EL COMANDANTE (updated 27 September 2004)


We’d arrived in Venezuela as Hugo Chavez faced a referendum on whether his presidency should end.

To the Bush administration he’s a dangerous communist in America’s backyard. And they want him out.

PTC: From here it looks like a revolution, and that’s how President Chavez sees himself, as a revolutionary rather than a politician.

Two years ago rival politicians staged a coup that overthrew the democratically elected Chavez.

The United States quickly recognised the coup leaders as the new government.

But a popular uprising swept Chavez back to power,

Now the man they call el commandante was fighting for survival again, to ensure it wasn’t Washington’s vision for Latin America that triumphed - but his.

Actual: Chavez: ‘NO!’

TITLES
Title: El Commandante

Venezuela sells as much oil to the US as Saudi Arabia. You’d never know it - most of its people live in poverty.

In the capital Caracas, the poor live on the edge of the city, in the neighbourhoods they call the barrios. Our driver Jesus took us to his.

He said we’d meet someone who’d explain why the poor love Chavez - and the US government hates him.

He took us to the local doctor’s surgery, nothing remarkable here you might think. But Dr Isol Capote is Cuban.

Chavez sends cheap oil to his friend Fidel Castro, Castro sends doctors who provide free medical care. The deal has enraged the Bush administration, who want to overthrow Castro.


But the barrios love it. Few Venezuelan doctors choose to work here.

Sync: Doctor in Spanish: Four people killed here.

PTC: Chavez has brought thousands of doctors from Cuba to work in the poorest neighbourhoods of Caracas and elsewhere in in the country. As far as critics are concerned this shows he’s well on the way to turning Venezuela into a communist country like Cuba. But for the people who live in the poor areas they say it’s the first time they’ve had access to free medical care.


We went to the one bedroom flat Jesus rents for his wife and 3 children.

Under a new government scheme, Chavez is pumping money into education for the poor. Jesus’s wife Clara is hoping to go to Cuba to train as a teacher.

PTC: Jesus says that this is one of the benefits of the Chavez government, this box of books, it’s a little library for families, they’re all free.


Under another Chavez scheme, Jesus will soon get a cheap loan to buy a house. And there are other benefits


Sync: He said before Chavez was elected under the old government the poor were repressed, there were disappearances, anyone who was rich could bribe their way out of trouble. Now he says there’s justice and people are more equal in Venezuela.


Thanks to this year’s high oil prices , Chavez can shower the poor with cash.

It’s no wonder he’s portrayed as a second messiah – even if his enemies say he’s cynically buying votes and fomenting class hatred.


Now Chavez’s rivals had forced a referendum vote aimed at ending his term as president.

In the centre of Caracas, thousands of Chavez supporters rallied behind their hero.


His detractors say he’s building a personality cult that will end in dictatorship.

PTC: He’s coming at some stage tonight, all his most loyal fans have been waiting for him for hours and hours, all day long.


Eventually ‘el commandante’ arrived. He wasn’t always a democrat. In 1992 he was jailed after launching his own coup attempt.

In the ‘80s and ‘90s Venezuelan governments followed the advice of Washington. State monopolies were privatised and plunged millions of Venezuelans into poverty.

The song was self-congratulatory, a hymn of praise to Chavez and his policies.

Chavez has tapped into the popular distrust of the United States and its economic ideology.

Just because Venezuela was in the US’s backyard, he said, they didn’t have to take orders from America. The world’s fifth biggest exporter of oil could go its own way.

PTC: Chavez said tonight that voting’ no’ not just keeps him in power, but is a vote against capitalism, imperialism and stops Venezuela from becoming a colony of the United States.

As he left, he agreed to give us an interview after the referendum.

Sick of the corruption and ineptitude of past governments, many wealthy Venezuelans had voted for Chavez in 1998.

But since most have been alienated by his divisive rhetoric - and in Washington they’ve found plenty of powerful people willing to listen to their concerns.


Talk to a Chavez supporter and you won’t hear any criticism of his style but a lot about how the US has fuelled the opposition for their own ends.

Andres de Chene is a banker and journalist, and now an oddity in Venezuela – a rich Chavez supporter.

A de C: I love America, I was educated in America, I have properties in America, I have accounts in America, everybody knows that. But, believe me, with all respect to Mr. George Bush, whose father I know, I know very well, George Bush’s Father. He needs oil, well, if I want something from you, I try to be as nice as possible to you, be the best friend to you. But what did he try to do? “Let’s get rid of Chavez somehow, and I will have the Venezuelan oil with me” What did these people do when they overthrew Chavez for 32 hours? The first thing they did was “we are going to privatize our oil industry again”. Why? Because they wanted the Americans to be owners of the oil in Venezuela again.

No Comm

PTC: It’s the last day of campaigning and we’ve come to an opposition rally, their final one, they say it’s going to be the mother of all marches. They’re singing ‘Se va, se va,’ ‘Chavez will go. This is in a very well off area, most of the opposition are from the middle and upper classes.

NO COMM

PTC: This is the yes camp, these people are going to vote yes in the referendum, that Chavez’s mandate should be revoked.

Sync: Chavez claims that he is for the people therefore if you don’t agree with him you are an enemy of the people. Why, why? Why can’t I just disagree with him and be a Venezuela like everyone else. It’s that split that’s angered people, and now you see the reaction.

Sync: Woman: We signed against him..
SJ: He penalises the middle classes?

Actual: Singing: Uh ah, Chavez si se va.

It’s a sign of how deeply Chavez has polarised this country that fourteen opposition groups, helped by businesses and trade associations, had united for this referendum to vote him out of power.

Many of the people here detest his anti-Americanism. The oil industry means that some Venezuelans have close links with American companies.



Actual: Speeches.

The opposition is deeply fragmented. There’s no clear leader. But speaker after speaker hammered home their message: Chavez wasn’t interested in helping the poor, just in buying their votes.

A military helicopter, symbolic of the government, provoked jeers.

–

Chavez’s friendship with Castro helps convince these people that he wants to turn their country into a communist dictatorship like Cuba. Many middle class Venezuelans are already sending their money abroad.

Actual: In Spanish: We will win back justice for Venezuela.

PTC: Everyone we’ve spoken to is absolutely convinced that on Sunday the opposition will get rid of Hugo Chavez.

[Over balloons] The group that gathered the 3.4m signatures that triggered the referendum is called Sumate.

At their heavily guarded headquarters, I met Maria Corina Machado. One of the founders of Sumate, she is a heroine for the opposition

She said Sumate was independent of the opposition though she was a frequent speaker at opposition rallies and during the coup she was present at the swearing in of the illegal president, a family friend.

The Chavez camp have tried to discredit her and her organisation because they take money from the US government.

10:59 Syc:: SJ: One thing that’s been controversial is funding from the US. How much money has Sumate had from US orgs?

MCM: From the NED. We’ve had so far $30,000 that’ being invested strictly in training programmes and has nothing to do with the referendum, it’s just for teaching.

The US says money given to Sumate and other groups was to strengthen the workings of Venezuelan democracy.

MCM: There’s nothing in the Venezuelan laws that prohibits us from receiving funds from abroad, it’s totally legal, permitted. But the president on one of his TV shows last February, Alo Presidente, instructed the national prosecutor to investigate us and said we should be charged with treason to a country and conspiracy.

SJ: But why? If it’s legal for you to accept the money?
MCM: That’s the same question we ask. Why?
SJ: So what has Chavez personally said about you?
MCM: Well, he has said we represent the interests of another country, in this case the United States, and that what we’re trying to do is to overthrow him. And what we try to say is we defend the rights of every citizen, even those that support him.

In the early hours thousands of voters began to queue for what would be Venezuela’s biggest election turnout ever.

In the barrios, they were singing ‘Chavez won’t go’. Many had become eligible to vote for the first time because of a government registration drive.

PTC: At the end of the campaign, Chavez made a call for all of his supporters to come out at five o clock in the morning. It’s five thirty now and the streets are full already.

Actual: Crowd: Uh, ah! Chavez no se va….


PTC: Voting is starting. Some of these people have been waiting all night, finally they’re getting in.

Actual: Soldier in Spanish:
SJ: We’re allowed in as long as we don’t look at the screens when people are voting.

Electronic voting machines were being used for the first time.

PTC: These are the famous voting machines that have caused so much controversy here. They’re made by a US company, they’re going to be used in the US elections later this year, and both sides have expressed fears that they could be used to commit electoral fraud.

There was a sense of high stakes. The Chavez supporters saw the vote as a chance to fight American imperialism. The opposition saw the referedum as an opportunity to stand up for US style capitalism.

Sync: Man
SJ: He says that it’s much bigger than he’s ever seen before that the queue was going back four blocks.

A few hundred voters complained that their names weren’t on the register, but otherwise the day went smoothly.

Fears of confrontation between opposition and government sides didn’t materialise – they were too busy voting.

PTC: It’s five o clock in the evening and there are still huge queues outside the polling stations.


Sumate representatives took exit polls By law, the results could not be announced until voting ended.
But the results were leaked. Foreign journalists were told Chavez was losing


I went to RCTV, one of five privately owned TV channels bitterly opposed top Chavez’s rule. Its walls had recently been daubed with graffiti by El Comandante supporters. Now the station was heavily guarded to prevent attacks if Chavez lost.

Marcel Granier, president of the station, supported the failed coup to ouste Chavez and was now in a confident mood.

Sync: SJ: We’ve come to ask if you can shed any light on the situation. There’s a lot of confusion.
MG: Our exit polls tell us the difference is close to 20 points in favour of the yes.
Marcel Granier: We are about to decide whether we are a democratic country or decide whether we are a colony of Fidel Castro.

We waited for the official verdict. When it came the opposition pollsters had got it badly wrong

PTC: Nearly five million for Chavez as opposed to 3.5m for the opposition.

Actual: Uh, ah! Chavez no se va.

It was after just after 4am. Chavez had won a clear victory. And international observers, led by former US President Jimmy Carter said there was no evidence of ballot rigging.

Chavez appeared at the presidential palace. The Venezuelan people have spoken, and the , he said. And the people’s voice is the voice of god’

Sync: Chavez: Viva Venezuela! Viva Zamora! Viva Florentino!

Only after the vote were new documents released showing the true extent of US funding of politics in Venezuela.

Eva Golinger is an American/Venezuelan lawyer.

Sych: Eva: I’ve received now more that 2,500 pages of documents from two diff agencies. One is the National Endowment for Democracy, the other is USAID, the US Agency for International Development.

Using the Freedom of Information act, Golinger discovered the US government had given ten/twelve million dollars mainly to kick-start groups like Sumate who had pressed for the referendum on Chavez’s presidency.

EVA Sync: It’s clear that theres’ a direct line from US state Dept to the two subcontractors, to the various orgs receiving financing of which Sumate is one of them.
Eva: These are not efforts that are funding reconciliation, or stability or any kind of mediation, even, between a polarised nation. These are efforts that are funding one side, supporting it, sustaining it, in order for it to continue in their efforts to destabilise and overthrow a government.

When the American government accepted the referendum result, some Venezuelans felt abandoned.

PTC: We’ve run into a protest in the road so we’re going to see what it’s all about.

These protestors made false accusations about international monitors led by Cesar Gaviria and former President Jimmy Carter that they’d conspired with Chavez to rig the ballot. (VO updated Monday 27 September)

Sync: They’re selling us for oil. Gaviria and Carter. They’re just selling us for oil.
What are you prepared to do?
I’m prepared to do anything to fight for my democracy.

Woman: At this very minute there are four people dead. If you want action, go up there.

They told me that Chavez supporters had just opened fire on opposition protestors.

Sync: Woman: Chavez!!
Four people including an opposition leader had been shot. One of them, a 61-year-old woman, would later die

We went to the hospital. The gunmen were quickly arrested, but it was clear the referendum hadn’t eased the divisions that cripple this country.

Actual: Doctor: Varinga?

The opposition politician leader Ernesto Alvarenga was taken for surgery. More evidence,said his supporters that Venezuela was heading for dicatatorship.

In the presidential palace, Chavez was getting back to the business of his revolution. He’d agreed to give us a rare interview.

Comm: He believes the referendum marks a change in the relationship between the US and the whole of Latin America.

‘We can’t accept that we’re just the United States’ backyard, he said. Here in Latin America, we can’t continue to be colonies of the United States, countries dependent on Washington or the IMF. We have to be free.

Our vision of economy, he went on, is a caring economy, an economy where the State has to be the fundamental engine, not the market.

And he made it clear, whatever President Bush might hope, he wasn’t going to give up his friendship with Fidel Castro, either.

My relationship with Fidel Castro, he said, is a relationship of infinite affection and infinite respect. It’s not true that we are both the same, or that I have modeled myself on Fidel. Fidel is Fidel and Hugo is Hugo. But, we have a profound coincidence in our view of the world.

The Bush administration would still like to see Chavez gone.

But for the moment, with instability in the Middle East, America doesn’t want further turmoil in a major oil supplier like Venezuela.

This time, Chavez’s popularity and the fact this is a democracy have saved him.
For all America’s power, there are limits to that power , even in its back yard.

ENDS


NOTES