Venezuela in the hands of Chavez

Info: un articulo de (beh beh ceh noticias) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-36319877

When Mr Chávez became president in 1999, he promised, among other things, to drive down Venezuela's huge levels of inequality. · While he managed to reduce inequality during his time in power, some of the socialist polices he brought in backfired. Take price controls, for example, which were aimed at making basic goods more affordable to the poor by capping the price of flour, cooking oil and toiletries. The controls meant that many Venezuelan businesses stopped production because they no longer made a profit, eventually resulting in shortages. · A loosening of foreign currency controls originally brought in by President Chávez in 2003 has eased those shortages as traders can sell goods in dollars but that means they have again become largely unaffordable to the poor or those without access to the US currency. · Years of lack of investment in infrastructure further exacerbated by the more recent US sanctions on Venezuela's oil sector have crippled this key industry, which provides almost all of Venezuela's government revenue. · Venezuela has been in the grip of an economic crisis for years now with hyperinflation one of the main problems. · The price of a cup of coffee in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, to show how prices have increased. It has measured an increase of 6,639% in the 12 months to 3 December 2020 with a cup of coffee costing 1.55m bolivares.

Democratic rule (Info: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19652436)

· 1958 - Admiral Wolfgang Larrazabal ousts Marcos Perez Jimenez; leftist Romulo Betancourt of the Democratic Action Party (AD) wins presidential election. · 1973 - Venezuela benefits from oil boom and its currency peaks against the US dollar; oil and steel industries nationalised. · 1989 - Carlos Andres Perez (AD) elected president amid economic depression, launches austerity programme with IMF loan. Riots, martial law and general strike follow, with hundreds killed in street violence. · 1992 - Colonel Hugo Chavez and supporters make two coup attempts. Some 120 people killed in suppression of coups, Col Chavez jailed for two years before being pardoned. · 1993-95 - President Perez impeached on corruption charges.

Rise of Chavez (Info: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19652436)

· 1998 - Hugo Chavez elected president amid disenchantment with established parties, launches 'Bolivarian Revolution' that brings in new constitution, socialist and populist economic, and social policies funded by high oil prices, alongside increasingly anti-US foreign policy. · 2001 - President Chavez uses enabling act to pass laws aimed at redistributing land and wealth. Concern grows in business and some labour circles that he is trying to concentrate economic and political power. · 2002 April - Armed forces rebel over violent stand-off between government and state oil monopoly after appointment of new board. · President Chavez taken into military custody, but interim government of business leader Pedro Carmona collapses and Hugo Chavez returns to office. · 2005 January - President Chavez signs decree on land reform to eliminate Venezuela's large estates and benefit rural poor. Ranchers say move is attack on private property. · 2005 March - New media regulations provide stiff fines and prison terms for slandering public figures. · 2005 December - Parties loyal to President Chavez dominate parliament after opposition parties boycott election.

Russian alliance (Info: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19652436)

· 2006 July - President Chavez signs a $3bn (£1.6bn) arms deal with Russia, including an agreement to buy fighter jets and helicopters, marking a re-orientation away from US arms supplies. · 2006 December - Hugo Chavez wins a third term in presidential elections with 63% of the vote, the largest margin since the 1947 election. · 2007 January - President Chavez announces key energy and telecommunications companies will be nationalised under 18-month enabling act approved by parliament. · 2007 June - Two leading US oil companies, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhilips, refuse to hand over majority control of their operations in the Orinoco Belt to the Venezuelan government, which then expropriates them. · 2007 December - President Chavez suffers his first defeat at the ballot box, when a referendum narrowly rejects proposals to increase government control over the Central Bank and the power to expropriate property. · 2008 September - Venezuela and Russia sign oil and gas cooperation accord. Russian warplanes visit Venezuela, with Russian warships heading there for November joint exercises - first return of Russian navy to Americas since Cold War. · 2008 October - First Venezuelan telecommunications satellite launched from China. · 2009 February - Voters in a referendum approve plans to abolish limits on the number of terms in office for elected officials. This allows President Chavez to stand again when his term expires in 2012.

Economic problems (Info: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19652436)

· 2010 January - President Chavez devalues the bolivar currency to boost revenue from oil exports after economy shrank 5.8% in last quarter of 2009. · 2010 September - Parliamentary elections. Opposition makes significant gains. · 2012 April - Government extends price controls on more basic goods in the battle against inflation. President Chavez threatens to expropriate companies that do not comply with the price controls. · 2012 July -After a six-year wait, Venezuela becomes a full member of regional trading bloc Mercosur, and is given four years to comply with the bloc's trading regulations. · 2012 October - President Chavez wins a fourth term in office.

President Chavez dies

· 2013 April - President Hugo Chavez dies at age 58 in March after a battle with cancer. Nicolas Maduro, his chosen successor, is elected president by a narrow margin. The opposition contests the result. · 2014 February-March - At least 28 people die in suppression of anti-government protests. · 2014 November - Government announces cuts in public spending as oil prices reach a four-year low. · 2015 December - Opposition Democratic Unity coalition wins two-thirds majority in parliamentary elections, ending 16 years of Socialist Party control. · 2016 September - Hundreds of thousands of people take part in a protest in Caracas calling for the removal of President Maduro, accusing him of responsibility for the economic crisis. · 2017 July - Controversial constituent assembly elected in the face of an opposition boycott and international condemnation. · 2018 May - Opposition contests the official victory of President Maduro at presidential elections. · 2018 August - UN says two million Venezuelans have fled abroad to neighbouring countries since 2014. · 2019 January-February - Opposition leader Juan Guaidó declares himself interim president, appeals to military to oust President Maduro on the grounds that the 2018 election was rigged. · European Union, United States, and most Latin American countries recognise Mr Guaidó. · 2020 December - Opposition boycotts legislative elections, which are duly won by President Maduro's party and allies.

The good

· Chávez lived up to his promise in many ways. The left admired many of his successes, such as bringing down unemployment and increasing the life chances and material wealth of the poor through high investment in education and health. · More exciting was his style of "participatory democracy", seen in the building of the Bolivarian Circles and Communal Councils, which were decentralised, loose-knit political organisations of workers' councils that deliberated on important local issues like health and water. · As Steve Ellner has written, there is little doubt that Chávez brought about "the mobilisation and incorporation of massive numbers of the formerly marginalized in the decision-making process". · Titans of the academic left were quick to befriend or praise Chávez. Noam Chomsky visited Venezuela and claimed, "the transformations that Venezuela is making toward the creation of another socio-economic model could have a global impact if these projects are successfully carried out". · Ernesto Laclau also visited Chávez and offered his full support to his Bolivarian project. Slavoj Žižek admired Chávez's willingnessto grab state power for the left.

Chávez and the international left

· Chávez's election to presidential office in 1998, with 56% of the popular vote, saw the beginning of the Latin American "pink tide" - a move to the left across the region, so named as the tide was not "red" - that is, communist - but the lighter "pink" - socialist. · The international left saw great promise in Chávez's victory - a clear "no" to the Washington Consensus and its imposition of US-style capitalism, open markets and privatisation. · Here was a leader who was willing to take a stand against the creep of neo-liberalism, and offer a new way of thinking about how to live politically.

The legacy

· Chávez's legacy will remain mixed. There will be those who celebrate the man's great achievements, his ability to envision and attempt to put into place "another world", and his wider attempt to lead the Bolivarian Revolution in Latin America. There will be those who turn their attentions to other Latin American leaders in his wake, such as Evo Morales of Bolivia, or Rafael Correa of Ecuador, as paragons of radical socialism. · There will also be those who remember Chávez as a ruthless authoritarian leader, a "Marxist tyrant" or "communist dictator". They will point to his abuses of the liberal safeguards of liberal democracy, his muzzling of the press, and his thirst for power. · The real answer probably lies somewhere in between the two extremes. While the left found a hero initially in Chávez, it became harder and harder to defend him, to look the other way as his time in office went on. As Latin American scholar Kirk Hawkins put it, Chavez's was "a semidemocratic regime headed in an increasingly authoritarian direction". · While Chávez will likely be remembered in the Western media for calling George W. Bush "the devil" at the United Nations in 2006, there is much more to the man. In remembering Chávez, the left will continue to have conflicting feelings about how their poster boy fell from grace.

Info: https://www.hrw.org/report/2012/07/17/tightening-grip/concentration-and-abuse-power-chavezs-venezuela

· Hugo Chávez squandered a historic opportunity to shore up the country's democratic institutions and strength the protection of human rights in Venezuela. · After enacting a new constitution with ample human rights guarantees in 1999- and surviving a short-lived coup d'état in 2002- President Chávez and his supporters moved to concentrate power by seizing control of the Supreme Court and undercutting the ability of journalists. Human right defenders, and other Venezuelans to exercise fundamental rights · The 2008 report, which Human Rights Watch released at a press conference in Caracas, offered detailed recommendations of steps the Venezuelan government could take to salvage the human rights potential of the 1999 constitution. President Chávez responded by having Human Rights Watch's representatives forcibly detained and summarily expelled from the country.

MORE INFO

· Venezuela fue una vez elogiado por su gobierno democrático y el país tenía las reservas petroleras más grandes del mundo. · Solía suministrar el diez por ciento del petróleo del mundo y hoy en día representa menos de la mitad del un medida de un porciento. · Los intuiciones democráticas y economía están en ruinas. Veía un documentario y el presentador dijo que Venezuela tiene la tasa de inflación más alta del mundo y los últimos nueve anos su GDP ha caído el treinta y cinco por ciento. · Esto lo que ha hecho que los alimentos y los medicamentos sean inaccesibles. Además, la tasa de asesinados ha sur pasado el que las ciudades más peligrosos en el mundo. A causa de todo que yo haya mencionado y mucho más ha habido muchos protestas a contra el presidente. · En 1960, Venezuela era uno de los cinco miembros de la OPEC; esto es una organización de exportación de gasolina. · En 1976 cada día el país produjo tres millones barriles de petróleo y esto ayudaba con construyo uno de los capitales más modernos en Latinoamérica se llama Caracas. En comparación de Junio ​​este año donde Venezuela produjo solo trescientos setenta mil barriles cada día. El presidente que estaba Carlos Andrés Pérez nacionalizada el industria y fundó el compañía PDVSA. · Sin embargo, en 1999 oficial militar Chavez se convierte en presidente y lanza la revolución socialista bolivariana. · Chávez tuvo un plan para ayudar a Venezuela prometió utilizar la riqueza petrolera del país para mejorar la vida de los pobres. Así que, gastó un montón del dinero de la industria petrolero en proyectos sociales. A causa de esto tenía mucho apoyo de los pobres. En dos mil, el gobierno expandido los servicios sociales y ayudaba los pobres pero hubo corrupción, la producción de petróleo había disminuido y la deuda del gobierno había aumentado porque no tuvieron suficiente dinero para los proyectos. Chávez intentó un reformo económico pero era inefectivo. · Chavez murió de cáncer a la edad de 58.

The bad

· Yet with the good comes the bad. As Chávez's time went on, those on the left who defended liberal democracy became wary about some of his abuses of power. · Amongst other issues, he concentrated power in the executive, successfully increased the term limits for the president, allegedly withheld social insurance from supporters of opposition parties and closed down opposition television stations. · Chomsky turned on his friend, claiming that Chávez was leading an assault on democracy. · The president's demonisation of his enemies also became wider, more vitriolic and worrying. While Chavez's original targets were the old party elites, he went on to target the domestic opposition, then finally the "imperialist conspiracy" spearheaded by the United States. · The conspiracy mindset was nicely illustrated by assertions this morning that Chávez was "attacked by disease" by the US, something Chávez himself suggested in 2011. · Beyond this, Chávez got friendly with leaders who were no friends of democracy or the left, including Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar al Assad and Moamar Gaddafi, who he called "a great fighter, a revolutionary and a martyr".