(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
In Ny Tid nr. 32, journalist Grete Gaulin has a three-page post about how terrible she thinks Venezuela's president, Hugo Chàvez, is for his country. We do not agree.
Gaulin claims that Chávez was a failed student (whatever that has to do with the case) but a good military, that he deliberately uses confrontation as a strategy and that he runs a disastrous economic policy because the country spends too much oil money. Moreover, the social and economic reforms in the country have no real impact on the citizens.
neoliberal
It is unusual to read such in Ny Tid. It usually appears in good right-liberal magazines like The Economist; a very interesting magazine with views that challenge the reader. However, we know then that the arguments are based on a premise: We want more economic liberalization and less state control. When the same is presented in the left-wing newspaper Ny Tid, it becomes somewhat more confusing. Based on how Gaulin i.a. discusses the “free” position of the oil company PDVSA, we must, however, assume that Gaulin's position is social or neoliberal.
Seen from the left
What does Venezuela look like from a socialist standpoint?
Until Chàvez's election victory in 1998, Venezuela was ruled by two parties that shared power and that channeled most of the country's resources to a small elite. It is a model we know from other Latin American countries, such as neighboring Colombia. For business, bank and estate owners, it is an effective alternative to a purely military dictatorship. Chàvez and his party, the Movement for the Fifth Republic (Movimiento V Republica) have inherited an extremely skewed distribution of goods and this takes a long time to rectify.
77 percent of Venezuela's agricultural land is owned by 3 percent of the population – the landowners. Half of the country's farmers own only 1 percent of the land, according to the CIA World Fact Book. The oil companies (foreign players such as Conoco, and national players such as PDVSA, which until recently were controlled by financial acrobats) retain 84 percent of the revenue from sales of Venezuelan oil. The state gets 16 percent. At the same time, the majority of the country's population is poor. GDP fell sharply after the employers' association's blockade of the economy and oil exports for approx. one and a half years ago. Similar economic sabotage was used against Allende's Chile in the months leading up to the September 11, 1973 military coup.
These are conditions that are very different from today's Norway. The closest we come is probably the newly industrialized Norway in the early 1900s, where poor workers on strike were met with gunfire. Such conditions are common in Latin America. It is these conditions that the people of Venezuela, together with their democratically elected president, are trying to get away from. What they want is called socialism. They call this process the Bolivarian Revolution.
Should we be able to take it seriously?
Gaulin criticizes the high consumption of oil money for social projects. Venezuela has benefited from the high oil prices, and the country's government has used part of this revenue to accelerate projects to give people access to free education and health. With statements such as that money is "posted" and that Chàvez "robs the economy and gives the money to the poor in a kind of Robin Hood style", one will discredit the investment in health and education. When CNN interviewed an opposition woman in Venezuela and asked what she disliked about Chavez, the answer was that “Venezuela was a rich oil nation. Chàvez has made Venezuela a new Cuba that spends money on education, health and jobs for the poor. ” Should we be able to take such criticism seriously?
Who would not have given people better access to education and health services if given the chance? In Norway, the SV and the country's mayors demand more money for the municipalities, just to upgrade the school system and secure free health services. It is about defending the welfare state, and it is argued to pay with oil money. SV has understood that investing in education is an investment in the future, and that a good and free health care is a right. Do we want to deny Venezuela the same thing? Is it not, on the contrary, positive that an oil-rich nation in South America, which recently held the presidency of OPEC, will use oil revenues to the best of the vast majority of its own population? And not to fill the misery of the few from the business community, those who now rule the opposition.
It may seem like a crime to be oil dependent. Norway is oil dependent. Oil is by far our largest export item, which lubricates Norway's economy and our private prosperity as it is today.
Revolutionary
Venezuela has launched alternative social development models that are revolutionary. The country's president, government and parliament (also elected by the people) have indicated that they do not want to join the global liberalization that includes privatization of public services, foreign companies' right to invest without environmental requirements and taxes, or trade agreements dictated by the United States. They have openly stated that they disagree with the political content of the ALCA Free Trade Agreement, and they have been an important driver of promoting alternative models in the WTO.
Venezuela gives priority to the people's right to economic and social security first. It still includes control over natural resources. Venezuela's new constitution (adopted by the people) states that the country's water is public property (art. 304) and that the state should have a stronger control over oil resources (art. 303). These are demands that the left side in large parts of the world are fighting for, and which are especially important for us in Norway.
In Venezuela, the country's indigenous people have for the first time been granted statutory rights. Their languages are recognized as official languages, and access has been introduced to require medical treatment on their cultural premises in public hospitals.
The health care system is now being developed with the help of Cuba. It is based on exchange rather than buying and selling: Cuba sends well-educated health professionals and provides education to around 500 Venezuelan medical students annually. The Cuban doctors work in poor and remote areas where private doctors will not set foot. In return, Venezuela exports oil to Cuba.
Similarly, Venezuela has common interests with other South American countries, such as Brazil and Argentina. New trade agreements are signed with them, and Venezuela is increasingly linked to the MercoSur trade area, which is an alternative to and a threat to the US-dominated world order. In other words, investments and innovations are encouraged, it just no longer follows the logic of the stock exchange. It is tied to what is common people's needs.
Not electoral fraud
Gaulin points out that it took a long time before the referendum on Chàvez's mandate was completed. She claims that the election commission "found excuses" to demand a review of the signatures the opposition had collected. This is not true, but it is a common argument that the Venezuelan coup maker's do their best to spread to others. The Carter Center, which was present as observers, writes on its website that “the officials at many of the tables that received signatures actually filled in the basic information (about those who were to sign) and then gave it to the signatories for their signatures, and the validity of these the signatures have been questioned. (…) The Election Commission rejected approx. 1 million of the 3,4 million signatures collected based on the fact that the citizens themselves did not appear to have filled in the basic information. ” In other words, a question of validity. It was also said that people had signed under pressure from employers and that even the dead were on the lists… Every true democracy would have required a careful review of the signatures in such a situation, for a possible referendum afterwards to have legitimacy – not to prevent it!
SV's support is clear
About the election itself that followed, the Carter Center concludes that they have found no evidence of cheating. Chavez has received the support of a majority, and let us hope that progressive and democratic movements in other countries also see the potential of the Bolivarian Revolution and give it their support. At least SV's support is clear.
