- Introduction
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- The radical "Bolivarian Socialist"
government of Hugo Chavez has arrested a number of Colombian guerrilla
leaders and a radical journalist with Swedish citizenship and handed them
over to the right-wing regime of President Juan Manuel Santos,
earning the Colombian government's praise and gratitude. The close on-going
collaboration between a leftist President with a regime with a notorious
history of human rights violations, torture and disappearance of political
prisoners has led to widespread protests among civil liberty advocates,
leftists and populists throughout Latin America andEurope, while pleasing
the Euro-American imperial establishment.
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- On April 26, 2011, Venezuelan immigration
officials, relying exclusively on information from the Colombian secret
police (DAS), arrested a naturalized Swedish citizen and journalist (Joaquin
Perez Becerra) of Colombian descent, who had just arrived in the country.
Based on Colombian secret police allegations that the Swedish citizen
was a 'FARC leader', Perez was extradited to Colombia within
48 hours. Despite the fact that it was in violation of international diplomatic
protocols and the Venezuelan constitution, this action had the personal
backing of President Chavez. A month later, the Venezuelan armed forces
joined their Colombian counterparts and captured a leader of the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Guillermo Torres (with the nom de Guerra
Julian Conrado) who is awaiting extradition to Colombia in a Venezuelan
prison without access to an attorney. On March 17, Venezuelan Military
Intelligence (DIM) detained two alleged guerrillas from the National Liberation
Army (ELN), Carlos Tirado and Carlos Perez, and turned them over to the
Colombian secret police.
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- The new public face of Chavez as a partner
of the repressive Colombian regime is not so new after all. On December
13, 2004, Rodrigo Granda, an international spokesperson for the FARC, and
a naturalized Venezuelan citizen, whose family resided in Caracas, was
snatched by plain-clothes Venezuelan intelligence agents in downtown Caracas
where he had been participating in an international conference and secretly
taken to Colombia with the 'approval' of the Venezuelan Ambassador in Bogota.
Following several weeks of international protest, including from many
conference participants, President Chavez issued a statement describing
the 'kidnapping' as a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty and threatened
to break relations withColombia. In more recent times, Venezuela has
stepped up the extradition of revolutionary political opponents of Colombia's
narco-regime: In the first five months of 2009, Venezuela extradited
15 alleged members of the ELN and in November 2010, a FARC militant and
two suspected members of the ELN were handed over to the Colombian police.
In January 2011 Nilson Teran Ferreira, a suspected ELN leader, was delivered
to the Colombian military. The collaboration between Latin America's most
notorious authoritarian rightwing regime and the supposedly most
radical 'socialist' government raises important issues about the meaning of political
identities and how they relate to domestic and international politics
and more specifically what principles and interests guide state policies.
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- Revolutionary Solidarity and State Interests
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- The recent 'turn' in Venezuela politics,
from expressing sympathy and even support for revolutionary struggles and
movements in Latin America to its present collaboration with
pro-imperial rightwing regimes, has numerous historical precedents. It
may help to examine the contexts and circumstances of these collaborations:
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- The Bolshevik revolutionary government in Russia initially
gave whole hearted support to revolutionary uprisings in Germany, Hungary, Finland and
elsewhere. With the defeats of these revolts and the consolidation of
the capitalist regimes, Russian state and economic interests took prime
of place among the Bolshevik leaders. Trade and investment agreements,
peace treaties and diplomatic recognition between Communist Russia and
the Western capitalist states defined the new politics of "co-existence".
With the rise of fascism, the Soviet Union under Stalin further
subordinated communist policy in order to secure state-to-state alliances,
first with the Western Allies and, failing that, with Nazi Germany. The
Hitler-Stalin pact was conceived by the Soviets as a way to prevent a German
invasion and to secure its borders from a sworn rightwing enemy. As part
of Stalin's expression of good faith, he handed over to Hitler a number
of leading exiled German communist leaders, who had sought asylum in Russia.
Not surprisingly they were tortured and executed. This practice stopped
only after Hitler invaded Russia and Stalin encouraged the now
decimated ranks of German communists to re-join the 'anti-Nazi' underground
resistance.
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- In the early 1970's, as Mao's China reconciled
with Nixon's United States and broke with the Soviet Union, Chinese foreign
policy shifted toward supporting US-backed counter-revolutionaries, including
Holden Roberts in Angola and Pinochet in Chile. China denounced
any leftist government and movement, which, however faintly, had ties with
the USSR, and embraced their enemies, no matter how subservient they
were to Euro-American imperial interests.
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- In Stalin's USSR and Mao's China,
short-term 'state interests' trumped revolutionary solidarity. What were
these 'state interests'?
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- In the case of the USSR, Stalin gambled that a 'peace
pact' with Hitler's Germany would protect them from an imperialist
Nazi invasion and partially end the encirclement of Russia. Stalin
no longer trusted in the strength of international working class solidarity
to prevent war, especially in light of a series of revolutionary defeats
and the generalized retreat of the Left over the previous decades (Germany,
Span, Hungary and Finland) .The advance of fascism and the extreme right,
unremitting Western hostility toward the USSR and the Western European
policy of appeasing Hitler, convinced Stalin to seek his own peace pact
with Germany. In order to demonstrate their 'sincerity' toward its new
'peace partner', the USSR downplayed their criticism of the Nazis, urging
Communist parties around the world to focus on attacking the West rather
than Hitler's Germany, and gave into Hitler's demand to extradite German
Communist "terrorists" who had found asylum in the Soviet Union.
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- Stalin's pursuit of short term 'state interests'
via pacts with the "far right" ended in a strategic catastrophe:
Nazi Germany was free to first conquer Western Europe and then turned
its guns on Russia, invading an unprepared USSR and occupying half the
country. In the meantime the international anti-fascist solidarity movements
had been weakened and temporarily disoriented by the zigzags of Stalin's
policies.
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- In the mid-1970's, the Peoples Republic of China's
'reconciliation' with the US, led to a turn in international policy:
'US imperialism' became an allyagainst the greater evil 'Soviet
social imperialism'. As a result China, under Chairman Mao Tse Tung,
urged its international supporters to denounce progressive regimes receiving
Soviet aid (Cuba, Vietnam, Angola, etc.) and it withdrew its
support for revolutionary armed resistance against pro-US client states
in Southeast Asia. China's 'pact' with Washington was
to secure immediate 'state interests': Diplomatic recognition and the end
of the trade embargo. Mao's short-term commercial and diplomatic gains
were secured by sacrificing the more fundamental strategic goals of furthering
socialist values at home and revolution abroad.
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- As a result, China lost its credibility
among Third World revolutionaries and anti-imperialists, in exchange
for gaining the good graces of the White House and greater access to the
capitalist world market. Short-term "pragmatism' led to long-term
transformation: The Peoples Republic of China became a dynamic
emerging capitalist power, with some of the greatest social inequalities
in Asia and perhaps the world.
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- Venezuela: State Interests versus International Solidarity
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- The rise of radical politics in Venezuela,
which is the cause and consequence of the election of President Chavez(1999),
coincided with the rise of revolutionary social movements throughout Latin
America from the late 1990's to the middle of the first decade of
the 21st century (1995-2005). Neo-liberal regimes were toppled in Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina;
mass social movements challenging neo-liberal orthodoxy took hold everywhere;
the Colombian guerrilla movements were advancing toward the major cities;
and center-left politicians were elected to power in Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay,Ecuador and Uruguay.
The US economic crises undermined the credibility of Washington's
'free trade' agenda. The increasing Asian demand for raw materials stimulated
an economy boom in Latin America, which funded social programs and
nationalizations.
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- In the case of Venezuela, a failed US-backed
military coup and 'bosses' boycott' in 2002-2003, forced the Chavez government
to rely on the masses and turn to the Left. Chavez proceeded to "re-nationalize"
petroleum and related industries and articulate a "Bolivarian Socialist"
ideology.
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- Chavez' radicalization found a favorable
climate in Latin America and the bountiful revenues from the
rising price of oil financed his social programs. Chavez maintained a
plural position of embracing governing center-left governments, backing
radical social movements and supporting the Colombian guerrillas' proposals
for a negotiated settlement. Chavez called for the recognition of Colombia's
guerrillas as legitimate 'belligerents" not "terrorists'.
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- Venezuela's
foreign policy was geared toward isolating its main threat emanating
from Washington by promoting exclusively Latin American/Caribbean
organizations, strengthening regional trade and investment links and securing
regional allies in opposition to US intervention, military pacts,
bases and US-backed military coups.
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- In response to US financing of Venezuelan
opposition groups (electoral and extra parliamentary), Chavez has provided
moral and political support to anti-imperialist groups throughout Latin
America. After Israel and American Zionists began attacking Venezuela,
Chavez extended his support to the Palestinians and broadened ties with Iran and
other Arab anti-imperialist movements and regimes. Above all, Chavez strengthened
his political and economic ties with Cuba, consulting with the Cuban
leadership, to form a radical axis of opposition to imperialism. Washington's
effort to strangle the Cuban revolution by an economic embargo was effectively
undermined by Chavez' large-scale, long-term economic agreements with Havana.
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- Up until the later part of this decade, Venezuela's
foreign policy its 'state interests' coincided with the interests
of the left regimes and social movements throughout Latin America. Chavez
clashed diplomatically with Washington's client states in the hemisphere,
especially Colombia, headed by narco-death squad President Alvaro
Uribe (2002-2010). However recent years have witnessed several external
and internal changes and a gradual shift toward the center.
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- The revolutionary upsurge in Latin America began
to ebb: The mass upheavals led to the rise of center-left regimes, which,
in turn, demobilized the radical movements and adopted strategies relying
on agro-mineral export strategies, all the while pursuing autonomous foreign
policies independent of US-control. The Colombian guerrilla movements
were in retreat and on the defensive their capacity to buffer Venezuela from
a hostile Colombian client regime waned. Chavez adapted to these 'new
realities', becoming an uncritical supporter of the 'social liberal' regimes
of Lula in Brazil, Morales in Bolivia, Correa in Ecuador, Vazquez in Uruguay
and Bachelet in Chile. Chavez increasingly chose immediate diplomatic
support from the existing regimes over any long-term support, which might
have resulted from a revival of the mass movements. Trade ties with Brazil and Argentina and
diplomatic support from its fellow Latin American states against an increasingly
aggressive US became central to Venezuela's foreign policy: The basis
of Venezuelan policy was no longer the internal politics of the
center-left and centrist regimes but their degree of support for an independent
foreign policy.
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- Repeated US interventions failed
to generate a successful coup or to secure any electoral victories, against
Chavez. As a result Washingtonincreasingly turned to using external
threats against Chavez via its Colombian client state, the recipient of
$5 billion in military aid. Colombia's military build-up, its
border crossings and infiltration of death squads into Venezuela,
forced Chavez into a large-scale purchase of Russian arms and toward
the formation of a regional alliance (ALBA).
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- The US-backed military coup in Honduras precipitated
a major rethink in Venezuela's policy. The coup had ousted a democratically
elected centrist liberal, President Zelaya in Honduras, a member of ALBA and
set up a repressive regime subservient to the White House. However, the
coup had the effect of isolating the US throughout Latin America
not a single government supported the new regime in Tegucigalpa.
Even the neo-liberal regimes ofColombia, Mexico, Peru and Panama voted
to expel Honduras from the Organization of American States.
On the one hand, Venezuela viewed this 'unity' of the right and center-left
as an opportunity toward mending fences with the conservative regimes;
and on the other, it understood that the Obama Administration was ready
to use the 'military option' to regain its dominance.
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- The fear of a US military intervention
was greatly heightened by the Obama-Uribe agreement establishing seven US strategic
military bases near its border with Venezuela. Chavez wavered in
his response to this immediate threat: At one point he almost broke trade
and diplomatic relations with Colombia, only to immediately reconcile with
Uribe, although the latter had demonstrated no desire to sign on to a pact
of co-existence.
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- Meanwhile, the 2010 Congressional elections
In Venezuela led to a major increase in electoral support for the US-backed
right (approximately 50%) and their greater representation in Congress
(40%). While the Right increased their support inside Venezuela,
the Left in Colombia, both the guerrillas and the electoral opposition
lost ground. Chavez could not count on any immediate counter-weight to
a military provocation.
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- Chavez faced several options: The first was
to return to the earlier policy of international solidarity with radical
movements; the second was to continue working with the center-left
regimes while maintaining strong criticism and firm opposition to the US
backed neo-liberal regimes; and the thirdoption was to turn toward
the Right, more specifically to seek rapprochement with the newly elected
President of Colombia, Santos and sign a broad political, military and
economic agreement where Venezuela agreed to collaborate in eliminating
Colombia's leftist adversaries in exchange for promises of 'non-aggression'
(Colombia limiting its cross-border narco and military incursions).
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- Venezuela and
Chavez decided that the FARC was a liability and that support
from the radical Colombian mass social movements was not as important as
closer diplomatic relations with President Santos. Chavez has calculated
that complying with Santos political demands would provide greater
security to the Venezuelan state than relying on the support of the international
solidarity movements and his own radical domestic allies among the trade
unions and intellectuals.
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- In line with this Right turn, the Chavez
regime fulfilled Santos' requests arresting FARC/ELN guerrillas,
as well as a prominent leftist journalist, and extraditing them to a state
which has had the worst human rights record in the Americas for
over two decades, in terms of torture and extra-judicial assassinations.
This Right turn acquires an even more ominous character when one considers
that Colombia holds over 7600 political prisoners, over 7000 of whom are
trade unionists, peasants, Indians, students, in other words non-combatants.
In acquiescing to Santos requests, Venezuela did not
even follow the established protocols of most democratic governments:
It did not demand any guaranties against torture and respect for due process.
Moreover, when critics have pointed out that these summary extraditions
violated Venezuela's own constitutional procedures, Chavez launched
a vicious campaign slandering his critics as agents of imperialism engaged
in a plot to destabilize his regime.
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- Chavez's newfound ally on the Right, President
Santos has not reciprocated: Colombia still maintains close
military ties with Venezuela's prime enemy in Washington. Indeed, Santos vigorously
sticks to the White House agenda: He successfully pressured Chavez to
recognize the illegitimateregime of Lobos in Honduras- the
product of a US-backed coup in exchange for the return of ousted ex-President
Zelaya. Chavez did what no other center-left Latin American President has
dared to do: He promised to support the reinstatement of the illegitimate Honduran
regime into the OAS. On the basis of the Chavez-Santos agreement, Latin
American opposition to Lobos collapsed and Washington's strategic
goal was realized: A puppet regime was legitimized.
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- Chavez agreement with Santos to
recognize the murderous Lobos regime betrayed the heroic struggle of the
Honduran mass movement. Not one of the Honduran officials responsible
for over a hundred murders and disappearances of peasant leaders, journalists,
human rights and pro-democracy activists are subject to any judicial investigation.
Chavez has given his blessings to impunity and the continuation of an
entire repressive apparatus, backed by the Honduran oligarchy and the US
Pentagon.
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- In other words, to demonstrate his willingness
to uphold his 'friendship and peace pact' with Santos, Chavez was
willing to sacrifice the struggle of one of the most promising and courageous
pro-democracy movements in the Americas.
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- And what does Chavez seek in his accommodation
with the Right?
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- Security? Chavez has received only verbal
'promises', and some expressions of gratitude from Santos. But the
enormous pro-US military command and US mission remain in place.
In other words, there will be no dismantling of the Colombian
para-military-military forces massed along the Venezuelan border and the US military
base agreements, which threaten Venezuelan national security, will not
change.
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- According to Venezuelan diplomats, Chavez'
tactic is to 'win over' Santos from US tutelage. By
befriending Santos, Chavez hopes that Bogotawill not join in
any joint military operation with the US or cooperate in future
propaganda-destabilization campaigns. In the brief time since the Santos-Chavez
pact was made, an emboldened Washington announced an embargo
on the Venezuelan state oil company with the support of the Venezuelan
congressional opposition. Santos, for his part, has not complied with
the embargo, but then not a single country in the world has followed Washington's
lead. Clearly, President Santos is not likely to endanger the annual $10
billion dollar trade between Colombia and Venezuela in
order to humor the USSecretary of State Hilary Clinton's diplomatic
caprices.
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- Conclusion
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- In contrast to Chavez policy of handing over
leftist and guerrilla exiles to a rightist authoritarian regime, President
Allende of Chile (1970-73) joined a delegation that welcomed
armed fighters fleeing persecution in Bolivia and Argentina and
offered them asylum. For many years, especially in the 1980's,Mexico, under
center-right regimes, openly recognized the rights of asylum for guerrilla
and leftist refugees from Central America El Salvador andGuatemala.
Revolutionary Cuba, for decades, offered asylum and medical treatment
to leftist and guerrilla refugees from Latin American dictatorships and
rejected demands for their extradition. Even as late as 2006, when the
Cuban government was pursuing friendly relations with Colombia and when
its then Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque expressed his deep reservations
regarding the FARC in conversations with the author, Cuba refused to extradite
guerrillas to their home countries where they would be tortured and abused.
One day before he left office in 2011, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio
Lula da Silva denied Italy's request to extradite Cesare Battisti,
a former Italian guerrilla. As one Brazilian judge said and Chavez
should have listened: "At stake here is national sovereignty.
It is as simple as that".
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- No one would criticize Chavez efforts to
lessen border tensions by developing better diplomatic relations with Colombia and
to expand trade and investment flows between the two countries. What is
unacceptable is to describe the murderous Colombian regime as a "friend"
of the Venezuela people and a partner in peace and democracy,
while thousands of pro-democracy political prisoners rot in TB-infested
Colombian prisons for years on trumped-up charges. Under Santos, civilian
activists continue to be murdered almost every day. The most recent killing
was yesterday (June 9,2011): Ana Fabricia Cordoba, a leader of community-based
displaced peasants, was murdered by the Colombian armed forces. Chavez'
embrace of the Santos narco-presidency goes beyond the requirements
for maintaining proper diplomatic and trade relations. His collaboration
with the Colombian intelligence, military and secret police agencies in
hunting down and deporting Leftists (without due process!) smacks of complicity
in dictatorial repression and serves to alienate the most consequential
supporters of the Bolivarian transformation in Venezuela.
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- Chavez' role in legitimizing of the Honduran
coup-regime, without any consideration for the popular movements' demands
for justice, is a clear capitulation to the Santos
Obama agenda. This line of action places Venezuela's 'state' interests
over the rights of the popular mass movements inHonduras. Chavez' collaboration
with Santos on policing leftists and undermining popular struggles
in Honduras raises serious questions aboutVenezuela's claims
of revolutionary solidarity. It certainly sows deep distrust about Chavez
future relations with popular movements who might be engaged in struggle
with one of Chavez's center-right diplomatic and economic partners.
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- What is particularly troubling is that most
democratic and even center-left regimes do not sacrifice the mass social
movements on the altar of "security" when they normalize relations
with an adversary. Certainly the Right, especially the US, protects
its former clients, allies, exiled right-wing oligarch and even admitted
terrorists from extradition requests issued by Venezuela, Cuba and Argentina.
Mass murders and bombers of civilian airplanes manage to live comfortably
in Florida. Why Venezuela submits to the Right-wing demands
of the Colombians, while complaining about the US protecting
terrorists guilty of crimes in Venezuela, can only be explained by
Chavez ideological shift to the Right, making Venezuela more
vulnerable to pressure for greater concessions in the future.
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- Chavez is no longer interested in the support
from the radical left: His definition of state policy revolves around
securing the 'stability' of Bolivarian socialism in one country, even if
it means sacrificing Colombian militants to a police state and pro-democracy
movements in Honduras to an illegitimate US-imposed regime.
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- History provides mixed lessons. Stalin's
deals with Hitler were a strategic disaster for the Soviet people: Once
the Fascists got what they wanted they turned around and invaded Russia.
Chavez has so far not received any 'reciprocal' confidence-building concession
from Santos military machine. Even in terms of narrowly defined
'state interests', he has sacrificed loyal allies for empty promises.
The US imperial state is Santos primary ally and military
provider. China sacrificed international solidarity for
a pact with the US, a policy that led to unregulated capitalist exploitation
and deep social injustices.
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- When and if the next confrontation between
the US and Venezuela occurs, will Chavez, at least,
be able to count on the "neutrality" of Colombia? If past
and present relations are any indication, Colombia will side
with its client-master, mega-benefactor and ideological mentor. When a
new rupture occurs, can Chavez count on the support of the militants, who
have been jailed, the mass popular movements he pushed aside and the international
movements and intellectuals he has slandered? As the US moves
toward new confrontations with Venezuela and intensifies its
economic sanctions, domestic and international solidarity will be vital
for Venezuela's defense. Who will stand up for the Bolivarian revolution,
the Santos and Lobos of this "realist world"? or the
solidarity movements in the streets of Caracas and the Americas?
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