Venezuela: Down
with the coup. Let’s reject any agreement with the right and imperialism.
LET’S TAKE OVER
THE STREETS AGAINST CAPRILES’ COUP
No
to the vote-by-vote recount. We have to demand Maduro to ensure respect to the
popular will.
After
Hugo Chavez’s death, Venezuela is currently shaken by a brutal political
crisis that projects over Latin America: Capriles’ pro-imperialist right is
leading a coup against the bourgeois nationalist government of Nicolás Maduro.
This
coup attempt is gestated after the results were tighter than expected by all,
even by his own opponent, Henrique Capriles Randonsky, MUD’s coalition leader.
According to the results with 99.1% of the counts done, Maduro won with 50.66%
of the votes against 49.07% obtained by Capriles. However, to attribute the coup
attempt to the "little difference in votes" would be too innocent
because for several weeks before the election it was known, due to statements
by allies who decided to break with the MUD, that Capriles was planning to denounce
an "electoral fraud". Not surprisingly, therefore, now he says that
Maduro is an "illegitimate president". "Until every vote is
counted, auditing all, there is an illegitimate president and that’s how we
will denounce it to the world" Capriles said in his Twitter account.
The
coup, in turn, has the direct support of the U.S. Ministry of Colonies (in the
words of Che), since "the secretary general of the OAS, José Miguel
Insulza, expressed today his support for the petitions to do a full recount of
votes cast in general elections in Venezuela, and offered the assistance of the
agency continental to perform that" (www.milenio.com, 04.15.2013).
Similarly, spoke the White House spokesman, Jay Carney: "Given the close
result, about 1 percent of the votes separating the candidates, the opposition
candidate and at least one member of the electoral council have asked for an
audit of 100 percent of the result" (The Nation, 04.15.2013). The U.S. is
one of the few governments that have not issued a congratulatory message to
Maduro. It’s no coincidence.
After
disowning the results that gave
victory to the PSUV, Capriles
gave a lecture on Monday at noon in which he convened
a cacerolazo for that day at night and mobilizations
to the National Electoral Council (CNE) on Tuesday and
Wednesday. The result of this
"civic call" was that,
as stressed by the Buenos Aires University Federation (FUBA), "in the past two days the right has killed right 7
people and burned nearly 15
establishments belonging to ministries
and local supporters". The actions of Capriles are quite cunning and
conniving: created a coup climate
against a democratically elected government without even bothering to submit the
complaint to the CNE and even legal threats
as he was placed as a virtual responsible for a future site on Caracas.
His
goal, however, is more subtle: right now, the coup’s attempt would not be a
forcible overthrow of the government but to force Maduro to make a compromise.
As chavism itself declares: "to contest the presidential election results the
CNE gives within 20 days of the completion of the elections in order to run
this by legal proceedings. So far the only Venezuelan right denounced 'fraud'
by the media but has not used legal means" (www.telesurtv.net, 04.16.2013). This 'omission'
by the opposition coup can confirm that, as even Maduro stated, Capriles is
seeking some kind of agreement. It is in this context that today Capriles gave
a press conference where he suspended the siege over Caracas for Wednesday and pointed
out that his intention is a "national unity government". Therefore,
the hypocrisy of this putschist that talks about while sets Venezuela on fire,
is in the service of using the blood of Venezuelans killed as a sample that, if
he wants, he can go further.
Faced with such outrage
by the right, Maduro first agreed to discuss the audit (or total recount) that
Capriles proposed, but then Cabello stated: "'We are not going to count every vote, is a whim
of the bourgeoisie', as ordered President of the Assembly and leader of the military wing of the PSUV, 'marking the ruling
roadmap for officialism during the coming days and belying Maduro himself'" (La Opinion, 04.16.2013). Again, Cabello
rejects Capriles coup
attempt and aims to show himself
as a radical wing
before a weak Maduro
willing to negotiate. Cabello’s aim is that the struggle against the coup culminates in a strengthening of the chavist military
apparatus and not a qualitative
development of labor and popular organization.
"Quiet guys, stay at home, we'll handle the coup", that is the message that both pro-Cubans as domestic right are giving the Venezuelan people.
From the Tendencia
Piquetera Revolucionaria (TPR), firstly we have to say that we declare our
strong repudiation to the coup attempts and we put ourselves at the first line
of solidarity to fight against the attempted coup of Capriles and the MUD.
Faced to the coup we have to answer: we aren’t afraid, we will stop you with
workers and popular struggle, we will never pact nor negotiate any power space
with the right. From this perspective, we denounce as an unbearable betrayal
any attempt of engagement with the putschist right by chavism. Moreover, we are
firmly opposed to a recount or auditory and we call to defend popular will on
streets, because people have already voted. When Capriles won Miranda State, he
did it with a little difference too, and that fact didn’t involve a “unity”
government with PSUV. So, we have to repel a coalition with MUD which can only swing
Maduro’s government farther to the right, damaging directly Venezuelan workers.
Any concession would only plunge chavism, and mainly people who follows it.
From the TPR we say: we’re against any recount because popular will and
sovereignty of Venezuelan State to do its own election must be respected
against any foreign imperialist interference with internal issues.
AGAINST PARAMILITARY, CHAVIST MILITANTS’ ASSASSINATIONS
AND CAPRILIST ATTACKS TO PSUV’S BRANCHES, LET’S ORGANIZE WORKERS’ AND POPULAR
SELF DEFENSE
Capriles, who now poses as
a pacifist, is really the responsible for an enormous wave of violence in
Venezuela. 4 chavist militants are dead, in addition to the burning of PSUV
branches, petrohouses and medical centers, is the result of the fascist attacks
linked to the defeated candidate during last elections. That’s why, as we
stated before, going to an agreement is a sign of weakness and digging the own
grave. We have to crush the right.
According to Aporrea: “In
Táchira, Henry Rangel Aroza, a chavist activist, was murdered, as revealed by
governor Vielma Mora. In Miranda, opposition hordes killed the chavist militant
Luis Ponce. In La Limonera, Baruta municipality, another revolutionary militant
died as a result of the attacks developed by pro-Capriles hordes. In Palo
Verde, at the east of Caracas, other CDI turned out to be set on fire. In the
sectors Oropeza and Trapichito from Guareas, oppositionists attacked a CDI and Cuban
medics on guard. The order to attack CDIs came from the oppositionist
journalist Nelson Bocaranda, who said that Cuban medics hide boxes with ballot
votes. According to neighbors’ denounces, Baruta’s police is using red t-shirts
to kill people and accuse chavism. Fascist hordes leaded by Richard Mardo are
also burning petrohouses in Flor Amarillo, Maracay, CDIs, Mercal branches, as
denounced by Mario Silva. In Trigaleña, more than 150 people entered the CDI,
denounced the governor Ameliach, who has displayed an anti-coup operative. In
San Cristóbal, PSUV branch was burned down, several communitarian stations were
attacked and provoked a death in Santa Ana, of PSUV militant, Henry Rangel”
(04.15.2013).
It’s worst: all this is
being prepared previously, and with imperialism’s help. This is stated by
Gerardo Szalkowicz, correspondent from the chavist media www.marcha.org: “The putschist maneuver also
includes actions that have been developed repeatedly as the incursion of Colombian
and Central American paramilitary groups (at least six operatives were
deactivated during the last weeks), the shortage of basic goods and sabotages
to electrical service” (04.16.2013).
As Latin-American
revolutionaries, we see with extreme concern the development of this situation.
It’s not a lightning in a serene sky: after having to face situations as in
Ecuador, Honduras or Paraguay, it’s clear that were still the “backyard” for
the United States and that Obama’s government is warmonger and putschist.
TPR’s Trotskyists, who aren’t
chavists and that in the last elections called to a null vote because we
consider chavism is developing and anti-national and anti-proletarian turn,
say: we don’t want chavism to pact with the right and end up in the same ignominious
way as sandinism or Lugo’s government in Paraguay. This would be unworthy for
chavism because it implies to deny its own origins: the chavist coup attempt of
1992. Accepting a co-government based on a putschist and electoral pressure
would demonstrate chavism’s domestication by the right, USA and its diplomatic
world-wide apparatus. That would be a democratizing and pro-imperialist
position. It would be the shameful confession that there’s never been “XXI
century socialism” nor “revolutionary process” but, at most, a sort of leftist management
of capitalism. We must remember that according with the right and accepting the
coup was the way Lugo selected, and now his coalition, Guasú Front, measures
less than 3% for next elections. Polarization remained in the hands of “colorados”
and liberals, a sort of competition between Videla and Macri through the polls.
Therefore, the conclusion is clear: what isn’t defended in the streets,
afterwards cannot be recovered in the polls.
To defeat a coup, the only
thing useful is workers’ and popular mobilization. That was demonstrated in
2002, facing the surrender submitted by Chávez, only the workers’ and popular
mobilization could prevent squalids’ victory. We need, against the
paramilitary, hitmen and caprilist mobs, to organize workers’ and popular self
defense. Comrades: revolutions, when true, are not delivered in the polls but
are defended with the weapons in hand.
THE CLASSIST LEFT HAS TO BE AN ALTERNATIVE: LET’S
MOBILIZE AGAINST THE COUP AND FOR ALL POPULAR CLAIMS. LET’S SUPPORT OPCION
OBRERA’S REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE.
Coups d’etat are the mother
of all political crises and test the programs, the capacity, the legitimacy and
the true nature of the different political parties. This is valid not only for
nationalism but, specially, for the left that claims itself as revolutionary.
Until today, Tuesday 16th,
April, PSL (“Partido Socialismo y Libertad”) from Orlando Chirino hasn’t established
a position facing the coup. What it has done is taking the time to publish a
disastrous article from Freddy Argimiro Gutiérrez, writer from Aporrea.org,
which has this title: “There’s no good or bad fascism”. Its conclusion is: “Venezuelan
people must reject and combat all sorts of fascism, all sorts of sectarianism,
all sorts of opportunism, etc…” because “today I would protest equally against official
chavism and the MUD”. That is, a nefarious position of “nor nor” that, far away
from being the distorted reflection of political independence, expresses a
democratizing orientation absolutely functional to the pro-imperialist coup.
This “no-position” from
PSL, pure abstentionism that leaves room for the irresponsible publication of
positions functional to the coup, isn’t a coincidence: after asking for support
for Chirino all over the world for being an independent workers’ candidature
(candidature that we, as TPR, supported), in the last elections Chirino decided
not to stand. Chirino and PSL’s capitulation ended up forcing the workers that support
neither the right-wing nor Maduro’s devaluation to vote null. It constitutes a
clear backward for the classist left in Venezuela. It’s demonstrated,
therefore, that it’s necessary to build up a consequent left that doesn’t step
aside in the decisive moments and stand for a revolutionary program in order to
guide workers’ intervention.
That was exactly what
Opcion Obrera did – Venezuelan section of the Coordinating Committee for the
Refoundation of the Fourth International (CRFI). Against the liquidationism of
a left that decided to wash its hands during the elections, that doesn’t take
position against the coup and that vindicates the agreements with the syndical right-wing
in the FADESS; Opcion Obrera states the need to struggle to defeat the coup and
put up a Left and Workers’ Front. As TPR from Argentina, we fully support their
political fight. Today, that fight consists on standing firmly on the left of
the political field of the struggle against the pro-imperialist coup and
dispute with nationalism in that same ground. In this sense, we participate in
the mobilizations against the coup in Argentina and we call all workers’ and
the left from Latin-America and the world to put up uncountable tribunes
against the pro-imperialist putsch in Venezuela. We must adopt this
international solidarity method given the fact that the caprilist right and
center-left (PRO, FAP and UCR) is convoking in Argentina to a reactionary
mobilization on April 18, which will rebound world-wide. If they hit in several countries, we must hit
in all Latin-America and with an outstanding demonstration of internationalist
solidarity.
After more than one decade
of chavism, Venezuelan left and workers arrive to Capriles’ coup under the
leadership of Maduro and PSUV’s apparatus. This is a reality. The challenge is
that, through its own political experience, they understand that today we have
a common enemy in Capriles but that we arrive to the fight against the coup
from two very different positions: chavism from the defense of its monopoly of
the State apparatus to apply devaluation, disown labor contracts and apply
adjustment measures in order to “save the revolutionary process”; the left and
the workers, on the contrary, enter that fight as part of the struggle to
defend their conquests and advance in their claims. That is, as part of the
fight for a workers’ government that can overcome decomposed bourgeois
nationalism’s limits. It’s about, therefore, not staying paralyzed delivering
Venezuela’s future to the decision of the chavist military apparatus, but that
the left and the workers crush the coup through their own proletarian and
popular mobilization. That way, we will defeat the coup developing a consequent
anti-imperialist struggle and placing in the centre of Venezuelan political
situation a worker’s way out to the capital’s bankruptcy.
As the comrades from Opcion
Obrera state, let’s go for:
- For a minimum salary
equal to the basic family basket indexed to the value of monthly inflation
- For a general rise of
salaries, and salaries equal to the value previous to the devaluation of the
past February 8
- For the immediate suspension
of any payment related to the external debt
- For the expropriation without
payment of all enterprise that causes speculation and shortage of basic goods.
Workers’ control.
- For the unrestricted application
of the regulated prizes that traders and peddlers don’t respect. Jail to all
traders that doesn’t comply.
- For direct workers and people
control over INDEPABIS
- For the publication of
the lists of beneficiaries of the SITME and the amounts received. Jail and
punishment for those who stole those currencies and those who authorized that
from the BCV.
- For the judgment and
punishment of all material and intellectual authors of the murders of working
class leaders and social and peasant fighters, especially for those who
assassinated Sabino Romero. Out with landowners and employers of the gold and
carbon mining.
- For the immediate stop to
any measure that criminalizes workers and social protest. For the immediate and
definitive closure of all precautionary measures that restrict freedom to more
than 2.400 workers and social leaders.
- Guarantee the right to
strike and immediate discussions over all expired collective contracts in the
public and private sectors
- For the free election of
workers’ representatives in their unions, federations and syndical centrals
without the direct intervention of the CNE
- For the immediate
liberation of Julián Conrado and his asylum guaranteed in the country
April 16, 2013
TPR
Tendencia Piquetera Revolucionaria
tpr.internacional@gmail.com
// tpr-internet.blogspot.com // Facebook: Tpr Tendencia Piquetera
Revolucionaria // Tel: (5411) 156 335 9278
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