On August 15, with the referendum that will decide either for ratifying or revoking the presidential mandate of Bolivarian commander Hugo Chavez, an important page not only of the history of struggles and victories of the Venezuelan people, but of all peoples of that tormented and also fierce and rebellious Latin America, will be written.
There is no doubt for Brazilian communists and revolutionaries, we who participate in left-wing parties and social movements, we who work to make our country advance in the struggle for progressive causes, to find the path to national and social emancipation and keep on performing the role it has taken with the administration of President Lula, the role of a friend of poor and developing countries in the efforts for a new economic and political world order: the outcome of the referendum will be a fat, sounding NO to the revocatory coup, a torpid maneuver of a worn-out and reactionary dominant class that is isolated from the people and national aspirations and closely linked to the United States’ imperialism.
At nightfall on August 15, when the urns will be opened and the ballots counted, the result of another coup attempt will be the political strengthening of the democratic revolution, the consolidation of popular unity, the increase of the authority of their leader, who will be even more credentialed to be an interpreter of the aspirations of the Venezuelan people and a conductor of the movement of transformation. It is with that perspective that the Brazilian communists are taking part of the multifaceted campaign of solidarity to the Bolivarian revolution, sending to that neighboring country a delegation of party members and leaders of mass movements, a part of the São Paulo Forum’s delegation, with a view to have a closer look at the political movements connected to the referendum and offer the Brazilian left-wing’s indisputable solidarity to our brothers, to the Fifth Republic Movement, to the Communist Party (which supports the Chavez administration) and to President Hugo Chavez.
The dispute on August 15 has a profound political and ideological meaning. By saying NO to the revocatory coup and confirming the continuity of the presidential mandate, the Venezuelan people once more reaffirms their commitment to keep mobilized to defend and deepen the national, democratic and popular revolution that started about 15 years ago, in the occasion of theCacarazo (a popular revolt against severe economic and social measures defined by the IMF), which was drowned in blood by the corrupt administration of Carlos Andrés Perez. By winding ways (revolutionary political processes will always be meandering), the Revolution achieved an important victory on December 6, 1998, with Hugo Chavez Frias’ overwhelming election (56.2% of the votes), who had led on February 4, 1992, a civil-military insurgence that heralded the end of the worn-out political regime where the parties of the dominant class, AD and COPEI, alternatively took power. Therefore, by saying NO to the revocatory proposal, the Venezuelans will keep on saying NO to the return of those parties and the likes to power, identifying them as the political forces that turned the country’s oil wealth into a source of opulence to the bourgeoisie connected to imperialism and famine, diseases, illiteracy, unemployment and all sorts of burdens to the majority of the people. That was the exact reason why President Chavez begun his mandate with the dismantling of that political system. We must remember that the Bolivarian leader was inaugurated with an oath taken with his hand on a Constitution that he viewed as “decadent,” the reason why the Constituent Assembly was called to draft in 1999 the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Saying NO to the revocatory attempt corresponds to the political defense of the Revolution, the imposition of obstacles to retrograde forces, the creation of a new hegemony of democratic, popular and nationalist forces led by President Chavez.
By rejecting another coup attempt by saying NO on August 15, the Venezuelan people will be defending also the social achievements that were just started. Despite the enormous difficulties inherited from neoliberalism, economic and financial conditionings and sabotages, important social transformations are indisputably taking place in Venezuela, especially in education and health, by means of the so-called revolutionary “missions,” as well as transformations in rural zones, by means of the agrarian reform. It is a process that will be developed in the long run, which is not separated from the political struggle, the popular mobilization and the efforts to build up a new economic model.
Saying NO on August 15 will have a profound international meaning. The administration of the Bolivarian Revolution stands out in the Latin American and world stages as an anti-imperialist force, being an ally of the peoples of dependent countries in their struggles for sovereignty, a supporter of the integration of Latin America, which is the essence of Bolivarianism, an opponent to the FTAA — an annexation plan designed by the United States, an extreme expression of neocolonialism — defending peace, against wars of aggression, a friend of Cuba and of all revolutionary countries and peoples. As long as the articulation of progressive and left-wing political forces is concerned, the Fifth Republic Movement, led by Chavez, overcoming resistance, misjudgments and prejudice of which it was victim, is now a force that stands out in the São Paulo Forum, a force committed to the anti-imperialist unity of the Latin American left. Therefore, it makes sense to affirm that the struggle between NO and yes on that August 15, more than being a dispute between the forces of political and social advance and reversal in domestic matters is, in the international situation, a choice between Chavez, an anti-imperialist leader, friend of the peoples who fight for national independence and social emancipation, and Bush, that loathsome and degraded character who is facing troubles in his attempt to be reelected in the United States, a leader of imperialists, war-mongers, a scourge of the peoples and nations. Thus, let us remain with Chavez in the name of the peoples’ good causes.
