Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez greets his supporters next to a poster of the Cuban revolution hero Ernesto "Che" Gevara during a rally in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, June 29, 2002. More than 100,000 people rallied Saturday in support of President Hugo Chavez's so-called ``peaceful and democratic revolution.'' (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

The conspiracy against the Venezuelan government, the first episode of which occurred between last April 10 and 14, was organized and planned from outside. In it we find the State Department of the United States, the governments of Spain and Colombia, and others that remain in the shadows but bet everything on causing a definitive overthrow of the Bolivarian process as a fundamental step for acceleration of the strategic aims of domination contained in the FTAA, before 2005.

Venezuela, with its innovative process of changes and new ways of confronting globalization and neo-liberalism, even if timidly, has become the Latin American and Caribbean black sheep that finds and demonstrates various paths for action by the workers, the dispossessed residents of the shanty towns, the street vendors, campesinos, the poor and all those sectors thrown into misery including a good percentage of the middle class, pauperized without pity by the capitalist crisis.

In the eyes of imperialism, the present Venezuelan government is the troublesome little devil that is pulling in its wake all the diabolic conspiracies from Alaska to Patagonia organized with purposes harmful to progress toward the new colonization of the continent. It is the impertinent element ungoverned by protocol that at any moment and in whatever company blurts out the most inopportune statements to contradict the dominant rationale and framework being expounded.

Since he speaks so much about participatory democracy rather than the representative variety the Organization of American States (OAS) has sustained from its beginning, and about Venezuelan sovereignty in opposition to foreign military presence and over flights of the cradle of Bolivar by U.S. military planes, when the presence of President Hugo Chavez Frias is announced, the hair of the organization’s leaders stands on end because they know they face serious contention with their aims.

That explains in part the role the OAS is playing in relation to the Venezuelan crisis that viewed superficially may seem to fit the equanimity and good offices of which it so prides itself. But this is not the case. The international organism’s position corresponds precisely to the need to make the best of the failed coup d’etat and guide the conspiracy to a course more certain of success. For this reason it even abstained from describing the matter of Carmona Estanga as it was in reality.

The anti-terrorist policy applied with class bias in favour of U.S. imperialism failed to condemn the putchists who suspended the Constitution, the National Assembly, the State and Municipal governments, the national bodies of justice, monitoring, control and defense of human rights, changed the name of the Republic, murdered dozens of innocent citizens in cold blood and arrested ministers and deputies, all under the cry of “Long Live Democracy!” and with the cross raised as the new symbol of power.

They also maintained silence in the face of the presence of U.S. warplanes and ships in Venezuelan skies and waters. They did nothing in relation to the evident pilgrimage of putchists to Washington, the presence of U.S. military in the Tiuna Fort on the days of the coup. There was not one word in condemnation of those who violated the Cuban embassy, causing a great deal of damage, and who had orders to rape the women found there. These were deeds that should have been condemned, in light of the theoretical postulates of the OAS.

Supporters of the President Hugo Chavez, holding posters of Pedro Carmona and Cuban revolution hero Ernesto "Che" Guevara, scream "Justice, justice" outside of the Venezuelan Congress in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, May 2, 2002. Carmona was sworn in as interim president for a day during a failed coup last month against President Hugo Chavez. The poster at left reads "Jail to the conspirators." (AP Photo/Fernando LLano)

Aware of the destabilizing role of the principal communications media, the OAS encouraged them to continue their work, supposedly to defend press freedom. They know the fifth column within the revolution bore fruit by weakening the revolution's forces in the National Assembly, politicizing the Supreme Court of Justice in favour of the right, undermining the National Electoral Council and strengthening the trappings of war that are seen in the elegant neighbourhoods of Caracas.

These days, the OAS missions to Venezuela have the apparent objective of preserving democracy and assisting the dialogue between the sides of the conflict. This is not the case.

They say nothing against the economic terrorism that has removed 8 billion US dollars from the country in a few months; much less, of the destabilizing force ensconced in Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), expressed as a state within a state, where the interests of the transnationals are rewarded and the aim is privatization in opposition to the healthy nationalist principal of protecting the principal resources of the people. They maintain a respectful silence in the face of unrestricted corruption and the mildness of justice in combating it.

Everything that contributes to discredit President Hugo Chavez Frias and the Bolivarian government aims for a solution to the crisis, but in the direction of imposing a regime similar to the one that has ruled Colombia for many years. Today, that one stands out as a lackey of U.S. imperialism standing against the popular and democratic current that is beginning to awaken in Latin America and which has its expression in the mobilization and organization of the oppressed peoples of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina.

Above all, and the destabilizing activities of the OAS are oriented in that direction, the aim is to publicly punish the Venezuelan popular and democratic process so it does not become a continental paradigm for the hopes of other peoples battling against misery. They have collected enormous strength because up to now in this country, it has been demonstrated that by combining the forms of struggle, it is possible to achieve substantial change, even using the mechanisms of bourgeois democracy via the vote.

The OAS is one of the main political, ideological and legal instruments for development of “Plan Colombia” and its complement, the Andean Initiative. These consist of neither more nor less than the use of war and gringo intervention as the form of domination. Together with other schemes like the Plan Puebla Panama, they are to guarantee the full unfolding of the FTAA.

The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, the armed revolt of the Colombian people, the mobilizations and insurrectional outbursts in Peru and Ecuador and the immense popular movement in Argentina, as well as the possible popular victory in Brazil, are united by the ideology that inspired the first independence. Today, with Bolivar as the standard, they are swiftly advancing toward the class confrontation that shall give rise to the second and definitive independence of our peoples.

In the face of this reality and the strength of the peoples and their struggles, the crafty means of the OAS for the defense of U.S. imperialism are useless, both its “democracy” clause, its agreement to fight against terrorism, and much less its exclusion of Cuba.

Translation on English by: elbarcino@laneta.apc.org