POLITICS-LATAM: Growing Concern for Democracy in Venezuela

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 23 2002 (IPS) - Latin America is anxiously observing the political instability in Venezuela, because the prospect of a rupture of democracy in that country is seen as intolerable, as indicated by recent remarks and initiatives by government leaders and analysts.

Concern is growing in the region over the turmoil in Venezuela, where a broad political, labour and business coalition has led a general strike since Dec 2 aimed at toppling populist President Hugo Chávez.

Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have expressed their alarm about the possibility of a breakdown of the institutional order in Venezuela.

A rupture in the democratic process in Venezuela would be ”terrible” for the region, especially Brazil, which is promoting greater integration in South America to strengthen the region’s position on the international scene, Sonia Camargo, a researcher with the Institute of Foreign Relations at the Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro, told IPS.

If the Andean Community trade bloc – made up of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela – is ”divided, it would become even more fragile,” bringing to a halt the efforts to reach an agreement with the Mercosur (Southern Common Market, comprised of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay), she added.

The stoppage, which has paralysed Venezuela’s oil industry, the lifeblood of its economy, is the longest of four general strikes held against Chávez so far this year.

A three-day general strike in April culminated in a coup d’etat staged by military commanders and leaders of the opposition movement, who removed Chávez from power for two days.

The social and political upheaval in Venezuela has led to a high level of polarisation, but a solution must be sought through legal channels, because the government headed by Chávez is ”constitutional and legitimate,” Chile’s Lagos said last Thursday.

Democracy has become an indispensable condition for coexistence among the countries of Latin America, especially in the subregional trade blocs.

The desire to avert another coup in Venezuela led Brazil’s president-elect Lula to take diplomatic action even before assuming his post on Jan 1.

Last Thursday, Lula sent his chief international policy adviser, Marco Aurelio García, to Venezuela to report on the situation there and establish contacts with the government and opposition leaders, with a view to Brazil’s eventual mediation in the political conflict.

In a telephone interview from Caracas with a Brazilian TV station, García said Friday that he was astonished by the way the media in Venezuela were acting as ”a veritable opposition party.”

In his view, there is no solution on the horizon, due to the ”draconian” demands of the opposition and the staunch resistance by Chávez, who is clinging tightly to his constitutional rights.

Clóvis Brigagao, director of the Centre for Studies on the Americas at the Cándido Mendes University in Rio de Janeiro, commented to IPS that García’s visit to Venezuela was ”an error” and a blatant disregard of the unwritten rules governing diplomacy, because Lula is not yet president, and his adviser holds no official post.

The region’s hopes for a negotiated solution are focused on the efforts of Organisation of American States (OAS) Secretary-General César Gaviria, who is brokering the talks between six delegates of the government and six representatives of the Democratic Coordinator opposition umbrella group.

But so far, the negotiations have failed to stem the intensification of the conflict.

”The secretary-general’s attempt at mediation has failed, not due to a lack of personal qualifications, or a mistaken approach, but because he was unable to get the dialogue moving forward,” former Uruguayan foreign minister Héctor Gros Espiell told the Montevideo daily El Observador.

Gros Espiell recommended that the OAS waste no time in convening a meeting of foreign ministers.

The OAS Permanent Council reiterated its support for Gaviria’s efforts, and called on the government and opposition to come up with a constitutional, peaceful solution based on elections.

But the electoral channel would only be constitutional if the constitution itself is reformed to permit early elections.

The United States government, which initially backed the frustrated coup in April, is once again leaning towards the opposition, which is calling for early elections.

But Washington took a step backwards when Secretary of State Colin Powell stressed that although a solution to the crisis must be based on elections, it should be implemented by means of ”constitutional” mechanisms.

Lagos criticised the external pressure applied in favour of holding early elections in Venezuela. ”If elections are moved forward just because there is discontent, then a state of law does not exist,” said the Chilean president.

Washington is alarmed at the virtual freeze of oil imports from Venezuela, which cover 10 percent of domestic supplies in the United States.

Due to the strike, Venezuela, the region’s biggest oil exporter, has asked Brazil to sell it crude and by-products, and to send engineers and other technical personnel to replace those on strike in Venezuela, in order to keep the state oil monopoly, PDVSA, running and to curb shortages.

Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso said the state- run oil company Petrobrás planned to meet the request.

Cardoso called for reconciliation between the two sides into which Venezuela is divided.

Venezuela’s big problem is a lack of properly functioning institutions, especially strong political parties, said Sonia Camargo.

Chávez’s weakness is that he has no strong political organisation behind him, unlike Lula, whose leftist Workers’ Party (PT) is the best organised political movement in Brazil, she maintained.

In Brigagao’s view, the crisis in Venezuela is similar to the scenario that led to the 1964 coup in Brazil that initiated a 21- year de facto military regime.

Camargo, meanwhile, said the situation in Venezuela – where the country is divided in half, with massive protests on both sides; the wealthy are in the opposition while the poor back the government; and the economy is gradually collapsing under the pressure applied by the opposition – was reminiscent of the run- up to the 1973 overthrow of Chilean president Salvador Allende.

Both Camargo and García, Lula’s emissary, were in Santiago during the bloody coup mounted by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, which ended with the death of Allende, who was entrenched in the Palacio de la Moneda – the seat of government – as it was bombed from the air and surrounded by army tanks and troops.

POLITICS-LATAM: Growing Concern for Democracy in Venezuela

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 23 2002 (IPS) - Latin America is anxiously observing the political instability in Venezuela, because the prospect of a rupture of democracy in that country is seen as intolerable, as indicated by recent remarks and initiatives by government leaders and analysts.
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