Chavez allies play on sabotage claims before vote

[Bacchus39]

Chavez allies play on sabotage claims before vote

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100921/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_venezuela_campaign_intrigue

CARACAS, Venezuela – A power cut halts subway service in Venezuela's capital. It's sabotage, officials say. An explosion rocks a state-run iron plant. Sabotage again, they explain. Power outages sweep the country and President Hugo Chavez calls on state workers to guard electricity plants against sabotage.

With key congressional elections only days away, Venezuela's leftist government is increasingly blaming attacks by shadowy opponents for problems in public services — even though they presented no evidence and have made no arrests.

Chavez's critics mock the claims, saying the government is inventing bogeymen to hide its own inefficiency ahead of elections on Sunday that could challenge the president's control of the legislature.

Charges of sabotage have become increasingly common among officials in recent weeks as the electric utility and other state-run companies struggle with problems ranging from temporary shutdowns to explosions.

"We are on red alert due to the sabotage," Edinson Alvarado, secretary general of the Caracas subway's labor union, told state radio Monday, several days after a power failure prompted authorities to suspend service for almost an entire day.

Mining Minister Jose Khan said investigations suggest an explosion Monday at Sidor — Venezuela's state-run steel mill — was probably caused by sabotage. The blast destroyed some power generators.

In a separate incident two weeks ago, Khan said "unidentified agents" cut power cables feeding the plant's production line, forcing a temporary shutdown.

"It's people who know what they are doing," Khan said, adding that he suspects it is part of "a campaign to demoralize and discredit companies" under government control.

Energy Minister Ali Rodriguez has also said officials suspect saboteurs are behind electricity blackouts in several states. He has said employees of state power companies could be involved, but his ministry has not presented any evidence.

Chavez has also mentioned sabotage as a possible cause of recent blackouts. He urged state workers to guard electrical plants, saying attacks could be timed to hurt his allies in Sunday's National Assembly elections.

The president's allies currently have an unbeatable majority in the National Assembly after most opposition parties boycotted legislative elections in 2005. But the opposition is campaigning hard this time, and many people expect a tight race. Pro-Chavez candidates, however, appear to have an edge, especially in the poor, rural states where the president remains very popular.

Chavez has repeatedly made unfounded accusations against his opponents, rarely presenting anything that could be considered concrete evidence. He has denounced roughly a dozen purported assassination conspiracies, although nobody has been arrested in recent years for allegedly plotting to kill him or unseat him through undemocratic means.

Opposition leaders contend Chavez is trying to conceal his administration's inefficiency.

Most Venezuelans haven't shown much interest in Chavez's allegations or play them down.

"They are like (magician) David Copperfield because what they do is attempt to make people see something where there's nothing," said Ivan Olivares, an opposition candidate in the elections.

"What's happening (with power blackouts) is that there's a lack of maintenance" and insufficient investment to satisfy growing demand, Olivares said in a telephone interview.

While government foes ridicule the president's allegations, many die-hard Chavistas take their leader's charges as genuine.

Rodriguez announced a contingency plan this week to prevent more power outages, posting soldiers to guard power plants and equipping many polling stations with diesel generators in case of emergencies.

"The objective is not only avoiding acts of sabotage, but also preventing any failure that could occur within the electricity system," he said.

Officials also suggested sabotage by Chavez's opponents might have been responsible for an explosion Monday at Ferrominera del Orinoco, which killed one worker and severely burned two others.

Pro-Chavez lawmaker Eddy Gomez said he is convinced government adversaries are using acts of sabotage to try to stir public anxiety before the elections.

Gomez said unidentified saboteurs cut some power cables near the town of Palo Negro in his home state of Aragua several months ago, but authorities did not capture them. The congressman said he doesn't have any proof that Chavez foes were involved, said he suspects anti-Chavez electrical workers.

He said an investigation into that case is still pending.

[bherrera]

1. It is hard to manage a modern economy with illiterate poor people

Marxism suffers from fundamental flaws. In both the Leninist and Maoist versions, it requires that a revolution be carried out by the mass of lower class workers or farmers. The theory also requires the creation of a single party to supervise society, and this party of course is the communist party (or whatever it is called). The problem arises because there is no viable feedback mechanism as a monolithic power emerges, and controls society with such an iron grip, problems arise but they are not sensed by those in power at the top.

This has been explained by numerous authors and also by communist politicians. For example, in a speech he gave, Fidel Castro complained he seemed to be the only one person who opposed the Cuban revolution. By this statement he meant to say he was the only one who objected when things were not right. He used as an example the crisis of the Cuban sugar industry. Heinz Dieterich, founder of the Socialism of the XXIst century theory, explains the cause of this problem was not the poor training of the economists, but their fear of losing their jobs or their freedom if they explained to their bosses the sugar industry goals were not practical.

I suspect that, as the monolithic communist system emerges in Venezuela, they are experiencing the same problem they have suffered elsewhere. But this is compounded by the unusually incompetent nature of the people at the top, and the developed nature of the Venezuelan infrastructure they inherited from previous governments. Thus, they find increasing problems maintaining what they inherited, or building things which work and are sustainable in nature. In the long term, Venezuela will suffer from a poor economy, as the intelligent and educated leave the country, and it is increasingly dominated by incompetents. The few competent people who do remain, will find themselves unable to communicate to the top the true condition of the country's infrastructure and economy, and the country will gradually decay in a similar fashion to the decay we saw in Cuba, North Korea, and the Soviet Union. It is an inexorable march of history which tends to make these marxist systems auto-destroy.

[L Cutter]

2. illiterate poor people

bherrera says
It is hard to manage a modern economy with illiterate poor people
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First thing: the Bolivarians have, for the first time in Venezuela, made education available and successful for the working class.

If a large majority of the populace are workers and farmers, wouldn't democracy require that they, as a group, be in the leadership position? History provides the evidence that excellent leaders can and do come from the working class and agriculturists. The US was in far better shape when more leaders came from this class than it is now when the nation is controlled by corporatist and their elitist allies and puppets.

All the concerns that you voiced about a communist system ignoring the will and needs of the people are also true in the corporation run USA. We have, in effect, a one party system which operates for the benefit of the elite and to the detriment of the general populous. The difference being that, due to the most all pervasive and effective propaganda system in the world, and the mental and moral laziness of the general populous, few US citizen realize it and are led and contented to blame their misfortunes on whatever scapegoats, foreign and/or domestic, given to them by their masters to keep them distracted from, and blind to, the grim reality that they live in and the even grimmer reality coming down the pike at them.

The Bolivarian Movement is not communist. The Bolivarian Movement is primarily anti-Imperialist, and, against the North American Corporation Empire that brings so much destruction and misery wherever it sinks its claws, socialism is the best defense.

[ChangoLoa]

3. Interesting points you make but IMO public education was a lot better in the 70's when I was a kid

in a public school, in Caracas. In those days, the government presented itself as socialist and just had nationalized the entire oil industry. 100% of the oil revenues were in the hands of the state. The poverty rate was around 20% and income inequality was lower than today.

The 1989 neoliberal reform destroyed our economy. Unfortunately, despite the rhetoric, Chavez is still functioning within the same IMF framework of open markets and zero industry subventions. We're a LOT more dependent on imports, especially food imports, than before. The oil shock gave us an illusion of abundance but very little was invested and a lot evaporated in consumption of foreign goods. Not a progressive model for the long term IMO. Let's see how the economy does in 2010 with a stable oil price.

"Anti-Imperialist" is no political ideology, I think. We need a lot more than being "anti" for succeeding.

[bherrera]

4. No

I don't think a modern society can be progress under the leadership of workers and farmers. That was Marx's somewhat naive proposition, but that was caused by his lack of practical experience and the flawed nature of his theories. We should remember that Marx, if he had not been a close friend of Engels, would have remained a very unknown character, and a failure. The man never really did much without the help of Engels.

It may be true that the communist system envisioned by marxists is close to a large corporation. However, a nation is not a corporation. The USA does not have a one party system. It has a system in which two similar parties are entrenched in power, because the people in the middle swing from party to party as it is their will.

The Bolivarian movement is not really a Bolivarian movement now. It is primarily a movement to maintain Chavez and a surrounding group of arrivistes in power. This has been pointed out by analysts such as Dieterich. The old canard about American imperialism is just a method used to justify installation of a regime which, in its insides, is just another regime intended to make fat the people at the top, and their friends. This is the problem Latin American leftists have, they blathely blah about imperialism, and forget to keep their own house clean. Somehow this " American imperialism" doesn't impact Brazil, which has a much saner form of socialism being implemented.

[L Cutter]

6. Those danged Commies

bherrera says: I don't think...

That part I agree with. But, then you drifted off into the ether.

I have not advocated for communism or quoted Marx. The Bolivarian Movement is not communist. Chavez is not a communist. Going on about communism and Marx is nothing but a right wing strawman.

The One party system with two names, in the USA, is not entrenched because of a mythological middle swinging to-and-fro, but rather because they have enough power to prevent a "third party" from being heard.

Your labeling of the Empire as a canard is a clear indication either of your disingenuousness or of a severe need of an education, as is your attempt to play Brazil today off as your supporting evidence. There is a very long history of South and Central American struggle for liberation from the North American Empire's dominance, interference and abuse. It was the Bolivarians who were in a position to take advantage for Venezuelan liberation when the Empire got its Imperial Storm Troopers bogged down on the other side of the planet screwing with the Arabs and it was the Venezuelans and Bolivarians who acted as the vanguard even for more powerful nations like Brazil.

[L Cutter]

5. political ideology

ChangoLoa says:
"Anti-Imperialist" is no political ideology, I think. We need a lot more than being "anti" for succeeding. (and other things)


Anti-imperialism is definitely a political ideology. The very concept of Imperialism is innately evil and nothing but evil can ever come of it. I do agree, however, that it takes more than being "anti" to succeed. Currently, the right wingers in the USA (and in Venezuela) can serve as great examples of that.

I will avoid using "Chavez" as much as possible in favor of "Bolivarian" because I am in disfavor of 'cults of personality', and, I do not perceive this situation in that light. I am a life-long anti-Imperialist who became a Bolivarian the day the Venezuelan people filled the streets and successfully defended their elected liberation government against another Imperial coup.

I might say that the public education system was better in the USA in the past , but I won't because I know that it wasn't worth a spit for the disenfranchised.


ChangoLoa says:
the government presented itself as socialist (in the 70s)


I will not present myself as qualified to debate in detail the particulars concerning Venezuela with a Venezuelan, and yet there are some things that I do know. The government of Venezuela were corrupt satraps for the Empire for many decades before Chavez. The German Nazis called themselves the National Socialist Party. I am not equating the previous misleadership of Venezuela with Hitler - just saying. One must take political rhetoric with a large dose of salt. The Empire has even managed to give "democracy" a bad connotation.

And, I don't know from where or what you spun that 20% poverty in Venezuela in the 70s but I do know that your number is grossly inaccurate. But, then again, poverty is a relative term. As for example: the poor in the USA are generally far better off than hundreds of millions of poor in other areas of the world. In my experience, however, the poor, as long as they have sufficient food and shelter and don't have to worry about the jackboots kicking in their doors, are happier than the wealthy. What they need most is the justice of having a voice in their future and the future of their children. This is the first and most important thing that the people have received from the Bolivarian Revolution and what I hope they will stay strong enough to successfully defend. Thinking of the alternative of allowing a government back in that will reopen the gate for the Empire that will take it all away from them is depressing and disheartening.

Food imports? Venezuela was dangerously dependent upon food import before Chavez. Personally, I am disappointed that Chavez has not acted more aggressively on the issue of food independence. I am deeply involved in a project of local food independence here in the states as an act of political resistance primarily and also ecologically. Chavez has, however, led some progress on this issue, and, unlike the screeching claims of the Corporatists and their right wing sycophants, he is not a dictator and faces great resistance from the entrenched special interests.

Oil and its price and usage? It's a double edged sword. Higher prices drives the Empire to greater heights of murderous insanity to grab it from those who have it while it gives those who have it some strength with which to resist the Empire. I believe that Chavez has done reasonably well in using this weapon to the advantage of Venezuela and the previously disenfranchised majority.

You sound like a decent person, even if misguided from my point of view.