[R-G] CIA Venezuela Destabilization Memo Surfaces

[Anthony Fenton]

November 28, 2007
COUNTERPUNCH EXCLUSIVE!
Counterattack as Fateful Referendum Looms
CIA Venezuela Destabilization Memo Surfaces
http://counterpunch.org/
By JAMES PETRAS
On November 26, 2007 the Venezuelan government broadcast and  
circulated a confidential memo from the US embassy to the CIA which  
is devastatingly revealing of US clandestine operations and which  
will influence the referendum this Sunday, December 2, 2007.

The memo sent by an embassy official, Michael Middleton Steere, was  
addressed to the Director of Central Intelligence, Michael Hayden.  
The memo was entitled 'Advancing to the Last Phase of Operation  
Pincer' and updates the activity by a CIA unit with the acronym  
'HUMINT' (Human Intelligence) which is engaged in clandestine action  
to destabilize the forth-coming referendum and coordinate the civil  
military overthrow of the elected Chavez government. The Embassy- 
CIA's polls concede that 57 per cent of the voters approved of the  
constitutional amendments proposed by Chavez but also predicted a 60  
per cent abstention.

The US operatives emphasized their capacity to recruit former Chavez  
supporters among the social democrats (PODEMOS) and the former  
Minister of Defense Baduel, claiming to have reduced the 'yes' vote  
by 6 per cent from its original margin. Nevertheless the Embassy  
operatives concede that they have reached their ceiling, recognizing  
they cannot defeat the amendments via the electoral route.

The memo then recommends that Operation Pincer (OP) [Operación  
Tenaza] be operationalized. OP involves a two-pronged strategy of  
impeding the referendum, rejecting the outcome at the same time as  
calling for a 'no' vote. The run up to the referendum includes  
running phony polls, attacking electoral officials and running  
propaganda through the private media accusing the government of fraud  
and calling for a 'no' vote. Contradictions, the report emphasizes,  
are of no matter.

The CIA-Embassy reports internal division and recriminations among  
the opponents of the amendments including several defections from  
their 'umbrella group'. The key and most dangerous threats to  
democracy raised by the Embassy memo point to their success in  
mobilizing the private university students (backed by top  
administrators) to attack key government buildings including the  
Presidential Palace, Supreme Court and the National Electoral  
Council. The Embassy is especially full of praise for the ex-Maoist  
'Red Flag' group for its violent street fighting activity.  
Ironically, small Trotskyist sects and their trade unionists join the  
ex-Maoists in opposing the constitutional amendments. The Embassy,  
while discarding their 'Marxist rhetoric', perceives their opposition  
as fitting in with their overall strategy.

The ultimate objective of 'Operation Pincer' is to seize a  
territorial or institutional base with the 'massive support' of the  
defeated electoral minority within three or four days (presumably  
after the elections though this is not clear. JP) backed by an  
uprising by oppositionist military officers principally in the  
National Guard. The Embassy operative concede that the military  
plotters have run into serous problems as key intelligence operatives  
were detected, stores of arms were decommissioned and several  
plotters are under tight surveillance.

Apart from the deep involvement of the US, the primary organization  
of the Venezuelan business elite (FEDECAMARAS), as well as all the  
major private television, radio and newspaper outlets have been  
engaged in a campaign of fear and intimidation campaign. Food  
producers, wholesale and retail distributors have created artificial  
shortages of basic food items and have provoked large scale capital  
flight to sow chaos in the hopes of reaping a 'no' vote.

President Chavez Counter-Attacks

In a speech to pro-Chavez, pro-amendment nationalist business-people  
(Entrepreneurs for Venezuela  EMPREVEN) Chavez warned the President  
of FEDECAMARAS that if he continues to threaten the government with a  
coup, he would nationalize all their business affiliates. With the  
exception of the Trotskyists and other sects, the vast majority of  
organized workers, peasants, small farmers, poor neighborhood  
councils, informal self-employed and public school students have  
mobilized and demonstrated in favor of the constitutional amendments.

The reason for the popular majority is found in a few of the key  
amendments: One article expedites land expropriation facilitating re- 
distribution to the landless and small producers. Chavez has already  
settled over 150,000 landless workers on 2 million acres of land.  
Another amendment provides universal social security coverage for the  
entire informal sector (street sellers, domestic workers, self- 
employed) amounting to 40 per cent of the labor force. Organized and  
unorganized workers' workweek will be reduced from 40 to 36 hours a  
week (Monday to Friday noon) with no reduction in pay. Open admission  
and universal free higher education will open greater educational  
opportunities for lower class students. Amendments will allow the  
government to by-pass current bureaucratic blockage of the  
socialization of strategic industries, thus creating greater  
employment and lower utility costs. Most important, an amendment will  
increase the power and budget of neighborhood councils to legislate  
and invest in their communities.

The electorate supporting the constitutional amendments is voting in  
favor of their socio-economic and class interests; the issue of  
extended re-election of the President is not high on their  
priorities: And that is the issue that the Right has focused on in  
calling Chavez a 'dictator' and the referendum a 'coup'.

The Opposition

With strong financial backing from the US Embassy ($8 million dollars  
in propaganda alone according to the Embassy memo) and the business  
elite and 'free time' by the right-wing media, the Right has  
organized a majority of the upper middle class students from the  
private universities, backed by the Catholic Church hierarchy, large  
swaths of the affluent middle class neighborhoods, entire sectors of  
the commercial, real estate and financial middle classes and  
apparently sectors of the military, especially officials in the  
National Guard. While the Right has control over the major private  
media, public television and radio back the constitutional reforms.  
While the Right has its followers among some generals and the  
National Guard, Chavez has the backing of the paratroops and legions  
of middle-rank officers and most other generals.

The outcome of the Referendum of December 2 is a major historical  
event first and foremost for Venezuela but also for the rest of the  
Americas. A positive vote (Vota 'Sí') will provide the legal  
framework for the democratization of the political system, the  
socialization of strategic economic sectors, empower the poor and  
provide the basis for a self-managed factory system. A negative vote  
(or a successful US-backed civil-military uprising) would reverse the  
most promising living experience of popular self-rule, of advanced  
social welfare and democratically based socialism. A reversal,  
especially a military dictated outcome, would lead to a blood bath,  
such as we have not seen since the days of the Indonesian Generals'  
Coup of 1966, which killed over a million workers and peasants or the  
Argentine Coup of 1976 in which over 30,000 Argentines were murdered  
by the US- backed Generals.

A decisive vote for 'Sí' will not end US military and political  
destabilization campaigns but it will certainly undermine and  
demoralize their collaborators. On December 2, 2007 the Venezuelans  
have a rendezvous with history.

James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton  
University, New York, owns a 50 year membership in the class  
struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in brazil and  
argentina and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed). His new  
book with Henry Veltmeyer, Social Movements and the State: Brazil,  
Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina, will be published in October 2005. He  
can be reached at: jpetras at binghamton.edu