Anyone who believes that those opposed to the 'reforms' are 'fascists' has no understanding of what is happening in Venezuela. I was at the 'No' rally in Caracas yesterday and the tens of thousands of people present represented the cross-section of society - including many students and poor people - who believed in democracy and free speech. Surrounding the rally were heavily-armed police units as well as undercover police surveillance teams who were trying, unsuccessfully, to intimidate the protesters.

The 'No' rally was to be held today, but Chavez's supporters announced that they were going to organise a rally at the same place and the same time - such is their belief in free speech - and despite the short notice the turnout was massive. The reason why it is being led by students is because they are less easy to intimidate.

How many injust causes are there that attract the support of students in vast numbers and are opposed by the police?

The instinct of radicals in the West is to support Chavez because he portrays himself as a socialist but the reality this is a veneer to hide his lust for absolute power. And let's not forget that Chavez, a former paratrooper, once led an unsuccessful coup in 1998, such is his belief in democracy.

The majority of ordinary people in Venezuela do not want these reforms but are afraid to say so - such is the level of state intimidation.

I live in Caracas and I totally agree with the above comment. What Chavez is trying to do is create a dictatorship by claiming that it is all part of the 'reform' process. Why not have a vote on the social reforms and a vote on whether we want him in power until 2050? Because he knows that he may win the first one but will definately lose the second one.

Many of us in Venezuela are outraged that western liberals are attempting to tell us that we don't want democracy and instead should opt to become another Cuba. Yes of course there are many good things about Cuba but there are also many bad things - the poverty, the lack of basic freedoms and the secret police.

It is totally true that opposition to Chavez comes from all sections of society. The difference between the two protests - on Thursday and Friday - was that the 'no' protest represented people who had given up their day to protest, and the 'yes' protest was mainly people who had been brought to Caracas by the state. On Thursday the transit police were doing all they could to stop people reaching the protest; on Friday, they were doing everything to assist people to get there.

Ordinary working people such as myself (I am a teacher) are scared of Chavez. We know that if he forces through these 'reforms' we will soon lose the ability to speak freely. He has already closed most newspapers and TV stations that criticise him. That is why western liberals are making a grave mistake in giving their support to a militaristic thug whose only objective is to stay in power at all costs.

The amount of troll activity throughout IMC as the referendum approaches supports everything Chavez and his majority supporters are saying.

"Anyone who believes that those opposed to the 'reforms' are 'fascists' has no ..."

Nobody said that the opposition groups, organized by foreign governments and the CIA (which ARE Fascists) are any such thing. They're just people who've fallen for the Disinformation and Misinformation of the program directed against Chavez' Government, by those who already failed in a military coup attempt.

This is part two of their plot to topple the people's choice.

They fear not only the losses to their corporations who exploit Venezuela, but also, that like the rest of S. America, this will expose to the world that there is a better way of organizing than hyper-corporate communism.

"The reason why it is being led by students is because they are less easy to intimidate."

No, they're easier to co-opt, as the CIA has said for years. But even more students are organizing in support of Chavez, and they're doing it on their own, without the meddling of the CIA and related foreign agencies.

"How many injust causes are there that attract the support of students in vast numbers and are opposed by the police?"

Quite a few. In this vein alone, Ukraine's 'Orange Revolution' was a similar CIA operation ten years in the making, and the aftermath proved disastrous, as corruption and criminal activity plagued the CIA-sponsored candidate and his Government. The same is true of the CIA/Mossad-sponsored "Cedar Revolution" in Lebanon.

The reason is that these were organized and sponsored by outsiders, with outside interests at heart, and cared little what happened to the actual countries and people involved.

"The instinct of radicals in the West is to support Chavez ..."

Not radicals. The past six years, and the Madness caused by the people they oppose, have proven them to be the rational party.

The radicals are those like the Extremists in DC, who are actively working to topple yet another S. American Government who provides hope to his people, just as they're currently doing throughout the world.

"The majority of ordinary people in Venezuela do not want these reforms"

I guess the vote will tell the tale ...

"What Chavez is trying to do is create a dictatorship"

No, he is attempting to provide Venezuela with adequate protections from ever coming under the control of foreign-sponsored dictators again, who will allow the country to be exploited from the outside, in order to attain wealth and power.

The current CIA (and other agencies/governments) operations against the Government prove that these measures are necessary.

"Many of us in Venezuela are outraged that western liberals are attempting to tell us that we don't want democracy and ..."

So instead, you'll side with Western Neo-Conservatives (Fascists)?


Venezuela’s D-Day: Democratic Socialism or Imperial Counter-Revolution
The December 2, 2007 Constituent Referendum


By Prof James Petras

www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7470

November 28, 2007


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 head of the CIA, 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% of the voters approved of the constitutional amendments proposed by Chavez but also predicted a 60% 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% 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 cynically 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 praiseworthy of 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 (before or after the elections – 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 vicious 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 Trotskyist 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% 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 decisive 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) will 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, will lead to a massive 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.

"They're just people who've fallen for the Disinformation and Misinformation of the program directed against Chavez' Government, by those who already failed in a military coup attempt."

Do you really believe that the 100,000 people who came out to support the 'No' rally are just naive pawns of the US government?

Western liberals like to believe that Venezuela is a paradise for the poor and the oppressed. But try telling that to the homeless people who live in the centre of Caracas. We don't want to be controlled by anyone - we just want peace and freedom. The simple fact is that people are fleeing this country and they are going to Colombia which you doubtless believe is a repressive state. There are a lot of things wrong about Colombia but if you go to Bogota you will see far less poverty than you do in Caracas and you will see people who largely trust the police. You will also see a city with a liberal mayor who is at odds with the president. But that is the nature of democracy. If you read what Chavez's reforms will mean, one of the effects will be that local democracy will be neutered and the power will be transferred to one man.

That supposed CIA document was just an attempt by Chavez to smear his opponents. It is certainly not a new tactic and it is something that we have come to expect from someone prepared to go to any lengths that he can get away with to ensure that democracy in this country is destroyed.

>That supposed CIA document was just an attempt by Chavez to smear his opponents.

so, how come the US government hasn't denied that the memo is real, then? if it's a fake, you'd think that it'd come out and say it, but no. let's see if your oppposition buddies accept the result, my guess is that they won't, at least at first.

The problem with supporters of Chavez is that the truth does not matter. You claim that the document is genuine because the US Government has not denounced it as fake. That's not exactly proof. But the fact is that the US Government immediately denounced it as fake and independent analysts have agreed. Here is one media report:

'A Central Intelligence Agency spokesman called the document "a fake." Analysts, including investigators who had previously uncovered financing of Venezuelan opposition groups by the U.S. government, expressed doubts about the authenticity of the memo, said by Venezuelan officials to be part of a plan called "Operation Pliers." "I find the document quite suspect," said Jeremy Bigwood, an independent researcher in Washington. "There's not an original version in English, and the timing of its release is strange. Everything about it smells bad."'

But no doubt you will now claim that they are also being duped by the CIA.

Significantly not even the normally pliant local press is taking sides on this one.

The document is a crude fake which has not been produced by 'counterintelligence' for anyone with any objectivity to analyse. I am sure that the supporters of Chavez would desperately love the CIA to become involved but what they are facing - and what you have to accept - is that Chavez is being challenged by a popular revolt by a complete cross-section of society who are fed up with their country being led by a paranoid, thuggish despot.

"Do you really believe that the 100,000 people who came out to support the 'No' rally are just naive pawns of the US government?"

I'm certain they mean well, but they've obviously fallen for the Misinformation and scare tactics of the Opposition.

"If you read what Chavez's reforms will mean, one of the effects will be that local democracy will be neutered and the power will be transferred to one man."

That's actually not true, but by all means, post the list for us, and point out what you're talking about.

"That supposed CIA document was just an attempt by Chavez to smear his opponents."

No, it's proof that he has to take action to protect the country from those who already overthrew him once, and have tried ever since to demonize and isolate the country.

Well, there's an admission of losing the debate or being plain old nuts.

If this is about promoting the Bolivaran revolution, surely it's tactically unwise to place so much faith, power, etc in one man.

So much easier to assassinate one man to stop the process when all power has been concentrated in him. If the power was being devolved to the working class communities, then the Revolution would be a lot safer, no?

But far easier to see the world in "Great Man" / conspiracist terms than through the actions of the mass of people, no?