Venezuela: Right-wing opposition clamours for another US-backed coup

“Bye-bye Aristide, Chavez you’re next!”
Venezuela: Right-wing opposition clamours for another US-backed coup
By Mauricio Saavedra
9 March 2004

A wave of political unrest and violence now unfolding in Venezuela bears all the hallmarks of a “made in Washington” destabilisation campaign. In the wake of the US-organized overthrow of Haiti’s Jean-Bertrand Aristide, this campaign is aimed at creating an atmosphere of chaos in the oil-rich South American nation, setting the stage for a military takeover and a wave of terror against the working class.

<snip>

What characterizes all of these officials is their pathological hatred of socialism, democracy and the international working class. They are ideologically committed to a foreign policy directed at quashing any attempt, no matter how meagre, to shift wealth and power away from the multinational corporations and the native oligarchies.

A case in point is Chavez, elected twice with the largest popular margins in Venezuelan history on promises of agrarian reform and reducing entrenched poverty. He has earned Washington’s ire through his populist rhetoric, friendly ties to Cuba’s Fidel Castro, opposition to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas and his refusal to carry out the privatization of Venezuela’s giant state-owned oil company, PDVSA.

Yet “emerging market bond investors like Chavez in power because they know he’s going to continue to service the debt,” a Deutsche Bank economist observed recently. Moreover Chavez has overseen a redrafting of the constitution in 2000 that “liberalized foreign investment laws and strengthened the economy’s capitalist foundation.” That is, his railing against neo-liberalism notwithstanding, he is implementing the demands of the foreign banks and international financial institutions.

Despite this, the US-backed Venezuelan putschists are clamouring for Washington to intervene, as they attempt to create a political climate akin to the one that existed in Haiti on the eve of the anti-Aristide coup.

.............................

http://wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/ven-m09.shtml

I dont think the Chavez supporters will put up with that shit. Chavez probably has a stronger grip on the military, so I can't see a repeat of last April. The doc mentioned that the people of Venezuela are armed regularly,so I see a possible bloodbath on the horizon.
Same old story, new players.