Carrasquillo 1
Christopher Carrasquillo
His 267
May 2013
Jose L. Renique Hugo Chavez: Saint for the poor, Enemy of Capitalism A revolutionist is a supporter of political or social revolution. Whenever someone feels that the society they live in is oppressed whether by a foreign or domestic influence, revolutionists arise to bring about change however they see fit. While some revolutionists are often viewed in infamy to others such as Hitler, the people who benefited during the better years of their rule tend to view these revolutionists as heroes. One of these well known revolutionists is Hugo Chavez, and while he's known to be hated by both foreign and domestic groups, he is considered a hero to many others. Hugo Chavez was born July 28, 1954 in the town of Sabenta. He was of mixed race and lived in poverty for most of his childhood life (Kozloff 18). Despite being poor, both of his parents were highly educated compared to most people in Venezuela, and thus taught him the importance of studying and education. It was during his childhood that Hugo Chavez was introduced to Jose Esteban Ruiz Guevara, and thus Simon Bolivar (indepthinfo). Bolivar was a revolutionist who helped to free much of Latin America from Spanish control and even attempted to create a nationalist government in Latin America before his death (biography). Essentially, all of these events during Hugo Chavez's childhood helped to shape his goals and inspirations as president. While in college at Venezuelan Academy of Military Sciences, Chavez participated in a four year officer training program which by 1975 he graduated with the rank of sub-lieutenant (indepthinfo). During his time in the military, Chavez spent much of his early carrier experiencing the effects of neo liberalism throughout Latin America. As Chavez had witnessed Carrasquillo 2 the growing increase of poverty and business corruption, he began to grow distant of the two party systems in Venezuela and even started his own group in the Spirit and Morals of Simon Bolivar known as the Movimiento Boliviariano Revolutionario 200 (MBR 200) (Kozloff 46). What started out as a small group formed by Chavez and 3 close colleges became a calling card for many low ranking military officers and citizens with the same beliefs. Although there was plenty of motivation for reforming Venezuela's government, no serious attempts began to take place until after 1989. On February 27, 1989 thousands of citizens in Caracas and other major cities protested against the recent fair and transportation increases established by the current president Carlos Andres Perez (Kozloff 44). As many roads and traffic lanes continued to be blocked and riots and looting began to spread (Oliver), Perez called in the military to calm the situation. This resulted in the frequent use of firing onto the crowds and the deaths of over 300 people by the end of the protest on March 4 (Kozloff 46). What was most alarming about this incident was that practically no one, not even Perez, was ever criminally prosecuted for the events that occurred. It was upon hearing this that Chavez and his followers realized they needed stage a coup in order to bring order into a corrupted Venezuelan government. On February 4th 1992, Hugo Chavez led a coup to over through the government of President Carlos Andres Perez. In this plan, Chavez along with six thousand other troops attacked Caracas and three other cities in order to either kill or capture the President. Despite spending years preparing for this coup, there were two serious setbacks which ultimately led to its failure. One was that Carlos Andres Perez was warned about the coup early enough to cut communications between the rebels, making the coordinating the troops difficult (indepthinfo). Another handicap was that the coup was unable to entice the public into cooperating with the coup (Oliver). Despite having the power of tanks, paratroopers, and even armored troops at his side, within twelve hours, Chavez was forced to surrender and was sent to Yare prison (Kozloff 48). Despite losing the coup, word about the coup as well as the television appearance that Chavez was allowed to have before being sent to prison, caused a huge rush for Venezuelan support for Chavez which would benefit him greatly over the course of the next few years. Carrasquillo 3 Hugo Chavez only spent two years in prison before being pardoned by current president Rafael Caldera in 1994 (Kozloff 54). It was soon after his release that Chavez began to create his own political party, the Movement for the Fifth Republic (MVR), and after realizing the growing popular support that he had thought Venezuela and Latin America he announced his presidential candidacy in Mexico for the 1998 Venezuelan election (Kozloff 54). Despite no positive support from the media (Oliver) and many upper and middle class citizens of Venezuela voting against him, Hugo Chavez won the election with a 56.2 percent of the voting population, which was one of the largest margins held by any candidate in the history of Venezuela (Kozloff 56). Since the very beginning, one of Hugo Chavez's first goals in improving Venezuela was to take control of the oil industry. One of Venezuela's largest natural resource was oil. "Venezuela is the fifth largest oil exporter in the world and the fourth largest supplier of crude oil to the United States" (Kozloff 7). Throughout his pre-presidential years, Chavez had learned firsthand that Venezuela's oil industry (the PdVESA) had been used to the main benefit of the United States especially under the rule of Luis Giusti. Luis Giusti, who was the head of the PdVESA from 1994-1999, as Chavez states it "identified too closely with foreign oil men, as opposed to Venezuelan interests" (Kozloff 9). One of the biggest largest examples of this was that during Giusti's control over the PdVESA, he was constantly going over production quotas established by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and continued to distribute them to foreign and domestic areas. While producing products exponentially may seem like a good thing for the PdVESA, it was economically devastating for Venezuela. With an increased amount of crude oil, barrels of oil sold for as little as $8.43 each during the time of Giusti's rule (Kozloff 24). Foreign buyers wound up being the main groups to benefit from this overproduction while the Venezuelan economy suffered. The overall impact of Giusti's changes in policy was the slow privatization of the PdVESA. While the Venezuelan government was earning less money through the PdVESA, Giusti as well as many other executives were living in luxury with high salaries. Many Venezuelans who worked for the company during this time were not given any increases in wages during this time and were often victimized with a variety of racism and environmental issues such as oil spills, random fires, and contamination of rivers (Kozloff 15). Even certain Venezuelan business Carrasquillo 4 regulation agencies such as the Ministry of Energy and Mines as well as the OPEC were losing their hold over the PdVESA. What was most shocking of all was that American media was often claiming Giusti to be a sort of hero to Venezuela and in the U.S. The American Press even made a statement that even though Giusti "has no political interests, he has been mentioned as a future presidential candidate" (Kozloff 11). While this may seem like a harmless promotion, the impact that the U.S. has had in influencing Latin American Politics is nothing short of significant so a harmless promotion such as this could have easily led to Giusti becoming President had their continued to be no effort by the Venezuelan government to deprivatize the PdVESA. One of the first actions Hugo Chavez took to deprivatize the PdVESA and the oil industry in Venezuela was firing Luis Giusti and decreasing production of crude oil. While the decrease in the production of crude oil did cause some issues in certain countries (especially in the United States and Europe), the price per barrel of crude oil greatly began to rise and create more profits for Venezuela as well as other oil producing countries. One major move that Hugo Chavez made to stop the spread of the privatization of oil industries in Venezuela was the creation and passing of the Hydrocarbons law in 2001. Under this constitution, private corporations had to pay almost twice the amount of royalty rates (30 percent) that they usually had to pay and forbade the privatization of the PdVESA (Kozloff 25). It also allowed the PdVESA to make more profitable deals in joint-venture projects involving exploration, exploitation, transportation and delivery by promising a minimum 51 percent share in all future products (freerepublic). Overall, the Hydrocarbons law helped to provide more money to the Venezuelan government as well as turn away the idea of making public corporations private. In order to gain better control and increase the effectiveness of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, Hugo Chavez appointed Ali Rodriguez as its new head. Rodriguez, who was a former communist rebel who later on became influenced by many left wing parties (Kozloff 24), wound up being one of the best assets towards Chavez's goals, as his policies helped to convince other oil production companies such as Angola, Mexico, Norway, Oman, and Russia to also decrease their oil supplies thus increasing the price of oil throughout the world (Kozloff 26). With greater economic strength, Chavez began to use the profits of the oil industry in order to start a series of social programs to help the majority (poor) in Venezuela. Essentially, many of Carrasquillo 5 the programs that Hugo Chavez established were based off his time living in poverty as a child where he experienced a lack of food, economic opportunities and education (Kozloff 19). With Venezuela, on average, growing about 51 percent of the food it consumed (Lamarni), Chavez began to expand and increase the production of farm lands throughout Venezuela. By 2012, Venezuela began to grow up to 71 percent of the food consumed, and expanded in variety certain crops such as sorghum, corn, carrots, and soy (Oliver). The increase in food also allowed for many free food programs to be installed such as the red PDVAL and the school feeding program which helped to decrease starvation rates throughout Venezuela. With the number of children attending school as low as 6 million in 1998, and less than 1 million students on average attending universities, Chavez created programs to increase educational opportunities throughout Venezuela. By 2011, up to 93 percent of Venezuelan children enrolled in school and (thanks to the Mission Robinson II program) students were now able to enroll in higher levels of education (Lamarni). Due to poor economic decisions made by the former presidents of Venezuela, unemployment was as high as 15.2 percent in the late 90’s with the average minimum wage being as low as 16 U.S. dollars a month (Lamarni). Chavez released a series of job creating programs which by 2012, decreased the unemployment rate to 6.4 percent while the economic gains from the oil in Venezuela helped to increase the minimum wage to as high as 330 U.S. dollars a month. Overall, the programs that Chavez had established managed to greatly decrease the cases of poverty and extreme poverty in Venezuela by over 50 percent (Oliver). Hugo Chavez, by many of his supporters, has always been known as a champion to the poor. His effects at reducing poverty through a number of social programs has succeeded in Chavez gaining majority support of citizens in Venezuela, but this is only part of the reason to his popularity. Hugo Chavez has been known to be a very charismatic leader. He has always been honest about his early childhood living in a house made out of palm trees and playing baseball as his only real hobby (journeyman). One of his charms is that when he talks he does not talk like a politician or an academic, but as an average person. With this, he acts more like he truly is a man of the people as he claims to be (Oliver). Throughout his political carrier, Hugo Chavez has always used the history and the image of Simon Bolivar to as his motive for his goals. He even considers his revolution to improve Venezuela as well as other parts of Latin America to be a Carrasquillo 6
Bolivarian Revolution (journeyman). His popular support became so effective at passing new policies and legislation that in 2009, Chavez managed to pass a referendum allowing him to run for president even after his term limit was up (Carrol). Hugo Chavez’s relations and political support in Venezuela comes from the majority of poor and low class citizens that he swore to help before his presidency, and has continued to fulfill his promise to this day. Despite this, even domestically Hugo Chavez still suffers from opposition. Mainly this opposition consists of groups of middle and upper class citizens, who generally hate or have not benefited from the policies that Chavez has established (journeyman). A shocking characteristic of this group is that it shares many of the same ideals that the U.S. has on Chavez. Many of them hate Chavez's goal to de privatize businesses and the oil industry because they feel it is too undemocratic. They also tend to criticize Hugo Chavez as a dictator or a terrorist like many other U.S. politicians have(Oliver), because of his supporting relations with Cuba. While this opposition has mainly consisted of protests and partial government involvement to get Chavez removed from power (journeyman), some larger forms have consisted of strikes: one in particular being the business strike of 2001. The business strike of 2001 mainly originated from opposition to the Hydrocarbons law, which was passed that same year(Kozloff 26). In the strike, the PdVESA as well as many other businesses closed down their doors and managed to get a significant amount of their own employees to strike with them (Oliver). Even though the strike ended after a few months in Chavez's favor, the loss of the oil industry during this time caused Venezuela to enter a temporary state of recession and amass almost 14 billion dollars in debt (Kozloff ). While domestic oppression did hinder Hugo Chavez's goals to a certain extent, it did not stop the support that he still gained from the poor in Venezuela. Although Chavez was not politically involved with Cuba until 1999, Chavez had been interested in Fidel Castro since his imprisonment for the 1992 coup. It was while in prison, that Hugo Chavez read many books about Fidel Castro and learned a lot about his relationship with the U.S., or lack thereof (Kozloff) . The intention of the meeting in 1999 was meant to carry out an "exchange of experiences"(Kozloff 86) which resulted in several deals and policy changes Carrasquillo 7 between Venezuela and Cuba. One of these deals was the doctor oil trade between Venezuela and Cuba provided up to 53,000 barrels of oil per day to Cuba under preferential rates in return for services from Cuba's doctors (Kozloff 25). This deal proved to be very beneficial to Venezuela during the business strike of 2001 because Castro sent 10,000 doctors as well as plenty of medicine in aid to the poor (Oliver). Chavez would also led Castro to become more politically involved in Latin American politics during the Bolivarian Revolution. Essentially, the relationship between Venezuela and Cuba became much stronger and personal due to their equal hatred of the U.S. Even before Hugo Chavez became president, relations between the U.S and Venezuela were already poor. This was mainly due to a series of U.S. controlled policies and institutions which, through Hugo Chavez's perspective, served to mainly benefit the U.S. and not Latin America economically. Two of these policies which Hugo Chaves has openly opposed to are the International Monetary Fund and the Washington consensus. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was created to financially support low and middle income countries at the cost of restructuring that country's economic system (Oliver). No two examples of economic restructuring by the IMF on Venezuela have ever been more recognized by Hugo Chavez than during the presidency of Carlos Andres Perez, when borrowing money from the IMF required Perez to increase the prices on fuel and public transportation(Kozloff 44), and during the presidency of Rafael Caldera, when borrowing money from the IMF led to the promoting the deregulation and privatization of companies (Kozloff 54). The Washington Consensus was a set of U.S. free market policies which directly promoted the use of deregulation, privatization and wide spread free trade for countries(Kozloff 37). The consensus helped to greatly influence the privatization of the PdVESA until Chavez's election. While Venezuela's relations with the U.S. tended to differ between the three U.S. presidencies during Hugo Chavez's rule, the impact of these two policies on Venezuela already gave Hugo Chaves a deep hatred for the U.S. During Clinton's presidency, not much tension arose between Venezuela and the U.S. The only significant claim by Clinton was a request that Venezuela increase production of oil to have prices lowered (Kozloff 36). It was during Bush's terms as president that Venezuela faced a significant amount of problems. This was due to the facts that 9/11 occurred during this time and Carrasquillo 8 because Bush was part of the Republican party, which valued the use of capitalism and deregulation even more. Bush's first issue was with Chavez's efforts at de privatizing the oil industries in Venezuela. While Chavez's main purpose in doing this was to provide money for the Venezuelan economy, to the U.S. it was like Chavez had no interest in prioritizing the U.S. in terms of business or trade (Kozloff 25). another significant event which hindered U.S. Venezuelan relations was Chavez's increasing involvement with Cuba. Since the Cold War, the U.S. had cut ties with Cuba and prevented any other Latin American country from converting into communism. Despite knowing this, Chavez openly made deals with Cuba , even going as far as to give millions of dollars of oil to Cuba for free. It did not help that Chavez had also openly criticized the U.S. in the Iraq war, calling it a quest for oil (Oliver) and a brutal slaughter of children and families (journeyman) rather than a quest for democracy. To make matters worse, Chavez began to appoint, many military into the PdVESA (Kozloff 87). To the U.S. who was already fully aware of Chavez's relations with Cuba, it felt likely that Chavez was going to make Venezuela into a communist government rather than a democratic one. It was because of these events that the U.S. government began to involve itself in the overthrow of Hugo Chavez which resulted in the coup of 2002. The 2002 coup began on April 11, when over 100,000 supporters and opposers marched to the presidential palace. During the march, the crowd was attacked by a number of snipers presumed to be hired by anti Chavez supporters. While this event was very devastating and ended in the death of 16 people, the media decided to use this incident to their advantage and have Chavez both defamed and orcastrated from Venezuela (Oliver). By editing footage of the crowd being shot at with a group of Pro- Chavez supporters, firing back solely out of self defense at the snipers, much of the public throughout the world was convinced into believing that it was Chavez who was responsible for this massacre. The effectiveness of this propaganda led to Hugo Chavez losing his seat and being replaced by a newly elected leader known as Pedro Carmona. Within one day of Pedro Carmona's rise to power, plans to re privatize the PdVESA and submit to IMF loans and policies, leading to the termination of many of the social welfare policies that Hugo Chavez had established were already being made. Despite the coup seeming to be a success, within two days Chavez was placed back into power due to an overwhelming Carrasquillo 9 protest of pro Chavez supporters (mostly poor) and military. Although the U.S. does not openly admit it , the coup against Chavez was heavily funded by the U.S. government under the National Endowment for Democracy (Kozloff 2). What separates this coup from the coup of 1992 is that the main power used to bring down Chavez was the overwhelming use of media and propaganda rather than military. Also, this coup showed a clear example of how well loved and respected Chavez was by a majority of people in Venezuela. Although Obama's campaign provided a much more direct and fairer approach to Venezuela, allowing the chance for both sides to come to better terms with each other (Oliver), overall the relations between Venezuela and the U.S. have remained broken and unlikely to fairly be patched up. Despite Chavez mainly focusing on improving Venezuela during his presidential career, Chavez had a large desire to get many Latin American nations to nationalize and cut ties with unequal business and trade policies, especially those of the U.S. This phase in Hugo Chavez's presidency became known as the raise of the political left, or in other terms the Bolivarian Revolution. One of the ways Chavez tried to do this was through oil. For years Chavez has denounced oil as an effective geological weapon in acquiring power (Kozloff 2). Chavez hoped that he would be able to form an oil distribution company (Petro America) which could expand throughout Latin America and out of the control of foreign nations. To start off, Chavez joined Petrosur a similar type of company which only worked within the southern cone of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay (Kozloff 105). While Chavez's desire for a Petroamerica never came to fruition, his involvement in Petrosur allowed him to form special alliances with the other three nations in ways that went directly against the U.S. policies of privatization and free trade policies of the Washington consensus. Even after all of the years Hugo Chavez had spent literally cheating death from the U.S., poverty, and even from his own military during the coups, Hugo Chavez announced in 2011that he was diagnosed with cancer Although he never openly discussed what type of cancer he had(Sepkowitz), this led to a process for the next two years of Chavez going to Cuba for cancer treatments ranging from radiation therapy to the surgical removal of cancerous tumors. On Tuesday March 5, 2013 Hugo Chavez was announced dead. Many people in Venezuela, especially the poor, mourned his death feeling that there may never be another person that could Carrasquillo 10 live up to Chavez's name. In the election following Chavez's death, Nicolas Maduro was elected as the new president of Venezuela .Maduro, who was a handpicked successor by Chavez himself, won by an incredibly small margin of 50.8 to 49.1% (Bajak). Within the few months Maduro has spent as President, he has done little if not anything at all in order to solve Venezuela's problems and continue Hugo Chavez's legacy. While Hugo Chavez accomplished many things by the time of his passing, there were still many things that he could not accomplish. Crime was still a fairly unaffected issue in Latin America (Wilpert) and Chavez had the unfortunate timing of leaving Venezuela with a fairly large debt (about 40 billion). As a revolutionist, Hugo Chavez was successful at promoting a social revolution which benefited a large amount of people and is considered to be a hero by many of the poor in Latin America.