
was revealed today by Deputy Roger Rondon, of the PODEMOS party, shows the
real thinking among the Carmoniac leaders and their real intentions in
respect to the strike.

The recording recognizes the terrible failure of the coupist strike and the
insanity of continuing it day after day. It recognizes that they use the
payroll of the PDVSA in the same way as they are using the military of the
coup of the 11th, and that afterwards they will decide what to do. Equally,
it was revealed that in the next few hours another recording will be issued
in which a coupist general of Altamira alleges that "it will be necessary to
make more dead this time than those of the 11th of April."

Two people have been arrested for planning the assassination of political
leaders, among them Caracas Mayor, Freddy Bernal.

Racist rage of the Caracas elite
Venezuela's embattled president faces a Pinochet-style opposition
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,857027,00.html>
Richard Gott, The Guardian, December 10, 2002

Pilín León, a former Miss Venezuela, was busy judging the Miss World
competition in London on Saturday when the oil tanker that bears her name,
illegally at anchor in Lake Maracaibo (principal source of Venezuela's oil),
was boarded by Venezuelan marines. The end of history was supposed to mean an
end to class struggle, but the current political conflict in Venezuela
suggests it is alive and well. When the captain of the Pilín León first
dropped anchor, he was expressing his solidarity with the anti-government
strike in Caracas. But the tanker's crew were opposed the strike and their
captain's piratical action. When the marines boarded, on the orders of the
embattled president Hugo Chávez, only the captain needed to be replaced. For
the past year or more, Venezuela's upper and middle classes, opposed to
Chávez's government, have protested in the wealthy new neighbourhoods of
Caracas, while the poor (the vast majority of the city's population) have
come from their shantytowns and demonstrated to defend "their" president.
Chávez celebrated his overwhelming electoral victory of four years ago at the
weekend, at the end of a week-long insurrectionary strike designed to force
him to resign, and so far he has displayed a Houdini-like capacity to escape
from tight situations. In April, a similar scenario led to a brief coup
d'etat, from which he was rescued by an alliance between the poor and the
armed forces, and this time, the president says, he will not allow himself to
be surprised. The opposition has been hoping to repeat in December what it
failed to achieve in April, but the situation is no longer the same. The
armed forces are now more solidly behind the president than before. The most
conservative generals no longer hold important commands; those involved in
the April coup attempt have all been sent into retirement. The international
situation is different, too. The US welcomed the April coup, but this time,
with more important problems elsewhere, Washington is being more circumspect.
It has publicly thrown its weight behind the negotiations being conducted by
Cesar Gaviria, the Colombian ex-president who leads the Organisation of
American States. Perhaps even more significant than the changing attitude of
the military and of the US is the fact that the poor are more mobilised now,
to such an extent that there is talk of a possible civil war. Until the April
coup, the poor had voted for Chávez repeatedly, but his revolutionary
programme was directed from above, without much popular participation. After
the coup, which revealed that the opposition sought to impose a regime on
Pinochet lines, the people realised that they had a government that they
needed to defend. The opposition's protest marches have now conjured up a
phenomenon that most of the middle and upper classes might have preferred to
have left sleeping - the spectre of a class and race war. Opposition
spokesmen complain that Chávez is a leftist who is leading the country to
economic chaos, but underlying the fierce hatred is the terror of the
country's white elite when faced with the mobilised mass of the population,
who are black, Indian and mestizo. Only a racism that dates back five
centuries - of the European settlers towards their African slaves and the
country's indigenous inhabitants - can adequately explain the degree of
hatred aroused. Chávez - who is more black and Indian than white, and makes
no secret of his aim to be the president of the poor - is the focus of this
racist rage. ...

Just so you know that there are some people in Congress who are not mindless
foot soldiers. Maybe we might want to write to other elected officials,
asking that they add their names to this statement. - Judy

December 12, 2002

The Honorable George W. Bush
President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President George W. Bush,

In light of the increasing political tension in Venezuela, and recognizing
that part of the opposition leadership is determined to remove President Hugo
Chávez by any means necessary, we, the undersigned organizations and
individuals, call upon you to state unequivocally that the United States
government opposes any attempt to remove the democratically elected
government of Venezuela by a military coup or other unconstitutional means.
Furthermore, the White House should affirm that the United States would not
have normal diplomatic relations with a coup-installed government.

We believe that the silence of the White House since the military coup of
April 11, which the administration appeared to endorse, is widely interpreted
as support for further coup attempts. We are concerned that this perception
reduces the incentive for opposition leaders and the Chávez government to
pursue dialogue or peaceful solution to the current crisis.

We are also concerned that, while senior officials at the White House have
maintained their silence, Otto Reich, currently the State Department's
special envoy to the Western Hemisphere, recently singled out the Venezuelan
government for criticism, stating that "an election is not sufficient to call
a country a democracy." This was an unusual departure from diplomatic
protocol, and in light of the April coup, has made Venezuelan government
officials even more suspicious of Washington's motives.

The role of the United States government in the coup of April 11 remains
unclear. We know that top US officials met with leaders of the coup in the
months before it happened. Opposition groups that were involved in the coup
also received funding from the United States government. At the same time,
the Bush Administration openly expressed its hostility to the government of
President Chávez. According to the State Department Office of the Inspector
General, one of the reasons for this friction was President Chávez's
"involvement in the affairs of the Venezuelan oil company and the potential
impact of that on oil prices."

Furthermore, the State Department's Office of the Inspector General, after
looking into the role of US officials before and after the April coup,
concluded that US warnings against the coup "may not have gone far enough.
Among the many accounts of such warnings, few went beyond the standard,
ritualistic 'no undemocratic or unconstitutional change' formulation.
Warnings of non-recognition of a coup-installed government, economic
sanctions, and other concrete punitive actions were few and far between.
This, too, has been recognized and lamented in retrospect by some senior US
officials."

The State Department's OIG report further noted that "the very fact that the
United States regularly and repeatedly met with those interested in ousting
the Chávez government and heard them out may in and of itself have been seen
as lending support to their efforts, notwithstanding our ritualistic
denunciations of undemocratic and unconstitutional means."

In light of these circumstances, the current White House silence on its
opposition to a military coup or any other possible unconstitutional
overthrow of Venezuela's democratically elected government is seen throughout
Venezuela and elsewhere as support for such illegal actions. Opposition
leaders who are determined to overthrow the government have little incentive
to pursue dialogue or a peaceful solution, if they believe that the United
States government will support them no matter what they do.

The US government should demonstrate its ongoing and active support for
democratically elected governments. Only a strong statement of condemnation
from the White House explaining that the US opposes violent and
unconstitutional actions, will not tolerate a coup government and will impose
sanctions upon any coup- installed government, will send the right democratic
message to Venezuelan political actors as well as other governments in Latin
America.

We therefore call upon the White House to make its position clear, before
Venezuela slides closer to the brink of civil war.

Sincerely,

MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:

Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich
Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
Rep. Jose E. Serrano
Rep. Barney Frank
Rep. Major R. Owens
Rep. Bernard Sanders
Rep. Fortney Pete Stark
Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky
Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey
Rep. Barbara Lee
Rep. Lynn C. Woolsey
Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones
Rep. John Lewis
Rep. Danny K. Davis
Rep. Sherrod Brown
Rep. Chaka Fattah

Watchdog groups stay loyal to Chávez
Effort presses on amid turmoil
<http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/359/nation/Watchdog_groups_stay_loyal_to_Ch

ávezP.shtml>
Marion Lloyd, Boston Globe, December 25, 2002

Caracas - Dressed in a yellow crocheted sweater and seated behind a cracked
Formica table trimmed with Christmas tinsel, Maria Gisela Blanco looks more
like a schoolteacher than a foot soldier in a political revolution. But as
the leader of a Bolivarian Circle, she has played a vital role in keeping
President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela in power. The neighborhood-based circles
form a national network of watchdog groups that has supported Chávez's
government through months of turmoil. Opponents of Chávez, mostly
middle-class and upper-class Caracas residents, launched a general strike
Dec. 2 in an attempt to force the leftist leader to resign or call new
elections. The strike has hobbled the economy and cut off gas supplies from
the world's largest oil exporter, while exacerbating class tensions in a
country whose income disparities are among Latin America's widest. ''This is
a social movement from the ground up. We've never seen anything like it,''
Blanco said of the mass mobilization of working-class Venezuelans on behalf
of Chávez. The former army paratrooper, who won the presidency in the 1998
election, has won the hearts of many of Venezuela's 24 million people through
his fiery speeches railing against the excesses of the country's elite. In
part to cement support among his working-class constituents, Chávez created
the watchdog groups and named them after the country's most beloved native
son, Latin American independence leader Simon Bolivar. The Bolivarian Circles
are modeled after Cuba's Committee for the Defense of the Revolution and
serve as liaisons between the neighborhoods and the government as well as
fomenting key support for Chávez. When a coalition of business leaders and
dissident army generals organized an abortive coup against Chávez in April,
Blanco, 40, described how the Bolivarian Circles sprang into action. Within
minutes, members began banging out warnings on hollow electricity poles, she
said, rallying supporters across the city's working-class neighborhoods in a
modern-day version of Paul Revere's ride. ...

As strike divides Venezuela, a cardinal appeals for peace
<http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/360/nation/As_strike_divides_Venezuela_a_ca

rdinal_appeals_for_peaceP.shtml>
Pascal Fletcher, Reuters, December 26, 2002

Caracas - Cardinal Ignacio Velasco appealed to Venezuelans yesterday to live
together in peace as they celebrated a Christmas marred by political discord
and an opposition strike crippling the oil-reliant economy. Followers and
foes of leftist President Hugo Chávez welcomed Christmas with rival parties
in Caracas in the fourth week of a strike that has slashed oil output and
throttled exports by the world's No. 5 petroleum exporter. Cries of ''Merry
Christmas'' competed with shouts of ''Chávez out!'' and ''Long live Chávez!''
It was a reflection of the fierce political and social divisions tearing at
the South American country. ''We can construct this nation together, united
... in solidarity, not as enemies of each other,'' Velasco, the Archbishop of
Caracas, said in a Christmas homily. Anti-Chávez demonstrators, who are
demanding that the populist president resign and call early elections, beat
pots and pans in an ear-splitting protest that resounded across much of the
city early in the morning. Chávez supporters held their own rowdy party early
yesterday at the headquarters of the strike-hit state oil giant PDVSA,
drinking, dancing, and lighting firecrackers. ...

Brazil Sends Gasoline at Venezuelan's Request
<http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/27/international/americas/27BRAZ.html?ex=10416

56400&en=a02491d289d40e62&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE>
Larry Rohter, New York Times, December 26, 2002

Rio De Janeiro - In a show of support for Venezuela's embattled president,
Hugo Chávez, the Brazilian government has sent an emergency shipment of
520,000 barrels of gasoline to help relieve shortages caused by a nationwide
general strike now in its fourth week, government officials here said today.
Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil producer and a major exporter to
the United States. But executives and an estimated 30,000 workers of the
Venezuelan state oil company have adhered to the strike, causing oil
production to plunge and leading to growing shortages at gasoline stations. A
spokeswoman for the Brazilian state oil company, Petrobrás, confirmed that
the shipment, made at Mr. Chávez's request, was on its way to Venezuela. She
said it was expected to arrive on Friday or Saturday. Commercial and
political ties between the two countries have strengthened considerably since
Mr. Chávez took office in February 1999, proclaiming his intent to lead a
peaceful social revolution. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil
approved the gasoline shipment, and there are indications that his
successor-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of the left-wing Workers Party,
was also involved in the decision. Mr. da Silva takes office on Wednesday and
has a longstanding personal and ideological affinity with Mr. Chávez, who is
also reported to have asked Brazil to supply crews to operate Venezuelan oil
tankers. "He thinks like I do," Mr. da Silva said earlier this year, adding
that while the Venezuelan leader can be "excessively impetuous" at times, he
is "a killer ball-handler" who deserves praise for his daring. Mr. Chávez in
turn has said "Lula is a great man" whose rise to power he has wished for
"day and night." After Mr. da Silva won a landslide victory here in October,
Mr. Chávez said he hoped Brazil would join Venezuela and Cuba in establishing
an "axis of good" in the hemisphere. Earlier this month, Mr. da Silva sent
one of his chief foreign policy advisers, Marco Aurelio García, to Caracas to
assess the crisis. In interviews with Brazilian newspapers after his return,
Mr. García said the new Brazilian government wanted to "contribute to
Venezuelan stability" and accused Mr. Chávez's opponents of seeking to
provoke "a situation of uncontrollable violence" that would cripple the world
economy. "Imagine the No. 5 oil producer with a civil war and Iraq with a war
that is not at all civil," Mr. García said in the Rio daily O Globo on
Tuesday. "That would bring disastrous consequences." ...

Foreign Ministry denies Pilín León has Cuban crew
<http://www.granma.cu/ingles/diciembre02/vier27/52cancell.html>
Granma International, December 27, 2002

Havana - The Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a note "categorically" rejecting
accusations made on December 21 by the "leaders of Venezuela's right-wing
fascist coup" who stated that the Pilín León tanker's crew was Cuban. The
note refers to one of the oil tankers hijacked by the opposition and
reclaimed on that day by the Venezuelan government. "They are lying with the
same cynicism by assuring that the ring of security and protection
surrounding Chávez is comprised of Cuban agents," adds the text. ...

Brazil helps neighbour in a crisis
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,12716,865847,00.html>
Alex Bellos, The Guardian, December 28, 2002

Brazil has become involved in the economic and political crisis that is
paralysing Venezuela by sending an oil tanker to help President Hugo Chávez
beat the fuel shortage caused by the general strike against his rule, which
is in its fourth week. The Amazon Explorer, carrying 520,000 barrels of oil,
left Brazil on Christmas Day and is expected to reach Venezuela tomorrow. The
opposition to Mr Chávez, which is made up of unions, business and political
parties, accused Brazil of strike-breaking and interfering in a domestic
political crisis. The despatch of the tanker shows the extent to which
industry has been brought to a standstill and the level of support Mr Chávez
has received from Venezuela's biggest neighbour. Venezuela is the world's
fifth biggest oil exporter, and production has plummeted since the strike
began. Scenes unthinkable until recently, such as mile-long queues and
roadblocks for petrol and cooking gas, have become commonplace. ...

Fuel shipment arrives in Venezuela
Strikers say five million barrels of fuel are needed
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2611747.stm>
BBC, December 29, 2002

Venezuela has received its first shipment of petrol from abroad, as a general
strike which is paralysing its own oil industry threatens to continue for a
fifth week. The Brazilian tanker Amazonian Explorer - carrying 525,000
barrels of oil - arrived on Saturday and docked at Puerto La Cruz, 220
kilometres east of the capital, Caracas. The opposition has vowed to continue
its protests. The world's fifth-largest oil exporter has been forced to
import food and fuel due to worsening shortages. Opposition groups, trade
unions and business leaders have vowed to continue the stoppage which began
on 2 December until President Chávez steps down. But Mr Chávez remains
defiant. "We haven't yet obtained victory but we are going to win the battle
for [state oil company] PDVSA, the battle for Venezuela," he said in a speech
in Puerto La Cruz. The government says troops and loyal oil workers are
moving tanker ships and restarting halted production wells - a claim disputed
by striking oil executives. ...

South America Overview:

Social movements are sectoral movements and require an instrument for
articulation
<http://www.rebelion.org/harnecker/ramy011202.htm>
Manuel Alberto Ramy, Progreso Weekly, December 1, 2002

(Editor's Note: This interview was conducted before the Sunday victory in
Ecuador by Lucio Gutierrez.)

If I say she received her degree in psychology in Paris, or she was an
advance student of Louis Althusser - who 30 years ago wrote the foreword for
her first book - I've said something, but at the same time hardly anything.
If I then add that she returned from France to the effervescent, and tragic,
Chile of Salvador Allende, and that she taught at the university and edited
the magazine Chile Today - the only leftist weekly that existed during that
very special moment - I would then be telling you more about her. But in my
judgment, the core issue is, the woman seated before me perceives with her
eyes the heartbeat of an immense continent: Latin America.

Marta Harnecker, as she is named, speaks deliberately and has a deceivingly
peaceable glance. There are moments, fleeting but perceptible, when she can't
repress the fire of her ideas and her cause. She has worn out several pairs
of shoes walking up and down and investigating the many turns of our region.
She has interviewed first-class political leaders and also (with the
sharpness of a humanistic intellectual) ordinary people and independents. A
product of her travels and contacts are her numerous books and published
articles. In them, she coldly analyzes the realities and perspectives of our
people.

But Marta Harnecker does not burn-out herself writing and making contacts. In
Havana, Cuba, she runs a center called Popular Latin American Memory (MEPLA),
where she collects the creations, experiences and lives of our people in
recent years. Painstakingly, she brings together the past, the present and
the future. And she bets on the latter "because I'm an optimistic person."

She has just returned from a tour of our region and a long stay in Venezuela.
A product of her presence there is her latest book, already released in
Spain. It is a long interview she had with President Chávez; probably the
most complete interview anyone has had with a man who rules the destiny of a
country that is key to our continent.

Progreso Weekly (PW): Can you give us a synthesis of Latin America today?

Marta Harnecker (MH): I think we're living in a new stage, a stage when the
struggle against neoliberalism is on the increase in the continent. Three
years ago we couldn't imagine what is happening today. At that time we began
to see the triumph of an unknown military officer, Hugo Chávez, who won the
presidential election in Venezuela. Recently, Lula triumphed in Brazil, and
now I think that Lucio Gutiérrez is going to win the election in Ecuador.
Next in line is the election in Uruguay, where it seems clear that Tabaré
Vázquez will win. All this is creating a possibility, perhaps for the first
time since Bolívar, of a Latin American articulation different from the one
that has existed until now.

PW: What distinguishes this articulation you refer to?

MH: These governments - I refer to Venezuela and to Lula's in Brazil - are
looking to apply a model that differs from the current neoliberal
globalization. Their fundamental hope is to develop the domestic market,
without denying that there are sectors of the economy that will remain part
of the current globalization. With so much potential and with such a large
market, they hope to produce for their people, and to establish regional
accords, that will permit them to deal effectively with the present world
situation, which is so complicated for our countries.

PW: As regards Latin America, where does your "so complicated" world
situation lie?

MH: Today, the socialist camp that used to put the brakes on the United
States' imperial cravings no longer exists. Today, only one imperial power
will decide to wage war on Iraq because it clearly has military superiority.
This is the world in which Latin America is moving today. Regardless, the
neoliberal model has proved to be so incapable of satisfying the needs of our
people that the people have rebelled and have elected candidates who
represent the hope for a different world. People in Latin America reject a
world that promotes wealth for a few and deepens the poverty of the majority.

PW: Do you think we are at a period of popular resistance?

MH: Yes. We're at a stage where the governments we have mentioned above will
first try to brake the advance of neoliberalism, but we must understand that
these are governments with limited programs; governments that cannot
formulate a deep transformation from one day to the other. The first step is
to create the conditions. As President Chávez says, we must build an
international force that will allow us to create these alternative programs.

PW: How do you define the Latin American Left at this time?

MH: Well, you know that defining the Left is complicated. I believe that we
need to change the definition of Left that existed in times past, when we
used to think that the Left was the same as revolutionary, was the same as
Marxist, was the same as political party. I have a definition in a recent
book titled The Left After Seattle, where I maintain that being a leftist
means to fight or be committed to a societal project that opposes the
capitalist logic of profit-making and that seeks to build a society with a
humanistic logic.

It doesn't matter if people are members of parties or social movements or if
they are independent actors or not. Their core belief must be a point of view
that differs from capitalism. I believe that that is the Left, which goes far
beyond a party, of course. It's very interesting to see how today the
principal worldwide manifestation of a call to forces of this type comes from
the World Social Forum, based in a Latin American country.

PW: Doesn't the fact that the Forum is based in Latin America represent
another sign of the times in which we live?

MH: Yes, and that's interesting, because in the 1990s Latin America ceased to
exist, from the European viewpoint. Today, all eyes of the Left or the
world's progressive sectors are fixed on events in Latin America. We are once
again protagonists of history and that is why the Social Forum is based in
Porto Alegre, the capital of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Porto
Alegre is the oasis of the Latin American Left.

PW: Why is this oasis precisely in Latin America?

MH: Because the Left here has been capable of demonstrating a different
political practice. Today there is great skepticism toward politics and
politicians. People no longer trust them, first, because the speeches from
the Right and from the Left are so similar. The Right has appropriated the
language of the Left, but at the same time, and unfortunately, some spokesmen
for the Left who have achieved positions in government have a political
practice not very different from the traditional parties. If our people hear
identical political speeches and see identical political practices, a
skepticism is created that will be reflected most strongly among the young.

PW: Do you have a fresh example of the skepticism/youth relationship?

MH: In Chile, for example, a country with 12 or 13 million inhabitants, three
years ago there were 800,000 young people who did not register to vote. Now
can we say that those young people have no concerns and that the young people
of my generation, in the 1970s and '80s, were more committed, more
revolutionary or more full of fight, and that this generation is indifferent?

I believe this skepticism toward the politics of politicians reflects a
revolt; a rejection of these speeches that never achieve reality. That's the
reason why, paradoxically, Che [Guevara] continues to attract people so many
years after his death and after he failed in his guerrilla attempt. And why
does Che attract people? I think it's because he represents coherence between
thought and action, and young people are attracted by that type of image.

PW: Does that also explain why popular social movements have risen in Latin
America, not the political parties of the Left? Does it explain why the
traditional parties of the Left have collapsed along with the total crisis of
the political system?

MH: The crisis of neoliberalism has made our people react and sometimes that
reaction has lacked coordination with the parties. Many of these parties,
although they've been successful in the institutional plane and have gained
seats in Parliament and in local governments, have distanced themselves from
social movements. The struggle of resistance to neoliberalism often has been
waged without any coordination with the parties. In fact, the very initiative
of the World Social Forum came from the social movements and the
nongovernmental organizations.

PW: Do social movements replace political parties as such?

MH: I will take advantage of this question to clarify that I am not against
political instruments, because sometimes when one criticizes parties, people
think one is betting on the emergence of movements that will lead the
struggle. Social movements are sectoral movements and require an instrument
for articulation, call it party, sociopolitical movement, front, or whatever.
But what's needed are political instruments that articulate and raise a
national proposal, that make an ideological proposal in today's world, where
the wars are fought in the plane of ideas, where the means of communication
in the hands of the powerful are almost overpowering. We can see what is
happening with the media in Venezuela. I don't want to say they are totally
overpowering, because if I said that there wouldn't be any chance to struggle.

I think that a different political practice - as is taking place in Porto
Alegre, Brazil, a transparent, non corrupted practice that is specially
concerned with the poorest people and delegates power to the people -
produces a critical gap in the messages from television, because if you're
looking at an event and the media broadcast something else, you develop a
critical consciousness. If that weren't so, we would be defeated, and I am a
person who - despite the correlation of forces at this time - is optimistic.

PW: In a few days, we'll see the final elections for President of Ecuador.
Will Lucio Gutiérrez win?

MH: In my opinion, yes. I think so, because I understand that Roldós and
Borges are not going to vote for Noboa. That is totally contradictory to
their historic positions.

PW: When you talk about democracy, how do you see it? Which democracy do you
talk about? Where does it come from?

MH: To me, democracy is not decreed from above. Democracy requires a cultural
transformation; can only be built with the participation of people and for
that you need democratic practices. You need a democratic growth among
people, which is what's happening in various aspects, on the part of this
Left, which is broader than the Left of the past. That development has been
happening in different places. And our center, MEPLA (Latin-American Popular
Memory) has been spreading these interesting alternative experiences.

That's why we did a documentary about Porto Alegre, about the experience of
the participative budget, and that's why we're now showing the documentary
about the Movement of the Landless in Brazil, one of the most significant
social movements of the continent, if not of the world. This movement, while
not the most powerful at present, has an enormous discipline, democratic
practice and educational effort. And that is why we have studied Cuban
community experiences where the grassroots are protagonistic participants.

PW: Venezuela is going through an important period. How do you evaluate the
situation and what outlook do you see for the process led by Hugo Chávez?

MH: I just got back from there. You can't believe what the media say. The
general balance of the situation is very different from the image given
abroad. For example, a radio station reported about events in Altamira
Square, where the putschist military officers have gathered. People abroad
say: What? New putschists? The media don't say that they are the same ones as
before, those who the courts (the courts of justice today are a political,
anti-Chávez group) declared not putschists, even though everyone saw them on
television assuming the power on April 11.

PW: Do you foresee a likely coup d'état?

MH: No, first because the surprise factor does not exist today. On April 11,
they surprised Chávez and the army. Second, after seeing what Carmona and a
handful of the putschists did, the opposition has split, because not all the
opposition is fascist. There is a fascist sector and a sector that would like
Chávez to leave by the democratic route. They are divided. Besides, they have
no national leader or plan. Well, they didn't have it before, either.

April 11 unmasked the actors and the people began to see who's who. This
allows a politicization of the people in the sense they can understand the
national situation. Chávez and the other leaders have insisted on the need to
increasingly organize themselves, because April 11 represented the triumph of
a people who came out in defense of their president, along with the armed
forces, most of which, with the exception of the putschist generals, sided
with Chávez. But that organization was still in its infancy.

Six months have elapsed since the coup and that organization has grown daily.
Not only that, the people's spirit of unity has grown. People are realizing
that there is an enemy and that they have to articulate, join forces and put
aside all petty differences. At that time, the parties of the Left were very
critical of some things but not of others, but - well, Chávez is not perfect,
the process is not perfect. It has many weaknesses. But at the time,
criticism was rampant.

PW: So, has criticism from the Left stopped?

MH: No, but the important thing is to fight to consolidate the process under
Chávez's leadership. From the point of view of the leftist political parties,
that has helped a lot to unify people around the figure of Chávez. Also,
sectors of the middle-class layers - that were won over for the anti-Chávez
project, among other things by a speech the president gave that was directed
at the people in the poor neighborhoods and was very hurtful for those
sectors, an attitude the president himself acknowledged was a mistake - after
the events of April, are rejoining the process.

PW: Including the middle class?

MH: Well, I'm talking about the middle class; I'm talking about
professionals.There was a meeting between professionals and Chávez about a
month or so ago. The doctors are organizing, because there was a terrible
boycott by the health-care people. Since April 11, the president has changed
his language. After he returned, he said self-criticism was in order.
Everyone was to blame somehow for what had happened and he could acknowledge
his mistakes. Chávez returned to the presidency with conciliatory language,
which the radical Left finds difficult to understand. He's making a big
effort to bring people together, and I think that the strategy is to not
alienate, to call for dialogue, something that has been recognized by the
Organization of American States.

PW: Some people opine that the presence of the OAS is negative for Chávez.

MH: When Carter and his commission came over, I remember hearing people say:
"How can they invite Carter? The OAS is going to come over and as soon as the
OAS arrives everything will be over." As it turns out, the process is so
democratic that even the OAS has had to acknowledge it. The fact it was a
process recognized worldwide as being democratic is very important to prevent
interventions from abroad to eradicate [Chávez], because there are no
arguments to intervene.

Now I say that if Chávez wanted to lead an insurrection today, he would have
the strength to do it. That is, the people and the army at this moment would
permit a victorious insurrection. The problem is what will happen tomorrow. I
think he's sufficiently mature to understand the correlation of forces in
which he finds himself and to understand that insurrection would not be the
solution.

PW: If as a result of this dialogue with the opposition, the government
agreed to call early elections, do you think Chávez's Fifth Republic Movement
would win?

MH: First of all, he's not going to agree to that. He cannot allow one sector
of society to call for elections when the whole of society has expressed
itself in a democratic manner, both now and earlier. That would mean that at
any time a minority could destroy the entire strategy of construction that
exists in a country. There is a time schedule. A revocatory referendum is due
in a few months, in August. What Chávez is saying is: "Let's go to the
revocatory referendum, but don't ask for a consultative referendum because it
doesn't exist in our Constitution." I think Chávez has the support of the
people to win the election, of course. The problem is that one can't submit
to the strategy of the right.

Marta Harnecker is a psychologist and a journalist. Her latest book is "Hugo
Chávez Frías, a Man, a Nation."
Manuel Alberto Ramy is editor of the Spanish-language page of Progreso Weekly
and Havana correspondent for Radio Progreso Alternativa.

copyright © 2002 Progreso Weekly, Inc.

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