The San Francisco Examiner December 29, 2001

"The Scent of Another Coup"

by Conn Hallinan

There is the smell of a coup in the air these days. It was like this in
Iran just before the 1953 U.S.-backed coup overthrew the Mossedeah
government and installed the Shah. It has the feel of 1963 in South
Vietnam, before the military takeover switched on the light at the end of
the long and terrible Southeast Asian tunnel. It is hauntingly similar to
early September 1973, before the coup in Chile ushered in 20 years of
blood and darkness.

Early last month, the National Security Agency, the Pentagon and the U.S.
State Department held a two-day meeting on U.S. policy toward Venezuela.
Similar such meetings took place in 1953, 1963, and 1973, as well as
before coups in Guatemala, Brazil and Argentina. It should send a deep
chill down the backs of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the populist
coalition that took power in 1998.

The catalyst for the Nov. 5-7 interagency get together was a comment by
Chavez in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist assault on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon. While Chavez sharply condemned the attack, he
questioned the value of bombing Afghanistan, calling it "fighting
terrorism with terrorism." In response, the Bush Administration
temporarily withdrew its Ambassador and convened the meeting.

The outcome was a requirement that Venezuela "unequivocally" condemn
terrorism, including repudiating anything and anyone the Bush
Administration defines as "terrorist." Since this includes both Cuba
(which Venezuela has extensive trade relations with) and rebel groups in
neighboring Colombia (which Chavez is sympathetic to), the demand was the
equivalent of throwing down the gauntlet.

The spark for the statement might have been Sept. 11, but the dark clouds
gathering over Venezuela have much more to do with enduring matters--like
oil, land and power--than current issues like terrorism. The Chavez
government is presently trying to change the 60-year old agreement with
foreign oil companies that charges them as little as 1 percent in
royalties, plus hands out huge tax breaks. There is a lot at stake here.
Venezuela has 77 billion barrels of proven reserves, and is US's third
biggest source of oil. It is also a major cash cow for the likes of
Phillips Petroleum and ExxonMobil. If the new law goes through, U.S. and
French oil companies will have to pony up a bigger slice of their take.

A larger slice is desperately needed in Venezuela. In spite of the fact
that oil generates some $30 billion each year, 80 percent of Venezuelans
are, according to government figures, "poor," and half of those are
malnourished. Most rural Venezuelans have no access to land except to work
it for someone else, because 2 percent of the population controls 60
percent of the land.

The staggering gap between a tiny slice of "haves" and the sea of "have
nots" is little talked about in the American media, which tends to focus
on President Chavez's long-winded speeches and unrest among the urban
wealthy and middle class. U.S. newspapers covered the Dec. 10 "strike" by
business leaders and a section of the union movement protesting a series
of economic laws and land reform proposals, but not the fact that the
Chavez government has reduced inflation from 40 percent to 12 percent,
generated economic growth of 4 percent, and increased primary school
enrollment by one million students.

Rumblings from Washington, strikes by business leaders, and pot-banging
demonstrations by middle-class housewives are the fare most Americans get
about Venezuela these days. For any balance one has to go to the reporting
of local journalists John Marshall and Christian Parenti. In a Dec. 10
article in the Chicago-based bi-weekly, In These Times, the two reporters
give "the other side" that the US media always goes on about but rarely
practices: The attempts by the Venezuelan government to diversify its
economy, turn over idle land to landless peasants, encourage the growth of
coops based on the highly successful Hungarian model, increase health
spending fourfold, and provide drugs for 30 to 40 percent below cost.

But the alleviation of poverty is not on Washington's radar screen these
days. Instead, U.S. development loans have been frozen, and the State
Department's specialist on Latin America, Peter Romero, has accused the
Chavez government of supporting terrorism in Colombia, Bolivia and
Ecuador. These days that is almost a declaration of war and certainly a
green light to any anti-Chavez forces considering a military coup.

U.S. hostility to Venezuela's efforts to overcome its lack of development
has helped add that country to the South American "arc of instability"
that runs from Caracas in the north to Buenos Aires in the south, and
includes Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru. Failed neoliberal economic
policies, coupled with corruption and authoritarism have made the region a
power keg, as recent events in Argentina demonstrate.

And the Bush Administration's antidote?: Matches, incendiary statements,
and dark armies moving in the night.