Venezuela
Goes Mad/Rafael Osío Cabrices is a journalist and author.
The
New York Times |11-03-2014
The
violent demonstrations that have rocked Venezuela for weeks are threatening to
wipe out what little democracy is left here after 15 years of systematic
erosion by the state. The government of Nicolás Maduro has responded with
massive military force, raiding offices and houses without judicial orders,
imprisoning civilians in military compounds and applauding the killing of
protesters by paramilitary groups.
Yet
the riots do not portend a Venezuelan Spring. For the government they are a
welcome deflection of public attention from a faltering economy and rising
crime. They may even invigorate this flaccid dictatorship.
The
turmoil started on Feb. 4, after the sexual assault of a student ignited a
protest on a university campus near the Colombian border. The National Guard
responded with disproportionate force, and demonstrations multiplied throughout
the country. A lot of rage was waiting to explode. In Mr. Maduro’s first year
in office, Venezuela has experienced urban violence and shortages of basic
goods usually associated with wartime. The annual rate of inflation, which
exceeds 56 percent, is one of the highest in the world.
By
March 5, when Mr. Maduro’s more-military-than-civilian government commemorated
the first anniversary of the death of its revered comandante, Hugo Chávez,
close to 20 people had died and more than 1,000 had been detained. Most of the
prisoners were released within days, but some alleged being raped and tortured.
Today, large rallies continue in the middle-class neighborhoods of all the main
cities. The protesters, in a gesture mixing anarchic defiance and self-defense,
block the streets with makeshift barricades, or guarimbas, and set them on
fire. That only invites more violence from the National Guard and the
colectivos, the Chavistas’ civilian militias.
By
creating traffic jams and keeping bread and other basic groceries out of shops,
the guarimbas also increase tensions between protesters and ordinary citizens.
As I was writing this article, smoke filled the streets outside my family’s
apartment; barricades were smoldering after another battle between protesters
and the public forces. But we were lucky. In other neighborhoods, the National
Guard and colectivos barged into buildings to come after protesters, arresting
not just the hooded teenagers but infuriated housewives who insulted them for
charging after demonstrators.
At
this point, nobody — no political party, no social movement, no one leader — is
in charge of the protests. The demonstrations have created a political crisis
all right, but it is a crisis less for the government than for its opponents.
After years of struggling to forge a coalition, the opposition seems divided
again.
Beyond
the students who started the protests, there are two main strands within the
opposition. One is a group of hard-liners led by María Corina Machado, a
congresswoman from an opposition stronghold in Caracas, and Leopoldo López, a
former mayor of the anti-Chavista neighborhood of Chacao. They want the government
to fall; their crowd is active in the streets and spews insults on Twitter at
Chavistas and moderate anti-Chavistas alike. (Mr. López has been in military
custody since Feb. 18 on charges of inciting violence.) Another opposition
force is trying to keep alive the Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (Democratic
Unity Roundtable), an umbrella group of anti-Chávez parties that believes in
institutional politics.
At
this point the radicals seem to be the most popular among protesters; they
certainly are the loudest. And the more they scream, the more the security
forces beat up demonstrators, and the more barricades the demonstrators set on
fire. The situation is wildest in Táchira, where the uprising began and where
violence and the scarcity of household goods have been more widespread for
longer than in the rest of the country. There, the protests have spread from
middle-class neighborhoods to the slums. Occasionally, a fighter jet crosses
the sky.
Still,
the revolt in Venezuela isn’t some Latin American version of the Arab Spring.
Just one National Guard soldier has been killed so far; the demonstrators are
not going after state forces. Instead, they build barricades and burn them, and
cry out that they won’t accept a Cuban-style dictatorship. There is no group
backing Venezuela’s protesters like the Muslim Brotherhood, with a platform, a
network and the logistics to overthrow the current government. Despite what the
Chavistas in power claim, repeating the tired leftist line about American
meddling, these rallies and riots are not a conspiracy to topple an elected
government. The hard-liners in the opposition who want regime change cannot
drive Mr. Maduro from office, much less replace the sprawling Chavista
establishment. The military remains firmly aligned with Mr. Chávez’s heirs.
The
government shows no sign of buckling; nothing, its officials insist, can stop
Mr. Chávez’s socialist revolution. If anything, the protests may inject new
energy into a weak and inefficient dictatorship. The government seems to be
biding its time until the silent majority gets impatient with the protesters.
It is trying to borrow more money from China, its newest key ally, to restart
the economy. It also appears to be reaching out to local business captains in
the hopes of reviving agricultural production and industrial activity.
The
violence will continue, meanwhile, even if this wave of protests is crushed
under soldiers’ boots. I can see that in the rage of drivers who encounter
blockades on their way home; in the curses that even neighbors exchange; in the
decaying control of municipal authorities; in the myriad reports on social
media about assaults, arson, break-ins, vandalism. Crime and out-of-control
inflation will make life harder for almost everyone.
Venezuela
has long been a country with no space for independent media, the rule of law or
competitive politics. Now, it is also a country where thousands of protesters,
absurdly, are taking orders via Twitter from a self-proclaimed prophet in
Miami, Reinaldo dos Santos, who has announced Mr. Maduro’s fall. And it is a
country where thousands of Chavistas are calling for jailing, exiling or
disappearing the opponents of their repressive government. Venezuela isn’t
undergoing a revolution. It is going mad.
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