COHA's VERY POOR ANALYSIS ON VENEZUELA: WEISBROT's MINI ME?

Chavez, as seen by the Lisbon press.

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs continues its undistinguished work on Venezuela. The current effort: “A Decade in Power: An Assessment of Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution”, by Ashley Wagner, is afflicted with the same shortcomings of their previous work: insufficient research, pro-Chavez bias and, even, plain ignorance of the reality of the country.
In the opening lines Wagner speaks of the 10-year celebration decreed by Chavez but fails to comment on how this was done. Hours before the day arrived, Chavez felt it would be a good idea to celebrate and ordered all Venezuelan business sites closed down. Most Venezuelans went to work, not knowing about the caudillo’s decision. Shops were opened, private hospitals and clinics started to work, shops opened and bakeries offered their daily bread. In rage, Chavez ordered the army on the streets, forcing merchants to close down. Only then the “spontaneous” celebration could proceed. This grotesque event, that says a lot about the kind of Nero-type madness that afflicts Chavez should have merited the comment of any serious analyst, but not Wagner’s.
Her review of the Social reforms sounds suspiciously like the paper by Mark Weisbrot et al on the same subject, one that I have taken apart in my blog (“Memo to Weisbrot et Al”) http://www.lasarmasdecoronel.blogspot.com/. She says: “After the recuperation of the control of the national petroleum company…the resulting vast increase in government revenue…” Wagner makes this sound like if taking control of the company resulted in greater revenues. Nothing of the sort! What Weisbrot et al and now Wagner call “control” was the takeover of the company by his followers, led by Rafael Ramirez, which has led to the company losing about 800,000 barrels per day in production capacity, as well as much corruption and deterioration in all aspects. Increased revenues were the result of oil prices jumping from $30 per barrel to $120 per barrel. Even a failing company could make more money with those prices. Today, the company cannot even pay its contractors on time and is failing clients because of lack of production.
The author mentions a “Mision Vuelta al Campo” as one building healthcare facilities nationwide and providing surgery for cataracts. Obviously she is mixing up several things. Mision Barrio Adentro is the one providing free medical care (of low quality) while “Vuelta al Campo” is an imitation of the Chinese policy of encouraging the urban poor to return to the countryside. How is Chavez doing this? By allowing the urban poor to invade productive private land in the countryside, taking over the cattle and trying to run the operation, until the whole thing predictably collapses. Hundreds of private farms have been invaded, with the protection of the Chavez regime, only to start these farms on a one-way trip to ruin.
The author continues the eulogy: “By 2005, illiteracy was essentially eradicated in the country. State sponsored literacy and educational programs also resulted in substantial gains in middle and higher education enrollment. Enrollment rates nearly doubled from 1999 to 2008, the period of time spanning Chavez’s term”. The eradication of the illiteracy is a lie. UNESCO has had to deny several times that this is so. The illiteracy rate in Venezuela remains at some 7 percent; the same rate Chavez found when he took over in 1998. Why these so-called analysts are unable to check the UNESCO report is beyond my understanding. The list of countries can be seen in the link: http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:GhbbPeFnFFIJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate+UNESCO+report+on+literacy&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=us In this list Venezuela has a 93 percent literacy rate and is number 72 in the ranking. So much for this lie.
The author claims that shortening the workweek from 44 to 36 hours was done to prevent exploitation! The normal international workweek in the office is 40 hours and in the factories 44 hours. Shortening the workweek only helps to increase costs and to condemn many industries to bankruptcy. At this moment they are considering to cut it again, to 30 hours, “in order to increase employment”. These people are out of their minds.
Again the author relies on the Weisbrot et al' s whitewash when she says that the GDP “has doubled” and that nationalizations were “wildly popular and appreciated”. This is far from being the case. These takeovers of productive businesses such as the Electricidad de Caracas, the cement companies, the steel company SIDOR and the telephone company CANTV are ruining these companies and driving foreign direct investment out of the country (FDI is now negative).
The author adds this sugary statement: “his revolution showed a generosity of spirit which was almost unparalleled in terms of the often significant financial contributions and sharing of the country's petroleum revenues for educational and medical services, in addition to a wide roster of foreign aid and acts of goodwill”. This is a truly repugnant statement to any Venezuelan who loves his/her country. Chavez has been financing Castro’s Cuba since 2004, at some $2 billion per year, money that belongs to us. He has been giving money and free oil to his ideological friends, Morales, Correa, Ortega and Kirchner. He has been squandering Venezuela’s resources in order to consolidate a personal political project. And this ignorant lady says that this shows Chavez’s generosity of spirit! Chavez is giving money to Hollywood actors like Danny Glover ($20 million) to make films to enhance his image. He is giving Joseph Kennedy’s organization “subsidized” fuel oil to give to the U.S. “poor”, who have an income ten times higher than the Venezuelan poor. The ignorant lady fails to see that Chavez is not generous but prodigal with our money. The $800,000 moneybag intended for Cristina Kirchner in Argentina was only one of several deliveries of our money to finance Kirchner’s presidential campaign. Is this generosity of spirit?
The author is definitely just a soldier in Weisbrots’s pro-Chavez army. She quotes” statistical data from the CEPR, showing that social spending in Venezuela per person has more than tripled from 1998-2006”. In fact what has tripled is the spending on pension funds (social security) a very corrupt and inefficient social service that has never worked. When this effect is removed, says Economist Francisco Rodriguez (“The Empty Revolution”, Foreign Affairs, May-June 2008) the social expenditure that remains is not greater, even somewhat lower than that of pre-Chavez’s governments. This “analysis” by Wagner is just an echo of Weisbrot’s “academic” work.
The author repeats the ignorant version of the “U.S. led coup of April 2002”. The lady was not there. I was. What happened was that 700,000 Venezuelans marched on the presidential headquarters, Chavez got panicky, asked the army to repress the marchers, the army refused and asked for his resignation instead. This resignation was announced in the early hours of April 12, 2002, over national TV. Ms. Wagner/Weisbrot was not there. I was. General Baduel (now also opposed to Chavez) put him back in power in a palace countercoup. The lady calls RCTV actions “chicanery”. RCTV was broadcasting what was taking place, in spite of Chavez’s frantic orders to suppress the information. I was there. I saw it all. Ms. Wagner is ignorant of the facts and has embraced non-critically the “CIA coup version”. Chavez has spent millions of dollars selling that version and has made some inroads but the truth is stubbornly coming through.
The rest of the paper, where the author shows a pronounced pro-Chavez bias is so pitiful that I will not even comment on it. She even suggests that the prevailing lower oil prices will not affect Chavez. This shows her extreme ignorance of our reality.
Chavez’s little army in Washington DC, led by Commander Weisbrot, marches on.

HERE IS THE COHA REPORT.

A Decade in Power: An Assessment of Hugo Chávez's Bolivarian Revolution
By Ashley Wagner, COHA Research Associate
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a former paratrooper turned socialist revolutionary and regional leader, declared a national holiday for February 2, the tenth anniversary of his being in power. On the day of the newly mandated celebration, Chávez reminded Venezuelans of the prosperity the country has witnessed over the last decade. He rallied his supporters with a speech proclaiming that his administration had encapsulated “three words: revolution, independence and socialism.” He proclaimed to the thousands of sympathizers lining Caracas' streets that the spirit of Venezuela's forefather, Simon Bolivar, had been revived in him ten years ago, and assisted in the effort to liberate the Venezuelan people. Chávez, the founder of the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (United Socialist Party of Venezuela), also used the occasion to issue a new document, “The Achievement in 10 years of Revolution.” It outlines the government's accomplishments such as economic reform, social welfare, and the prospect of major land reform. Chávez triumphantly told his followers that, “We have done in 10 years what couldn't be done in one century.”
Social Reforms After the recuperation of the control of the national petroleum company PDVSA and nationalization of foreign-held petroleum deposits and drilling sites, the resulting vast increase in governmental revenue began to be allocated towards critical achievements in living conditions for Venezuela's poorest citizens, through public health, education, and job training programs. Initiatives such as the “Mission Vuelta al Campo” permitted the funding, construction, expansion and refurbishment of healthcare facilities nationwide that ultimately benefited tens of thousands of ordinary Venezuelans. Free medical care allowed nearly two hundred thousand surgeries for cataracts and other ocular diseases that were performed nation-wide.
A poor Caracas native testified that thanks to Chávez's “Rescatando La Sonrisa” dentistry program, which arose out of universal healthcare, she was able to get her teeth fixed for the first time in her life. Olivia Delfino, an impoverished Caracas native, voted to re-elect Chávez in 2004 due to her new-found literacy. “Can you imagine what it has meant to me, at 52 years old, to now have a chance to read? It's transformed my life,” she cried to an American reporter, just after the election. Delfino was not the only one affected by universal education and programs such as “Mission Robinson.” By 2005, illiteracy was essentially eradicated in the country. State sponsored literacy and educational programs also resulted in substantial gains in middle and higher education enrollment. Enrollment rates nearly doubled from 1999 to 2008, the period of time spanning Chávez's term.
Aside from improvement in everyday life, Chávez secured longer lasting social welfare programs like the “social stability funds” that guaranteed workers “fundamental rights such as retirement, pensions, vacations, and prenatal and postnatal leave.” Under the non-exploitative workers' program, the work week was shortened from 44 hours to 36 hours, and employers were prohibited from forcing wage earners to work overtime (Prensa Latina). He also raised the minimum wage to $286 per month, boasting the highest wage in Latin America. In addition to subsidizing basic food stuff by 40 percent, his decree on land reform, which aimed to eliminate Venezuela's largest estates, while still allowing the plantation owners to hold huge swaths of land, permitted him to re-distribute 3 million hectares of land to the rural landless. For those most impoverished, Chávez put roofs over their heads by building block housing projects. To many observers, Chávez achieved the seemingly impossible over the course of a decade.
Economic Reforms Even though Chávez has been mainly successful in aiding the poor of Venezuela while decreasing the overall poverty rate to less than one third of the population, he has been aggressively criticized for his inability to significantly reduce the country's reliance on oil revenue and faulted for the nationalization of numerous private businesses, which seemed to be not worth the effort. Venezuelans have seen the governmental takeover, or partial takeover, of major electricity and telephone companies, reversing much of the privatization that occurred in the 1990s. Chávez bought an 82.14% stake in Electricidad de Caracas (AES Corp.) and a 28.5% stake in CANTV (Verizon Communications) back in 2007. Such takeovers – some dating back as early as 2003, and with the real GDP nearly doubling (growing an astronomical 95 percent in about six years) – were wildly popular and appreciated. On the other hand, foreign investments have plummeted in Venezuela while sky rocketing in many other Latin American countries. Peru, comparable in population to Venezuela, had an intake of nearly US$5.4 billion, with Venezuela taking in a meager US$500 million. Such down plunges have angered Chávez opponents who claim that his socialized businesses and government-subsidized products have hurt their small businesses. A Venezuelan native and Chávez adversary reported to the BBC that a newly opened and government-subsidized Mercal supermarket will put her modest food shop out of business.
Chávez's revolution has alienated foreign governments by intervening into the external affairs of other countries. But his revolution showed a generosity of spirit which was almost unparalleled in terms of the often significant financial contributions and sharing of the country's petroleum revenues for educational and medical services, in addition to a wide roster of foreign aid and acts of goodwill. In 1999 he agreed to export cheap oil to the Caribbean and Castro's Cuba, America's mortal foe. In 2007, Chávez upset the U.S. again by sending oil to Iran after riots erupted regarding petrol shortages. Chávez also has intentionally tried to isolate himself from the U.S. in order to generate authentic indigenous customs and practices. He then created the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), a trade bloc including members from Bolivia, Nicaragua, Honduras, Dominica, and Cuba. Currently, ALBA is discussing the possibility of a regional currency which member states would use for intra-bloc trade. The primary goal of introducing a monetary union to Latin America is to reduce their dependence on the U.S. dollar.
Regardless of what critics may report, most of the population has reaped some of the many rewards that nationalization has provided in the form of governmental surplus. This, in turn, has created numerous social programs, which has had him promote social endeavors that have managed to stimulate the Venezuelan economy, evident in statistical data from the CEPR, showing that social spending in Venezuela per person has more than tripled from 1998-2006.
Presidential Challenges Although the anti-American leader and close friend of Fidel Castro, has maintained the longest running presidential term since the country restored democracy over four decades ago, numerous beneficial changes have been generated. But Chávez's presidency has not gone unchallenged. Chávez, who had first led a failed coup before being elected at the polls, faced a military coup of his own in 2002. Against the backdrop of Chávez supporters clashing with anti-Chávez protestors, he was forced to resign his power and was detained at a Venezuelan military base, while business leader Pedro Carmona was being introduced as the country's interim president. Venezuelan soldiers loyal to Chávez, and of course those from the shanty towns who had been deprived of much information about what was happening downtown by the chicanery of the anti-Chávez television channel RCTV, succeeded in mounting a counter-coup that returned Chávez to power. Later, Chávez adamantly insisted, with objective evidence to support him, that the U.S. was involved in the attempt to overthrow him.
Just a year later, 3.2 million Venezuelans demanded a recall referendum to end Chávez's presidential term prematurely. The National Electoral Council (CNE) dismissed the petition, stating that many signatures had been gathered before the mid-point of Chávez's term, a constitutional technicality that the government was able to make use of. Furthermore, pro-Chávez groups reported being coerced into signing the petition at their workplace, which led to more questioning as to the validity of the document. Three months later, 3.6 million signatures were gathered in a span of four days once again to protest Chávez's presidency. Although riots broke out because Chávez had accused the petitioners of fraud, the CNE granted a recall referendum. However, Chávez was able to mobilize 59% of the voters in a record voter turnout to put down the recall motion.
Despite a backing of 50 percent and a landslide victory in 2006, Chávez failed to gain enough support for the passage of an amendment to the constitution that would allow him to run for the presidency in 2007. Chávez's fluctuating popularity would now be put to the test in the upcoming February 15 continuous re-election referendum, which calls for the removal of term limits on a long roster of popularly elected positions. If the referendum were to pass, the results of the election would still be unpredictable. If the referendum fails, then Chávez would be required to leave office at the end of his six year term in 2013, culminating almost a decade and a half as Venezuela's leader.
Regardless, Chávez now has even further challenged the opposition by indicating that he may not even accept a referendum defeat and, in such an eventuality, would attempt to again try to pass it sometime in the future, stating that “there's no limit in the constitution regarding the number of times that an amendment can be attempted,” although some of his opponents would fiercely disagree.
The Future of Venezuela Alberto Barrera, a reputable writer, accused the Venezuelan leader of “promising Venezuelans paradise but that paradise, which he calls socialism, depends on oil above $120.” Now, although such a tart remark may be more revealing of Barrera's skeptical politics than a telling insight into reality, he might have a point. As of only days ago, world oil prices stood at a meager $40 per barrel. Nonetheless, Chávez assured the world that his revolution will withstand the American-fueled economic crisis. He may be right. The Burlington County Times, amongst others, have projected oil prices might ascend to $60 per barrel. If gas prices are truly on the rise, Chávez won't have to wait it out too long before the national oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, starts raking in money once again. As long as oil is being bought and sold at a profitable price (around $60 per barrel), Chávez's social programs can stay afloat even after his $42 billion in hard currency savings run out. In regards to ties with the United States, Chávez has had a rocky history with his Northern neighbor. In an appearance before the United Nations, Chávez dubbed President George W, Bush “the devil.” With such saucy language in the background leaving a troubled legacy, interactions with the U.S. since President Obama's inauguration have failed to improve. While Obama offered to open talks with Venezuela to foster better relations, Chávez seemed almost uninterested to the U.S. leader's previous green light for diplomatic talks, perhaps due to Obama's perception of Chávez as a destructive force. Specifically, Obama has recognized him as “being a force that has interrupted progress in the region.” Chávez responded, arguing that Obama had the “same stench” as Bush. The prospect of Obama and Chávez conversing and forging the beginnings of a diplomatic relationship is encouraged by the fact that the U.S. leader has promised to no longer ignore Latin America and its multiple plights. Obama has already met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and speaks publicly about engaging in talks with longtime U.S. adversary Cuba. Hugo Chávez's ten year legacy culminates with the February 15 vote on a re-election referendum, which to an extent will decide the future course of himself and his Revolution.