Venezuela

Rafael Uzcategui is a member of the group that publishes the anarchist newspaper El Libertario in Caracas (Venezuela). As antimilitarist, he is also a member of the War Resisters' International and works in a Venezuelan human rights NGO called Provea. He is author of the books “Heart of Ink” and “Venezuela: Revolution as Spectacle” in which he reports the so-called Bolivarian process of Chavez and the true face of his "revolutionary" government. Taking advantage of his conference tour in Germany, we interviewed Rafael for the magazine Gai Dao.

Rafael Uzcátegui

In 1998 lieutenant colonel Hugo Chávez won the presidency of Venezuela, after staging a coup d’etat in 1992. For the first time in Venezuela’s democratic period (which began in 1958), a member of the Armed Forces was elected head of state. One of the consequences was that a new phase of progressive militarisation had begun in the country, initiated with a constitutional reform in 1999, which granted members of the Armed Forces the right to vote, in addition to other political rights, such as the right to be elected to public office in a public vote. Today, soldiers occupy different offices, such as ministers, governors, and mayors. Although there is a coalition of political parties that supports president Chávez, the Gran Polo Patriótico, there is a lot of evidence that shows that, in fact, the Armed Forces are Hugo Chávez's political organisation of trust to exercise political power.

Did you know that in 2012 Venezuela will open the first AK-47 factory in Latin America?

In June 2005 Venezuela bought 100,000 Kalashnikov AK-103 assault rifles–a variant of the classic AK-47 model- from the Russian Federation in a transaction worth 54 million dollars.

The press widely reported that the objective of the purchase was to introduce the assault rifle as a standard weapon for the National Armed Forces.

Javier Gárate

Opinions are polarised on Venezuela. The western establishment argues that there is a socialist dictatorship while many on the left believe that a true socialist revolution is taking place. Chavez's denunciation of Western military intervention, his rhetorical opposition to capitalist globalisation, and the fact that he has survived an attempted coup make most of the world's anti-war movements likely to sympathise. But there is also disquiet – about the personality cult, about Chavez's own authoritarianism and affinity with other authoritarian rulers, about an economic policy which in reality is based on partnerships with western oil corporations, and for us in WRI the sheer militarism – the creation of uniformed militia, the presence of military officers at the head of “civilian” organisations, the continuing inculcation of a war mentality. At the invitation of PROVEA (an internationally respected human rights education organisation) and the anarchist magazine El Libertario, in May a three-person WRI delegation went to Caracas and also visited the state of Lara.

Rafael Uzcátegui

• Rafael Uzcátegui

Venezuela: Revolution as Spectacle analyses the Chávez regime from an antiauthoritarian Venezuelan perspective. It debunks claims made by Venezuelan and U.S. rightists that the Chávez government is dictatorial, as well as claims made by Venezuelan and US leftists that the Chávez government is revolutionary. Instead the book argues that the Chávez regime is one of a long line of Latin American populist regimes that — "revolutionary" rhetoric aside — ultimately have been subservient to the United States as well as to multinational corporations. The book concludes by explaining how Venezuela's autonomous social, labour, and environmental movements have been systematically disempowered by the Chávez regime, but that despite this they remain the basis of a truly democratic, revolutionary alternative.

Rafael Uzcátegui

(Newspaper El Libertario)

With the excuse of bringing about greater efficiency in order to reverse the consequences of the great flooding at the end of 2010 which left over one hundred thousand victims, president Chavez has put a new law the National Assembly that would give him special administrative powers for a period of 12 months. At the same time, he wants the National Assembly to approve, in an extraordinary manner, another set of laws, without wide national debate limiting various political and social rights enshrined in the 1999 Constitution.

In October 2010, the Venezuelan government has backed down regarding the compulsory registration for military service, which would have come into force on 21 October 2010. In October last year, the Venezuelan parliament passed a new law on military recruitment, which for the first time also introduced compulsory military service registration for Venezuelan women (See CO-Update No 52, November-December 2009).

Rafael Uzcategui

On his most recent visit to Venezuela, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin revealed that the value of arms bought by the government in Caracas amounted to over five billion US dollars.

According to statistics provided by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), in the past ten years, 77.6% of total arms imports to Latin American countries were from Russia. Amongst these acquisitions, Mi-17 and Mi-35 Sukhoi fighter planes , Kalashnikov assault rifles, and an agreement to install a factory which produces rifles and munitions, S-300 tanks, and anti-aircraft missiles.

On 6 October 2009 the Venezuelan parliament passed a new law on conscription and recruitment, which replaces the law from 1978, which was no longer in line with the Bolivarian Constitution. While Venezuela's oppositional media mostly reported on "obligatory military service" in Venezuela, the real differences between the law from 1978 and the new law are elsewhere.

Rafael Uzcátegui

During this past April, the 2008 Report on the global transfer of weapons was presented by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), an independent organization founded in 1966 to investigate the problems of peace and global conflicts, placing emphasis on limiting arms build-up and promoting disarmament. SIPRI has become a resource for the global pacifist movement.