Santiago post Pinochet

Just a few weeks ago, I was walking through peaceful streets of Santiago that are now in flames. But even then, before ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet´s heart attack, the unresolved issues of the dictatorship were not far below the surface. Those guilty of the disappearances, kidnappings, and murders of the Pinochet regime have not been brought to justice, neither had Pinochet himself, who lived with continuing support from some quarters until his death yesterday. The families of those who lost their lives have never had their cases resolved. Many of the changes to the Constitution and the laws put in place under the Pinochet regime remain in effect.

¨It is better to remain quiet and to forget. That is the only thing we must do.
We must forget. And that won't happen if we continue opening up lawsuits,
sending people to jail. FOR-GET: That's the word."

(Former General Augusto Pinochet, September 13 1995, two days after the 22nd anniversary of the military coup, as quoted on the Chile Human Rights website.)

The Chilean people have not forgotten what happened, and neither should we.

The U.S. had a large part to play in the coup that overthrew the democratic government of Salvador Allende and put in place a dictatorship that lasted nearly two decades. Then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger insisted that a successful socialist democracy in Latin America would be against U.S. interests, and the U.S. role in destabalizing the Allende government is well documented.

Let it never happen again.

Venezuela ... 6 more years

There were a few glitches. There were some long lines. Some of the paper ballots that print after a voter uses an electronic voting machine printed blank, and some people who should have been on the election rolls were missing. But a top advisor to opposition candidate Manuel Rosales, Teodoro Petkoff, said the voting "was carried out in a satisfactory manner,¨according to an AP story on CNN.com.

The tension melted early on election night, as hints of the victory started leaking out. In the city of Barquisimeto, where I went to learn about the cooperative movement, there were explosions, but they were fireworks, and there were lots of people in the streets, but they were in trucks, taxis, motorcycles, bicycles, and even the occasional police car, driving in caravans with Chavez flags hanging out the window, honking and chanting, cheering at anyone on the sidewalk. The parties and street dances continued into the wee hours.

The emotion is strong on all sides of the issue. Rosales supporters see President Chavez as harming the country. The wealthier classes support the opposition in large numbers, and it is true that the Chavez administration has been working on behalf of the 70 percent of the population who has been living in poverty. The privileges of the well-off are not what they were.

For the poor, Chavez represents a chance at a life of dignity. The poor are learning to read, getting a chance at a higher education, getting training in starting their own cooperative businesses, getting funding to start cooperatives, getting schools for their kids and free health care centers in the poor barrios.

But it isn´t just that they are getting a lot. They are being called on to offer what they can to others. The literacy programs draw on volunteers high school graduates and college students to teach in the barrios. Once someone gets their education, they will often offer what they know to others. The government is building the capacity of the poor to create a new society, and they are reponding with pride and enthusiasm.

Chavez is coming to represent the hope and the liberation of people who had neither.

The picture is a mixed one. Linking this liberation so strongly to one individual has its hazards. Would the educational missions fall apart if Chavez lost the election? No, we would never allow it, one of the teachers told us. Well maybe, others said.

Then there is the question of the US government. Will the US continue to work for the removal of Chavez? And if they do, will they push him until he begins to clamp down on the privately owned media that collaborated with the 2002 coup that almost toppled his government?

So far, his strategy has been to support the development of community media at the local scale, and international media, like Telesur at the international scale, giving people alternative sources of news.

So far, the democracy here is as strong as anything I´ve ever seen.

Waiting for the Election in Venezuela

I am in Venezuela as the presidential election approaches, and the excitment and division is palpable. We attended the huge pro-Chavez rally on Sunday, with well over a million supporters filling the streets in chaotic sea of people almost all wearing red, dancing, chanting and marching. We were able to find a position on a bridge where we could see the crowd, and it went as far as the eye could see up a wide boulevard packed with people, who spilled over into every nearby area.

One of the women on the bridge said to me, tell the Americans how many there are here. Tell them there are five boulevards like this one filled with people!

Estimates range from 1 to 3 million people in attendance.

Chavez has framed this campaign in part as a battle between him and Bush. The US administration is funneling money to the opposition, and has been for years. But Chavez is also speaking alot of love -- how the work for the Venezuelan future is based on love of the people. And he is highlighting the governments real progress in establishing a literacy program, free health care for any who need it, projects that provide food and housing for the poor, and a cooperatives' program that is encouraging people all over the country to come together to create businesses, to build health clinics, to claim title to the land their homes are built on in the poor, hillside barrios of Caracas.

The day before the Chavez rally, we went to the aftermath of the opposition rally. It was in a wealthy section of town, a lovely public square. Our Venezuelan trip leader began giving us an introduction to the history of the square, where the coup against Chavez was launched, and we were soon joined by a small group of anti-Chavez folks who wanted to tell us what is wrong with the Chavez government. Much sounded like a version of reality that comes from watching the Venezuelan version of Fox TV. Chavez is causing the poverty (actually, he inherited a poverty rate had increased to 70 percent by the time he took office) . The opposition will help the poor and the homeless (although their support is firmly upper and middle class). The government is giving away the country's oil to foreigners. The doctors Cuba is sending are not real doctors; people die because of their incompetence. The US is not backing the opposition; it is a purely Venezuelan effort, etc. It is a version of reality that does not jive with what I am hearing from other sources.

We came to the square to get an earful, we listened politely and for a long time. Then we thanked them and left.

The opposition, many of whom tried unsuccessfully to unseat the president in a coup in 2002 (the president was kidnapped, his "resignation" was announced both in Caracas and Washington, DC, and then, in the wake of a popular uprising, he was released and returned to power. Interestingly, for those concerned about protecting democracy in Venezuela, the first thing the new self-declared president when he assumed office during the coup was to throw out the constitution that had been approved by a voter referendum, and dismiss the Assembly and the Supreme Court. Because of loyal supporters among the military and massive street demonstrations, Chavez was released and was able to return to office and reinstat all the institutions of the democracy, and all have stood, despite a very hostile press, owned by his opponents. The opposition also tried to legally unseat Chavez through a referendum, but were overwhelmingly defeated by the popular vote.

Now the opposition is working again through the electoral process, while also calling on supporters to take to the streets if they lose the election, claiming, without any evidence I can find, that the election will be rigged. There are hundreds of international observers in the country. The voting machines all have paper ballots, so the voter can assure their vote is correct and the ballots are kept for future auditing. Public opinion polls, with only a very few exceptions, indicate a massive win for Chavez. But all are watching to see what will happen and whether the city will be shut down by the opposition if (when) Chavez wins.

The part most troubling to me as a citizen of the US is the financial support the US government, and thus taxpayers such as myself, have provided to those who were involved in the coup (see Eva Golinger's documentation, developed through the Freedom of Information Act). In her book, the Chavez Code, and her new book, Bush vs. Chavez Washington's War Against Venezuela, Golinger documents the continued and even increased funding for the opposition, coming through the US-backed National Endowment for Democracy and channeled through various front groups and Venezuela based organizations.

Nonetheless, there are good reason to believe the election will be at least as fair as they get these days.

After what Chavez supporters went through to turn back the 2002 coup and to win the recall referendum, they are unlikely to sit quietly by if the opposition should try to win power through force. The election takes place Sunday. Election activities are to cease as of today, and beginning tomorrow, no liquor will be available for sale.