Texto descriptiivo de la foto o ilustracion con el nombre del autor Texto descriptiivo de la foto o ilustracion con el nombre del autor la foto o ilustracion con el nombre del autor
embassy magazine OF Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Canada. Not for public sale. Ottawa, Canada, SUMMER 2013
The
custome rs design
Bolivarian 9, 2013 August 1 t s e t l a approv
Year 2, No 3, Quarterly Magazine. 2013
special Edition
HUGO CHĂ VEZ
life, work and message
misionvenezuela.org
Editor’s Notes MS. ANA CAROLINA RODRIGUEZ, MINISTER COUNSELOR AND CHARGÉE D’AFFAIREs, a.i.
HUGO CHÁVEZ FRIAS
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dol of many, symbol of hope for others. This piece of writing is especially dedicated to the man who in life fought until his last days for the least of this world--Hugo Chavez Frias.
Today, little more than five months after his physical departure, Chavez is remembered as the hurricane that changed modern history of not only Venezuela, but Latin America and the world. For weeks after last March 5th, the world’s media review continued regarding the passing of President Chavez. International organizations, intellectuals, human rights defenders, world leaders and above all, citizens of neighbouring countries--not simply because he was Latin, but because they all deeply identified with the ideals of freedom--professed respect and love for Chavez and displayed their affection for him and regret for his loss. This magazine highlights the scope of the transformation and economic performance as well as social, political, cultural, educational and even religious experiences in Venezuela, We are sure that in many countries, our brothers were influenced by Chavez. So we wanted to collect from around the world, his revolutionary ideas-- transformative and always socialist.
suffered the consequences of capitalist trimmers and capitalist servants worldwide. But the wishes of struggle and transformation that constantly accompanied Chavez, have now materialized in millions of hearts and souls fighting for a better world—a world where borders disappear—a world that is based on a collective sense of equality and diversity. “The great day of freedom and justice is coming. It depends on a lot on us for that day to come”, predicted the Bolivarian leader, during the sixteenth World Festival of Youth and Students held at the Teresa Carreno Theater on August 13, 2005. “Marching without rest, we must accelerate every day, thinking and doing, correct the course when you have to correct it, be very self-critical as you move in the direction toward the construction of the model in revolutionary work--the defender of the excluded majorities who gave his life with passion homeland”. The day has come to continue the start-up of libertarianism that Chavez tirelessly fought for--justice, equality and revolution of ideas and thoughts and as so well said, “With the poor people of the earth I want to cast my luck! “ Until Victory Always Chavez Hasta la Victoria siempre Comandante Chávez
From the fears and anxieties of those in need, are those who feel that they will miss much that they should do. They made mistakes. Others live to vindicate those who have for years,
The
Bolivarian Year 2, N 3, 2013 EDITORIAL BOARD MS. ANA CAROLINA RODRIGUEZ DE FEBRES CORDERO Ana.rodriguez921@mppre.gob.ve JEAN CARLOS DU BOULAY Jean.duboulay081@mppre.gob.ve MORGAN BELLO Morgan.bello047@mppre.gob.ve
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Bolivarian government of Venezuela
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS YRASEMA SANCHEZ BETHSY LEZAMA SEBASTIAN MUNDARAIN
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summary
18 HUGO CHAVEZ
02 EDITORIAL
AND CUBA
HUGO CHAVEZ FRIAS
BY ALBERTO GONZALEZ. I HAVE ALWAYS CLAIMED THAT MEN BECOME GREATER AFTER PASSING AWAY BECAUSE IT IS IRONICALLY WHEN PEOPLE COME TO REALIZE ABOUT THE TRUE MAGNITUDE OF THEIR SIZE AND VALUE.
BY MS. ANA CAROLINA RODRIGUEZ DE FEBRES CORDERO THE MAN WHO IN LIFE FOUGHT UNTIL HIS LAST DAYS OF HIS LIFE FOR THE LEAST OF THIS WORLD, HUGO CHAVEZ FRIAS.
CHAVEZ’S DEATH, 04 LIKE HIS LIFE, SHOWS
THE WORLD’S DIVISIONS
20 CHAVEZ AND
BY MARK WEISBROT. PEOPLE DON’T KNOW THE UNIQUE ROLE CHAVEZ PLAYED IN BRINGING ABOUT THE UNITY AND SECOND INDEPENDENCE OF LATIN AMERICA.
07 THE BOLIVARIAN
SOCIETY, AFTER HUGO CHAVEZ BY MORGAN BELLO. A PROMINENT GENERATION IN SPORTS, THE ARTS, THE SCIENCES, THE LITERATURE AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IS THE RESULT OF THE BOLIVARIAN PROCESS FROM THE LEGACY OF HUGO CHAVEZ IN VENEZUELA.
His Role in 10 Venezuela’s History BY Celina Andreassi THE YEAR 2006 BROUGHT MANY NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE BOLIVARIAN GOVERNMENT TO LEGITIMIZE THE REVOLUTION’S HURRICANE-LIKE STRENGTH IN VENEZUELA AND THE LATIN-AMERICAN REGION
13 HUGO CHÁVEZ AND ME
BY TARIQ ALI. THE LATE PRESIDENT OF VENEZUELA, WHO I HAVE MET MANY TIMES, WILL BE REMEMBERED BY HIS SUPPORTERS AS A LOVER OF LITERATURE, A FIERY SPEAKER AND A MAN WHO FOUGHT FOR HIS PEOPLE AND WON
THE CONSTITUEN POWER
BY DARIO AZZELLINI. DURING THE PAST FEW DECADES, ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS FOR GENERAL DISCORD WITHIN THE PRO-SOCIALTRANSFORMATION LEFT-WING, ESPECIALLY IN LATIN-AMERICA, WAS THE SITUATION OF POWER TAKEOVER
PEOPLE’S POWER AND 23 SOCIALIST DEMOCRACY BY ARNOLD AUGUST. The February 4, 1992 Hugo Chávezled civil–military rebellion was Venezuela’s Moncada. History has already proven that Venezuela’s February 4 opened the only path for the majority of people to attain political power and to initiate the building of a new socio-economic system.
LETTER FROM 25 CHAVEZ’S DAUGHTER BY MARIA GABRIELA CHAVEZ. YOUR DEPARTURE HURTS, ITS A PAIN THAT BURNS MY SOUL. HOW HARD HAS MY LIFE BECOME WITHOUT YOU.
HUGO CHAVEZ’S 28 FOUR RESCUES. BY LUIS BRITTO GARCIA. DEATH IS OUR INHERITANCE. THE ONLY THING THAT BRINGS US TOGETHER IS THE PARTING. WHEN WE LEAVE, ONLY ASHES ARE LEFT, MAYBE SOME OF OUR WORKS.
COPY RIGHTS PERMISSION GIVEN TO THE BOLIVARIAN BY AUTHORS
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special Edition BY Mark Weisbrot
Chavez’s death,
http://imagenesfrases.com.ar/15-imagenes-de-hugo-chavez
like his life, shows the world’s divisions
1954-2013 4
Bolivarian government of Venezuela
The unprecedented worldwide response to the death of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and especially in the Western Hemisphere, has brought into stark relief the “multi-polar” world that Chavez fought for. Fifty-five countries were represented at his funeral on March 8, 33 (including all of Latin America) by heads of state. Fourteen Latin American countries decreed official days of mourning - including the right-wing government of Chile. In contrast to the emotional outpourings, and the honour and respect that came from Latin American heads of state, the White House put out a cold and unfriendly statement that to the horror of many Latin Americans - didn’t even offer condolences.
EMBASSY OF THE BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA IN CANADA
Chavez’s death, like his life, shows the world’s divisions special Edition
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t seems that the most demonised democratically elected president in world history had a lot of friends and admirers - and not just the “enemy states” like Iran or Syria that get first mention in US news reports. Now we are told that the outpouring of sympathy is all about Venezuela’s oil, but no Saudi Arabian royal ever got this kind of love, while alive or dead.
Readers of the New York Times were probably surprised to learn from an op-ed last week by Lula da Silva, Brazil’s popular former president, that he and Chavez were quite close and shared the same vision for Latin America. It was always true: in 2006, after Lula was re-elected, the first trip he took was to Venezuela to help Chavez campaign for his own re-election. Let’s face it: what Chavez said about Washington’s role in the world was what all the left presidents - now the vast major-
People don’t know the unique role Chavez played in bringing about the unity and second independence of Latin America. ity of South America - were thinking. And Chavez didn’t just talk the talk: as Lula noted, he played a crucial role in the formation of UNASUR (the Union of South American Nations), CELAC (the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Nations), and other efforts at regional integration. “Perhaps his ideas will come to inspire young people in the future, much as the life of Simon Bolivar, the great liberator of Latin America, inspired Mr Chavez himself,” wrote Lula.
Chavez transformed Latin America
Chavez was the first of what became a long line of democratically-elected left presidents who have transformed Latin America, and especially South America over the last 15 years, including Nestor and Cristina Kirchner in Argentina, Lula da Silva and then Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Fernando Lugo in Para-
guay, Jose “Pepe” Mujica in Uruguay and Mauricio Funes in El Salvador. Before Chavez, democratically elected leftist presidents tended to end up like Salvador Allende of Chile - overthrown in a CIA-backed coup in 1973. Much of the Latin American left, including Chavez himself, was still sceptical of the electoral route to social change more than 20 years later, since the local elites, backed by Washington, had an extra-legal veto when they needed it. Chavez was able to play a vital role in the “second independence” of South America because he was different from other heads of state in a number of important ways. I noticed this when I met him for the first time in April 2003. He seemed to treat everyone the same - from the people who served him lunch at the presidential palace to visitors whom he respected and admired. He talked a lot, but he was also a good listener. I remember a dinner a few years later with more than 100 representatives of civil society groups throughout the Americas activists working on debt cancellation, land reform and other struggles. Chavez sat and listened patiently, taking notes for an hour as the guests took turns describing their efforts. Then he went through his notes, and said: “Okay, here’s where I think we might be able to help you.” I couldn’t imagine any other president doing that. It wasn’t fake - there wasn’t anything fake about the man. He said what he was thinking, and of course that wasn’t always appropriate for a head of state. But most Venezuelans loved his sincerity because it made him more real than other politicians, and therefore someone they could trust. His attitude towards other governments was similar. Although he had big public fights with some governments, he almost never criticised another head of state unless he/she attacked him first. He successfully pursued good relations even with the right-wing Alvaro Uribe of Colombia for several years, until Uribe turned on him, which he saw (probably correctly) as Uribe acting on behalf of the United States. When Manuel Santos, who had been Uribe’s defence minister, became president of Colombia in August 2010 and decided to pursue good relations with Chavez, he was pushing on an open door. Relations were repaired immediately. Chavez was friendly to anyone who was friendly to him. But it was more than his personality or search for alliances - which he needed in order to survive, after the Bush administration made clear its intention to overthrow him in 2002 (although it was almost never reported in the US media, the documentary evidence of Washington’s involvement in the 2002 military coup against Chavez is quite strong). Chavez had a very solidaristic view of the world. He and his govern-
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special Edition Chavez’s death, like his life, shows the world’s divisions
ment had many policies that were not driven by the principle that “nations don’t have friends, but only interests”. He saw the injustices in the international economic and political order the same way he saw the social injustices within Venezuela - as a social evil and something that could be successfully fought against. Why should the US and a handful of rich allies control the IMF and the World Bank? Or write the rules of commerce in the WTO, or in the Free Trade Area of the Americas (which Chavez helped defeat)? Venezuela didn’t have any national interest in these struggles, since it is an oil exporter. But Chavez thought they were important, and his ideas happened to coincide with what was happening in the world: it was rapidly becoming more multi-polar economically. For example, China is now, by the best economic estimates of its (purchasing power parity) exchange rate, already the largest economy in the
Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, DC. He is also president of Just Foreign Policy. world, yet it has very little voice in these most important multilateral institutions. Other developing countries have even less. Chavez’s ideas therefore resonated increasingly in much of the world, and especially in Latin America.
Exclusively negative news on Venezuela
On the other hand, his tenure also shows the enormous power of the media in shaping public opinion. Most governments are quite familiar with his accomplishments, but because the Latin American and US media reported almost exclusively negative news on Venezuela for 14 years - sometimes grossly exaggerated as well - most people in the Western Hemisphere never learned even the basic facts about Venezuela or what Chavez was doing. They do not know that, once Chavez got control over the oil industry, Venezuela’s economy grew very well and poverty was reduced by half and extreme poverty by 70 percent. They don’t know that most of these gains came from increased employ-
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ment in the private sector, not “government handouts”. They don’t know that millions of Venezuelans got access to basic health care for the first time, and that education increased at all levels, with college enrollment doubling; or that public pensions rose from 500,000 to over two million. The western media has mostly reported Venezuela as an economic and political failure. And most people don’t know that Venezuela bears no resemblance to an “authoritarian state”, and that most of the Venezuelan media is still opposed to the government. They don’t know what Chavez did for the hemisphere - not only the billions of dollars of aid distributed through Venezuela’s Petrocaribe programme and other foreign aid, but also - as Lula explained - the role that he played in bringing about the unity and second independence of Latin America. This independence is much more than a matter of national or regional pride, or one of the biggest geopolitical changes so far in the 21st century. It has had huge consequences for the people of Latin America, where the poverty rate fell from 42 percent at the beginning of the decade to 27 percent by 2009. It is difficult to imagine this kind of social and economic progress while the region was still under IMF/Washington tutelage; indeed the region as a whole barely had any per capita GDP growth at all from 1980-2000. Most people in the Western Hemisphere have received a “Tea Party” view of Venezuela, with little difference between the liberal and right-wing media depiction of the country and its government. It is practically as one-sided as the view of the US that Soviet citizens got on state TV in the 1980s - people in unemployment lines and soup kitchens, poverty and police brutality. They had to find external news sources to know that most Americans still had a middle-class existence and a job, and among the highest living standards in the world. So now there is a battle over defining Chavez’s legacy - and there are many people trying to protect the hard-won gains that they made in demonising Chavez. For them, the outpouring of sympathy and respect for Chavez is a real problem. It is fitting that the aftermath of Chavez’s death should reflect not only the battles that he fought, but also the relations that he helped change. During his 14 years in office, the US lost most of its influence in Latin America, and especially South America. So it can be said with some certainty that in his battle with Washington, Chavez won. And with him, so did the region and the world. For that he will be forever remembered, honoured and respected - as he was on March 8 by most of the world. FUENTE ORGINAL:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/20133178738331777.html
EMBASSY OF THE BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA IN CANADA
BY MORGAN BELLO special Edition
THE BOLIVARIAN SOCIETY,
http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2013/01/09/hugo-chavez-ilan-stavans
AFTER HUGO CHAVEZ
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prominent generation in the areas of sports, arts, sciences, literature and political participation, is the result of the Bolivarian process that the legacy of Hugo Chavez left in Venezuela. According to Angulo and Castro in their book “The University Youth of Venezuela in the 80s”, the youth political leadership is described as having assumed the responsibility of political and social events in the country and as they state, “….Being in College implied the possibility of experiences that were beyond the specific training. Leadership and political participation and a strong cultural and intellectual prominence were the common traits of Latin American university life from the early decades of the century”. However this reality is and should be contrasted by what is currently known as the Bolivarian society. The education of the 80s was mainly elitist and sectarian. Under a model of
exclusion, Venezuelan’s universities were houses of studies to the minority of the country, so who then, had the right to political participation? According to data that can be accessed from public sources from the Economic Commission for the Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL), Venezuela had a literacy rate between ages 15 to 24 years, of 95% for 1990 and 98.5% for 2009. This was accompanied by an increase of the years of study of the population. These sources refer to 8.0 years of study for 1990 which increased to 10.5 years of study for 2011, resulting in greater access to classrooms and facilitating ways for education. During the 14 years of the government of Hugo Chavez, the interest in education as a transformative and empowering tool to improve the capabilities of the people was a high priority. Since the beginning of Hugo Chavez’s government, the main focus was to ensure the right to education. In research
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SOURCE: Provea. http://www.derechos.org.ve/2011/12/14/analisis-el-movimiento-popular-venezolano. Instituto Latinoamericano de Investigaciones Sociales. http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/caracas/50458.pdf
special Edition THE BOLIVARIAN SOCIETY, AFTER HUGO CHAVEZ
conducted by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, entitled: “The Chavez’s Government, 10 years: Economic Evolution and Social Indicators” it described the radical changes made in this area. “…Advances in education are visible for young students as well as adult learners. The education rate for school-age students has increased significantly. The net enrollment rate for basic education (grades 1 to 9) has increased from 85% to 93.6 percent and for secondary education has increased from one fifth of the population to one third. The increase in primary school enrollment represents 8.6 percent of children between 5 and 14 years old, or about half a million children who were enrolled in schools that otherwise would not have access to education. For secondary education, the increase indicates 14.7 percent of teenagers between 15 and 19 years old, (equivalent to about 400,000 people), have been able to continue their education as
...Never in the Venezuela’s history developed a coordinated set of social program that today are more than 30 initiatives to address the needs of the disadvantaged sector of the population.
a direct result of increased social investment. Major advances have occurred in higher education. Between the 1999-2000 and 2006-2007 school years, enrollment increased by 86 percent. Year 2007-2008 estimates indicated that the population had increased by 138 percent from the base year of 1999-2000 “. “The Chavez government also initiated a social program called ‘Mision Ribas’ in order to provide support to secondary education adult learners. The Mision Ribas began in 2003 and the first group of students graduated in 2005. In its first three years of operation, the program has graduated more than a half million students - about three percent of the adult population of the country. The government also conducted a large-scale program of literacy, called ‘Mision Robinson.’” “The Chavez government also initiated Mision Ribas in order to provide support to secondary education to adult learners.
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app s design The Mision Ribas began in 2003 and the first students stomofer cugroup was graduated in 2005. In its first three years of operation, the program has graduated more than half a million students about three percent of the adult population of the country. The government also conducted a large-scale program of literacy, called Mision Robinson”.
The Misiones were the most expeditious tool for social progress of the government plan designed by Hugo Chavez. Never in Venezuelan history had there been something as developed and as well-coordinated as the set of social programs that today comprises more than 30 initiatives, to address the needs of this disadvantaged sector of the population. The Misiones emerged in 2003, as a powerful response to various attempts to destabilize the country and to create a governance crisis,
W
ith the educational system redesigned, Chavez was able systematize the needs of a new society as a Bolivarian society—along the transverse principles that allow the continuity of the revolutionary process and some of which are as follows:
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ocial Inclusion and Equality. It was imperative for all the Venezuelans to recover their dignity as democratic citizens, through the significant reduction of the deficit in social rights. Ensuring educational opportunities, employment and access to cultural and sport activities were the key elements to develop during his Government.
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ocial and Popular Participation. The creation of a new social system primarily meant the creation of the foundation of a free ideal society, which was formed so they could take charge of their own development process through active and enthusiastic participation and through community councils, communes, endogenous development councils and technical committees that have favoured the creation of a communal state. The qualitative changes of these social models have been rated positively by organizations that have severely questioned Venezuela for a decade such as the PROVEA organization. Edgardo Lander, an analyst and researcher of this organization states: “From a general feeling of exclusion and distance relative to the political system, there has been a greater sense of belonging, participation, starring the life of the citizen. The Bolivarian government has consistently promoted popular organization. This objective has been introduced to cover most social policies. At different times, it has promoted the creation of among others, Water Technical Committees and Councils for
EMBASSY OF THE BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA IN CANADA
THE BOLIVARIAN SOCIETY, AFTER HUGO CHAVEZ special Edition
After this process, the Venezuelan society certainly displays a different face. We hear the voices of analysts, political leaders and intellectuals referring to the fact that Venezuelans have awakened. Venezuelans have shown that they do not want to entrust their future to institutions or public officials, rather to Community Water, Health Committees, more than 200,000 social cooperatives, Telecommunications Technical Committees, Community Councils, etc. Thus, it is possible to say, that the Venezuelan society today is a more organized, more politicized, more mobilized and more active society. This new vision of political participation is visible in both sectors of the population, peoples and organizations that support the government as well as the opposition. In these organizational dynamics, more important than organically structured political parties or social movements and / or social organizations regularly operating modes, there has been the emergence of a broad, diverse popular social fabric that has been characterized not so much by their continuous ability, but by its ability to meet, mobilize and respond to changing situations. “
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ocial State. It results in the creation and development of new public institutions, less bureaucratic and aligned to the interests and demands of the popular sectors--the development of new forms of public organization leadership by the society, involving the creation of specific mechanisms to meet their needs. The creation of a regulatory framework has allowed the development of new organizations such as: the Organic Law of Communal Councils, Communes Law, Organic Law of People’s Power, Public Planning Law, Social Audit Act and later through the National Government’s strategic actions and the creation of the Bank of the Commune which offer loans of medium and long term to organized and registered communal entities.
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ndogenous Development. It was conceived as a strategy for creating community-based and productivecollective projects, based on the principles of solidarity
use the constitution as an instrument that allows them to take charge. The Venezuelan people chose this ability 14 years ago when they decided to take the route of change based on humanistic principles, solidarity, brotherhood and revolution. There were many who predicted that with the departure of Chavez, his legacy would disappear. Today, from this platform it is incredulous to think that the Venezuelan society after all the beneficial, social transformation that has received, would be able to go back to the old ways. Great tragedies strengthened an unstoppable will to succeed. The tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are simple examples of this. Venezuela has suffered with the loss of Chavez. But now is reborn--unscathed, stronger, unstoppable. Chavez’s legacy lives within his children worldwide.
and sustainability from an economic standpoint, as well as socially and ecologically friendly. It is a way of carrying out social transformation, and fulfilling the cultural and economic status of Venezuelan society, based on the recapturing of traditions, respect for the environment and equitable relations of production--to convert natural resources into products that can be consumed and distributed to the world. This initiative pursued the incorporation of Venezuelans that until now have been excluded from the educational, economic and social building of a society, by creating productive networks where everyone participates on equal footing, allowing easy access to technology, funding and knowledge. Venezuela currently exhibits successful endogenous development projects as Nucleo Endogeno Fabricio Ojeda, Popular Clinics, People’s Pharmacies, textile production companies, footwear production companies, popular markets, libraries and sports fields among others. We also have Nucleo Endogeno Eje Boconoíto –Puerto Nutrias that was able to build 1,116 homes, 34 schools, 3 community radio stations for the people, as well as strengthening of the agro-productive activities. There is also Núcleo de Desarrollo Endógeno Petroquímico, in the industrial field, which has been able to produce industrial materials such as plastics. Núcleo de Desarrollo Endógeno Santa Inés and established some committees that oversee health, education, urban land and technical water tables. There are many other endogenous developments today that are being created throughout the country and every citizen has the right to participate, delegate and execute projects.
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SOURCE: Center for Economic and Policy Research. El gobierno de Chávez después de 10 años: Evolución de la economía e indicadores sociales.\ PETROLEOS DE VENEZUELA. http://www.pdvsa.com/index.php?tpl=interface.sp/design/readmenu.tpl.html&newsid_obj_id=260&newsid_temas=92
19, 2013 t August s e t l a v pro such as the case of the Coup of State and the Paro Petrolero of 2002. Amongst the outstanding missions are: Gran Misión AgroVenezuela, Gran Misión en Amor Mayor, Gran Misión Hijos e Hijas de Venezuela, Gran Misión Saber y Trabajo, Misión Ciencia, Misión Cristo, Misión Cultura, Misión Guaicaipuro, Misión Habitat, Misión Niño Jesús, Misión Niños y Niñas de mi Barrio, Misión Piar, Misión Revolución Energética, Gran Misión Saber y Trabajo, Gran Misión Vivienda, Misión Zamora, Misión Árbol, Misión Negra Hipólita and Misión Barrio Adentro.
special Edition
Understanding Chávez and His Role in Venezuela’s History
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UNDERSTANDING CHAVEZ AND
HIS ROLE IN VENEZUELA
HISTORY H
ugo Chávez is the most important figure in recent Venezuelan history. It sounds like a bold statement, but few would dare contradict it. His government gave the old-fashioned word ‘revolution’ a 21st century meaning. Following the example of Chilean president Salvador Allende -whose revolution and life met an untimely and bloody end- Chávez proved that a revolution can be carried out peacefully and democratically.
Within the left, there have been endless debates on whether the Bolivarian Revolution is such. An analysis of the last 14 years in Venezuela cannot ignore the impressive statistics that show millions of people pulled out of abject poverty. Not even the furious anti-Chávez rhetoric from the right can fully escape reality, even if they present it as something else (for example, making free healthcare universal is ‘populism’, poverty-slashing welfare programmes are ‘demagoguery’). But the meaning of the revolution goes beyond these numbers. The rise and popularity of Hugo Chávez – evident in both his recent re-
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election and the outpour of grief following his death – have a logical explanation in historical processes, and run deeper than lazy media interpretations based around “oil money hand-outs” and pejorative references to populism. To understand Chávez, one must understand the Venezuela he inherited.
A Democratic Lesson
It was a strong and short-lived burst of resistance to the constant worsening of living conditions. While it only lasted two days -two intense days of rioting and repression – the Cara-
EMBASSY OF THE BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA IN CANADA
9, 2013 August 1 t s e t l a prov cazo was a preview of what was to come. In a deeply demobilised society, it seemed to die down as quickly as it had begun. But all that underlying social anger reared its head again in 1992, in the form of an attempted coup against president Carlos Andrés Pérez led by a young Lieutentant-Colonel Hugo Chávez.
The ill-fated coup was crucial to Chávez’s future in two ways. Firstly, it made him understand that true change can only be achieved by way of democracy, and abandon any further attempts at obtaining power by force. But also, it provided him with one precious minute of air time on radio and TV, in which he ordered his subordinates to surrender and accepted responsability for the “Bolivarian” uprising. That minute propelled him into Venezuelan history. After two years in jail and a presidential pardon in 1994, Chávez re-emerged into a society marked by a deep social and institutional crisis. The divorce between society and its representatives caused the implosion of the Punto Fijo system and
BY Celina Andreassi special Edition
opened the door to a new type of ‘radical democracy’, based on the acceptance of political conflict, as opposed to consensus within the elite. “I swear on this dying constitution…” said Chávez when he first took office in 1999. His first initiative as president, as promised in the electoral campaign, was to call for a constitutional reform, which was supported by an overwhelming majority of Venezuelans (over 87% of voters in the referendum held to that effect, although abstention was high). The constitutional reform captured the spirit of the new era in Venezuela, of which the key word is ‘inclusion’. Without denying the existing structure of a liberal democracy, it created new institutions designed to promote people’s participation, which was no longer restricted to electing representatives. Despite the colossal figure of president Chávez dominating the political scene, the trend was in fact to decentralise power (although some authors argue that this process lost dynamism after 2006).
Venezuela: Then and Now. Economy & Income distribution Sources: CEPAL, World Bank, National Statistics Institute of Venezuela
Poverty
argentinaindependent.com/currentaffairs/analysis/understanding-chavez-and-his-role-in-venezuelas-history/
GDP (in millions of US$)
50.000%
190.0
49.400%
181.841
37.500%
142.5 131.573 95.0
25.000%
47.5
12.500%
0
1998-1999
1998-1999
Inequality (Gini index) 0.500
0.498
0.375
0%
2008-2009
Extreme poverty 0.500
29.500%
0.397
Unemployment 12.0000%
0.498
0.375
11.000% 9.0000%
0.397
0.250
0.250
6.0000%
0.125
0.125
3.0000%
0
1998-1999
2008-2009
0
1998-1999
2008-2009
2008-2009
0%
7.600%
1998-1999
2008-2009
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Venezuela: Then and Now. Social Indicators Sources: CEPAL, World Bank, National Statistics Institute of Venezuela
Social spending per capita (US$) 800
795
461
5.25
1998
0
2011
Primary school completion rate (%) 100
1998
2011
Life expectancy (in years) 75.00
95
95
74.30
74.25
90
73.50
85
72.75
72.16
81 80
12.9
10.50
200 0
20.3
15.75
600 400
Infant mortality (per 1,000 live births) 21.00
1998
72.00
2011
One of the most conspicuous signs of this trend were the famous social ‘missions’, which operated parallel to state institutions in order to bring health, education, and housing projects to poor neighbourhoods. The formal processes that put people at the forefront of Venezuelan political life were underpinned by Chávez’s charisma and a newly found trust in the transforming power of politics, as millions of people effectively saw their lives improved. Political, social, and economic inclusion -after decades of exclusion- were the imprint of the Bolivarian process.
1998
2011
Probably one of the most remembered episodes in this process was the 2005 counter-summit that Chávez headed in the Argentine city of Mar del Plata. Not only because of Chávez’s unique rhetoric, but because the situation made the dichotomy perfectly clear. While US president George W. Bush prepared to speak at the American Presidents’ Summit and to defend ALCA, the free trade agreement the US and its allies were pushing at the time, Chávez was the star of a counter-summit where, according to his own words, “ALCA was buried” and the alternative, Mercosur and ALBA, were consolidated as the path to regional integration.
Chávez’s popularity exceeded the borders of his country. It could be seen on Tuesday, as people from different Latin American countries gathered to mourn his death, and as the presidents of the region went beyond protocol and bid farewell to their friend with tears in their eyes. The changes he introduced in Venezuela mirrored those that he spearheaded in Latin America.
This is why the uncertainty brought about by Chávez’s death extends throughout the continent. For all the talk about his excessive personalism, he was well aware of the need to educate and organise the masses in order to secure continuity for the Bolivarian Revolution -the impressive organisation of his PSUV party is testament to this. All eyes will now be on Nicolás Maduro, a favourite to win the next election, but it really is in the Venezuelan people where his legacy has to live on.
When Chávez first took office, he only had Cuba as an ally in the fight against neo-liberalism and imperialism, both steered from the central powers of the world. Today, and to a great extent thanks to his efforts, the region has carved out an autonomous foreign policy that no longer relies on directions from the US or the IMF. Existing regional institutions have been strengthened, and new institutions created in order to consolidate Latin American integration.
Hugo Chávez will be missed by millions of people in Venezuela, Latin America, and around the world because he achieved real and profound political, social, and economic changes. It is now up to his successor, and the Venezuelan people as a whole, to keep what was accomplished, to improve what was failing, and to begin what is yet to be done in order to realise his dream of a fairer, more equal society.
A Regional Power
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EMBASSY OF THE BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA IN CANADA
9, 2013 August 1 t s e t l a prov
BY TARIQ ALI
special Edition
Tariq Ali: Hugo Chávez and me The late president of Venezuela, who I have met many times, will be remembered by his supporters as a lover of literature, a fiery speaker and a man who fought for his people and won Embassy of Venezuela in canada The Bolivarian
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special Edition BY TARIQ ALI
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O
nce I asked whether he preferred enemies who hated him because they knew what he was doing or those who frothed and foamed out of ignorance. He laughed. The former was preferable, he explained, because they made him feel that he was on the right track. Hugo Chávez’s death did not come as a surprise, but that does not make it easier to accept. We have lost one of the political giants of the post-communist era. Venezuela, its elites mired in corruption on a huge scale, had been considered a secure outpost of Washington and, at the other extreme, the Socialist International. Few thought of the country before his victories. After 1999, every major media outlet of the west felt obliged to send a correspondent. Since they all said the same thing (the country was supposedly on the verge of a communist-style dictatorship) they would have been better advised to pool their resources. I first met him in 2002, soon after the military coup instigated by Washington and Madrid had failed and subsequently on numerous occasions. He had asked to see me during the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. He inquired: “Why haven’t you been to Venezuela? Come soon.” I did. What appealed was his bluntness and courage. What often appeared as sheer impulsiveness had been carefully thought out and then, depending on the response, enlarged by spontaneous eruptions on his part. At a time when the world had fallen silent, when centre-left and centre-right had to struggle hard to find some differences and their politicians had become desiccated machine men obsessed with making money, Chávez lit up the political landscape. He appeared as an indestructible ox, speaking for hours to his people in a warm, sonorous voice, a fiery eloquence that made it impossible to remain indifferent. His words had a stunning resonance. His speeches were littered with homilies, continental and national history, quotes from the 19th-century revolutionary leader and president of Venezuela Simón Bolívar, pronouncements on the state of the world and songs. “Our bourgeoisie are embarrassed that I sing in public. Do you mind?” he would ask the audience. The response was a resounding “No”. He would then ask them to join in the singing and mutter, “Louder, so they can hear us in the eastern part of the city.” Once before just such a rally he looked at me and said: “You look tired today. Will you last out the evening?” I replied: “It depends on how long you’re going to speak.” It would be a short speech, he promised. Under three hours. The Bolívarians, as Chávez’s supporters were known, offered a political programme that challenged the Washington consensus: neoliberalism at home and wars abroad. This was the prime reason for the vilification of Chávez that is sure to continue long after his death. Politicians like him had become unacceptable. What he loathed most was the contemptuous indifference of mainstream politicians in South America towards their own people. The Venezuelan elite is notoriously racist. They regarded the elected president of their
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country as uncouth and uncivilised, a zambo of mixed African and indigenous blood who could not be trusted. His supporters were portrayed on private TV networks as monkeys. Colin Powell had to publicly reprimand the US embassy in Caracas for hosting a party where Chávez was portrayed as a gorilla. Was he surprised? “No,” he told me with a grim look on his face. “I live here. I know them well. One reason so many of us join the army is because all other avenues are sealed.” No longer. He had few illusions. He knew that local enemies did not seethe and plot in a vacuum. Behind them was the world’s most powerful state. For a few moments he thought Obama might be different. The military coup in Honduras disabused him of all such notions. He had a punctilious sense of duty to his people. He was one of them. Unlike European social democrats he never believed that
I remember sitting next to an elderly, modestly attired woman at one of his public rallies. She questioned me about him. What did I think? Was he doing well? Did he not speak too much? Was he not too rash at times? I defended him. any improvement in humankind would come from the corporations and the bankers and said so long before the Wall Street crash of 2008. If I had to pin a label on him, I would say that he was a socialist democrat, far removed from any sectarian impulses and repulsed by the self-obsessed behaviour of various far-left sects and the blindness of their routines. He said as much when we first met. The following year in Caracas I questioned him further on the Bolívarian project. What could be accomplished? He was very clear; much more so than some of his over-enthusiastic supporters: ‘’I don’t believe in the dogmatic postulates of Marxist revolution. I don’t accept that we are living in a period of proletarian revolutions. All that must be revised. Reality is telling us that every day. Are we aiming in Venezuela today for the abolition of private property or a classless society? I don’t think so. But if I’m told that because of that reality you can’t do anything to help the
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Chávez, director Oliver Stone and Tariq Ali at the Venice film festival in 2009. Photograph: Damien Meyer/AFP/Getty Images
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poor, the people who have made this country rich through their labour – and never forget that some of it was slave labour – then I say: ‘We part company.’ I will never accept that there can be no redistribution of wealth in society. Our upper classes don’t even like paying taxes. That’s one reason they hate me. We said: ‘You must pay your taxes.’ I believe it’s better to die in battle, rather than hold aloft a very revolutionary and very pure banner, and do nothing … That position often strikes me as very convenient, a good excuse … Try and make your revolution, go into combat, advance a little, even if it’s only a millimetre, in the right direction, instead of dreaming about utopias.” I remember sitting next to an elderly, modestly attired woman at one of his public rallies. She questioned me about him. What did I think? Was he doing well? Did he not speak too much? Was he not too rash at times? I defended him. She was relieved. It was his mother, worried that perhaps she had not brought him up as well as she should have done: “We always made sure that he read books as a child.” This passion for reading stayed with him. History, fiction and poetry were the loves of his life: “Like me, Fidel is an insomniac. Sometimes we’re reading the same novel. He rings at 3am and asks: ‘Well, have you finished? What did you think?’ And we argue for another hour.’” It was the spell of literature that in 2005 led him to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Cervantes’s great novel in a unique fashion. The ministry of culture reprinted a million copies of Don Quixote and distributed them free to a million poor, but now literate, households. A quixotic gesture? No. The magic of art can’t transform the universe, but it can open up a mind. Chávez was confident that the book would be read now or later. The closeness to Castro has been portrayed as a father-son relationship. This is only partially the case. Last year a huge crowd had gathered outside the hospital in Caracas, where Chávez was meant to be recuperating from cancer treatment, and their chants got louder and louder. Chávez ordered a loudspeaker system on
Tariq Ali: Hugo Chávez and me special Edition
I was in Caracas a week before the vote. When I met Chávez at the Miraflores palace he was poring over the opinion polls in great detail. It might be close. “And if you lose?” I asked. “Then I will resign,” he replied without hesitation. He won. the rooftop. He then addressed the crowd. Watching this scene on Telesur in Havana, Castro was shocked. He rang the director of the hospital: “This is Fidel Castro. You should be sacked. Get him back into bed and tell him I said so.” Above the friendship, Chávez saw Castro and Che Guevara in a historical frame. They were the 20th-century heirs of Bolívar and his friend Antonio José de Sucre. They tried to unite the continent, but it was like ploughing the sea. Chávez got closer to that ideal than the quartet he admired so much. His successes in Venezuela triggered a continental reaction: Bolivia and Ecuador saw victories. Brazil under Lula and Dilma did not follow the social model but refused to allow the west to pit them against each other. It was a favoured trope of western journalists: Lula is better than Chávez. Only last year Lula publicly declared that he supported Chávez, whose importance for “our continent” should never be underestimated.
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special Edition Tariq Ali: Hugo Chávez and me
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The image of Chávez most popular in the west was that of an oppressive caudillo. Had this been true I would wish for more of them. The Bolívarian constitution, opposed by the Venezuelan opposition, its newspapers and TV channels and the local CNN, plus western supporters, was approved by a large majority of the population. It is the only constitution in the world that affords the possibility of removing an elected president from office via a referendum based on collecting sufficient signatures. Consistent only in their hatred for Chávez, the opposition tried to use this mechanism in 2004 to remove him. Regardless of the fact that many of the signatures were those of dead people, the Venezuelan government decided to accept the challenge. I was in Caracas a week before the vote. When I met Chávez at the Miraflores palace he was poring over the opinion polls in great detail. It might be close. “And if you lose?” I asked. “Then I will resign,” he replied without hesitation. He won. Did he ever tire? Get depressed? Lose confidence? “Yes,” he replied. But it was not the coup attempt or the referendum. It was the strike organised by the corrupted oil unions and backed by the middle-classes that worried him because it would affect the entire population, especially the poor: “Two factors helped sustain my morale. The first was the support we retained throughout the country. I got fed up sitting in my office. So with one security guard and two comrades I drove out to listen to people and breathe better air. The response moved me greatly. A woman came up to me and said: ‘Chávez follow me, I want to show you something.’ I followed her into her tiny dwelling. Inside, her husband and children were waiting for the soup to be cooked. ‘Look
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at what I’m using for fuel … the back of our bed. Tomorrow I’ll burn the legs, the day after the table, then the chairs and doors. We will survive, but don’t give up now.’ On my way out the kids from the gangs came and shook hands. ‘We can live without beer. You make sure you screw these motherfuckers.’” What was the inner reality of his life? For anyone with a certain level of intelligence, of character and culture, his or her natural leanings, emotional and intellectual, hang together, constitute a whole not always visible to everyone. He was a divorcee, but affection for his children and grandchildren was never in doubt. Most of the women he loved, and there were a few, described him as a generous lover, and this was long after they had parted. What of the country he leaves behind? A paradise? Certainly not. How could it be, given the scale of the problems? But he leaves behind a very changed society in which the poor felt they had an important stake in the government. There is no other explanation for his popularity. Venezuela is divided between his partisans and detractors. He died undefeated, but the big tests lie ahead. The system he created, a social democracy based on mass mobilisations, needs to progress further. Will his successors be up to the task? In a sense, that is the ultimate test of the Bolívarian experiment. Of one thing we can be sure. His enemies will not let him rest in peace. And his supporters? His supporters, the poor throughout the continent and elsewhere, will see him as a political leader who promised and delivered social rights against heavy odds; as someone who fought for them and won.
Ministry of popular power for Foreign Affairs of Venezuela
9, 2013 August 1 t s e t l a prov
Venezuela is a country in South America. Having a shoreline along the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, Venezuela borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east and Brazil to the south, and is situated on the major sea and air routes linking North and South America. Off the Venezuelan coast are the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao and Trinidad and Tobago. The Angel Falls (Churun Meru) in the Guiana Highlands is the world’s highest waterfall and one of Venezuela’s major tourist attractions. www.venezuelaturismo.gob.ve
special Edition By Alberto González Rivero
Hugo Chavez and Cuba
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app s design merChavez What I personally liked thecmost about usto was his transparency, his authenticity, his deep beliefs in what he thought and did for the sake of so many people, particularly in Latin America, always concerned about the poorest and most underserved. I specifically enjoyed seeing him holding the Bible in one of his hands and the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the other, and also whenever he claimed that Fidel, whether he admitted it or not, was a true Christian, at least in the social aspect of Christianity, in the social horizontality and commitment of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who came to serve and not to be served. The relationship between Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro, our former president and undoubtedly the major leader of the Cuban Revolution, was like that between a father and a son. I just loved to witness their encounters whenever they met. It was crystal clear that they both felt a true and
I have always claimed that men become greater after passing away because it is ironically when people come to realize about the true magnitude of their size and value. In Cuba we usually say as part of the popular wisdom in one of the so many sayings and proverbs we have and use on a daily basis, that nobody knows what they have until they lose it. That is so particularly true when it comes to the beloved late president Hugo Chavez Frías, by far one of the greatest and most supportive friends Cuba has ever had all along its history. 18
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EMBASSY OF THE BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA IN CANADA
Hugo Chavez and Cuba special Edition
3 t 19, 201 st Augus e t l a v o pr deep admiration and respect towards one another, and they both needed to receive that feedback and that support whenever they met. I think they have both been the materialization of long expected social needs at given points along the history of our countries, a historical need at that.
Both Cuba and Venezuela certainly needed a radical social change that would bring about full dignity for the whole people, not just for a few privileged elite, or just a given social class. They both provided that in their respective countries and at the right time in each case, in keeping with their age and involvement in their respective revolutionary struggles. It was not by chance that they met, it was meant to be. I do not believe in chances. It was about time for Latin America to experience the processes that it is going through at present. And President Chávez played a key role of paramount importance all along. He was indeed a spark that triggered so many good things and hopes and dreams for so many people. I would not be surprised if from now on, people in Venezuela and in many other places all over Latin America and the Caribbean, would start to praise him as a saint, just the way Ernesto Ché Guevara is now in Bolivia. He certainly deserves to be honored and to be remembered as one of the greatest heroes our continent has ever had. I still remember the first Cuba-Venezuela Meeting for the application of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), which took place in Havana in the last week of April, 2005 and the Fair of Venezuelan products held at EXPOCUBA in those same days, which was visited by presidents Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, and the signing of the agreements for the opening in Cuba of two Venezuelan companies: PDVSA and Banco Industrial. Cuba and Venezuela have set a good example of fair relations between two sister nations in a fair trade , a win-win situation by means of which both nations have mutually benefitted from one another. Thousands of Venezuelan youths have been trained as medical doctors in Cuba and for example just in 2005, 100,000 Venezuelans with a variety of visual disorders received surgical treatment. To that effect conditions were created within hospitals to provide the most modern and sophisticated methods available, as well as living conditions to ensure a comfortable stay. Cuba does not have the huge amount of natural resources that Venezuela does have; however, it does have a very well trained and highly qualified army of professionals of all kinds, readily willing to go to any country whatsoever on this globe to help out in whatever may be needed. We have demonstrated that so far too many times and have expected nothing in return, just contributing to make this a better world to the best of our modest possibilities. Cuba does not share what it has to spare, it is just sharing what it has, particularly our human resources, with all those who may need them. The way I see it, that is true solidarity, the one found in the Gospel, helping the needed, the poor, the broken-hearted,
the dispossessed, the marginalized, the little ones Jesus spoke about so many times. Our two countries worked on the design of a continental project to eliminate illiteracy in Latin America. José Marti, the most universal of all Cubans ever and our national hero, once said that “to be learned is the only way to be free”. The more illiterate people have learned how to read and write, the more they have realized that they were not free at all, since illiteracy is a kind of mental imprisonment, is like being behind bars inside our own brain, in total darkness. Once you know how to read and write, the whole world looks different to you and from then on, you are no longer the same. Nobody can fool you easily any more. That is exactly what is happening all over Latin America now. Many even thought that the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) was the solu-
And President Chávez played a key role of paramount importance all along. He was indeed a spark that triggered so many good things and hopes and dreams for so many people. I would not be surprised if from now on...
tion to our problems; until the ALBA was at long last created as a timely alternative that challenged the capitalist choice that was being imposed as the best solution ever. A better world is still possible. The very best is yet to be seen and it is rather in the future. That stubborn hope really helps us all not to give up our dreams and our endeavors for the sake of a new Latin America, united, in solidarity, willing to help and to contribute to the common good. In our continent we have enough resources to go around and feed, and shoe and clothe and provide medical care and all types of social services to every one of our fellow citizens all over our beloved Pachamama. If we were all slightly less selfish and just a little more altruistic, we could make that dream come true sooner than later. It is up to us all, no doubts about it at all. Amen!
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special Edition Chávez and the Constituent Power
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"No, the consituent power cannot be frozen, it cannot be frozen by the constituted power. […] Some authors talk about the terrible character of the Constituent Power. I believe that the Constituent Power is terrible, but we need such as it is: terrible, complex, rebellious. The Constituent Power must not be submitted […], the Constituent power is, and should be –fellow citizens- a permanent potency, a transformative potency, a revolutionary shot to reactivate, every now and then, our Bolivarian process” (Chávez Frías, 2007, “fragments from the swear-in speech” at the Metropolitan Institute of Urbanism (IMU), Taller Caracas, El poder Popular. Serie Ensayos. Propuestas para el debate, Caracas: IMU, 4-5).
The Constituent Power
Stills from Comuna en construcción. www.azzellini.net/es/filme/comuna-en-construccion
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EMBASSY OF THE BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA IN CANADA
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Dario Azzellini special Edition
D
uring the past few decades, one of the main reasons for general discord within the pro-social-transformation left-wing, especially in Latin-America, was the situation of power takeover. Or, as to which point collaborating with the institutions, or rather, turning down any involvement with the Estate. We could define these two general concepts as points of views “from above” and “from below”. Since Commander Hugo Chávez Frias was elected president in 1999, Venezuela started a thorough process of social transformation, guided by a leftist viewpoint, that included: social-democrat, revolutionary nationalist, developmental and socialist views, all the way to different currents of revolutionary leftist views and different social movements. This junction of “from above” and “from below” strategies, for the most part considered incompatible with one another, obligated all streams of leftist views to reconsider their characteristics. Among these characteristics were: evaluations of the state, the economy, social participation, democracy and different paths leading to a social transformation. A guiding policy of the Bolivarian process resides within the priority of the constituent power, not taken as a temporal or a situation to delegate power or sovereignty, but instead, as a permanent creation force from the people that impose, at the same time, the constituent power. Thus, the logic of arbitration between a “civil society” and “political society” is dismissed. Moreover, it is about the formenting the potential and direct capacity of the people in terms of analyzing, deciding, executing and evaluating the concerns to itself. The constituent power refers to all councils in general-- to the people’s power, and to the basic concept of a Communal State.
republic. Thus, the constituent power is the biggest drive shaft in history-- the most important, potent and innovative social power. However, historically, even though the constituent power is a source of legitimacy, it barely has completed its job of legitimatizing the existence of the constituted power. It was silenced and its ability of acting on behalf of itself was stripped. The question remains: How can we give the constituent power the possibility of bursting and shaping the present, to drive something new that doesn’t refer to the old ways? A revolution, thus, isn’t understood as an act of powertakeover, but instead as a wide process of building something new-an act of creation and invention. This is also a legacy given from the Bolivarian Process to other social movements within the American continent and beyond
The process of building “from two sides” with approaches and strategies “from above” and “from below”, similar to the one that happens in Venezuela, has been distinctive from many contexts of social transformation in Latin America. The Venezuelan process includes the participation of traditional-style organizations, of new and autonomous The Venezuelan groups and organizations, of central-state curprocess includes rents as well as anti-systemic. According to the policy orientation of the constituent power the participation of process, it is the legitimate, sovereign and coltraditional-style orga- lective creation capacity of human beings that expressed within the movements, in the ornizations, of new and isganized social base and is the principal agent autonomous groups of change, whereas the constituted power, the and organizations, of State and the institutions, must guarantee the framework and conditions for the process. Alcentral-state currents though it’s not free from contradictions and as well as conflicts, the approach “from two sides” has able to maintain and deepen the social anti-systemic been transformation process in Venezuela.
In Venezuela, the idea of the constituent power’s priority is underway since the peoples’ movements in the 80’s. In the 90’s, new coincidences with the works of the philosopher and activist, Antonio Negri, are found. Chávez assumes the posture from the movements already in the era of MBR-200. He read Negri’s book while he was imprisoned from 1992 to 1994 and he mentioned Negri as an important influence for the development of the Bolivarian Project and kept mentioning him with frequency-- i.e. during his swearing-in as president in January of 2007, as well as to justify his proposition of constitutional reform that same year. A new journey towards social transformation is on its way given the dialectic relationship of Chávez and the peoples’ movements. The constituent power is the potency, the legitimate creation capacity that resides within human beings in a collective manner-- the capacity of creating something new, without having to refer to the existent and without having to submit to the former. The constituent power, being omnipotent and expansive has been and still is the justification and the root of any revolution, any democracy and any
In 2005 Chávez describes socialism as the only alternative to necessarily overcome capitalism. Since 2007, participation set in officially within the context of the people’s power, revolutionary democracy and socialism. Given the evident difficulties to define a clear path towards a type of socialism, or to a clear concept of what socialism is today, the objective is defined as the socialism of the 21st century, which is currently being developed and debated. The name itself helps to differentiate it from the “real socialisms” from the 20th century. The process of pursuit and construction is oriented mainly by values such as community, equality, solidarity, freedom and sovereignty. From 2007 and on, Chavez proposed to overcome the bourgeois State through the construction of a Communal State. Therefore, he resumed a debate that comes from anti-systemic currents, and he generalizes it. The main idea is to form council structures of all types (Communal Councils, Communes and Communal Cities) that could gradually start to substitute the Bourgeois State. The State is not conceived as a neutral instrument (Leninist matrix) or
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special Edition DARIO AZZELLINI
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(1) Aló Presidente 290, 19.8.2007, in: Chávez, Hugo, 2008, El Poder Popular, Caracas: Ministry of the Peoples Power for Communication and Information, p. 67.
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as an autonomous entity (such as the social-democratic or bourgeois tradition), but instead as a wholesome product of capitalism, such that must be surpassed. Given the constitutional reform rejected in the 2007 referendum, the future of the Communal State must be subservient to the peoples’ power, which supersedes the old civil bourgeois society. This is how overcoming the rift between the economic, the social and the political is presented, between a civil society and a political society, the roots of capitalism and the bourgeois State. Meanwhile, at the same time it is expected to prevent the centrality and its absolute condition such as is present in countries with “real socialism”(1). On behalf of the government and the roots of the Bolivarian process, there is declared will to redefine the State and society from the interrelation “from above” and “from below”, thus opening a new perspective towards the overcoming of capitalist relations. According to the policy orientation of the process, the State being part of the old style, it is not seen as an agent of change, but instead the main role belonging to the movements, to the organized people. The State is supposed to accompany the people, to be a facilitator of the processes “from below”, so that from the constituent power new mechanisms and solutions can emerge, in order to transform society. The State must guarantee the material contents which is required for the greater good. This concept has been repeated on several occasions by Chávez and is shared by the majority of organized movements.
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The great challenge is to maintain the process wide open, and to develop a “from above” style that could support, accompany and strengthen the “from below” without co-opting or limiting the movement. At the same time, it’s important to create strategies “from below” that could make possible the ability to become an active part of constructing something new, without losing the initiative when faced to the State and its Institutions, and without being co-opted “from above. Thus, it’s about a relationship between constituent and constituted power; in which the first continues to make improvements and is the creating force behind the new style. One of the evident questions is: If it’s possible, and to which point, can the State and its institutions achieve the overcoming of its own interrelated types with the movements “from below” and if the root organization mechanisms initiated or encouraged by the state could actually develop a relative autonomy (of organization, debate, and decisionmaking) of its own, a necessary condition so that they could transform the State. The recognize that, to value and encourage initiatives “from below” as well as to contribute to the possibilities of a redefinition of revolutionary and socialist ways in the 21st century with a global importance, is one the greatest legacies from Chávez. Dario Azzellini, author and film maker, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria, holds a PhD in political science and PhD in sociology.
EMBASSY OF THE BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA IN CANADA
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by Arnold August, Canada
special Edition
People’s Power
and Socialist Democracy
TeleSUR announced earlier this month that Comandante Hugo Chávez was moved to his resting place at the February 4th Museum of Military History. It is also known as the Barracks on the Mountain, the site from which Hugo Chávez launched the February 4, 1992 civil–military rebellion.
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hat came to my mind while watching the broadcast in Montreal was the following: “What an excellent choice!” This is where the thought and action of the Bolivarian leader, already bourgeoning for some time, took concrete form as the beginning of the new people’s power and socialist democracy. This is so because, among others, the revolt was directed against the U.S.-centric two-party system, known as the Pact of Punto Fijo. According to this pact, the elites agreed to shuffling political power between the two main political parties while maintaining the status quo. Every outstanding revolution has its historical birthplace. Where would Cuba be today if it were not for Fidel Castro leading his comrades in the assault of the Moncada barracks, as a continuation of the 19th-century independence wars led by José Martí and others? Moncada was the only way forward at that time to head towards people’s power and socialism in Cuba in the context of independence. The February 4, 1992 Hugo Chávez-led civil–military rebellion was Venezuela’s Moncada. History has already proven that Venezuela’s February 4 opened the only path for the majority of people to attain political power and to initiate the building of a new socio-economic system. In Venezuela at this time, who would be wielding political power and controlling important sectors of the economy today in Venezuela if it were not for this 1992 action led by Hugo Chávez based on his developing thought? Since Chávez’s presidential election breakthrough in 1998, when he was elected for the first time, the Bolivarian Revolution has won every single ballot box contest except one including the December 2012 local state elections. It triumphed in the April 1999 referendum, in which it asked the people if they agreed to the need for a new constituent assembly in order to draft a new constitution. The overwhelming popular approval was the key step in the evolution of the Bolivarian Revolution. It concretized the main promise that Chávez had made in the 1998 elections. The exercise of drafting a
new constitution was not merely in the hands of the Constituent Assembly, but also in those of the people themselves. Consequently, because they were involved, the grass roots felt that they were part of the new Bolivarian Revolution. One of the main features of the new Constitution was the promotion of participatory democracy, with popular input facilitated by the state. Political power and socialist democracy based on a new collective-based socio-economic system are intertwined. Combined with promotion of people’s political power, the new Magna Carta opposes privatization of the state oil company by requiring that the State shall retain all shares of the state oil company, PDVSA. The Constitution upholds the right of the state over the PDVSA and thus the use of funds from oil for the people. The document also assures basic socio-economic rights, such as health, culture, education, employment and housing.
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special Edition Panel: People’s Power and Socialist Democracy (Poder popular y democracia socialista)
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Regarding the missions, the people are not only on the receiving end; many are actively participating in them in one way or another. They are thus being empowered. They are politically conscious of the objectives of these missions and the source of funding. In addition to the missions, cooperatives play a major role in economic decentralization. The Venezuelan experience shows clearly that co-ops do not harm or contradict socialism. On the contrary, they contribute to the economy and to the self-esteem and feeling of empowerment of the people at the grass-roots level. In addition, in terms of developing the country’s experimentation with participatory democracy, Chávez promoted the rapid spread of consejos comunales (communal councils). The Bolivarian Revolution and 21st-century socialism are distinct from both the model of savage capitalism and the defunct highly centralized Soviet bloc experience. Together they exhibit a new experiment in people’s power and socialist democracy, either one of which cannot exist without the other. Therefore, the example of Venezuela shows that there is no contradiction between the building of grass-roots instruments of empowerment and the central state. Taking into account socio-economic and political factors, it is a democracy in motion, with the participatory feature at the centre. This motion favours 21st-century socialism, defining itself as it develops. The dialectic relationship between the central political leadership and the local communal councils, missions, communes, co-ops and other such grass-roots organizations explains the Bolivarian Revolution’s success at the polls. The participation by the people in these local activities (despite their weaknesses) fleshes out, in their minds and hearts, the nature of the new Constitution. By employing these political and socio-economic experiments, people experience empowerment in their daily lives. This participatory nature is the basis of democracy in Venezuela; it is a growing movement in the ongoing process of democratization. In Venezuela, there are elections and representatives. However, democracy is far more meaningful, as the people at the base wield popular power on a daily basis. The process of democratization advances to the extent that real political power displaces representation. Hugo Chávez was in fact the one leading this attempt to decentralize the state and further empower the people with new forms of participatory democracy. In order to explore the Venezuelan route of democracy and its electoral process, it is not sufficient to simply label it a competitive multi-party system as it exists in the U.S. To do so would represent a failure to appreciate the full extent of the transformational socio-economic and political processes under way. Nor is it appropriate, despite the long string of competitive balloting from 1998 to date (March 2013), to deny that it is a bona fide multi-party system. To negate the validity
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The overwhelming popular approval was the key step in the evolution of the Bolivarian Revolution. It concretized the main promise that Chávez had made in the 1998 elections. of the Venezuelan approach to this system amounts to a blatant acceptance of the U.S.-centric notion of democracy and elections. The Bolivarian Revolution won at the polling stations in 17 of 18 occasions, including the last elections for state governors. Almost all of these wins are due to the programs developed at the base. The Revolution’s anti-neo-liberal and anti-U.S. domination focus is the very basis of its raison d’être. The elections are thus a vehicle that drives the Revolution, and the grass roots are the fuel. Participatory democracy is a daily way of life for a growing number of people. Venezuela’s participatory political socio-economic democracy, as well as its representative democracy, are not “representative” in the sense of the U.S. approach. Representation through elections in Venezuela is but one aspect of the Bolivarian Revolution. Venezuela thus does not have a hybrid system composed of both participatory and representative aspects, the latter supposedly based on the U.S. model. This contrast is manifested in the “Soy Chávez” (“I am Chávez”) slogan raised by the people themselves on a spontaneous basis during his sickness and at the time of his physical death on March 5 and since then. The Bolivarian Revolution is one of the people, it is their revolution. The “Soy Chávez” movement is the fruit of Hugo Chávez’s thought and actions over several decades dedicated to inspiring and organizing people to empower themselves. It is this organized and politically conscious force of millions of Chávez that will assure the victory of Nícolas Madura in the April, 2013 presidential elections as part of the ongoing Bolivarian Revolution. This process represents the highest level of participatory democracy. It is, in my view, the legacy of Hugo Chávez in terms of people’s power and socialist democracy, a heritage that lives on. Thank you very much
Ministry of popular power for Foreign Affairs of Venezuela
9, 2013 August 1 t s e t l a prov
Letter From Chavez’s daughter special Edition
ovario2.com
Letter From Chavez’s daughter “Your departure hurts. It’s a pain that burns into my soul. How hard my life has become without you. During the past few days I’ve been trying to comprehend why you left--why you have left us with this immense gap. I’ve cried, I’ve screamed, I have begged the heavens for your return to me. Then I come back to my senses. I breathe, I love you, I feel you, I come back to you and cry again.
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special Edition Letter From Chavez’s daughter
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Maria Gabriela Chávez dirigió el Funeral de Estado. runrun.es
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Maria Gabriela Chavez directed the State Funeral... Today I think I have understood everything. Your soul is so infinitely massive, that your body wasn’t enough for it and you simply had to fly away and be free. I told you while I was looking in your eyes before your departure. You are a giant. There was one time when you asked me to be strong in case the unforeseen happened. “You must be strong my Maria. “You must continue on the path whatever happens”. Today I swear to you that I’m going to give it my best. I swear I’m going to get the strength needed from wherever possible in order to carry on and you will always be that light that will shine upon my path. Thank you for so much fatherly love. Thank you for being a constant example for me. Thank you for your smile. Thank you for your cries. Thank you for your songs. Thank you for your
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dances. Thank you for so many good memories. Thank you for your absolute and eternal passion. But especially, thank you Comandante for giving us back our nation. You will always be the beating motion inside my heart. You will always live inside my soul. You will always shine upon my eyes and you will always vibrate among your people forever. Father of mine-- fly away, fly away, you free giant. Fly high and blow strong like the hurricane winds.We will take care of your nation, and we will defend your legacy as you have taught us. You will never leave because in our hands, resides your eternal flame. Farewell, forever mine, my eternal love”.
EMBASSY OF THE BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA IN CANADA
fundacite-zulia.gob.ve/chavez-somos-todos/
9, 2013 August 1 t s e t l a prov
special Edition Hugo Chavez’s Four Rescues
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Four
Rescues 1. 3.
Death is our inheritance. The only thing that brings us together is the parting. When we leave, only ashes are left-- maybe some of our Works.
2.
Once beyond, there is nothing left to do. The work we did will survive by the consesus that it creates in others. Our flesh is extinguished, but our thoughts remain.
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In vain, they tried to suffocate the left-sided ideals which were buried deep during the past century by extermination. Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias decided to unearth the ideals, as he struggles-- fighting ever ferocious attacks, but he is backed up by the people.
Ministry of popular power for Foreign Affairs of Venezuela
9, 2013 August 1 t s e t l a prov
By Luis Britto García
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special Edition
The first rescue takes off on February 4, 1992. A group of young military officers, displeased by the massacre of February 7th, 1989 fail at a military insurrection. The unknown lieutenant corolen that leads the efforts admits responsability and is buried deep within a military prison for decades. The people take it in their hands to visit him. This strategic loss became a political statement. When the President Rafael Caldera transfers the prisoner to a more secluded prison, the people are indignant, to the point of civil unrest. Father Arturo Sosa tries to mediate the conflict. However, Caldera understands that a prisoner with more popular backing than the President himself is not convenient and through a pardon, Chavez is rescued for the first time by its people, completely unarmed, from a life sentence at a military prison.
6.
Power attracts opportunists. He is quickly surrounded by those to whom Manuel Vicente Romero Garcia referred to as conceited anulments and consagrated mediocrities. All tarifed-loyalty is suspicious. The young president is assaulted by hordes of people that seem to believe in the Bolivarian way, but in fact they are just after privileges--puppets from the oligarchy willing to please their masters. When Chavez disobeys them, they plan a coup d’etat. They kidnap him, and take him to prison on Orchila Island. Once again, a popular tidal wave is reunited by the patriotic army and they rescue Hugo Rafael on the third attempt and bring him back to Miraflores.
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Fotos: AVN, Prensa Presidencial y Agencias
5.
7.
Losing has no friends. Chavez comes out to the Street without a career and means, inflicted by close monitoring, he cannot even dream about insurrection. Before he is approached by the same left-sided individuals that savoured jail before him, the people convince him to try the electoral route just in time when a new automatized electoral system comes along for the first time to guarantee free elections. An avalanche of popular votes rescues Chavez from death by omission.
Only when facing death, do we understand the value of the present. Fifteen times, Chavez gambles with the uncertain and faces elections. Fourteen times he is rescued by the people, who give keep him the power so he can fulfill the essential. As if he had accounted for his every minute, within a decade he achieves goals that were pending for almost an eternity--the rescue of the natural resources and the industries that exploit them, overcomes iliteracy and educational exclusión, extention of social services to the majority of the people, drastic poverty reduction, inmense decrease in inequality, creation of public, alternative and community services, recovery of strategic industries, latinamerican and caribbean integration, mediating for peace, orientation towards socialism, creation of community-lead organizations, recovery of national identity, tradition and pride, uniting the people and the armed forces, constant check-ins and acceptance of the popular vote, veto laws that privatize wáter, defeating the ALCA, creating the ALBA, rescuing the sovereignty being held hostage by foreign courts. It seems that there were more tasks ahead than moments in life. He tackled all of them until a mysterious illness brought him down at the climax of his successes and his hopes.
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9, 2013 August 1 t s e t l a prov