The failure of the Venezuelan millionaire class, its US allies and other socially backward forces to wreck the Chavez government over the past five years, has not deterred them from continuing to finance acts of terror against it. In the latest episode, 88 Colombian paramilitaries were captured on 9 May at a ranch, El Hatillo, near Caracas. Later arrests brought numbers to over 131. There are reports of 1,300 Colombian members of the AUC fascist terror group entering Venezuela. Those captured were training for attacks on military bases, in preparation for a coup d’état against the government of President Hugo Chavez. ALVARO MICHAELS reports.
On 17 May a huge rally in Caracas protested against the presence of these mercenaries and the constant interference by the US in Venezuela’s internal affairs. At this rally President Chavez stated that ‘the paramilitary incursion is an historic incident with worldwide resonance which only the local private media have tried to minimise…We cannot make the mistake of downplaying what has happened in Venezuela in recent days. We cannot let ourselves be influenced by the disinformation campaign put out by the media’.
His speech was very significant. In it he criticised the US government directly, calling it ‘an invader and assassin imperialist force which marginalises the United Nations in order to humiliate the dignity of millions of human beings’. Accordingly, ‘the Bolivarian Revolution has entered into an anti-imperialist phase’. As part of a new defence plan he announced that his government will strengthen the armed forces and called upon all Venezuelans to be part of the active defence of the country.
President Chavez in effect called for an extensive popular militia to counter US-sponsored terrorism. He talked specifically about expanding the army, creating reserves, and arming the people. He spoke of the need for active military officers, reservists and retired military supporters in the government to play a role in working with civilians in this expansion of ‘the civic-military union’. This strategy was one that socialist President Allende of Chile did not adopt and ultimately he was killed in a US sponsored fascist coup d’état on 11 September 1973. The current US ambassador to Venezuela, Charles Shapiro, was the deputy chief of mission in Chile in 1973 when the bloody coup was organised. In April, Shapiro participated in a large meeting with the right wing in Caracas. The US has used similar tactics in Cuba.
The government’s ability to create this unity between the people and the army follows from its constant work to organise the mass of the people in their own communities, the creation of ‘Bolivarian circles’ of the most diverse type. Many of these are already armed in their own self-defence. Their revolutionary necessity was demonstrated in the defeat of the attempted military coup of April 2002. Communications and Information Minister Chacon has stressed that the Bolivarian revolution is an all-inclusive project ‘for all Venezuelans’.
The terrorists
President Chavez expressed the issue in explicitly anti-terrorist terms: ‘We’ve struck a blow against coup-plotters, destabilisers and terrorists, in this endless struggle against terrorism, destabilisation and the enemies of democracy and the people.’
On 15 May, details of the large mercenary gang were given: the main leader Jose Ayala Amado is one of the heads of the Colombian AUC fascist terror group, in the Colombian province of Norte de Santander. Two other captured leaders come from the same state. Two AUC leaders escaped. The head of the Department of Police Intelligence, Miguel Rodríguez, confirmed that they had planned to attack the Urban Security Command of the Venezuelan National Guard as well as to steal its weapons. He said most were captured on a ranch belonging to a member of the Venezuelan opposition, Robert Alonso. A man had already been killed to silence witnesses in the area. Later, three more were seized at a coffee farm owned by Gustavo Cisneros, the richest businessman in Colombia, who runs the anti-Chavez media campaign. Six serving members of the Venezuelan military have been arrested in connection with the paramilitaries. Jorghe Carneiro, the defence minister, reported documents found in more than 20 raids implicating ‘important people in Venzuelan public life’.
The Wall Street Journal, as long ago as 29 January 2003, reported that counter-revolutionary Venezuelans and Cubans were receiving military training in camps in Florida, and regular provocations, sniping and bombing have occurred since 2002.
President Chavez has been very careful not to accuse President Uribe of Colombia in any way, even though it is well documented that these Colombian paramilitaries are little more than an extension of the Colombian military. However he stated that such paramilitary activity is indeed ‘the brainchild of the Colombian oligarchy’ of which Uribe has obvious material membership. Just one week after President Alvaro Uribe met with George W Bush in April, the Colombian senate passed a resolution against Venezuela condemning the so-called ‘dictatorial regime’ of Venezuela. The resolution calls for the Organisation of American States to apply the Inter-american Democratic Charter to Venezuela, allowing for intervention if there is a ‘breakdown’ in government!
The civic military union
President Chavez is clear about the need to defend the constitution and democratic and peaceful development. The armed forces blocked a military coup attempt in preparation during the electoral process of 1998 and they stopped the electoral fraud at the beginning of the process. They have guaranteed six electoral processes in less than two years, avoiding fraud and – with the mass of the poor – defeated a coup from within their own ranks in 2002. They have been the main executors of Plan Bolivar 2000 and of the emergency plans to confront the consequences of the natural disasters that affected many Venezuelan villages.
In 1999 Chavez decided to use the armed forces in the social area. Plan Bolivar 2000 advanced quickly because of the actions of young army officers. It was a civil-military plan. 40,000 soldiers attended to the health of the people; opening roads with military engineering equipment; flying passengers in military planes to the poorest areas, charging them at cost.
With Plan Pescar 2000, the navy was involved with fishermen, organising co-operatives, repairing iceboxes and refrigerators, giving them courses etc. The National Guard had the task of mainly protecting citizens and controlling delinquency, but also programmes all over the country, even in indigenous areas that had previously never been served.
The National Guard developed Plan Casiquiare 2000. (Casiquiare is inhabited by thousands of indigenous people.) They brought medicines and doctors to examine children and vaccinate people and build houses. A formidable voluntary medical network was organised. Houses and school were constructed. In other areas roads were completed at far less cost than private contractors could achieve. It was a social war.
A new stage
Now Plan Bolivar is at another stage. The military are returning to military training and have been replaced by civil action plans. It’s no longer the government of three years ago; therefore the military limit themselves to co-ordination of special projects with local and regional governments.
With the attempted coup in 2002 hundreds of thousands of unarmed Venezuelans, many with no pre-conceived plan, went to barracks in different parts of the country singing the national anthem. They spoke to the soldiers and yelled to them: ‘¡Soldado, consciente, busca a tu presidente!’ (‘Soldier with conscience, find your president!’) Never before had something like that happened. The demonstrators who surrounded Fort Tiuna on the third day, when it was already known that Chavez wasn’t there, numbered 300,000 people or more. In Maracay the troops called upon the people to help them. This was possible because the previous social work in the neighbourhoods had built links with specific battalions. That the government returned to power showed very objectively that the great majority of the generals were not involved. It was a minority – no more than 20 per cent – who were able to mislead the rest. After the coup d’état the government acted very carefully to avoid any witch-hunt within the Armed Forces.
The military is becoming increasingly radicalised and involved in the revolutionary process. Many are angry because there are no prisoners, military or civilian, after the defeated 2002 coup, and because the media continue to lie and invent. Chavez however is strictly adhering to the 1999 constitution (FRFI 177), wanting a peaceful revolution. He is convinced that if he fails to make profound political, economic and social changes peacefully, other ways will inevitably come.
FRFI 179 June / July 2004
