MR ZINE
Attempted Coup in Ecuador Fails, But Threat Remains
by Mark Weisbrot
01.10.10

In June of last year, when the Honduran military overthrew the social democratic government of Manuel Zelaya, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador took it personally. "We have intelligence reports that say that after Zelaya, I'm next," said Correa.

Yesterday it turned out to be true. Some analysts are still insisting that what happened was just a police protest over possible benefit cuts that got out of hand. But to anyone who watched the prolonged, pitched gun battle on TV last night, when the armed forces finally rescued President Correa from the hospital where he was trapped by the police, this did not look like a protest. It was an attempt to overthrow the government.

The coordinated actions in various cities, the takeover of Quito's airport by a section of the armed forces -- all of this indicated a planned coup attempt. And although it failed, at various points during the day it was not so clear what the outcome would be.

The government pointed a finger at former president and army Colonel Lucio Gutierrez, and he was on television yesterday calling for the ouster of Correa. He accused the president of everything from supporting the FARC (the guerrilla group fighting Colombia's government) to wrecking the economy.

The coup might have had a chance if Correa were not so popular. Despite his enemies in high places, the president's approval rating was 67 percent in Quito a couple of weeks ago. His government has doubled spending on health care, significantly increased other social spending, and successfully defaulted on $3.2 billion of foreign debt that was found to be illegitimately contracted. Ecuador managed to squeak through 2009 without a recession and is projected to grow about 2.5 percent this year. Correa, an economist, has had to use heterodox and creative methods to keep the economy growing in the face of external shocks because the country does not have its own currency. It adopted the dollar in 2000, which means that it can do little in the way of monetary policy and has no control over its exchange rate.

Correa had warned that he might try to temporarily dissolve the Congress in order to break an impasse in the legislature, something that he has the right to request under the new constitution -- it would have to be approved by the Constitutional Court. This probably gave the pro-coup forces something they saw as a pretext. It is reminiscent of the coup in Honduras, when Zelaya's support for a non-binding referendum on a constituent assembly was falsely reported by the media -- both Honduran and international -- as a bid to extend his presidency.

Media manipulation has a big role in Ecuador too, with most of the media controlled by right-wing interests opposed to the government. This has helped build a base of people -- analogous to those who get all of their information from Fox News in the United States, but proportionately larger -- who believe that Correa is a dictator trying to turn his country into a communist Cuba.

The U.S. State Department issued a two-sentence statement from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton late yesterday afternoon that urged "all Ecuadoreans to come together and to work within the framework of Ecuador's democratic institutions to reach a rapid and peaceful restoration of order." Unlike the White House statement in response to the Honduran coup last year, it also expressed "full support" for the elected president. This is an improvement; although it is unlikely that it reflects a change in Washington's policy towards Latin America.

The Obama Administration did everything it could to support the coup government in Honduras last year, and in fact is still trying to convince the South American governments -- including Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, and the collective organization of UNASUR -- to recognize the government there. South America refuses to recognize the Lobo government because it was elected under a dictatorship that did not allow for a free or fair contest. The rest of the hemisphere also wants some guarantees that would stop the killing of journalists and political activists there, which has continued and even become worse under the "elected" government.

As the South American governments feared, Washington's support for the coup government in Honduras over the last year has encouraged and increased the likelihood of right-wing coups against democratic left governments in the region. This attempt in Ecuador has failed, but there will likely be more threats in the months and years ahead.

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. He has written numerous research papers on economic policy, especially on Latin America and international economic policy. He is also co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2000) and president of Just Foreign Policy. This article was first published in the Guardianon 1 October 2010 and republished by CEPR under a Creative Commons license. Comments (0) | Print
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Lula and Ahjmadenijad--the Power of the Second World

Barbra Walter's Beautiful Interview With Hugo Chavez

Evo Morales on Democracy Now

Amy Goodman had a wonderful hour-long interview with Bolivian President, Evo Morales last night on Democracy Now. I will soon write about all of the progressive Latin American presidents on my blog.

From Venezuelanalysis.com

Communications Minister Rejects CPJ Report on Venezuela
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007



Venezuela’s Minister of Communications and Information, Willian Lara, yesterday rejected a report by the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) which accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of “controlling, intimidating and censoring the media.”
The “Attacks on the Press” report by the New York-based CPJ, which calls itself “an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to defending press freedom worldwide” and which is funded by individuals, corporations and foundations, identified Chavez and his Russian counterpart President Putin among the worst offenders stating, “Presidents Chavez and Putin represent a generation of sophisticated, elected leaders who have created a legal framework to control, intimidate, and censor the news media,” according to the news agency AFP.
In response Lara stated, “The report by the self-proclaimed Committee for the Protection of Journalists is a rehash of the same old anti-governmental propaganda used by forces of the opposition through its television companies, radio stations, and newspapers since 1999,” according to the state news agency, ABN.
“Its falseness is patent when we observe the absolute freedom -even to spread lies for political ends- with which the press operates in Venezuela,” Lara added.
According to the CPJ report, “The rise of 'democratators' -- popularly elected autocrats -- is alarming because it represents a new model for government control.”
Lara hit back saying that Chavez was the most tolerant of all Venezuelan presidents in Venezuela’s democratic era, and pointed out that Chavez did not suspend constitutional guarantees following the short-lived military coup against his government in April 2002, or during the two month long opposition-led oil strike in December 2002.
Lara’s response to the CPJ report comes in the wake of widespread criticism of the government’s decision announced in December last year not to renew the broadcast license for the privately-owned RCTV television channel, which expires in May this year.
In June 2006, the government announced it would be evaluating broadcasters’ adherence to the Law of Social Responsibility in Radio and Television, and warned that licenses up for review in 2007 might not be renewed. According to this media regulation law, passed in November 2004, violations of the law’s provisions can lead to fines and, in extreme cases, to a temporary or even permanent suspension of broadcast licenses.
CPJ immediately condemned the announcement saying, “We urge President Chavez to abstain from making these kinds of threatening commentaries, which inhibit the work of the press,” according to AFP. International media groups such as Paris-based Reporters without Borders and the International Press Institute also expressed their concern at the decision. The government argues it has good reason not to renew RCTV’s license, saying the channel was one of the main protagonists in the organization and execution of the 2002 coup, and actively misinformed the public during the coup when it claimed that Chavez government supporters were shooting at opposition demonstrators. The channel also hosted exclusive interviews with coup plotters and is accused by the government of failing to provide news coverage of the anti-coup demonstrators who took to the streets in support of Chavez, broadcasting cartoons instead. To top it all off, RCTV’s reputation as a coup-plotting channel stems from its support for the December 2002 oil strike, an attempt to force Chavez from office.

Burying the Empire of the Eagle

Chavez' Comments -
Strategy Or Ravings?
From The Progressive
By Greg Palast
9-21-6
"I've known Hugo Chavez for years, let me tell you that man knows a diablo when he sees one." -- Greg Palast

You'd think George Bush would get down on his knees and kiss Hugo Chavez's behind. Not only has Chavez delivered cheap oil to the Bronx and other poor communities in the United States. And not only did he offer to bring aid to the victims of Katrina. In my interview with the president of Venezuela on March 28, he made Bush the following astonishing offer: Chavez would drop the price of oil to $50 a barrel, "not too high, a fair price," he said -- a third less than the $75 a barrel for oil recently posted on the spot market. That would bring down the price at the pump by about a buck, from $3 to $2 a gallon.

But our President has basically told Chavez to take his cheaper oil and stick it up his pipeline. Before I explain why Bush has done so, let me explain why Chavez has the power to pull it off -- and the method in the seeming madness of his "take-my-oil-please!" deal.

Venezuela, Chavez told me, has more oil than Saudi Arabia. A nutty boast? Not by a long shot. In fact, his surprising claim comes from a most surprising source: the U.S. Department of Energy. In an internal report, the DOE estimates that Venezuela has five times the Saudis' reserves. However, most of Venezuela's mega-horde of crude is in the More...form of "extra-heavy" oil -- liquid asphalt -- which is ghastly expensive to pull up and refine. Oil has to sell above $30 a barrel to make the investment in extra-heavy oil worthwhile. A big dip in oil's price -- and, after all, oil cost only $18 a barrel six years ago -- would bankrupt heavy-oil investors. Hence Chavez's offer: Drop the price to $50 -- and keep it there. That would guarantee Venezuela's investment in heavy oil.

But the ascendance of Venezuela within OPEC necessarily means the decline of the power of the House of Saud. And the Bush family wouldn't like that one bit. It comes down to "petro-dollars." When George W. ferried then-Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah of Saudi Arabia around the Crawford ranch in a golf cart it wasn't because America needs Arabian oil. The Saudis will always sell us their petroleum. What Bush needs is Saudi petro-dollars. Saudi Arabia has, over the past three decades, kindly recycled the cash sucked from the wallets of American SUV owners and sent much of the loot right back to New York to buy U.S. Treasury bills and other U.S. assets.

The Gulf potentates understand that in return for lending the U.S. Treasury the cash to fund George Bush's $2 trillion rise in the nation's debt, they receive protection in return. They lend us petro-dollars, we lend them the 82nd Airborne.

Chavez would put an end to all that. He'll sell us oil relatively cheaply -- but intends to keep the petro-dollars in Latin America. Recently, Chavez withdrew $20 billion from the U.S. Federal Reserve and, at the same time, lent or committed a like sum to Argentina, Ecuador, and other Latin American nations.

Chavez, notes The Wall Street Journal, has become a "tropical IMF." And indeed, as the Venezuelan president told me, he wants to abolish the Washington-based International Monetary Fund, with its brutal free-market diktats, and replace it with an "International Humanitarian Fund," an IHF, or more accurately, an International Hugo Fund. In addition, Chavez wants OPEC to officially recognize Venezuela as the cartel's reserve leader, which neither the Saudis nor Bush will take kindly to.

Politically, Venezuela is torn in two. Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution," a close replica of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal-a progressive income tax, public works, social security, cheap electricity -- makes him wildly popular with the poor. And most Venezuelans are poor. His critics, a four-centuries' old white elite, unused to sharing oil wealth, portray him as a Castro-hugging anti-Christ.

Chavez's government, which used to brush off these critics, has turned aggressive on them. I challenged Chavez several times over charges brought against Sumate, his main opposition group. The two founders of the nongovernmental organization, which led the recall campaign against Chavez, face eight years in prison for taking money from the Bush Administration and the International Republican [Party] Institute. No nation permits foreign funding of political campaigns, but the charges (no one is in jail) seem like a heavy hammer to use on the minor infractions of these pathetic gadflies.

Bush's reaction to Chavez has been a mix of hostility and provocation. Washington supported the coup attempt against Chavez in 2002, and Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld have repeatedly denounced him. The revised National Security Strategy of the United States of America, released in March, says, "In Venezuela, a demagogue awash in oil money is undermining democracy and seeking to destabilize the region."

So when the Reverend Pat Robertson, a Bush ally, told his faithful in August 2005 that Chavez has to go, it was not unreasonable to assume that he was articulating an Administration wish. "If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him," Robertson said, "I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war . . . and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

There are only two ways to defeat the rise of Chavez as the New Abdullah of the Americas. First, the unattractive option: Cut the price of oil below $30 a barrel. That would make Chavez's crude worthless. Or, option two: Kill him.

Q: Your opponents are saying that you are beginning a slow-motion dictatorship. Is that what we are seeing?

Hugo Chavez: They have been saying that for a long time. When they're short of ideas, any excuse will do as a vehicle for lies. That is totally false. I would like to invite the citizens of Great Britain and the citizens of the U.S. and the citizens of the world to come here and walk freely through the streets of Venezuela, to talk to anyone they want, to watch television, to read the papers. We are building a true democracy, with human rights for everyone, social rights, education, health care, pensions, social security, and jobs.

Q: Some of your opponents are being charged with the crime of taking money from George Bush. Will you send them to jail?

Chavez: It's not up to me to decide that. We have the institutions that do that. These people have admitted they have received money from the government of the United States. It's up to the prosecutors to decide what to do, but the truth is that we can't allow the U.S. to finance the destabilization of our country. What would happen if we financed somebody in the U.S. to destabilize the government of George Bush? They would go to prison, certainly.

Q: How do you respond to Bush's charge that you are destabilizing the region and interfering in the elections of other Latin American countries?

Chavez: Mr. Bush is an illegitimate President. In Florida, his brother Jeb deleted many black voters from the electoral registers. So this President is the result of a fraud. Not only that, he is also currently applying a dictatorship in the U.S. People can be put in jail without being charged. They tap phones without court orders. They check what books people take out of public libraries. They arrested Cindy Sheehan because of a T-shirt she was wearing demanding the return of the troops from Iraq. They abuse blacks and Latinos. And if we are going to talk about meddling in other countries, then the U.S. is the champion of meddling in other people's affairs. They invaded Guatemala, they overthrew Salvador Allende, invaded Panama and the Dominican Republic. They were involved in the coup d'etat in Argentina thirty years ago.

Q: Is the U.S. interfering in your elections here?

Chavez: They have interfered for 200 years. They have tried to prevent us from winning the elections, they supported the coup d'etat, they gave millions of dollars to the coup plotters, they supported the media, newspapers, outlaw movements, military intervention, and espionage. But here the empire is finished, and I believe that before the end of this century, it will be finished in the rest of the world. We will see the burial of the empire of the eagle.

Q: You don't interfere in the elections of other nations in Latin America?

Chavez: Absolutely not. I concern myself with Venezuela. However, what's going on now is that some rightwing movements are transforming me into a pawn in the domestic politics of their countries, by making statements that are groundless. About candidates like Morales [of Bolivia], for example. They said I financed the candidacy of President Lula [of Brazil], which is totally false. They said I financed the candidacy of Kirchner [of Argentina], which is totally false. In Mexico, recently, the rightwing party has used my image for its own profit. What's happened is that in Latin America there is a turn to the left. Latin Americans have gotten tired of the Washington consensus -- a neoliberalism that has aggravated misery and poverty.

Q: You have spent millions of dollars of your nation's oil wealth throughout Latin America. Are you really helping these other nations or are you simply buying political support for your regime?

Chavez: We are brothers and sisters. That's one of the reasons for the wrath of the empire. You know that Venezuela has the biggest oil reserves in the world. And the biggest gas reserves in this hemisphere, the eighth in the world. Up until seven years ago, Venezuela was a U.S. oil colony. All of our oil was going up to the north, and the gas was being used by the U.S. and not by us. Now we are diversifying. Our oil is helping the poor. We are selling to the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, some Central American countries, Uruguay, Argentina.

Q: And the Bronx?

Chavez: In the Bronx it is a donation. In all the cases I just mentioned before, it is trade. However, it's not free trade, just fair commerce. We also have an international humanitarian fund as a result of oil revenues.

Q: Why did George Bush turn down your help for New Orleans after the hurricane?

Chavez: You should ask him, but from the very beginning of the terrible disaster of Katrina, our people in the U.S., like the president of CITGO, went to New Orleans to rescue people. We were in close contact by phone with Jesse Jackson. We hired buses. We got food and water. We tried to protect them; they are our brothers and sisters. Doesn't matter if they are African, Asian, Cuban, whatever.

Q: Are you replacing the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as "Daddy Big Bucks"?

Chavez: I do wish that the IMF and the World Bank would disappear soon.

Q: And it would be the Bank of Hugo?

Chavez: No. The International Humanitarian Bank. We are just creating an alternative way to conduct financial exchange. It is based on cooperation. For example, we send oil to Uruguay for their refinery and they are paying us with cows.

Q: Milk for oil.

Chavez: That's right. Milk for oil. The Argentineans also pay us with cows. And they give us medical equipment to combat cancer. It's a transfer of technology. We also exchange oil for software technology. Uruguay is one of the biggest producers of software. We are breaking with the neoliberal model. We do not believe in free trade. We believe in fair trade and exchange, not competition but cooperation. I'm not giving away oil for free. Just using oil, first to benefit our people, to relieve poverty. For a hundred years we have been one of the largest oil-producing countries in the world but with a 60 percent poverty rate and now we are canceling the historical debt.

Q: Speaking of the free market, you've demanded back taxes from U.S. oil companies. You have eliminated contracts for North American, British, and European oil companies. Are you trying to slice out the British and American oil companies from Venezuela?

Chavez: No, we don't want them to go, and I don't think they want to leave the country, either. We need each other. It's simply that we have recovered our oil sovereignty. They didn't pay taxes. They didn't pay royalties. They didn't give an account of their actions to the government. They had more land than had previously been established in the contracts. They didn't comply with the agreed technology exchange. They polluted the environment and didn't pay anything towards the cleanup. They now have to comply with the law.

Q: You've said that you imagine the price of oil rising to $100 dollars per barrel. Are you going to use your new oil wealth to squeeze the planet?

Chavez: No, no. We have no intention of squeezing anyone. Now, we have been squeezed and very hard. Five hundred years of squeezing us and stifling us, the people of the South. I do believe that demand is increasing and supply is dropping and the large reservoirs are running out. But it's not our fault. In the future, there must be an agreement between the large consumers and the large producers.

Q: What happens when the oil money runs out, what happens when the price of oil falls as it always does? Will the
Bolivarian revolution of Hugo Chavez simply collapse because there's no money to pay for the big free ride?

Chavez: I don't think it will collapse, in the unlikely case of oil running out today. The revolution will survive. It does not rely solely on oil for its survival. There is a national will, there is a national idea, a national project. However, we are today implementing a strategic program called the Oil Sowing Plan: using oil wealth so Venezuela can become an agricultural country, a tourist destination, an industrialized country with a diversified economy. We are investing billions of dollars in the infrastructure: power generators using thermal energy, a large railway, roads, highways, new towns, new universities, new schools, recuperating land, building tractors, and giving loans to farmers. One day we won't have any more oil, but that will be in the twenty-second century. Venezuela has oil for another 200 years.

Q: But the revolution can come to an end if there's another coup and it succeeds. Do you believe Bush is still trying to overthrow your government?

Chavez: He would like to, but what you want is one thing, and what you cannot really obtain is another.


Watch my recent exclusive BBC interview with President Chavez
Read the article here
Also watch my LinkTV Chavez Special "Finding Bolivar's Heir"
"Finding Bolivar's Heir" (Large File)
"Finding Bolivar's Heir" (Small File)

Greg Palast is the author of the just-released New York Times bestseller, "ARMED MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War" from which this is adapted. Go to www.GregPalast.com.

Cindy Sheehan in Venezuela

January 26, 2006

Cindy Sheehan, Mother Courage

I share my pain with all the mothers who are victims of the empire

PEDRO DE LA HOZ, Special Correspondent

CARACAS-- "There is no difference between my pain and that of an Iraqi
mother or another that has lost a son or daughter to hunger, misery or
lack of medical care in the impoverished and plundered countries. I
share my pain with all the mothers who are victims of the empire's
policies."

Cindy Sheehan is like a burning flame. Months ago she became a real
Mother Courage to the world. It is impressive how this pale, blond and
gentle woman --never before involved in public affairs-- has been had
able to systematically denounce her government's war against Iraq, where
her son Casey died.

Currently in Caracas, Sheehan is one of the most prominent participants
at the World Social Forum. With the help of Joel Suarez of the Martin
Luther King Center in Havana, Granma conducted a brief interview with her.

It stands out that Cindy uses the word "empire" to refer to the US
government. "Empires --she explains-- have always existed; unfortunately
we have perfected this insane concept of pursuing world hegemony at any
cost."

What began as an example of one person's pain has become not only a
symbol but also a way of confronting the foundations of the system
itself. Cindy describes it this way:

"For me, peace and justice have to go together. I hope the occupation of
Iraq ends as soon as possible, but that is not enough. We need a
philosophy of peace to prevail in the world, that there be no more
military ventures. However, for this to take place there must be a more
just world where wealth is equally distributed and where human dignity
is respected; a world in which the human being is really human and
overcomes racial and religious prejudices."

"I know --she clarified-- that those are lofty goals, but I won't give
them up. It is the way I can honor my dead son."

I asked Sheehan to comment on the situation at the US Guantanamo Naval
Base, a 21st century concentration camp.

"It is shameful that such a thing could exist at this time in history.
Not even the most minimal human rights are respected there. We have also
learned with horror that these practices are not only conducted in that
territory that the United States occupies without the consent of the
Cuban people. I was shocked by the news that soldiers from my country
have concealed torture camps in other countries allied to the empire."

A Brazilian colleague joined in the conversation introducing an
interesting twist by asking Sheehan her opinion of Condoleezza Rice and
Hillary Clinton, asking if they had shown solidarity with the losses
faced by US mothers.

"I don't think those women have maternal instincts, not even true human
instincts. I call them 'women' in quotation marks. Rice is convinced
that the war in Iraq is correct and should be waged in all its intensity
against the growing resistance movement. Clinton wants to solve the
problem by sending more troops, exposing both us and Iraqi mothers to
death. Both women are totally removed from the feelings of the majority
of US mothers."

Why is Cindy here in Caracas at the World Social Forum?

"It's the kind of event where many ideas are exchanged and the best are
promoted. I believe that talking about our movement, of the struggle we
are fighting, is of great value in the ears of the young people."

Cindy pauses and then continues:

"In the end, it's about no more mothers losing their sons to the whims
of a ruler."