VENEZUELA: The Wolf is at the Door

By Humberto Márquez Reprint | | Print |

Humberto Marquez

CARACAS, Feb 29 1996 (IPS) - Increasing poverty in Venezuela is a social time bomb with an uncertain detonation deadline, though Latin American Catholic researchers optimistically claimed “poverty alone does not cause uprisings.”

The Venezuelan chambers of trade, the Catholic church, unions, the political opposition and former president Carlos Perez have all warned of the “social volcano” rumbling ever louder beneath the economic torpor of the nation.

However, Luis Espana, head of social research at the Catholic University of Venezuela said “a social uprising is entirely unpredictable.”

“There is no mechanical relation between a large poor and social explosion, for if it was so there would be social explosions in Haiti every day,” he said.

Espana organised a meeting of colleagues from 20 Jesuit run universities in Latin America to prepare a study on the causes of and methods to overcome poverty in Latin America.

In Venezuela over the last ten years the number of poor has swollen to include 80 percent of the population according to non governmental organisations, while 33 percent, or seven million people are in critical poverty.

These millions lack sufficient income to meet their basic nutrition needs, while unemployment, the cost of living, housing education and health are all in crisis.

The impact is especially heavy on women and young people.

Some 70 percent of the poorest homes have female heads of household, less eligible for work in the formal sector, and young people are the most likely victims of the swelling levels of violent crime.

“The conditions have always been and always will be there, last year and next year, but the uprising is unpredictable, as it depends on mediation and communication,” said Espana.

Talk of uprising in Venezuela invariably leads back to the “Caracazo” of February to March 1989, when pillage and disorder left hundreds dead, thousands wounded and millions of dollars of damage in the capital.

Espana said this outburst was fed by popular expectations that a change of government would improve their situation, and after a year of shortfalls the situation was detonated by an unexpected price rise imposed on passenger transport.

“The conditions are ripe, but the question is, and this is like playing the wheel of fortune, what are the mediating variables which can predict an outbreak occuring,” he said, “and the answer is that no one honestly knows.”

Minister of Defence General Moises Orozco said “there will be no social uprising in Venezuela because the public want peace and tranquility. The outcome of the 27 of February (when the Caracazo began) was negative.”

Interior Minister Ramon Escovar said, “the people are feeling pain and frustration, because no one can explain why a nation as rich as Venezuela is in this situation, but there is no reason to think this will necessarily lead to a disturbance.”

A week ago, the business sector produced a declaration warning that the economic malaise was causing a “power vacuum” which was feeding possibilities of disorder.

Venezuela has suffered three successive years of recession in its non-petrol economy, with accumulated interest rates of 177 percent under the government of Rafael Caldera.

Half of all Venezuelans work in the informal economy, unemployment stands at around 20 percent and the currency is in constant depreciation.

Meanwhile, the government is being accused of constant changes of direction in its pursuit of financial support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), making things increasingly difficult in parliament, as the 1996 budget has still not been presented.

The FEDECAMERAS business chamber said “the political and social collapse in the nation breeds a level of social tension which could cause unforseen consequences,” which is, “threatening national institutionality.”

The Catholic heirarchy also warned of the danger of Venezuelan poverty, but influential archbishop of Merida Baltazar Porras stressed “an uprising will not necessarily occur. That’s why we’re looking for solutions,” he said.

Perez, who governed the nation during the “Caracazo” in 1989, said that at present “Venezuela is living on a volcano,” because “the value of the bolivar has fallen and the cost of living is heading towards hyperinflation.”

“Real salaries have plunged to depths never reached before, unemployment is already at 20 percent and half of employed Venezuelans work in the informal sector,” said Perez, adding “all of this means nation in on the brink of starvation.”

The former leader, who left the presidency in 1993 because of as yet unresolved allegations of corruption, said he “did not even want to speculate on the possibility of an anti- constitutional outburst.”

Espana said, “its like the little boy who cried wolf, the various social factors are warning of an uprising, but, while conditions are ripe, no one knows if the real thing will happen the day after tomorrow.”