By Clara Nieto
BOGOTA, May 7 2013 (IPS)

The crisis in Venezuela caused by the violent opposition of followers of Henrique Capriles, who is accusing President Nicolás Maduro of election fraud, and peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas in Havana, are occupying the attention of national and foreign media.

Cuba and Norway are guarantors of the Colombian peace negotiations, and Venezuela and Chile are observers. Commentators and analysts of all stripes are wondering about the role of Venezuela and its late president Hugo Chávez (who died of cancer Mar. 5), and of Cuba and the Castro brothers, in this process that aims to end 50 years of armed conflict.

Achieving peace is a priority for Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.

Bogotá and the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) chose Havana as the location for the talks. Cuba has been a friendly nation to the guerrillas, which gives them confidence and a sense of security.

Clara Nieto. Credit: Margarita Carrillo/IPS

However, according to José Arbesú, a high-ranking official in the Communist Party of Cuba, his country has not given the Colombian insurgents arms or funding, as it did in the case of Central American rebels decades ago when they were involved in civil wars against brutal and corrupt dictatorships.

Santos sought an understanding with Cuba, talked of inviting the country to be an observer at the Fifth Summit of the Americas, a United States-backed project that excluded the Caribbean island nation, and sought the support of Fidel Castro and President Raúl Castro to hold secret exploratory talks with the FARC in Cuba. These led to a 10-point agenda that is the basis of the current negotiations.

Venezuela and Chávez supported Colombia in this. Santos reestablished good bilateral relations with Venezuela, broken off during the government of former president Álvaro Uribe, and created an atmosphere of peace and collaboration. Recently he stated that this support was crucial for achieving essential agreements in Havana.

Chávez, a friend to the FARC, regarded the Colombian conflict as a threat to the security of Venezuela. A solution was necessary to remove a pretext for the United States to intervene in their countries, he said. Venezuela is surrounded by U.S. military bases in the Caribbean, including seven in Colombian territory that former president Uribe ceded to the United States.

Peace in Colombia is a security issue for Venezuela, and also for Ecuador. Leftist insurgents and far-right paramilitaries cross their porous borders freely, and thousands of undocumented Colombian refugees flock to the neighbouring nations, fleeing the conflict and the chemical spraying intended to eradicate coca crops (ordered by the United States) that poisons their families and animals, and destroys the soil and subsistence crops.

Chávez, the main challenger to Washington’s influence in Latin America, was the architect, along with former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of regional integration systems that exclude the United States (such as the Union of South American Nations, UNASUR).

Chávez was more than a pebble in Uncle Sam’s shoe, and it is in the U.S.’s interests to eradicate Chavismo. This poses a major threat to President Maduro, his successor.

The Venezuelan right, headed by Capriles and supported by the international far right, is already on the move against the new president, purportedly “in defence” of Venezuelan democracy which it claims was violated and abused by “the dictator” Chávez.

Meanwhile, the moment is ripe for Colombia’s peace plans. The most influential leftwing leaders in the continent, Chávez and Fidel Castro, repeatedly stated that the time for armed struggle was over. Chávez asked the FARC to release their hostages unconditionally and to end the fighting.

The conservative Santos, for his part, has co-opted some of the leftwing rebels’ core demands, such as redistribution of land to the destitute and to those whose land was taken by paramilitaries and guerrillas, and offering compensation for victims.

Times have indeed changed.

Uribe’s government, in which Santos was defence minister, hit the FARC hard and killed several of its top leaders. The guerrillas were not defeated, but they have been weakened.

The negotiations are taking place in the midst of conflict, and peace would be a boon. But they are demanding structural changes to ensure an equitable country – Colombia is the most unequal country in Latin America – with opportunities, land, health and education for all.

The Colombian far right, with Uribe at the head, is mobilising against the peace process, and encouraging discontent in the armed forces against the government.

And, if not U.S. President Barack Obama himself, the U.S. Southern Command is also active. General John Kelly, its commander, spoke at length in a presentation to Congress on Mar. 20 about the regional danger represented by the FARC, saying they had acquired surface-to-air missiles and submarines that could reach Florida, Texas or California in 10 to 12 days, and could travel as far as Africa.

Such statements could influence the Colombian military, which is hostile to negotiations with the guerrillas, and undermine the peace process. Kelly mentioned the joint operations carried out with the Colombian army against the FARC – an intervention in internal affairs and public order in the country – and he spoke in favour of the continuation of military action against the guerrillas.

The media are closely observing both these conflicts. In Colombia, most media outlets support the peace process. In Venezuela it remains to be seen whether Chavismo, without Chávez, will fully back Maduro, who is faced with a difficult scenario. There are many who are trying to not let him govern. Colombia needs peace in its important neighbour, and ought to have Venezuela’s support. Maduro has promised that it will.

* Clara Nieto is a writer and diplomat, former Colombian ambassador to the United Nations and author of the book “Obama y la nueva izquierda latinoamericana” (Obama and the New Latin American Left).

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By Clara Nieto
BOGOTA, Mar 11 2013 (IPS)

The world has been shaken by the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, one of the most influential Latin American leaders in recent decades, as well as one of the most controversial and maligned figures on the planet.

He was hounded particularly by Colombia under the administration of former president Álvaro Uribe. When Juan Manuel Santos took over the presidency and embraced Chávez as his “new best friend,” it marked the beginning of one of the best eras in Colombian-Venezuelan relations.

Chávez, who died of cancer on Tuesday, Mar. 5, was adamant about the need to achieve peace in Colombia, in order to remove the pretext for the United States to meddle in its affairs. Santos has recognised that Venezuela’s devotion and interest have been decisive in helping the peace talks between the Santos administration and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group progress.

Great uncertainty hangs over the future of Chávez’s Bolivarian revolution. Intelligent analysis, slanted suppositions and plain speculation fill the global media about what might happen now that his leadership is gone: whether in the forthcoming elections his vice president Nicolás Maduro will win, or whether opposition candidate Henrique Capriles will wrest the presidency from him.

Perhaps the voters who gave Chávez overwhelming electoral victories – a large majority of the population – and who re-elected him even while knowing he was fighting for his life are not interested in a change.

His regime brought immense benefits to the country. He talked of “21st century socialism” as his government’s goal, and countered criticism from the Catholic Church hierarchy saying they should look for socialism in the Bible and the gospels.

He also curtailed neoliberal policies, recovered state control of the country’s natural resources, including oil and the state oil consortium PDVSA, and used its vast resources to carry out “missions” – social programmes – in favour of the poor.

Poverty fell from 49.4 percent in 1999, when he first took office, to 27.8 percent in 2010, and extreme poverty declined from 21.7 percent to 10.7 percent. With the help of Cuba, he made major progress in health and education, especially in eradicating illiteracy.

Chávez was responsible for the biggest geopolitical change in the history of Latin America: regional integration.

He proposed the creation of a regional body that would exclude the United States. Then president of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva supported him, and South American integration was born: they created the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), the South American Defence Council and the Bank of the South (BancoSur), Chávez’s initiative to isolate the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, both of which have deplorable records in the region.

The jewel in the crown was the inaugural meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in February 2010, convened by Lula, without the United States or Canada, in which all the regional nations took part, including Cuba.

“(It) has been one of the most important geopolitical changes over the last decade,” said Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Washington-based Centre for Economic and Policy Research.

In the international arena, Chávez was an influential voice. He was the first to criticise the handover of seven Colombian military bases for use by the United States as a surrender of national sovereignty and a threat to the region, especially for Venezuela which is already surrounded by U.S. bases. The concession caused a scandal across the region.

Chávez forged ties with China and agreed to sell it large volumes of oil to counteract Caracas’s dependence on the U.S. market, where Venezuela is the chief supplier, although the trade with the U.S. is mutually beneficial.

When the Colombian army made incursions into Ecuador to hunt down and kill the FARC’s number two commander and in the process killed 25 people, most of them guerrillas, Quito broke off relations with Bogotá – and Chávez, too, froze ties with Colombia.

When Bolivian President Evo Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador in La Paz for allegedly plotting against his government, Chávez did the same with the U.S. ambassador in Caracas, in a show of solidarity. Both presidents expelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from their countries.

Chávez also took action in other conflicts: he rejected the overthrow of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, and broke off relations with the subsequent regime in Honduras; when Israel launched Operation Cast Lead against the Palestinian territory of Gaza, resulting in immense destruction, thousands of deaths and global censure, Chávez called Israel “murderous” and expelled its ambassador.

Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and Ecuador expanded their diplomatic and trading relations to far-off countries like China, Russia and Iran.

When it came to Iran, with which Washington has been in conflict since the occupation of the U.S. embassy and the hostage crisis in Tehran, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Venezuela and Bolivia (she didn’t dare take a stab at Brazil) to “take a look at what the consequences might well be for them” and to “think twice.”

U.S. President Barack Obama, who had awakened so much hope in Latin America, maintained the hostile rhetoric of George W. Bush against Chávez, calling him a destabilising force.

Chávez and Obama met for the first time in Trinidad and Tobago at the Fifth Summit of the Americas, where they exchanged pleasantries and shook hands. Chávez commented that the meeting was cordial, but added: “Don’t be fooled, the empire is still alive and kicking!”

Chávez was more than a minor irritation to Uncle Sam. He was enormously popular in the region, and took over Cuba’s leadership role due to the immense economic resources at his disposal to make his voice heard, in contrast to Havana’s dearth.

His agreements to supply oil to different nations, to be paid for in kind, provided crude to friendly countries at preferential prices.

Bush supported a failed coup against Chávez in 2002, and the Venezuelan leader intensified his diatribes against the then U.S. president. He regarded him as “an idiot.” Obama inherited the conflict and kept it going.

Chávez’s legacy to his country and to the world is solid and invaluable: a shift from capitalism to socialism, a change of life for broad sectors in Venezuela; and consolidation of political and economic independence in the region, free from domination by Washington. It will be difficult to reverse these achievements. May he rest in peace.

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