[Marxism] eva golinger on vzlan student protests, etc

[michael a. lebowitz]

Interview
US Continues Destabilisation Push in Venezuela
Monday, Jul 02, 2007 
<http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/print.php?artno=2086>Print format
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By: Eva Golinger and Sam King - Green Left Weekly
In the wake of widely covered opposition protests 
against the Venezuelan government’s decision not 
to renew Radio Caracas Televison’s (RCTV) 
broadcasting licence following its countless 
violations of the law and its role in the 2002 
coup attempt against the democratically elected 
government, Green Left Weekly’s Sam King spoke 
with lawyer and writer Eva Golinger in Caracas. 
Golinger is the author of The Chavez Code and 
Bush Versus Chavez, which expose US intervention 
into Venezuela aiming to overthrow Chavez.

Q: What evidence is there to support the view 
that the student-led mobilisations in support of 
RCTV are part of a broader destabilisation plan 
aimed at overthrowing the government of President 
Hugo Chavez, and are linked to hostile political forces based in the US?

A lot of evidence. One angle is if you look at 
who are the people protesting. Everyone has the 
right to protest, but all of a sudden the 
wealthier upper-class and upper middle-class 
students from primarily private universities take 
to the streets to defend an issue that has been 
at the forefront of the opposition movement of 
the traditional politicians. All of a sudden, 
here they appear out of nowhere and they’re 
carrying the same agenda and the same political 
discourse, even though they are trying to 
disguise it as not being political. Any march in 
the street is political. Any claiming or 
demanding of rights is a political action.

They are repeating a discourse the traditional 
opposition has been using here and they’re doing 
it in a way that is not even fully formed. It’s a 
contradiction in itself to say “no, no we’re not 
being political” and then crying out for freedom 
of expression, liberty and things like that in a 
country that has more freedom of expression than 
probably most countries in the world, and 
certainly under this government more than this 
country has ever had before. Unfortunately 
they’re being used as mouthpieces for an 
opposition that’s been using that discourse over 
the past seven years, despite the fact that 
they’re the ones who ruled the country before.

I was looking at the 1992-93 annual report from a 
Venezuelan human rights group Provea when Antonia 
Ledezma, who is one of the opposition 
spokespeople today, was the governor of Caracas. 
He had actually prohibited all student protests 
in the street for that entire year. This just 
shows the hypocrisy, contradictions and double 
discourse. [The student protest campaign] is part 
of what has been going on for the last five, six 
years 
 different attempts and different ways to 
destabilise the country, leading to the overthrow of Chavez.

We know that is the final objective because they 
tried it already during the coup in April 2002, 
then later the economic sabotage at the end of 
that year when they specifically said the goal 
was to force Chavez to resign or to overthrow 
Chavez. Also the [unsuccessful August 2004 
presidential] recall referendum 
 It is apparent 
that [this is] a student movement that was not 
born naturally from the ranks of students.

 From my own investigations, looking at documents 
that I have obtained over the last four years 
using the Freedom of Information Act in the US, 
looking at [information] that I got a year or two 
ago from the US Agency for International 
Development (USAID), which is a funding entity of 
the US State Department, there were a series of 
contracts or grants to different student 
organisations, private universities and other entities 


There were six grants from USAID that showed the 
US government had been funding efforts to have 
training seminars and formation seminars for 
student leaders with the objective being ­ and 
this is what the documents were saying ­ to 
reinsert universities and student activism back 
into political life in Venezuela. It used to be 
before Chavez [came to power in 1998 that] 
students were always the vanguard, as they are in 
most countries, of movements to push social 
changes. The difference is now we have a 
revolutionary government where many of those 
student leaders are now the ones in power ­ so 
even though there are movements within the 
universities, they have not played a role in 
fighting against the state because now they are 
the state. It’s the reverse situation.

One of these grants was for 90 million bolivars 
(US$42,000). That’s a lot of money for a series 
of seminars at the UCV. This was a joint venture 
with this strange organisation called Foundation 
for Educating the Country, the UCV student 
federation that is headed by this opposition 
student Stalin Gonzalez and the [student 
federation] from University of the Andes, which 
is headed by a student who is now a fugitive ­ Nixon Moreno.

They’re involved in this grant that is for 
forming student leaders, to reinsert them back 
into political life in Venezuela so that students 
can help define the direction the country is 
taking, and now we are seeing that manifest. The 
grants that were given, the funding, training 
programs, all kinds of things [form a] 
relationship with the US starting from a couple of years ago.

On top of that, some of the same groups or 
individuals have participated since 2004 in 
training sessions with other US entities such as 
the Albert Einstein Institute and the 
International Centre on Non-Violent Conflict. 
These are the entities that were responsible for 
helping to promote, fund and advise the 
“coloured” revolutions in Eastern Europe [in the] 
Ukraine, Serbia, Yugoslavia, Georgia. They failed 
in Belarus and they began working here in April 
2003, first with traditional opposition leaders 
and then, as in those movements in Eastern 
Europe, they used young people ­ students.

Even though the US government likes to talk about 
Venezuela and Chavez as a dictatorship, it is 
not. While those strategies may have worked in 
countries where there were governments that were 
maybe more authoritarian and that had also been 
run down by bombing campaigns of the US 
government [such as Serbia] 
 Here there are 
totally different circumstances. They tried to 
apply the same tactics and the evidence is quite 
clear. The documents from those organisations 
themselves, their annual reports, talk about how 
they worked to help form the Venezuelan opposition.

Then this movement manifested in support or in 
defence of a media corporation ­ not even 
anything to do with freedom of speech but 
corporate rights, which is bizarre for students 
to be out on the streets defending the rights, 
non-existent rights, of a corporation! It goes 
against the entire anti-globalisation movement 
around the world that the student movement here 
in Venezuela is actually promoting corporate 
rights. They are using the same symbols and 
actions and strategies that were used by other 
groups that were trained and formed by the Albert 
Einstein Institute and the International Center 
on Non-Violent Conflict, so I think there is a 
lot of different evidence that shows there is a 
US tie, certainly financially [and] more so in providing strategic advice.

Very unfortunately I think for students and for 
student movements, a lot of the students said 
“no, no we are not being manipulated, we are out 
here because this is what we believe in” and I 
believe that, but 
 when the coup took place in 
April 2002 there were about 1 million people on 
the streets for the opposition and I don’t think 
that million knew that a conspiracy had already 
been planned and set up to be executed that day 
using them. I think a lot of people were in the 
streets because they were protesting against the 
Chavez government, but they were used to execute a coup.

I think we have a similar situation here. Yes 
there are a lot of students who are voluntarily 
in that movement, they have been brought up with 
those values, they mainly come from middle and 
upper classes, that’s what they believe in. They 
don’t know the history of the country and how 
things were before because their parents were 
part of the ruling classes and so didn’t teach 
them that part of it. However there is a smaller 
group connected with international interests and 
with the traditional political and economic elite 
here in the country that has a plan and is using 
the rest of them to try and execute it.

Q: The opposition student leaders declined the 
opportunity to debate the RCTV issue in the 
National Assembly on June 7, at the same time as 
trying to present themselves as non-political and 
for peace. Do you think this represented a 
retreat from the original intentions of the movement?

That was very strange. I think that they possibly 
got nervous and thought that they had to find a 
way out of that situation. And if they were to 
have a debate in that setting, they would 
certainly not come out in a positive way 
 I 
don’t think any country in the world has ever 
offered to students 
 an entire day, with no time 
limit to speak before the congress 
 and 
transmitted it live on television on every 
channel around the country. It certainly 
surprised me that they were given that 
opportunity, and the fact that they didn’t take 
advantage of it shows that their discourse is 
empty, that it is a manipulated movement, 
unfortunately because I think that it tars the 
other student movements, the ones that are more genuine and sincere.

[They also tried] to make a circus out of the 
National Assembly and that whole scenario. [They 
were] reading fabricated speeches ­ a speech that 
had been written by a publicity company ­ and 
then taking shirts off, things 
 that you do in a 
show to draw attention to yourself, so it became 
very clear there was no profound meaning in what they were saying.

Q: It seems that what remains of that student 
movement now has dropped the issue of RCTV and is 
focused more on defending the autonomy of the 
prestigious universities. Has it lost the battle 
for RCTV and now moved into a new defensive battle?

If there was a battle it was lost from the 
beginning because the only way they saw that they 
could win the battle is if RCTV was given a 
concession again to operate on the public 
airwaves and that is not going to happen. I think 
they actually thought ­ not the students, the 
opposition leaders, [RCTV owner and 
multi-millionaire] Marcel Granier, those 
directing RCTV ­ that the government was going to 
retract its decision, because of international 
pressure. But in the end the international 
pressure was only coming from the US, and 
Venezuela has had international pressure coming 
from the US for the past five years ­ it’s used 
to it, so it didn’t do anything. I think they 
[the opposition leaders] were kind of shocked. 
Even though they will continue to find ways to 
promote their agenda, that is definitely a lost battle.

Anyone who looks at it in a dry legal way sees 
that there is no issue ­ like the Organisation of 
American States did. Its secretary general said 
“that’s an administrative matter in the country, 
it has nothing to do with freedom of expression” 
and that’s true. You can make a scene about 
anything you want but in the end the government 
did not violate absolutely anything.

The issue of universities is kind of ridiculous 
because this is a government that has created 
more autonomy for universities than ever before. 
It has created more in the sense of providing 
more funding, opening more universities, 
providing more access to education, providing 
more alternative education in the sense that it 
is not following traditional state structures of 
rigid or very limited operating structures in the 
universities. We’ve got universities that are in 
the communities, all kinds such as the Bolivarian 
University 
 So I think that issue [is lost].

Q: Has the opposition had to abandon any serious 
attempts to destabilise the political situation in the immediate future?

Yes and no. They have a big march planned for the 
27th [of June], which is International 
Journalists’ Day. Whenever they try to plan these 
marches, there is always the moment of concern 
that there could be further aggression, 
especially because at that point the America Cup 
[football competition] will have started. That 
provides them with another scenario to try and 
make a scene, and there is a lot of concern that 
extremist groups might try to use terrorism or 
some kind of violence against the America Cup so 
that again the international community would want to get involved.

It’s a very strange objective for a student 
movement or any movement to try to encourage 
international intervention. Not only is that a 
betrayal of your country but it is incredibly 
dangerous, especially when you are trying to 
encourage the international intervention from the 
United States, with a warmongering government 
that would love to come in here and take over 
everything, especially the oil industry, and 
militarise the entire country. I think that a lot 
of people don’t understand ­ they think that US 
intervention means more McDonald’s and 
restaurants and shops, or something like that. I 
don’t understand why anyone would be calling for 
that. It’s outrageous. The danger still exists certainly.

More at the forefront is the possibility of an 
assassination attempt against the president. As 
ridiculous as that may sound, not only has it 
been used in the past against other foreign 
leaders, but here it almost seems to be the only 
way out. Chavez just keeps winning, keeps getting 
more support, more people are with [the 
revolution], the country is improving, things are 
getting better, regionally people are integrating 
with Venezuela. Around the world people are 
starting to pay attention to Venezuela and 
they’re interested in what is happening. Every 
attempt to defeat Chavez and the revolution is 
stopped and Chavez comes out stronger and the 
revolution comes out stronger, the people come out more conscious.

We are denouncing things here that have never 
been talked about, even though they exist in 
other countries. On a public level, this puts the 
US in a really difficult position. They always do 
this sort of risk-benefit analysis. If they do 
assassinate Chavez what would happen? Would there 
really be a reaction around the world? 
 People 
would be up in arms, but would there be any sort 
of a unified reaction that could somehow harm the 
US? It’s probably not likely. What could 
countries do? Cripple the US economy? Militarily 
damage the US? No. So the other issue is what 
would happen in Venezuela? It would go into civil 
war. Does the US care? They care about the oil so 
what would they do? They would militarise [the 
country] just like they have done in Iraq.

Q: The US would care what the outcome is. They 
would be thinking, who is going to win a civil war?

Look what they have done in Iraq. The same thing 
happened in Iraq and now Iraq is in a civil war 
and [the US is] controlling pretty much the oil 
industry there ­ but it is a constant risk 
situation. As different as Venezuela and Iraq 
are, I think that is almost the study of what 
would happen here. So I think [assassination is] 
a very likely scenario that Chavez talks about 
all the time and the government is constantly 
investigating and taking security measures to prevent it.

Q: Chavez talks about assassination attempts all the time?

Sure, because it’s true. One, it’s true that [the 
Venezuelan government has] stopped a few of them, 
found evidence and things like that. Also because 
the more that you talk about it the less likely 
that it will happen. The more people who are 
aware, the more people who are consciously 
considering what would happen, what we would do, 
how we would react, and therefore preparing for 
that kind of scenario, which makes it more 
difficult because then it would be obvious if 
anything happened to Chavez what the source was.

From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue 
#<http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2007/716>716 4 July 2007.

---------------------
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Office Fax:   (604) 291-5944
Home:   Phone (604) 689-9510