One of the most powerful and independent critical voices in Venezuela today, Emiliano Terán Mantovani is a sociologist, political and environmental activist dedicated to the resistance against extractivism. He does not shy away from speaking out about the situation in his country, analyzing the decadence of a regime that has become an authoritarian civil-military-police alliance, configuring what he calls “a dictatorship of a new type”.
Sociologist from the Universidad Central de Venezuela, researcher and activist, Teran Mantovani has collaborated with various initiatives such as the Atlas of Environmental Justice and the Scientific Panel for the Amazon. The interview was not easy to put together, as he has to move with extreme caution in the face of the overwhelming militarization that the country is experiencing. He assures that Maduro’s government is not a leftist or even progressive government, but a “regime of corruption, abuses, precariousness of life and repressive violence”.
He also analyzes the opposition that defends “an orthodox neoliberalism, of massive privatizations” and a “geopolitical closeness with the United States”. He concludes that the competition is between two neoliberal forces and that the Madurist regime is going through a deep decadence. Raúl Zibechi interviews him for Brecha.
– How would you characterize the Maduro government?
– Since July 28, an electoral fraud has been consummated in Venezuela that will be much talked about when we remember the biggest frauds in the contemporary history of Latin America, such as the “fall of the system” in Mexico, Fujimori’s or some unusual cases in Central America. Today, a reconfiguration of Maduro’s political regime is being considered, in order to be able to govern under conditions of complete social, political and international illegitimacy. It is a dangerous reconfiguration because it intends to take repression and social control to unsuspected levels, but allow me first to state where we are coming from in order to see where we could be going.
Maduro’s government has had in these 11 years an evolution that tends more and more towards decadence, in all senses. It has been pulverizing the framework of social rights, seeking to suffocate all political and social dissidence, with a brutal repression of the entire popular camp, even if one is a critical Chavista. Venezuela has been governed under a permanent state of exception: a legal one, by decree, which lasted more than five years, from 2016 to 2021, something totally unconstitutional, but which paradoxically was normalized.
On the other hand, the power architecture of the Maduro regime was shaped from a progressive restructuring of the State. The antecedent is the corporative and militarist State configured in the Chávez government, its authoritarian and vertical ways of doing politics, which put as a fundamental principle the maximum loyalty to the leader, above all things. The structures and networks of state corruption are also an important antecedent. These elements saw continuity in Maduro’s government, but now without Chávez’s charisma and political legitimacy, without the enormous oil income and in the context of the Venezuelan systemic collapse. Thus, everything began to be imposed primarily by force and violence.
The National Assembly widely won by the opposition in 2015 was disregarded and a parallel National Assembly of the regime was created in 2017; military companies were created for the appropriation and direct and private management of wealth; the enormous poverty left by the crisis was used politically, creating institutional channels for the selective allocation of wealth to state officials and supporters of the PSUV; access to information was eliminated.
Numerous state and para-state security forces were deployed, a structure of corruption and unquestionable power, in an environment of maximum impunity and militarization. Something that also consolidated a mafistization of the State. All this, justified in the name of “defending the revolution and socialism” and “fighting against the right wing”. Thus, we had a regime change from within and a new type of dictatorship was consolidated, a patrimonial and oligarchic regime, which also allows the direct appropriation of regional wealth to maintain provincial loyalties. Venezuela is governed as a hacienda, an image that reminds us of political regimes of the last quarter of the XIX century and the first quarter of the XX century in Latin America.
– However, some consider it to be leftist.
– There is no basis whatsoever to affirm that this is a progressive government, much less a leftist one. There is a strong liberalization of the economy, with promotion and protection of transnational capital, large tax exemptions, low profile privatizations, promotion of special economic zones, the creation of a VIP Venezuela (tourism, restaurants, bars, trips, luxury vans) only for foreigners, businessmen and high level government officials; the programmed destruction of the salary, keeping it in bolivars while the economy is totally dollarized (today it is equivalent to 4 dollars a month), abandonment of the public sector, among other factors.
Fedecámaras, the main business chamber of the country, which was always seen as the great enemy of Chávez, is now a friend of Maduro’s regime. Analyzing each economic measure, we may affirm that we are before one of the most aggressive neo-liberal restructurings in the region, although it is not at all a conventional neo-liberalism. The evolution of an authoritarian system and the neoliberalization of the economy are two factors of the same process of regime change in Venezuela. One is a function of the other.
In addition to businessmen, the new alliance of Maduro’s regime is with the evangelical churches, as Bolsonaro has done; Chavismo criticized Uribe but in the same way Maduro has deployed a network of para-state shock groups. Maduro has recently announced that his power is based on a “civil-military-police” alliance. In these days of popular protest, forced labor jails for ‘terrorists’ and ‘coup perpetrators’ are being promoted, which reminds us of Bukele. The two governments that have most promoted the destruction of rights in Latin America today have been precisely those of Milei and Maduro.
I believe that some leftists who continue to support this, have not even managed to understand the level of decadence, conservatism and mafistization of this regime. And they end up dragged by this decadence, they end up bogged down supporting this disaster and undermining their own credibility. This is a symptom of a historical loss that must lead us back to the question of what is the left in this crisis, which is a global crisis; what historical sense does the left have today, what does it represent, who does it represent, how does it understand the relationship between ethics and politics; how does it respond to this changing and violent world. But as far as Venezuela is concerned, we reach a point where there is no nuance whatsoever.
The second conclusion is that this regime of corruption, abuses, precarization of life and repressive violence is understood and felt by the vast majority of Venezuelans as a nightmare. A nightmare they wish to see come to an end. That was one of the antecedents of this election: a maximum popular weariness towards Maduro’s government, a weariness never seen in the 25 years of the Bolivarian process, which created this critical mass of irrefutable generalized discontent and which was overwhelmingly reflected in the elections. Every sector of Venezuelans voted massively against Maduro, be it rural, urban, young people, adults, the most precarious, the middle classes, in Caracas, in the Andes, in the Llanos, in the Amazon, various sectors of the left, center, right, religious, atheists, all of them, with a forcefulness never seen before in Venezuelan electoral history.
This does not seem to be understood by some leftists, who sadly have criminalized the popular protests in the most impoverished neighborhoods of the country, calling them “ultra-right”, which reinforces the mechanisms of repression and persecution that are underway; and in other cases, infantilizing and underestimating the population, alleging that they are confused, manipulated and without criteria people who are giving the country to the United States. They have no self-criticism or a minimum understanding of the sizeable failure that this Chavista political project has had to be in order for people to flee across the borders. No self-criticism that would lead to a deep reflection on the mistakes made by the Bolivarian governments. On the contrary, I notice that this part of the left insists on constantly putting on the shoulders of the Venezuelan people the sack of stones of being suspected for protesting for the lack of water, for their miserable salary or because they want their vote to be respected, and tell them that they are “playing the game of the right wing”, and all this blackmailing story that has no end, that is perpetual. For these leftists the people do not have the right to rebel and should remain silent supporting the government until the end of time.
– What is the regime evolving towards?
– What we are probably witnessing is a new political reorganization of the regime, more radical, more extremist, for the control of the population. Constitutional guarantees are de facto suspended. Government spokespersons have reported more than 2,200 arrests in a few days, without any legal procedure, affecting the entire social and political spectrum of the country. Security forces stop passers-by to check their phones to see if they have any content against the government in order to arrest them. Mechanisms of snitching or social denunciation have been established to denounce opponents and even an application has been created to put their names, addresses and photos. Houses of those who protest or oppose the government have been marked.
Also, from official speeches and security agencies, content is disseminated to frighten the population, announcing that “they are coming for you”, and uniformed prisoners are exposed, Bukele style, shouting slogans in favor of the government. There is an iron vigilance on social networks and a “National Council of Cybersecurity” was created to formalize this vigilance. A law was passed to control NGOs.
As you can imagine, the Venezuelan population today is terrified and in shock. This is what the Maduro government has called a new “civic-military-police” alliance. We live in a totally policed, quasi-Orwellian society. The regime seeks to control every sphere and expression of Venezuelan society.
How sustainable is this in time? It is difficult to know, but what is evident is that in this scenario the dispute is very internal to subjectivity, to subjective integrity. It is biopolitics in its pure state. The body/subject is a hostage in its own country.
What characterization do you offer of the opposition led by María Corina Machado?
– Machado has an orthodox neoliberal political-economic program, of massive privatizations and alliances with international capitals, and a geopolitical closeness with the United States and what these sectors call the “free world”. She is a woman who comes from the powerful economic classes, from a family of important businessmen. Her position towards the Bolivarian process has always been classist, rupturist and confrontational, although surely, in order to make herself more potable and broaden her framework of alliances, she has been moving towards more moderate positions in recent times. But, in any case, what must be emphasized is that the framework of the recent electoral and political competition for Venezuelans has developed between two neoliberal forces. This shows us the kind of crossroads in which the Venezuelan people have been and will continue to be for the time being, and the great need to progressively build a political alternative to this, a path of popular, sovereign vindication that also seeks to change the model of society, that seriously begins to think beyond oil and extractivism.
But there are nuances about the opposition that must be mentioned, to make an updated reading. This is not 2017. Although the huge majority of the population rejects the government, we are not facing two strong political blocs in equal conditions of confrontation. Maduro’s government controls everything: the armed forces and security corps, the judiciary, the electoral power, the national assembly, the vast majority of regional and municipal governments, the national media, the oil industry, everything. The truth is that the situation of 2017 or even 2019 cannot be equated.
The opposition sector that Machado leads today is not homogeneous. She does not have total control and has had many political adversaries within that sector. For the elections she managed to articulate a unity with the other actors of the coalition, but it is difficult to know if such unity would be maintained, given their conflicting backgrounds. To date there has been no consensus with his orthodox economic program, since, for example, not all agree on privatizing PDVSA. If it were to assume power, Chavismo would still control the Supreme Court of Justice, the National Assembly, the electoral body CNE and the other powers I mentioned. Even being in power, it would possibly have Chavismo as opposition. The Venezuelan population has not been historically inclined to neoliberal ideas, but to a rather anti-oligarchic political culture. There is also the question of what would be the level of military support for Machado, having had mutual antipathies for a long time. The Venezuelan context has a very unstable and fragmented floor. This is probably what part of the left and several social movements have calculated when they decided that they preferred to face a Machado government and not Maduro.
– Finally, how do you see the future, do you think a civil war is possible?
– A first scenario is that Maduro’s government remains in power, through three factors: a regime of brutal repression that prevents the emergence of a significant dissident force or a strong political alternative; second, a regime that already knows how to manage the country with a very low political cost, that is, it knows how to govern in a context of collapse and chaos, and does not care much about international questioning and isolation. In this case, the Venezuelan population is the main loser. And third, a regime that manages to consolidate some international trade channels for its natural resources, taking into account some oil and gas licenses that could continue given the global energy needs; the support of China, Iran, Turkey, Russia, among others, also for the commercialization of other commodities; and waiting for the waters to calm down to invite again more openly new international investors. The cruelty of extractivism is not the first time that it sustains and legitimizes dictatorships.
Maduro’s government has tried to recover a part of its former voters through various clientelistic mechanisms or demagogic speeches and, far from it, what we have witnessed is a sustained collapse of its support, a total debacle. It is difficult that sooner or later a scenario of rupture does not open up, although I repeat, we do not know when or what form that rupture would take. Another issue is the internal landslide of the governmental bloc, which has also been progressive and which in these days has had manifestations of public discontent such as that of Francisco Arias Cardenas or the Minister of Culture Ernesto Villegas. Evidently, in the center of the questions that have arisen, there are questions about internal ruptures even in the military sector, which would indeed have a defining weight in the crisis.
The outcomes will not occur by inertia alone. It will be the mobilization capabilities that will give it shape and dynamism. It remains to be seen how social resistance will evolve, how the discontent, fear and terror that people are experiencing will be channeled, whether with tendencies towards paralysis and habituation, or towards other expressions of uneasiness, rage, the feeling of having no future and a new form of weariness that will mobilize, probably in much more intense and unknown forms. Social creativity and persistence will be crucial for popular recomposition in times of iron dictatorship. The international response will be important, although varied, and will probably act depending on how the alternatives for change move internally.
Finally, the domestic economic situation will be very decisive. The so-called economic recovery is based on very weak foundations, the distribution of wealth continues to be extremely unequal and we cannot forget that we are coming from a long economic crisis determined by the exhaustion of the oil rentier model.
– Can there be more violent confrontations?
– It is a possible scenario if all the channels for a peaceful solution are definitively closed, although a civil war requires two armed sides and in Venezuela this monopoly is basically held by the national government.
Both RAUL ZIBECHI and EMILIANO TERAN MONTOVANI signed “intimitations” against PRESIDENT RAFEAL CORREA of Ecuador in 2014 and against PRESIDENT EVO MORALES of Boliva in 2015. The “intimitations” with hundreds of signatures of academics and NGO “activists” in the Americas and Europe, were orchestrated by the “false Left” of the CIA which was founded by Frank Gardiner Wisner after 1948 in the FIU in Germany. Wisner’s CIA then overthrew the elected governments in Iran 1953 (Oil) and Guatemala 1954 (Control of Central America). Since 1990 the CIA uses “German Leftists” in Latin America, infiltrated as “foundations”. (Notice Zibechi’s remarks about… Read more »