[Peace-discuss] The Venezuelan Opposition: Urban Terrorism in the Empire’s Service

[Phil Stinard]

Here is an essay that I translated on the tactics employed by the Venezuelan 
opposition to the Chavez government in conjunction with the U. S. government 
to bring about another coup in Venezuela.  It contains much background 
information and analysis, and highlights the role of the private media and 
psychological operations.  This article is quite long, so when replying or 
commenting, please quote only small portions and not the entire document.

--Phil

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The Venezuelan Opposition:  Urban Terrorism in the Empire’s Service

by José Del Grosso
Clinical Psychologist

“It doesn’t matter if nobility steps on your head, as long as you have 
someone else’s head to step on.”
--Robespierre.

When we speak of clarifying the reasons for the violence unleashed by the 
economic and political elites of this country, what quickly comes to mind is 
a large list of complaints that appear reasonable on the surface:  “Poverty 
has increased dramatically.”  “Unemployment and insecurity have increased.”  
“Chavez has been governing for almost five years and things have gone from 
bad to worse”….  These kinds of complaints get attention, but:

1.  They try to make it seem that these kinds of things never occurred 
during the democratic dictatorship from 1959 to 1999:  “The past was 
better.”  “We knew how to do things then.”  The objective of their strategy 
is to wash their hands and erase their own responsibility for the lead role 
they assumed in causing the social, economic, and political disasters that 
they speak of.

2.  The reaction of the elites to situations even more serious than those 
they attribute to Chavez’s government never reached the levels of violence 
and terrorism that they have exhibited in recent years.

3.  Their complaints hide a truth that is larger than a cathedral, and that 
is that even if Chavez and his cabinet have committed mistakes during their 
government, the elite can’t attribute all of the blame to Chavez for the 
increase in poverty, insecurity, and unemployment.  At first glance, what 
jumps out is that the elites’ protest has gone far beyond “peaceful” 
marches, and that to “remove Chavez,” they have implicitly gone to the 
extreme of adopting the theme of “We will destroy Venezuela in order to save 
it,” which is to say:  “We will destroy PDVSA [the petroleum industry],”  
“We will paralyze industry,”  “We will paralyze commerce,”  “We will leave 
the people without food,”  “We will take all of the capital out of the 
country”… so that Chavez leaves through the democratic process.

As we continue characterizing the supposedly rational and reasonable 
complaints of the opposition, there is another class of complaint that they 
make: They are convinced that they and only they are The People.

As is typical of discourse saturated with the unconscious tone of the 
patriarchal archetype, the national oligarchy not only speaks as though they 
were the majority, but they also speak collectively, and want us to believe 
that the majority is in agreement with them, and that they have been chosen 
as their spokesmen.

Thus, excluding the majority of the people who have always been 
marginalized, they happily allege, as though it were an absolute truth, that 
among the reasons to remove Chavez are:  “There exists a national consensus 
for removing Chavez.”  “Seventy percent of those polled blame the President 
for the country’s problems.”  “The failure of Chavism is turning into public 
wrath that cannot be contained.”  “Now, it is the general belief that 
[Chavez] is incapable of resolving society’s problems.”

This second group of reasons for “removing Chavez,” clearly is in harmony 
with the thought patterns of the patriarchal archetype:  “Only I govern.  
Only we govern…  on the basis of a single, absolute, true, unquestionable, 
indisputable, irrefutable, infallible thought….”

The purpose of the Venezuelan oligarchy, then, unconsciously turns into a 
religious theme, to unite, to congregate, to struggle against the evil of a 
different thought that threatens the established sacred order.

A significant part of the struggle against Chavez has as its goal, not 
simply to take over the presidency, but also to place “people of 
confidence,” to seize the “sacred order” of the old patriarchal ideology of 
the democratic dictatorship, that they be at the head of government, that 
they do it for the benefit of the national oligarchy and their foreign 
associates.

Jason Ramoneda explained this well in his work “After the political 
passion,” where he says that the economic elites hide behind politicians, 
and that once the politicians become the government, they are at the service 
of the national and international elites.

The powerful national and foreign elites make up the political landscape of 
their countries, and in order to represent them, they brainwash the people 
with their ideology of salvation.

In recent decades, the economic elites have, through the communications 
media, sowed in the minds of the people, images and opinions favorable to 
the politicians that represent them, and in this way, they create and 
maintain governments that are in agreement with their own ideology and 
goals.  This means that the majority does not have control over national 
political life, and that their role is limited to choosing among the 
alternatives that are imposed by the elites.

Beyond this, “removing Chavez” has two urgent concerns:

1. Chavez’s Bolivarian ideas and works are a bad example for Venezuelans, 
and for other Latin American countries as well because majorities in other 
countries could take power and imitate his anticolonialist policies; this 
would call into question and endanger the “sacred imperialistic ideas” of 
globalization.

2. To seize the Venezuelan petroleum industry, particularly in this moment 
in which the U. S. is becoming bankrupt, and is going through an energy 
crisis that they thought they could immediately overcome by invading Iraq.

For U. S. imperialism, Chavez is a true threat, a devil, because he has 
warned us of the dangers of neoliberal thinking;  that is, to be subservient 
to the hegemony of the main political and economic principle of free trade, 
which is to say, the nonintervention of the State in the planning and 
definition of the investment of national revenues.  If not for our 
vigilance, it would be the elites who would decide the vital aspects of our 
social life, such as education, health, agricultural production, water, and 
public services.  In other words, the elites would decide how we must think, 
what we read, who has the right to be healthy, what we can eat, how much 
water we consume, and why….

One of the “innocent” projects of the colonialists and yankee invaders is 
the FTAA.  The FTAA hides behind its supposed benefits the notion that it is 
the only trade model worth following, that it is the only ideology and 
vision of commercial salvation for Latin America.

To legitimize the hidden goals of the FTAA, the project is embedded in a 
judicial environment that is above the laws of National Constitutions.  This 
erodes the sovereignty of national laws, and legally requires countries to 
submit to the rules of the World Trade Organization.  With this, the Empire 
will no longer need to buy local politicians; they will save a little money, 
and the U. S. will be able to punish, in any way they see fit, those 
countries that don’t submit to their will.


Control is ours, because we are the people

To understand more deeply the Venezuela oligarchy’s attitudes and their 
alliances with the North Americans, it is necessary to briefly review 
several significant political elements.

Aristotle says in his work, “Politics,” Book 8, which treats the general 
theory of revolutions, that “all political systems, no matter the 
differences, recognize certain rights and proportional equality among the 
citizens, but all, in practice, don’t follow this doctrine.”

The majority of Venezuelans during the 40 years of democratic dictatorship 
were convinced that the three Constitutions written during this period 
recognized and defended a series of rights for all citizens.  They were even 
more convinced that we lived in a harmonious and peaceful democracy.

However, despite that, the people, confused, asked themselves if they really 
lived in a democracy.  This question, now more than ever, comes to the fore 
when we observe the terrorist behavior of the Coordinadora Democratica and 
its allies during recent years, a space of time during which, in the name of 
democracy, they have wanted to eliminate the Bolivarian Constitution, take 
Chavez out of power, despite his having won two elections with an 
overwhelming majority of votes, and impose upon us a referendum, which from 
the beginning was corrupted, and has only counted on the support of a 
reduced group of their followers.

They taught us in school the idea that Democracy means “government of the 
people.”  They told us, and we read in text books, “Democracy comes from the 
Greek word ‘demos,’ which means people, and ‘kratos,’ which means 
government.”  They also told us that Venezuela was a democratic country, but 
they hid from us the context in which the idea of democracy was born and how 
it was understood at that time.  Nor did they explain which concept of 
democracy was used and put into practice in Venezuela.

Greek culture has guided Western culture up to this day (Alfred North 
Whitehead: “Adventures of Ideas”).  Greek culture, which is a “machista” 
[sexist] culture, has always been buried in our unconscious, influencing our 
way of thinking, of perceiving the world, our feelings and actions.

Thus, our accustomed manner of seeing opposites everywhere:  black/white, 
good/bad, male/female; and the idea that the world has a hierarchy; came 
from the Greeks, and is unconsciously rooted in our way of thinking (Ken 
Wilber, “Consciousness without borders”; José Del Grosso, “Beyond mind and 
conduct”).

The Greek concept of a universe organized in a hierarchy reflects 
psychological patterns typical of the patriarchal archetype.  The idea 
conceives of only one supreme god, Zeus, to which the other gods and men are 
subordinate.

In a similar manner, and following the psychological patterns of the 
patriarchal archetype, the Greeks organized their social life in a 
hierarchy, and developed the idea of democracy as the best and only means of 
social coexistence.

In the times of Classical Greece, only wealthy, free men, which is to say, 
those who had the most property, the most slaves, etc., were those who 
constituted the People, those who governed and were governed.  They were the 
only ones who counted, and it was they who determined and made all of the 
decisions for the polis, or city.  They considered themselves as the only 
ones who could and should rule the country, and the only ones who could 
prevent Greece from ever being in the hands of the poor.  The women, the 
artists, the slaves, and the poor were not citizens and did not participate 
in the Assembly.  They were also not considered citizens with respect to 
political rights.

As Aristotle explains in his work cited above, the oligarchy (government by 
the few) “was born in the desire to make general and absolute an inequality 
that is only real and positive in certain ways, because inequality of men in 
wealth implies that they must be unequal in all other areas, without 
limitation….  Supported by this inequality, they have only thought about 
increasing their privileges, because that would be the same as increasing 
inequality.”

It’s not surprising to find that the ancient oligarchy created the following 
oath in some Greek  States:

“I will be the constant enemy of the people, I will do to them all of the 
evil that I can.”

The desire of the oligarchy to make inequality absolute, and their oath, in 
their unconscious and in practice, have survived through the centuries up to 
the present day.  “For the Venezuelan oligarchs, 90% of the people don’t 
count, are not people.  In particular, the poor are no more than vulgar, 
dirty people.”  “For the Owners of the Country, there exists no other People 
than themselves.”

This is exactly the idea of democracy defended by the U. S. Heinz Dieterich 
Steffan writes, “The entire political praxis of U. S. democracy stems from 
the axiom:  The government of a country must always be in the hands of 
owners, and never in the hands of the poor, because the owners of the 
country are the most committed to preserving their patrimony, and besides, 
they will execute moderate and reasonable policies.”

Furthermore, as Rai O’Brien explains in his article What democracy to expect 
if opposition takes control in Venezuela?, “The US political system is 
indisputably and totally controlled by two political parties. These two 
parties are undeniably controlled by money…. Indisputably, money rules in 
the US political system…. We could extend these ideas to mean that the 
present US "democratic" system simply ensures that the minority rules…. The 
globalized version of democracy is most concisely defined as a system which 
portrays itself as a democracy, but in reality is a system which supports 
the goals of the elite in the global economy.” [from 
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=16707 ]

The United States not only defends within its own territory the idea that 
power must be in the hands of the elite, but as “globocop” and champion of 
the idea that democracy is supposedly “good for everyone,” the U. S. imposes 
it on the world by force.

As Guardian Of What Is Good For Mankind, the U. S. intervenes in all Latin 
American countries to make sure that they have democracy, and to ensure 
that, not only are the governments in the hands of local oligarchies, but 
also to ensure that they are U. S. allies and aid them in their fight 
against evil.

>From the perspective of U. S. patriarchal doctrine, Chavez doesn’t 
understand what democracy is.  He is not a democrat, but rather a bad 
example for the rest of Latin America and the world.  He is a “radical 
leader” who threatens the “stability of the region.”

On the basis of the excuses given above, the U. S. considers it an urgent 
priority to get rid of Chavez by any means necessary, including the 
destruction of Venezuela and “legal assassination.”  Consider the U. S. 
participation in the coup of April 11, 2002;  the “Civil Strike,” whose 
objective was the economic collapse of the country; as well as the 
declarations of the proconsul and known intelligence agent Shapiro to the 
effect that “To assassinate a president isn’t necessarily a crime” (Arrogant 
US Ambassador to Venezuela Charles S. Shapiro says its not a crime to kill a 
President, VHeadline.com, 09/28/2003).

Chavez embarrassed the globocop in front of the entire world, by exposing 
from high office the true intentions of the U. S. economic and political 
elite, and by proposing, among other things, that democracy should be a 
participatory democracy and not a democracy ruled by money and controlled by 
an elite.

>From the perspective of the patriarchal archetype, the Venezuelan oligarchy, 
which identifies itself completely with the democracy of the U. S. 
oligarchy, has reacted violently against Chavez and his Bolivarian ideas 
because Chavez has not only instituted a true democracy in Venezuela, but 
has also set limits on the oligarchs and advanced plans that are favorable 
to the majority of Venezuelans.

>From its patriarchal mentality, this is not acceptable to the oligarchy 
because in their unconscious mental program they have recorded messages such 
as, “only we rule,” “only we make the laws,” “only we are people,” “only we 
are the owners of the country,” and “we are superior.”


Control is, and will always be ours, no matter what:  Third and fourth 
generation wars

“We all want peace, but the question, unfortunately, is who will decide what 
peace is, what order and security are, what is an acceptable or unacceptable 
situation.” –Carl Schmitt.

The violence unleashed by the poorly named opposition demands attention.  
For the majority of Venezuelans, the opposition’s actions are 
incomprehensible, irrational.  It goes beyond what is tolerable, and for 
that reason calls for immediate government intervention:  “The government 
should imprison everyone.”

I believe that we can’t let ourselves by ruled by our first impulses and 
react in a conventional way, simply conforming to what our laws say, 
especially because the opposition has used the laws as a weapon of war.

We find ourselves in the middle of an unconventional war, with a logic 
different from that to which we are accustomed.  We are talking about a 
collection of strategies created and supported by the U. S., which have been 
channeled and put into effect by the Venezuelan oligarchy and their 
followers.

It is a despicable fact that the U. S. government has been clandestinely 
supporting the so-called Venezuelan opposition in its numerous attempts to 
“remove Chavez.”  Their advice and intervention in the coup on April 11, 
2002 was placed into evidence by many institutions, groups, journalists, and 
publications, for example:  “The U. S. supported the coup in Venezuela, 
affirms TransAfrica Forum”; Venpres, 01/08/2004.

Shortly before the coup, so-called opposition leaders openly met with 
members of the administration of Emperor George Weed [Bush] in Washington, 
and it has been confirmed that the National Endowment for Democracy has been 
recently financing the opposition’s call for a referendum [against Chavez] 
(Rai O´Brien, “What democracy to expect if opposition takes control in 
Venezuela?”  VHeadline.com).

This unconventional war is not only supported by the U. S. economic, 
political, and military elite, but also involves many international 
organization that serve as fronts, and a series of infiltrators, or “fifth 
column,” in all sectors of national life.

We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the names of these 
organizations.  Human Rights Watch doesn’t defend human rights, it defends 
U. S. economic, political, and military interests.  The National Endowment 
for Democracy (NED) looks to the world like a non-profit organization that 
fights for liberty and democracy, but its true purpose is to insert itself 
into the internal affairs of countries like Venezuela.  And as part of this 
interference, NED has been financing the so-called Venezuelan opposition 
(Rebelion.org, Venezuela denounces financing from the United States to the 
opposition coup supporters in Venezuela, Venpres, 02/13/2004).

The new military theories of war developed by the U. S. consider the 
objective of wars not to be the physical destruction of the enemy, but 
rather his domination; and according to these theories, this objective can 
presently be achieved with the help of existing technology, without the need 
to sacrifice the life of even one soldier.

Third and fourth generation wars, in contrast with those of the first and 
second generation that involve hand to hand combat and traditional weapons 
of war, use culture and information as weapons designed to control the minds 
and will of the people.  Through this control, the U. S. aspires to mobilize 
masses of people in their favor in order to fight against a supposed enemy.

>From the perspective of war theories developed by the U. S., cultural 
penetration on the part of the U. S. must be complete; it must penetrate the 
enemy as intimately as possible in all social arenas of daily life:  
education, health, hygiene, food, entertainment, publications, mass media, 
art, music, poetry, and religious, economic, and political organizations; 
with the goal of winning and manipulating the mental and organizational 
system of its adversary.  Evidently, this is what the U. S. government has 
been doing in Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua, Chile, Iraq, etc.

What William Lind, Corporal Keith Nightingale (USA), Captain John Schmitt 
(USMC), Corporal Joseph Sutton (USA) and Corporal Gary Wilson (USMCR) say in 
Marine Corps Gazette, October 1989, pp. 22-26, is very revealing:

“In the broadest terms, fourth generation wars will probably be largely 
scattered and undefinable;  the distinction between war and peace will be 
blurred and there will not be a point of separation.  It will be a nonlinear 
war, to the point that one will not be able to define battlefields or 
fronts.  The distinction between “civil” and “military” could disappear.  
Actions will occur simultaneously through all participants, including the 
society as a cultural entity, but not as a physical entity….  All of these 
elements will be present in third generation wars.  Fourth generation wars 
will simply be an amplification of the above….  Psychological Operations 
(PsyOps) could become the dominant operational strategic weapon in the form 
of information/media intervention….  News broadcasts will become more 
powerful operational weapons than armed forces divisions.”

All of the strategies used by the Coordinadora Democrática have the 
following in common with the theories of third and fourth generation wars:  
using changing and contradictory logic; employing invisible and volatile 
combatants; and clever use of the principles and democratic rights enshrined 
in the Bolivarian Constitution.

Thus, psychological war waged in the information media is based on freedom 
of the press and the right to inform.  Internal sabotage in the government 
is based on protection of the unions and workers’ rights.  The marches and 
protests, and the Guarimba, are protected in part by Article 350 of the 
Constitution, which speaks of the disregard of “any regulation, legislation, 
or authority that obstructs values, principles, and democratic guarantees, 
or diminishes human rights.”


Psychological Operations, or Psychological War

When we stop to look at how the Venezuelan opposition, allied to U. S. 
economic and political elites, has been plotting against Chavez, what is 
most evident has been the use of the information media, with the goal of 
winning followers by brainwashing them.

The target, or goal, of their Psychological War is essentially the 
Venezuelan middle class.  Their campaigns appeal to key aspects of their 
unconscious, what I have referred to as the patriarchal archetype, to 
release violence when it is convenient [to the opposition].

Psychological War waged through the media is not limited to the 90% of the 
media that are in the hands of the national oligarchy, but also involves 
international media like CNN.  [CNN] is one of the largest media outlets 
employed by the White House to create international opinion favorable to its 
short, medium, and long term interventions.

CNN, as one of the four horsemen of the Venezuelan Apocalypse, takes great 
care not only in manipulating information and making people believe that 
Chavez is a tyrant, but also hides the positive and democratic 
accomplishments of this government; and tries to subtly associate Chavez 
with terrorist organizations, so that any direct military intervention by 
the U. S. in Venezuela would look like a humanitarian intervention, as they 
did in Haiti.

In Venezuela, the Coordinadora Democrática has taken advantage of the four 
horsemen of the Apocalypse to call for rebellion, and it has done so more 
than a few times using a strategy of racism and classism to provoke terror 
in the middle and upper classes, to call upon them to defend their lives, to 
move to action and create direct confrontations with people of fewer 
resources.

Furthermore, the [privately owned media] have been creating a favorable 
opinion of U. S. intervention in Venezuela and, notably, some individuals 
have openly called for U. S. intervention before the cameras of the private 
Venezuelan TV companies.

When the Coordinadora uses million dollar time slots on [privately owned] 
television station broadcasts to air anti-Chavez propaganda, one must ask 
where the money comes from to pay for the million dollar campaigns of 
disparagement and Psychological War waged against Chavez.  Furthermore, 
where does Gustavo Cisneros, whose businesses, according to those who know, 
are going from bad to worse, get the money to wage a campaign of total war 
against Chavez on his Latin American TV station chain?  Could it be that the 
father of George [Bush] is collaborating with generous donations to the 
media campaigns?

We cannot forget that the father of Emperor George [Bush] is a friend of 
Gustavo Cisneros, and that they even go on fishing trips together.  Nor can 
we forget that George [Bush] has a cabinet composed of members from the 
petroleum industry, that the [Bush] family possesses important petroleum 
businesses, and that his family and the family of Osama Bin Laden are 
associates in many deals connected to the petroleum industry in the Orient. 
(Thierry Meyssan, “The big lie”).

When the Coordinadora paralyzed the entire country against its own economic 
interests, one must ask, how do they keep their businesses and companies 
afloat?  Do they simply recover their losses by increasing the prices of 
their products and by firing their employees?

When [the police] detain leaders of the Coordinadora carrying high power 
rifles that even the Venezuelan army doesn’t have, and which come from the 
U. S., we cannot look away.  We must ask, how did they get them?

The paramilitaries who have killed more than 80 campesino leaders in 
Venezuela, where did they come from?  Who pays them?  Why don’t the media 
who are openly against Chavez say anything about this, and about the 
military base that the U. S. is building on our border with Colombia in the 
Guajira region?


An “invisible” enemy

Two strategies derived from fourth generation wars can been seen, for 
example, in the marches and public protests (called the Guarimba) of the 
opposition.

In the marches, the strategy consists of the sudden appearance of certain 
individuals who are mixed in with the group, and as quickly as they appear, 
they disappear as if by magic.  They are individuals who quickly come out of 
the windows or are on the roofs of buildings, and shoot long-range weapons 
towards the National Guard—and at times against their own people—or who come 
out of the group of marchers and throw high powered bombs and molotov 
cocktails, shoot guns using shells containing fragments of metal and glass, 
throw rocks, sticks, and pieces of pipe, disappearing rapidly into the 
crowd.  Are these marches peaceful?

Always counting (by coincidence?) on the presence of TV cameras, or the 
video cameras of “fans,” when the National Guard tries to defend itself or 
when the state security bodies try to stop these “terrorists,” the people in 
the marches pass themselves off as victims.  This moment is used to prevent 
the security personnel from doing their job, and simultaneously to “obtain 
proof of government brutality and repression.”

Many times they produce media shows that supposedly are proof of state 
repression.  One of those shows occurred the 27th of February, 2004, when 
the opposition tried to break the security barrier placed to protect the 
presidents that were attending the G-15 Summit in the city of Caracas.  
Coincidentally (?), the TV cameras captured the images of a young woman who, 
alone, confronted the National Guard, started an argument, took a night 
stick from a woman in the National Guard, and in the confusion, fell on her 
back one or two meters from where she was standing.  The narrators, as was 
to be expected, condemned the acts of violence committed against that poor 
and defenseless woman by the National Guard—images that Globoterror 
[Globovision]  repeated endlessly.

When one watches the video for the first time, because of the speed with 
which the events happened, it looks like the woman was really attacked, but 
after viewing it a few times, one asks, how strong must the woman in the 
National Guard have been in order to pick up the supposed victim and throw 
her through the air for one or two meters?  Why did the victim fall so 
perfectly on her back and not receive any injury?  As it happens, the 
supposed victim got up and walked perfectly as if nothing had happened.

The Guarimba is a similar strategy, except instead of using a large group of 
marchers, it uses smaller groups stationed near secure locations, which 
serve as a refuge for the fugitives once the misdeeds have been committed.  
That is to say, it uses the strategy of unseen, volatile urban terrorists, 
who are difficult to detect, detain, and prosecute for their illegal 
actions.

The name “Guarimba” means territory, a place to hide where no one can find 
you.  The only objective of this plan is to completely paralyze the country, 
and create chaos and anarchy nationwide with the participation of the 
citizenry.  In order to do this, the intellectual author of Guarimba, 
Roberto Alonso, proposes, among other things:

1. We shouldn’t directly confront the forces of public order, especially 
because of the overwhelming force of the responding peace officers.  
Therefore, we must employ tactics similar to those used by guerrillas 
against regular armies that have given the guerrillas so much success.

2. We must attack quickly, attack and withdraw.  Attack them when they least 
expect it.  We must be everywhere, and we dress as we like.  We will reduce 
their numbers, which will destroy their ability to fight, above all when 
they don’t know from where they are being attacked and by whom.

3. We will place dark colored ropes or cables between posts across streets 
at a height of one and a half meters to trip motorcyclists of the National 
Guard, DISIP (State Police), and Bolivarian Circles.  We will freeze pots of 
Chines rice that we have as leftovers in our houses to throw from buildings, 
together with glasses, bottles, cans, and trash.

4. We will drive slowly in our cars.  If every one of us drives slowly, 
little by little the city will collapse.  (from “Guarimba or terrorism made 
in Miami?” by Humberto Gómez García.  Temas Venezuela 03/30/2004).

The terrorist minds of the opposition deceive their followers, making them 
believe that their participation will help restore the “earlier democratic 
dictatorship;” and avoid the establishment of Castro’s communism in our 
country.

But what is hidden from them is that, behind the invisibility and impunity 
that “throwing the rock and hiding the hand” gives them, are snipers or 
assassins that kill or injure either their own people or members of 
“Chavez’s hordes,” to “create martyrs” and thereby light the wick of a 
bloody civil war by way of resentment and revenge.

By doing this, the macabre minds of the Coordinadora Democrática and the 
national and international economic elites hope that the country becomes 
ungovernable, and that the resulting disorder be so great that it will be 
difficult to calm the people by televised appeals.

The government will then fall into the trap of using the forces of public 
order, and the opposition will achieve ulterior goals such as:  a) make the 
national government seem repressive, b) invoke the famous Democratic Charter 
so that U. S. troops invade the country, c) the national oligarchy and the 
government in Washington will have the control of the country in their 
hands, and d) they will reestablish democracy on their own terms.


The oil is ours

For centuries, the United States has assumed a “messianic ideology,”  They 
consider themselves “the chosen people,” “the people called to govern the 
world,” and they appropriate for themselves the right to practice the only 
ideal international economic and political system, which is why they disdain 
the existence of a balance between national and international power.  (Read 
the chapter on “The new world order” in Henry Kissinger’s book “Diplomacy” 
for more information with respect to this.)

The U. S. has merely extended “the mission that God gave them” as “chosen 
people” to corner the entire world; the mission that George [Bush] actually 
believes was given to him [by God] to fulfill the destiny of his country.

>From its position as the Grand Patriarch, the U. S. believes that it has the 
right to the resources of other countries, for which it has waged a great 
variety of wars across the entire planet.  Wars that are very convenient for 
them, because a large part of their economy is based on the production and 
sale of arms, and because in these wars, besides colonizing the invaded 
countries, they make a lot of money through their famous “reconstructions.”

The interest and conspiracies of the U. S. in taking over Venezuelan oil are 
nothing new.  They have a history of more than a century (“PDVSA and the 
coup,” various authors).  We can’t say that this unlawful appropriation of 
our oil has been done by openly using force, that is to say by a direct 
invasion as has been done in Iraq, or indirectly through an alliance with a 
terrorist state as occurred in Timor, a country that was invaded by 
Indonesia in 1975 and later in 1999 with financial and military support from 
the U. S.

Rather, one of the recent strategies of the U. S. to get our oil is through 
the ideology of globalization.  Globalization has, among its founding 
principles, the idea of nonintervention of the State in the economy, and the 
(false) necessity that governments privatize all of the industries that they 
own.

This almost imperceptible strategy consists of corrupting key employees so 
that the state run industries fail and declare bankruptcy.  The 
responsibility for the bankruptcy is attributed to the government, which is 
accused of ineptitude.  The government, under pressure from politicians and 
the local private business sector, is obligated to sell the national 
industries at “fire sale prices,” and the transnational corporations 
generously accept the task of buying the bankrupt industries which later, 
miraculously, flourish due to their new, good and admirable management.

This has been one of strategies used in Venezuela to take control of our 
oil.  During the 1990’s, almost imperceptibly, PDVSA [the national oil 
company] started to become a burden for the state, with elevated operating 
costs and poor investments such as the purchase of abandoned and broken down 
refineries, which once bought were never rebuilt and put into production.

However, the U. S. started to employ more aggressive tactics due to 
inspections and direct intervention in the PDVSA by Chavez, and resorted to 
a “petroleum coup” with the aid of the meritocracy, which was given the task 
of fleecing and sabotaging it:  shortages of gasoline, destruction of 
installations, sabotage of contracts, etc.

The petroleum coup was the perfect macabre plan:

1. By destroying PDVSA and leaving it in bankruptcy, not only could the U. 
S. take one of the most important oil companies in the world at a good 
price, but they would also have free access to oil from the country with the 
fifth largest known oil reserves in the world.

2. The [Bush] family’s patrimony would continue to increase.

3.  If the oil industry, Venezuela’s biggest source of revenue, were in the 
hands of the U. S., this would allow economic coercion, leaving the hands of 
the Venezuelan government tied.  The U. S. could create economic chaos, 
place the blame on Chavez, and force us to submit to the plans of the IMF.

4. Misery and poverty would rise to such high levels that the same people 
who brought Chavez into power would rebel and force him to resign.

5. Removing Chavez would accomplish:  a) U. S. desires to take control of 
one of the most important sources of oil in the world, and b) remove the 
danger that Chavez represents to the U. S.; according to them, Chavez is a 
bad example because he incites other countries to defend their resources and 
propose more fair economic practices.  For one sector of the middle and 
upper classes, removing Chavez from power would accomplish their desire to:  
a) again “put their boots on the heads of low people,” b) retake control of 
the country, which they consider theirs by divine right, and c) reestablish 
the sacred patriarchal order with all that implies.


The Great Patriarch of the North accelerates his plans:  “We must invade 
Venezuela immediately.”

Emperor [Bush], the Great Patriarch of the North, with all of his arrogance 
and egoism, is beside himself with anger because of his inability to crush 
Chavez.  To date, he has tried many of the tactics of third and fourth 
generation warfare, but his efforts have been futile.  However, we must not 
become self-confident, but must instead be alert to the possibility that he 
will employ military force, whether it be indirectly through support for 
Plan Colombia, or directly with troops.

[Bush’s] indignation is great, and on top of that, the United States is 
virtually bankrupt.  The U. S. needs Venezuela’s oil desperately.  Their 
plans to exploit Iraqi oil are becoming remote, and without petroleum, the 
U. S. would be paralyzed in such a way that they it would feel no recourse 
but to take Venezuela’s oil by any means necessary.

Although the possibility that the U. S. would invade us horrifies us, and we 
invent all kinds of “buts” as a means of self-denial, we cannot close our 
eyes or bury our heads like ostriches.  There are many warnings of a 
potential invasion of Venezuela by the United States.  Here is the most 
recent one, made by James Petras, Professor of Sociology of the State 
University of New York in Binghamton:

“According to Petras, the U. S. priority is the government of Venezuela.  
The United States are not going to invade Venezuela by themselves, which is 
why they need a military ally capable of opening a second front, which is 
Colombia.  According to this sociologist, the U. S. is treating this as a 
military project, and is calculating how much resistance they would face in 
their invasion of Venezuela.  In my opinion, they are planning a violent 
overthrow of Chavez, in combination with an internal uprising and an 
invasion from the frontier by Colombia, which would open the way for the 
entry of the U. S” (“Bush is planning the overthrow of Hugo Chavez, assures 
James Petras,” La Jornada, Mexico, 03/28/2004).

Along with the preceding warning, we have the public declarations of an 
official of the U. S. State Department, Peter Deshazo, which reaffirm what 
Petras said:

“The public acknowledgment by State Department official Peter Deshazo that 
the CIA finances U. S. mercenaries in Venezuela; the more than 80 
assassinations of campesino and popular leaders during the Bolivarian 
government; the continuous shipments of arms to Venezuelan paramilitaries; 
and the increasing attacks by Colombian paramilitaries demonstrate that 
Washington is mercilessly pursuing its policies to destroy the government of 
Hugo Chavez” (Heinz Dieterich:  “Destruction accomplished for Aristide, 
destruction planned for Hugo Chavez.”  Rebelion, 02/21/2004).

We also have the report by General James T. Hill, head of the U. S. Southern 
Command, who in [recent] testimony before the U. S. House Armed Services 
Committee warned that a new menace was emerging in Latin America:  “radical 
populism”:

“…the leaders… reinforce their radical positions by inflaming anti-U.S. 
sentiment.  Additionally, other actors are seeking to undermine U.S. 
interests in the region by supporting these movements.”

He cites Haiti, Venezuela, and Bolivia as examples where “radical” leaders 
have promoted anti-U.S. sentiments and seek to exploit the fragile context 
of their countries to promote and reinforce their power.  Hill also 
indicated that “the Argentine economic crisis has caused many to question 
the validity of neo-liberal reforms, manifested in the Buenos Aires 
Consensus signed last October by Presidents (Argentine Nestor) Kirchner and 
(Brazilian Luis Ignacio) Lula (da Silva) and stressing ‘respect for poor 
countries’” (Jim Carson/David Brooks, “A new menace is emerging in Latin 
America, according to the Pentagon:  radical populism.” La Jornada, 
03/29/2004).

Mr. James T. Hill’s testimony suggests that these leaders are a danger to 
the stability of the region.  This aspect, “stability of the region,” is the 
key for understanding the bellicose actions that the U. S. has already 
unleashed on Haiti, and which they may unleash against Venezuela and Bolivia 
in the future.  To use Noam Chomsky’s analysis, which is clear and 
revealing:

“… and the elements that cause disorder in the world must know that they 
will pay dearly…  if they don’t obey the orders of Washington, their 
master….  Understood in this way, a region is stable when it is integrated 
in the global system which, dominated by the U. S., serves the officially 
sanctioned interests and is controlled by specific centers of power….  In 
the same manner, Washington sees itself obligated to impose on Guatemala an 
extremely cruel military dictatorship because its first democratic 
government represented a growing threat to the stability of Honduras and El 
Salvador, according to the State Department.  The risk of instability in the 
region mustn’t be taken literally; what’s happening is that Guatemalan 
agrarian reform is a powerful propagandistic weapon.  Its generous social 
program is centered in helping workers and campesinos and is directly 
opposed to the interests of the upper classes and large foreign 
corporations.  Thus, it is attractive to neighboring Central American 
peoples that live under similar conditions.  After forty years of terrorism, 
these programs no longer exist, so now Guatemala is no longer a risk to 
regional stability.”

Chomsky emphasizes:

“Take into account that, in the doctrinal sense, it is not considered 
contradictory to destabilize with the intentions of creating stability; 
thus, Nixon and Kissinger put all of their efforts into destabilizing the 
Marxist government that the Chileans had chosen in free elections, because 
we had decided to achieve stability, according to a renowned expert in 
international relations” (“A new generation makes the rules,” pp. 42-43).

Wars are won by soldiers (citizens), not by generals or leaders alone.  
Although Chavez is a brilliant strategist, we can’t continue acting 
according to the unconscious pattern of the patriarchal archetype; that is 
to say, endorsing Chavez, converting him into an all-powerful god, and the 
people assuming a passive role, leaving him the responsibility to win 
battles alone.

We must fight, and our first task is to be alert, conscious of what is 
happening in the country and in the world.  We must change our attitude from 
a passive one to an active one, with a full vision of the world, not one 
based on the biblical standard of “an eye for an eye,” because, as Ghandi 
says, “The whole world would go blind.”

Another world is possible, and we, the Venezuelans and Latin Americans 
together, must create it, because our America is full of beautiful, 
spiritual, loving, and creative people.

dgrosso at cantv.net

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