Has the opposition’s political momentum dissipated? After obtaining a two-thirds majority in the December legislative elections, the Maduro government has used its control over the judiciary to nibble away at the National Assembly’s powers and block their most important initiatives. And while two thirds of Venezuelans think President Nicolás Maduro should not finish his term, the always-fractious opposition was not able to agree on a single strategy to push for his removal and have failed to make headway. However, the current political deadlock could be overwhelmed by an economic crisis that has not hit bottom, looming electricity and water crises, and horrendous levels of crime and violence. It is important to think now about how the international community could best contribute to peaceful resolution of Venezuela’s political and economic crisis.
[The following is a
translated and edited version of a presentation I gave to an ad hoc,
off-the-record discussion group last week in Caracas. The first 650 words or so
are rather academic. If you want more Venezuela-specific analysis, jump down to
the break following the asterisks]
Let me begin with the idea, not
particularly new, but important as a foundation for my analysis, that violence
is a form of social interaction in which a person or group seeks to dominate an
other through physical aggession or direct threat of physical agression.
Violence is a way to order or reorder social relations and is most common when
these social relations are in play, in other words in conditions of relative
equality. Hierarchical, unequal relations, are generally pretty stable and
peaceful. Violence is most likely to occur when the question “who’s in charge?”
does not have a clear response, or when the existing social equilibrium is
unstable and can easily be challenged.
Work in process by Josefina Bruni Celli of IESA shows how, over the course of forty-two
years there is an extraordinary correlation and direct relationship between oil
revenue and violence. The higher Venezuela’s oil revenue, the more the state
invests in its citizens, the more poverty and inequality decline, and….the more
violence there is.
From a common sense point of view this is
paradoxical—this is why we called the conference Veronica Zubillaga and Rebecca
Hanson and I organized at Tulane last October “The Paradox of Violence in
Venezuela.” Our natural tendency is to think people are more happy and less
prone to violence if they are equal and there is less poverty. They may indeed
be more happy, but violence really has little to do with whether people are
contented or not. Rather it has to do with their efforts to gain control over
their social context.
Violence can be emotional and passionate,
of course. And this is the principal way in which people tend to think about
violence—a person who is frustrated or has repressed emotions explodes. However
this is probably the least important type of violence for understanding what is
going on in Venezuela. Much more important is that violence can be instrumental. It is
a form of interaction that seeks to order or reorder social relationships,
conslidate nascent relationships or reinforce weak or threatened relationships.
A massacre in a mining area of Venezuela’s
southern Bolivar state and public reaction to it has put into relief the
government’s ever more tenuous monopoly of legitimate violence, as well as changes
and opportunities for human rights advocacy in the new political context.
The summary execution of seventeen (and
possibly twenty-eight) gold miners by a mining mafia took place in an area with
scarce presence of the state other than the Venezuelan military. In the first
days of rumors and outcry, Bolivar state governor Francisco Rangel Gómez’s
(United Socialist Party of Venezuela—PSUV) vigorously denied a massacre had
taken place. State media echoed this denial suggesting
it was “virtual massacre” used by the opposition to destabilize the Maduro
government.
A couple of years ago this might have buried
the case. But in this case, the denunciations of an opposition legislator, protests
by family members, and the involvement of the Ombudsman’s Office as well as the
Attorney General pushed forward a public investigation.
The first to publicly denounce the massacre
was opposition deputy Américo De Grazia. He said that families
in Tumeremo were protesting that some of their family members had not come home
from an illegal mine in the area called Atenas
since Friday, March 4.
An unnamed witness told De Grazia he
had seen at least 28 people -17 of whom the witness could personally identify
as residents of Tumeremo –being shot, dismembered, and disposed of in an
unknown location. He also mentioned a local criminal gang leader called El Topo as being responsible. In his declarations De Grazia also hinted at the
complicity of state security forces operating the area.
On March 5 Rangel Gómez declared he had investigated into the matter already and had come to the
conclusion that a clash between rival mining gangs had in fact taken place near
Tumeremo, but that there were no reports of deaths or injuries. He said no
bodies had been found in the area and that therefore no massacre had taken
place. He also said that he would take unspecified legal actions against De
Grazia for spreading false rumors to “terrorize the population.”
But family members’ persistent protests in
Tumeremo seemed to have forced Governor Rangel Gómez to back track from his
initial swift denial. On March 7 he reported that army units were in
the area, guided in their search by witnesses and families of the supposed
disappeared miners, but insisted that no bodies had been found. He also claimed that the
affair was part of a “political play by the right-wing, who is profiting from
the illegal mining in the area.”
On Saturday, March 12 the Maduro government held
an “Anti-imperialist March” rejecting the Obama Administration’s renewal of
the Executive Order declaring a national emergency with respect to Venezuela. Earlier
in the week Maduro called on grassroots and social movements to march against the executive
order. “We need to respond in the streets. We need to respond with unity, we
need to answer.”
While the turn-out was modest compared to
marches and demonstrations in the past, it was the most significant pro-government
mobilization since the December 6 legislative elections, and rivaled the opposition’s
march in the East of Caracas. A good segment of the marchers,
were, of course, public employees.
On March 9, Maduro announced he was recalling Charge
D’Affairs Maximillien Arveláiz from the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington. In
an event held in the National Pantheon, resting place of Simón Bolívar, Maduro
suggested this would be the first of several measures, including the naming of
March 9 Bolivarian Anti-imperialism Day.
[The Foreign Minister] has precise instructions for the coming weeks to
take steps, from the Foreign Ministry, to defend the Fatherland, our honor, our
decorum, our dignity, and take the measures which will be announced in their
due time, to respond and reject the announcement of the renewal of this
aggression…How I would like it if a door would open for the US Embassy to stop
its economic, political and military conspiracies against Venezuela.
Better times will come. But for the times to come to improve, Venezuela has to
be on its feet. And Venezuela will be on its feet if there is a people on its
feet, mobilized and conscious, and if there is a president like this one right
here, son of Chávez, Nicolás Maduro Moros in charge of the Fatherland, the
Republic, and who continue to be [in charge], in the coming years. It’s the only guarantee
that we will be respected sooner rather than later, by this aggressive and
murderous empire. That’s why I pronounce today, the 9th of March, first
anniversary of the infamous decree, and the first commemoration of Bolivarian
Anti-imperialism Day.”
This meeting followed a number of declarations
in previous days from other government officials.
Yesterday the opposition Mesa de la Unidad Democrática announced its long awaited strategy for pushing Nicolás Maduro from the presidency. However, rather than forging a consensus around one of the proposals that have been circulating in recent weeks, they decided to push for all of them at the same time with the hashtag #Vamoscontodo (roughly “Giving it everything we got”) (see the announcement here). They will:
-Carryout street mobilizations to push for Maduro’s resignation,
-Pass a constitutional ammendment reducing the presidential term to four years, leading to elections this year, and
-Begin to mobilize for a recall referendum, starting with a new law on referendums, to impede it from being blocked or impeded.
The reasons they give for pushing for all three strategies at once are that the situation is urgent and the government is trying to use the Supreme Court (TSJ) to block any initiative.
The absence of vigorous discussion and commentary in the media in the twenty four hours since the press conference does not bode well for the mobilizing capacity of this strategy. A quick look at opposition blogs such as Prodavinci.com, Runrun.es, Analitica.com, and Caracaschronicles.com shows scarce mention of what should have been a transcendental announcement.
In part this is because the decision had been leaked days in advance and already had received some, mainly negative, commentary. But one cannot help but compare the muted response to the polite silence that comes from the family of a musician after a disastrous performance.
[Yesterday
I did an interview with a foreign journalist who sent me some questions
beforehand. Below I elaborate the notes I wrote for our Skype conversation.]
As I said there it seems that Nicolas
Maduro has found the one possible way to undermine Chavismo as a significant
political-electoral movement: leave the model as is and drive it off a cliff.
If he had altered the model and fallen into trouble, people would have simply
blamed him and proposed going back to true Chavismo. But it is quite evident
for everyone that what Maduro has done is simply take the model of state-led
economic growth and an overvalued currency to its reductio ad absurdum. There
are some on the far left who suggest that there is not a problem with the
model, that it is really just a matter of corruption and execution. But I don’t
think they are convincing many people.
Having said all this, Chavismo has
always been not just about Chavismo but about an opposition that has been in-grown
and out-of-touch. This opposition could indeed rescue Chavismo by misplaying
their hand as they have so many times in the past.
Right now the opposition is
discussing their strategy for trying to force Nicolás Maduro from office
and can’t seem to come to an agreement. The 1999 Constitution has a mechanism explicitly
created for this situation called a “recall referendum” which has high legitimacy
with the population. But instead they are considering a constitutional amendment
that would reduce Maduro’s term from six to four years and require new
elections by the end of the year. Many in the opposition see this as the line
of least resistance since it would not require a petition drive, nor a vote
with the requirements of the recall referendum—in which you need to get more than
50% of the tally, and more votes than the president was elected with. And a
constitutional amendment would lead to a full presidential term, rather than a
completion of the existing term.
The background of this is that
many in the opposition have always thought they were the majority, think that “Venezuela”
supports them—i.e that there is a consensus in their favor–that Chavismo is
illegitimate, and that therefore anything they do to try to obtain power will
be seen as legitimate. But Chavismo still has support from about a third of the population—indeed
in the legislative elections they got 42% of the vote despite horrendous
economic conditions. And a good portion of the opposition’s support in the
December election was light, coming from independent voters or disaffected
Chavistas, and cannot simply be counted on come what may.
If the opposition pushes for a
constitutional amendment instead of using the established mechanism of the
recall referendum, the majority of Venezuelans who are not committed opposition
supporters could well see it as a power play of dubious legitimacy, and
withhold their support. Opposition leaders will likely say that the National
Electoral Council is controlled by the government and biased against them. But
three months after that same CNE presided over an election in which the
opposition swept the legislative elections, it is not clear how convincing that
argument will be. It could generate the image that they don’t want to play by the rules and are once again seeking a shortcut to power instead of mobilizing the population through footwork and communication.
On February 27 president Maduro announced he has
approved the National Human Rights Plan for 2016-2019. He said the plan is
“the result of hundreds of assemblies held with social movements, in which
there has been a convergence and integration of great objectives with respect
to human rights. All the powers of the State are to be subordinate to this
plan,” he added.
The original draft of the plan underwent what the government labeled a “consultation
period,” which extended for three month since the publication of the draft and expired on October 15,
2015. The draft had been criticized by independent human rights organization
for being overtly political and for holding, according to one
human rights NGO, “partial ideological visions.” The version approved by Maduro
this weekend has yet to be published.
The consultation period and its methodology
were also criticized by human rights NGOs for its failure to incorporate UN experts, and for
excluding the participation of civil society in the process. The government claimed, however, to
have made wide consultations to “social movements” and to have held discussions
in several government institutions.
Rafael Uzcátegui, General Coordinator of the
human rights organization PROVEA, told this blog that reaction by human rights
NGO to the announcement of the Plan’s approval has been slow because the actual
text approved is still unknown.
Opposition National Assembly deputies and activists celebrate passage of Amnesty Law in first discussion.
Keymer Ávila
The original Spanish language version of this piece was published in Contrapunto.com, February 23, 2016.
In this article I will make reference to the Proyecto de Ley
Amnistía y Reconciliación Nacional (PLARNA),
which was approved by the Venezuelan National Assembly in first discussion on February 4, and has been published so that it
can be debated publically. The following are reflections that might contribute to that debate.
1. What is amnesty? Etymologically the word amnesty
is related to the term amnesia; it is related to a notion of forgetting certain
crimes. In Venezuela the granting of amnesty is the competence of the
Legislative Power (See article 187.5 of the Bolivarian Constitution and article
104 of the Penal Code), which may temporarily and retroactively repeal penal
norms. Therefore: a) an amnesty extinguishes penal action and responsibilities
to all effects; b) it stops judicial sentences and all its penal effects; and
c) sentences are not to be counted in cases of reincidence. An amnesty law only
leaves untouched civil responsibility. These principals can be found in any basic
Penal Law handbook.
An amnesty is essentially a political act in its
motivation and justification, and this is why its legal and normative aspects
take second stage. Amnesty laws are usually promulgated in contexts of high
political conflict, and their function is to cool them down, thereby ensuring a
minimum of stability and governability.
But if an amnesty if related to
forgetfulness, what happens to memory?
Venezuela’s media context has changed significantly
during the three years Nicolás Maduro has been at the helm. Globovisión, Cadena Capriles (including Ultimas Noticias and El Mundo), and El Universal all changed hands resulting in clear changes in
editorial line. Social media, especially Twitter, has become the preeminent
medium through which citizens get independent information. And online news
portals such as EfectoCocuyo.com, RunRun.es and Contrapunto.com have emerged,
providing a vigorous alternative. In the two and a half months since the legislative
elections, there are some signs that traditional media are beginning to
diversify.
Below we provide a list of the posts we have published
on the freedom of expression and media from the beginning of 2013 to the
present.
On Monday February 1, officials of the
government’s media watch dog Comisión
Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (CONATEL) visited the offices of the private
television channel Globovision. According to
leading Globovision journalist Vladimir Villegas, the officials asked for
documents and for explanations about “routine activities” of the channel. Villegas
also said that Globovision is currently going through the process of requesting
a renewal of its broadcasting license, but that CONATEL has so far failed to
answer its request. “What are they after? Do they want to close the channel? To
generate chaos?” asked Villegas. The episode seemed reminiscent of the tensions between the
government and private media dating back to 2013.
Early this year, president Maduro complained about
the media coverage of the new National Assembly. He said that journalists
tended to be “very organic right-wing.” He further explained that when
journalists interviewed a pro-government deputy, they “agreed beforehand” to
cajole the deputy so that “he could not explain his point, but
when they interview the deputies of the right, of the oligarchy, they become
complacent. They coordinate the questions they want to ask.”
PSUV deputy, and ex-president of the National
Assembly, Diosdado Cabello has also been critical of local media. On
January 27 he said in his
television show Con el Mazo Dando,
that the director of pro-opposition newspaper El Nacional, Miguel Henrique Otero, was behind a re-edition of the
“2002 coupist script,” which includes “a new media campaign pushed by
right-wing media industry, aimed at discrediting the actions by the Chief of
State to solve the current economic juncture of the country.”
