The Venezuelan resistance movement

The other day Reuters wrote an article called “Venezuelan ‘Resistance’ Movement Struggles to Bruise Maduro” (in Spanish here). Since they quoted me at the end I would like to clarify that their description of the resistance movement does not agree with how I see it. This is what they quoted me as saying:

Ulf Erlingsson, a Swede and former aid worker, helped found the [Operación Libertad Venezuela (‘Operation Freedom Venezuela‘)] web site four years ago after becoming convinced Venezuela was a nefarious influence.
“This is a criminal regime run by a foreign power, Cuba,” he told Reuters. “So there is nothing illegal in fighting them.”

The problem with this is that I all the time am talking about nonviolent action, as it has been described by Dr. Gene Sharp (@GeneSharpaei) of the Albert Einstein Institution, while Reuters in their text describe only a minority part of the resistance, the so-called ‘guarimberos’, those who block streets as a form of protest.

When we created Operación Libertad Venezuela (OLV) as a project for liberation of Venezuela from Cuba, the term “resistance” was chosen since it aptly reflects the fact that it is a foreign invasion (albeit implemented through deceit, blackmail, corruption, and assassinations, not through military might).

The nonviolent strategy of struggle was chosen since it was deemed the most likely to yield the desired victory. The strategy is based on undermining the power of the enemy, not confronting him openly. The resistance has won significant victories in these four years, by converting several views which used to be dismissed as “conspiracy theories” into generally accepted “truths”, thus defeating the state propaganda lie:

1. The revelation that Cuba is in a position of control over Venezuela effectively occupying the nation

2. The destruction of the propaganda lie that there is no election fraud in Venezuela

3. The revelation that Venezuela is an electoral dictatorship (i.e., the opposition yields to the fraud rather than fight to claim their victories)

All these are victories by the resistance. The first one in the list was won through a street occupation outside the Cuban embassy in Caracas, after Chávez had died in Cuba but the regime still insisted that he was alive, and forged his name on laws. The occupation forced the regime to stage the “return” of Chávez, and the continued pressure forced them to admit that Chávez was dead, and to hold elections on April 14, 2013.

Through the live election coverage by OLV on April 14th, organized by Ana Diaz (former number two in the Venezuelan election authority CNE, and spokesperson for OLV), the resistance was able to expose the election fraud (point 2 in the list above) and force the opposition candidate Henrique Capriles to not admit defeat (he had admitted defeat in the previous election where there also was fraud). This caused the people to take to the streets en masse, which the regime met with violence.

After 2 days Capriles told people to go home, and that he would fight the battle in court, where he duly lost and with that, let the whole thing run out in the sand.

When the resistance (which is comprised of many groups and individuals, all fighting for the same objective) convened a global day of demanding the truth on June 2, 2013, the opposition coalition MUD surreptitiously sabotaged the action, even though it was made to defend the victory of their candidate.

When a day of protests was convened inside Venezuela September 14 on the 5-month day of the election, called “Día de Furia” (Day of Fury, a name I proposed since it hints to the inevitability of justice), the MUD again sabotaged by sending out SMS messages to all their activists prohibiting them from either participating or forwarding the information about the protest. Albeit this time several persons forwarded the message to OLV, and OLV’s other spokesperson, singer and actress Maria Conchita Alonso, denounced this action proof in hand on a live TV show in Miami, the Bayly show. Myself I confronted a Venezuelan political consultant who said, when I kept insisting on an answer, that “of course they would do that”.

The Venezuelan opposition is clearly playing hand in hand with the dictatorship, which is why the resistance is the only possible road to liberation of the country. Not all in the opposition coalition are on the bandwagon, though; those who are presently in jail are most certainly not. It is not clear to me why those who disagree with the way MUD is run don’t leave MUD and set up camp separately. A friend of mine, political consultant Eric Ekvall (RIP) even suggested to Maria Corina Machado that she ought to leave MUD, but she has not done so. I know what her reply was but I am presuming it was said in confidence so I won’t repeat it, let me just say that I believe she has the best intentions and is effectively part of that broad informal coalition that I consider the “resistance”. And in my personal opinion so are her fellow politicians in MUD Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma, both political prisoners at present.

So to sum up, the “resistance” in Venezuela to me is a broad coalition and includes millions of people, but only a tiny minority are openly exposing their participation. This is for self-preservation; the punishment from the state for being a dissenter is very severe. It would take a separate article just to start writing about that, let me just say that the majority of those in the visible core of the resistance have been victims of oppression for over a decade. Also, in the course of writing the Reuters article a number of the resistance members were murdered, but their families later denied that they were in the resistance, because they were threatened to be murdered they too if they said as much (in fact, one of them was murdered shortly before a planned interview with the Reuters reporter for the purpose of this article). The situation in Venezuela is very hard, and the Reuters article does not describe this reality in an unbiased way. Media who operate inside Venezuela (like Reuters) seem to have a very hard time to free themselves from the influence of the regime propaganda, unfortunately.

¿Fin de régimen en Venezuela?

La “biblia” de golpismo se llama “Coup d’Etat. A Practical Handbook” y fue escrito por Edward N. Luttwak en 1968 (“Golpe de Estado – un manual práctico”). Viene con un Apéndice A llamado “La economía de la represión” en lo cual el autor escribe (mi traducción): “Una vez ejecutado el golpe y establecido nuestro control sobre la burocracia y las fuerzas armadas, nuestra sobrevivencia a largo plaza dependerá en gran medida de nuestro manejo del problema de desarrollo económico. Desarrollo económico generalmente se considera algo bueno y casi todos quieren más de ello, pero para nosotros -el recién establecido gobierno de país X- la búsqueda del desarrollo económico será indeseable, ya que va en contra de nuestro objetivo principal: la estabilidad política.” ¿Como es eso? Para crear desarrollo se necesita invertir recursos, y eso baja el nivel de vida en el presente. Cuando el pueblo se pone descontento un régimen ilegítimo está en riesgo de caer, y solo puede sostenerse con su aparato de seguridad y propaganda, dice Luttwak.

Lo que hizo Chávez en Venezuela fue terminar con las inversiones y regalar dinero al pueblo en “misiones”. Eso rescató su régimen a corto plazo. A largo plazo obviamente era insostenible, pero el golpista militar de 1992 tuvo la suerte de morir antes, y dejó el problema en manos del colombiano Nicolás Maduro, quien usurpó el poder en Venezuela después de la muerte de Chávez en diciembre del 2012, falsificando su firma por 3 meses antes de llamar a elecciones, las cuales robó el 14 de abril del 2013. O sea, es totalmente ilegítimo como presidente. Su ilegitimidad se suma al problema económico. Solo puede sostenerse con represión y propaganda. Según Luttwak, la propaganda se refiere a toda la información y entretenimiento dirigido a distraer de las problemas; justificar los sacrificios; y convencer al pueblo que el liderazgo actual es el mejor posible. La represión se refiere a todo lo dirigido a reprimir actividades políticas con espionaje, infiltración y encarcelamiento; intimidación de las masas con el uso de fuerza; y evitar la circulación de información opuesta, con control de los medios, e impidiendo la discusión pública.

Hasta recientemente la propaganda del régimen venezolano ha sido muy profesional, pero desde unas semanas estamos viendo producciones patéticas, y estrategias totalmente absurdas. Se trata de la respuesta del régimen a las sanciones introducidas por presidente Obama en los EEUU contra funcionarios corruptos del régimen venezolano. Las reacciones del régimen han sido tan absurdas que solo aumenta el rechazo en la población, y sus producciones de propaganda han sido tan ridículas y patéticas que queda claro para todos que ya no disponen de personal profesional ni para eso. Como la represión y la propaganda son las partes claves del régimen para su sobrevivencia, la mala calidad en la propaganda ahora me indica que este régimen ya no cuenta ni con los recursos para defender su control del poder. Por eso yo no creo que este régimen va a durar mucho.