VENEZUELA UPDATE:
Today was clearly a crucial day in the ongoing Trump - Bolsonaro - Almagro attempted coup.
Juan Guaidó appointed himself as president in charge of the Republic. Not only the whole thing has no constitutional basis whatsoever (article 233 which he mentioned provides for the vicepresident to take over in case of a "permanent absence of the president", which is not the case, not for the president of the national assembly to do so), he took the oath in the middle of the street during a political rally, rather than being voted by his own NA members. A complete farce.
However, a coup only attempts to disguise itself in legalistic robes but fundamentally it is never decide on the fine points of the law, but on the question of force.
As if on cue, Trump immediately jumped in to recognise Guaidó as the legitimate president. He was followed, of course, by Almagro and the loyal presidents of Brazil, Canada, Chile, etc.
Maduro responded, at the end of a chavista rally, by breaking all diplomatic relations with the US and giving its diplomatic staff 72h to leave the country. Guaidó then issued a statement to all embassies to remain in the country. Senator Marco Rubio called on the US to expel Venezuelan diplomatic staff and accept a new set of diplomats appointed by Guaidó. The US has declared that it will not evacuate its personnel from Venezuela "due to the fact that the president recognized by the United States has not asked them to".
Clearly, the US is going for broke.
Then the White House issued very serious threats against Maduro. He said that if Guaidó or other NA members were arrested or harmed "all options were on the table". This was later repeated by Trump in Davos.
Significantly, the statement from the EU offered its support for the national assembly, called for a democratic process, rejected violence, etc but did fall short of endorsing Guaidó as PRESIDENT.
Mexico, Russia, Bolivia and Turkey reaffirmed that they recognised president Maduro.
What next? A country cannot have two presidents for any length of time. Either or the other must prevail. The crucial test is who has the monopoly of violence and control of the territory, not who is more or less legitimate from a constitutional point of view.
The chief of the armed forces, Vladimir Padrino took his time to make a statement and when he made it he didn't even mention Maduro nor the defence of the elected president. The statement (https://twitter.com/marxistJorge/status/1088192772300066818) clearly rejected Guaidó, without mentioning him, but was couched in terms of defence of the Constituion and sovereignty.
A separate statement from the CEOFANB (joint chiefs of staff) account did mention Maduro as the legitimate president. There was however no press conference with the army top brass in uniform, which could have been expected. What all this means as to the depth of loyalty of the army is anyone's guess. What is clear for now is that Army has not broken nor has it supported Guaidó. This is a key question.
As for the support of the chavista ranks, the demonstrations today were sizeable in Caracas though much smaller elsewhere.
This is now a game of chess in which each move will be carefully calculated and in which the players each have access to information that is not necessarily in the public domain as to what is happening within the army, etc.
In the next few hours and days we can expect more events, big and small as we approach a denouement.
Will the US staff be expelled? Will Guaidó be arrested (he seems to have gone to the Colombian embassy "for lunch")? Will there be some high profile incident designed to provoke a reaction on the part of the army or perhaps justify foreign intervention of one sort or another.
A situation like this can easily escape out of the control of the main actors. In the opposition there are armed groups as there are amongst the chavista ranks. There are also groups amongst the peasantry and in some working class communities which have a lot to lose if the coup succeeds and they would be prepared to defend their gains, arms in hand if need be.
The policy of the Bolivarian leadership is cautious. Maduro's speech today was weak. Other than the expulsion of US diplomatic staff there were no real measures proposed in order to fight the coup attempt, nor any clear indication of what the people should do to fight it. When the people present started shouting about prices, he evaded the question.
In reality the only way to effectively fight the coup attempt would be through a revolutionary policy of leaning on the workers and peasants to strike blows against the capitalists and imperialism who are the ones behind the coup plot. Nothing of that was even hinted at.
The ability of the opposition to botch their own plans should not be underestimated. The strength of the anti-imperialist feeling amongst the Venezuelan masses should not be underestimated either.
From the point of view of imperialism, a civil war scenario is not desirable. Their plan is to exert enough pressure to either force Maduro to resign (offering him an "honourable" way out, they've been talking of a "Chilean style" transition), or to force the Army to intervene. That cannot be ruled out.
Finally, a scenario in which the contending forces are paralysed and unable to prevail over each other is tailor made for Bonapartism. An "independent" intervention on the part of the Army to impose its own terms on a "transition" is a possibility in that context.
Meanwhile, our tasks are clear: to agitate against and denounce the imperialist reactionary coup, to advocate revolutionary means to fight it, to build the forces of Marxism in Venezuela and internationally.
No comments:
Post a Comment