| Caracas shots | Music | 00:00 | |
| Cars/ Petrol stations | CAMPBELL: If life was all about petrol, Caracas would be a great place to live. You can fill your tank for just ten cents a litre. | 00:13 | |
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| Music | 00:22 | |
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| CAMPBELL: But for Venezuela’s beleaguered middle class, the oil-rich capital is a great place to leave. Their main celebrations | 00:25 | |
| Apartment party | are when someone’s getting out. | 00:33 | |
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| Music | 00:36 | |
| Moirama | MOIRAMA GARCIA: “It’s my farewell party. I’m moving to the United States next week and all my family and friends are here to say goodbye.” CAMPBELL: “Are farewell parties quite common these days?” MOIRAMA GARCIA: “Quite common, yes, yes. There was one week when I went to three in one week.” | 00=41 | |
| Dancing at apartment party | Music | 01:00 | |
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| CAMPBELL: In a few days Moirama Garcia will start a new life with a software company in New York. After a decade of socialist revolution, she and her middle-class friends are voting with their feet. They’re fleeing a country where businesses have failed, as class warfare booms. | 01:07 | |
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| MOIRAMA GARCIA: “Very rich people they are making the deals with the government. They’re making a lot of money. Very poor people are receiving money from the government -- but the middle class is suffering like completely, completely | 01:32 | |
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| and every day you see more people in your family, in your friends that are being robbed, dead or they are just, you know, like their houses get robbed or people who get killed just because they want a motorcycle or something. It’s really becoming --- like even I always said like psychologically it’s very difficult to live in Venezuela right now.” | 01:43 | |
| Traffic/ slums | Music | 02:06 | |
| Chavez arriving at rally | CAMPBELL: The middle class might hate him, but millions of poor Venezuelans see Hugo Chavez as a saint, taking money from the rich and giving it to them. The former army colonel rarely speaks to Western media, but the day we caught up with him he was glad-handing like a politician on the campaign trail. In February, he won a referendum to abolish term limits, meaning he can keep running for president until he dies. | 02:14 | |
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| “Hello. I work for ABC Australia.” HUGO CHAVEZ: “How are you? Welcome. Welcome to the nature… Calvario. Hello. Which camera are you? Australia? This is an abuse.” | 02:47 | |
| Campbell with Chavez | CAMPBELL: “Are you surprised by the result of the referendum?” | 03:01 | |
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| HUGO CHAVEZ: “Thanks. No, victory doesn’t surprise me. We’re here to win.” CAMPBELL: Everywhere he goes, an army of red-shirted supporters follows. They’re called “Chavistas” meaning little Chavezes. | 03:04 | |
| Chavez greets priest supporters | Some left-wing priests insist Jesus is with the president too. | 03:18 | |
| Priest conducts mass | PRIEST: “I want you to touch the Christ, so it will bless you. We’re going to raise our hands… our hands towards our Lord president…” CAMPBELL: The mass marked the 20th anniversary of anti-government riots. | 03:24 | |
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| Before Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s rich, white leaders all but ignored the poor. Chavez, like most Venezuelans is of mixed indigenous descent and he’s made it his mission to punish the old elite. | 03:37 | |
| Chavez addresses rally | HUGO CHAVEZ: [Addressing crowd] “In capitalist society, what is it that rules? Inequality. The most savage, irrational inequality – and therefore injustice and social violence, the exploitation of man by man, as Karl Marx said. The kingdom of God here on earth is socialism.” | 03:54 | |
| Slums | Music | 04:27 | |
| Socialist murals | CAMPBELL: Caracas today feels a bit like Latin America in the 1970s when socialism seemed the way of the future. | 04:33 | |
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| Music | 04:40 | |
| Traffic/oil company HQs | CAMPBELL: But Chavez has enjoyed something that failed left-wing movements of the past never had – oil. He’s nationalised the oil industry and ploughed its billions into his revolution, building health clinics, subsidised food markets and universities for the poor. | 04:43 | |
| Moises at magazine meeting | Even his critics concede he’s a formidable and charismatic politician. Moises Naim is a former Venezuelan Trade Minister who now edits the prestigious Foreign Policy magazine in Washington. | 05:03 | |
| Moses. SUPER: MOISES NAIM, Editor Foreign Policy magazine: | MOISES NAIM: “Venezuela like many developing countries is a deeply polarised, unequal, unjust country | 05:17 | |
| Rally | and he has been very effective in using that inequality, the injustices and the history of failures to really command great support and popularity.” | 05:23 | |
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| Singing | 05:36 | |
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| CAMPBELL: Along the way he became a hero to Latin America, showering his neighbours with aid and leading an anti-US bloc with Cuba. At the United Nations, he branded George Bush the anti-Christ. | 05:44 | |
| ‘Last Supper’ mural | Music | 06:00 | |
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| CAMPBELL: Meanwhile Chavistas hailed their leader as the new Messiah. | 06:04 | |
| Traffic/billboards | Now the irony of course is that the success of Chavez’s socialism has always depended on healthy global capitalism. As long as the world was buying Venezuela’s oil at record prices, he could fund his social programs even as the private sector crumbled. But now global capitalism is in crisis, and the price of oil has plummeted, it’s shaken the very foundations of the Chavez revolution. | 06:13 | |
| Murals | Music | 06:40 | |
| Traffic | CAMPBELL: In July last year, Venezuela could sell its oil for about USD140 a barrel. Now it’s getting around half that. That’s not just serious, but potentially disastrous, because Venezuela depends on oil for 95% of its export income. | 06:44 | |
| Moises Naim | MOISES NAIM: “The truth is that the high oil prices have allowed President Chavez to mask the fact that he has destroyed the economy. Today, Venezuela’s economy is essentially, essentially deeply dependent on oil. That was always the case, but under President Chavez that has been taken to an extreme, the amount of job destruction that has taken place in Venezuela, in the private sector, is unprecedented.” | 07:04 | |
| Sewing collective | CAMPBELL: Almost every company he’s nationalised and stacked with | You know, the few companies that were producing in Venezuela have either gone to Colombia or Costa Rica or they’ve just been closed down and they’re being imported from other countries. | 08:57 |
| Chavez mural | You know, I just sometimes wish that Chavez were to realise | 09:06 | |
| Vollmer | how important it is to have companies and to have a private sector in Venezuela as it adds so much value to the country. You know, one just feels this has this feeling of wasting time.” | 09:11 | |
| Rum making | CAMPBELL: Despite the oil crisis, Chavez remains as hostile to business as ever – especially ones like this. Vollmer’s estate or hacienda epitomises what the president hates – an old business on old land run by an old European family. It’s part of what he’s called the rancid oligarchy. | 09:24 | |
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| Ever since the Spaniards came, a small number of rich white families has owned most of the best land and that, as much as anything, has caused centuries of conflict across Latin America. But here at this hacienda outside Caracas, something extraordinary has happened. It’s shown that in this deeply polarised society, at the height of this sometimes bizarre revolution, there can be a middle way. | 09:57 | |
| Estate inside property | Inside Vollmer’s property is a town for impoverished squatters with proper streets and houses, even child care. Its’ a rare example of the private sector and government working together. The irony is that it started as an attack on his business. In 2000 the local governor organised a Zimbabwean-style land grab on the farm. Instead of resisting, Vollmer decided to try to work with them. | 10:26 | |
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| ALBERTO VOLLMER: “Actually the key was putting long term as the common interest for both parties, for the land grabbers and for us. | 11:05 | |
| Vollmer | And then thanks to putting that as the key to success we were able to come up with a, let’s say a solution that was okay for both.” | 11:13 | |
| Vollmer drives through estate | CAMPBELL: Vollmer agreed to grant the land on condition the government gave the squatters proper materials to build their own homes. Officials had planned to simply have a shanty town. | 11:28 | |
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| The result is a new suburb and a proud community in what was once farmland. And Vollmer’s social program didn’t end here. When gang members from the neighbouring slum broke into the hacienda, he gave them a simple choice. | 11:40 | |
| Young men on street | ALBERTO VOLLMER: “One was, we hand you over to the police with what that means in Venezuela, | 11:56 | |
| Vollmer | you know, could mean you’ll get shot or disappear. And the other option was you work for three months with no pay and that way you will be paying for what you did.” | 12:01 | |
| Gang members work with coffee | CAMPBELL: The program was so successful it’s turned into Venezuela’s only crime prevention program. More than 100 gang members have taken up the offer to be trained here, provided they turn their backs on crime. Ustari Wilmer has been with the program for seven years and now works for its private coffee company called Alcatraz. | 12:13 | |
| Ustari | If not for the program, he believes he and the other gangsters would be dead. USTARI WILMER: “I tell you, you find yourself in a vicious cycle. You find yourself in a tunnel – in a street without a way to get out… in a black hole. So sometimes you feel you have to find a way to get out. Let me tell you, the gang problem – it’s about having short-term vision.” | 12:45 | |
| Vollmer and Ustari | CAMPBELL: For Alberto Vollmer, it’s been a combination of philanthropy and good business. VOLLMER: “It is a big risk but, you know, I was thinking it’s a bigger risk | 13:18 | |
| SUPER: | to have them working against you, working against you in the community or attacking you.” | 13:29 | |
| Caracas | Music | 13:34 | |
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| CAMPBELL: Hugo Chavez praised the program but he’s done nothing to emulate it. For all the recent oil wealth, Caracas is on the edge of breakdown. Poverty is still rife, the infrastructure’s crumbling and crime is out of control. | 13:39 | |
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| Music | 13:54 | |
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| CAMPBELL: Since Chavez came to power, the murder rate has doubled to more than one hundred a week - higher than even Baghdad. But true believers still insist life is getting better. | 13:59 | |
| Campbell and Sanchez on street | HECTOR SANCHEZ: “In the way we’re advancing in the struggle against poverty, it will reduce the level of criminality.” CAMPBELL: Hector Sanchez is a committed supporter of Chavez’s self-styled Bolivarian revolution, | 14:14 | |
| Bolivar mural/ Chavez mural | named after the colonial liberator, Simon Bolivar. He hopes Chavez will liberate the entire continent. HECTOR SANCHEZ: “The Venezuelan story is very special in the Americas. | 14:32 | |
| Campbell and Sanchez on street | In that sense we have a global conscience in relation to our planet.” | 14:44 | |
| Chavez at press conference | CAMPBELL: At the height of the oil boom, Chavez outspent the US on aid to his neighbours, but he’s not just lost the oil bonanza, he’s lost the president who united his anti-US campaign. MOISES NAIM: “The election of President Barack Obama created a | 14:51 | |
| Moises. SUPER: | great problem for the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Again President Bush was a very easy target and a very convenient target, because of the lack of sympathy that he elicited around the world. With President Obama, Chavez has a different problem. It’s not so easy to deride, insult and accuse President Obama of all sorts of things.” | 15:13 | |
| Ledezma at press conference | CAMPBELL: Even worse, he’s had to worry about new enemies at home. In November, the opposition won control of Caracas in municipal elections. The new Mayor, Antonio Ledezma, is a scion of the old elite who Chavez despises. It’s become a test of how the president can work with his opponents, but instead of helping the new mayor improve Caracas, he’s trying to stop him working. ANTONIO LEDEZMA: “Each day before I walk out the door | 15:42 | |
| Ledezma | I pray, breathe deeply, renew the air in my lungs and leave to go out and do battle. It’s not just against the problems of insecurity and garbage, the traffic and the lack of maintenance and infrastructure in the city – the big enemy that we face is a government that does everything to sabotage our administration.” | 16:15 | |
| Ledezma’s cramped office | CAMPBELL: Ledezma can’t even go near his office in City Hall. He and his staff had to relocate to this cramped building across town after the Chavistas who lost refused to leave. | 16:40 | |
| Destroyed City Hall | Music | 16:54 | |
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| ANTONIO LEDEZMA: “First they destroyed the façade of a 19th century building that’s part of the heritage of the city of Caracas. Then there were two assaults. | 16:59 | |
| Ledezma | More than 30 hooded men armed with guns, pistols and machine guns attacked the offices where I should be working as Mayor of Caracas.” | 17:13 | |
| City Hall exterior | CAMPBELL: City Hall is in the old colonial centre that used to be one of Caracas’ main tourist attractions. Now it’s not the sort of place you want to visit with a camera. | 17:28 | |
| Campbell and bodyguards walk to City Hall | Our bodyguards were visibly nervous as we approached. | 17:43 | |
| City Hall exterior | Music | 17:47 | |
| Campbell at City Hall | CAMPBELL: Well as you can see there’s still graffiti on the building which they’ve tried to paint over, smashed windows and allegedly there are still a lot of armed people inside there protesting about having been sacked from the Council by the new Mayor who alleges that they were simply hired muscle for the old mayor, for the pro-Chavez mayor. Quite a few Chavistas | 17:50 | |
| Woman takes photo of Campbell with mobile phone | around here who’ve been taking a big interest in us. WOMAN: “What are you doing, monster? Get that out of my face, fag! ” | 18:09 | |
| Campbell with bodyguards | CAMPBELL: Can’t go round the side? BODYGUARD: No? CAMPBELL: Why? Too dangerous? Okay. CAMPBELL: The mayor hasn’t just lost City Hall. | 18:18 | |
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| Chavez has stripped him and other opposition leaders of almost all their power and resources. | 18:25 | |
| Studio broadcast of young revolutionaries | When the city of Caracas was run by Chavistas, it also ran the local TV station. The day after Ledezma was elected mayor, the station was transferred to Federal control. | 18:35 | |
| Sanchez on terrace | The young Chavista, Hector Sanchez, is the manager and ensures it continues to push the Chavez line. HECTOR SANCHEZ: “The revolution means love to me. | 18:53 | |
| Sanchez | It means equality and social justice – not just for Venezuela, but also Latin America and the rest of the world.” | 19:08 | |
| Staff working | CAMPBELL: But not everyone here is a happy revolutionary. While we were filming, staff confided to us they hadn’t been paid in four months. | 19:19 | |
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| HECTOR SANCHEZ: “It’s a very private internal matter that’s just to do with us | 19:34 | |
| Sanchez | and I don’t know how you got to find out about it.” | 19:39 | |
| Traffic | CAMPBELL: The coming months will reveal the full effects of the slump in oil prices. Chavez claims to have enough reserves to weather the crisis, but he’s already had to slash his budget. | 19:48 | |
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| If he can’t continue the programs that won him support, he’ll face more challenges to his power and his commitment to democracy. | 20:05 | |
| Moises. SUPER: | Even so, nobody’s predicting the end of Chavez any time soon. MOISES: “So President Chavez can last for a long time again, because he either has the oil money and that allows him to buy political support and popular support, and if the oil revenues dwindle, then he can resort to the use of powers, because he has unrestrained ability to---he commands the--- he has the control of the army, he has the control of the economy. He’s nationalising the large swathes of the economy. He has the control of Congress, the Supreme Court – all of the power centres of the country are under his direct and immediate control. | 20:16 | |
| Chavez with priests | So using that he can stay in power for a long time.” Music VOLLMER: “He sees Venezuela as the guys who are with me and the guys who aren’t with me. | 21:00 | |
| SUPER: | And the ones who are against me must leave the country, kind of thing, and that’s more or less the attitude. Instead of saying you’re always going to have people that agree or disagree with you, and he just can’t put up with disagreement. He should actually see the people that disagree with him as potential allies.” | 21:11 | |
| Moraima’s farewell party | CAMPBELL: Ironically, Moraima Garcia might once have become a Chavista. She grew up in a Caracas slum, known here as a barrio, but got out through study and hard work. | 21:31 | |
| Moirama | MOIRAMA GARCIA: “He just gives them some money to survive now and stay the same way and keep voting for him. He doesn’t tell them like, you have to work hard, you have to study hard, you can get out of the barrios. He tells them no, it’s okay to be in the barrios. You can stay there. I’m going to give you money, I’m going to help you paint the front of your house in the barrios so you feel happy, and stay there and keep voting for me. | 21:43 | |
| Chavez at rally | That’s what he does. That’s not good for the country as a society that we have a lot of people depending on the government.” | 22:08 | |
| Rally | CAMPBELL: Just as unbridled greed has undermined capitalism, Chavez’s autocratic socialism is jeopardising the benefits of his revolution. As Alberto Vollmer showed, the best chance for this divided country may be for its people to work together, but as with everything in Venezuela, that will depend on the whim of just one unpredictable man. | 22:20 | |
| Caracas | Music | 22:51 | |
| Credits: | Reporter: Eric Campbell Camera: David Martin Editor: Garth Thomas Producer: Vivien Altman Research : Lope Gutierrez-Ruiz | 23:00 |