• Listen to this segment

GUEST:Eva Golinger, author of The Chavez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela

Last Wednesday, President Hugo Chavez outlined numerous proposals to reform the constitution of Venezuela. Though Chavez announced his hope for widespread changes in the economy, political structure, and federation of Venezuela, one reform in particular gained the most attention in the media. President Chavez proposed an amendment to the constitution that will extend the presidential term from six to seven years and more importantly abolish term limits. Political opponents decried the proposal as a dictatorial power grab saying that Chavez seeks to be “president for life.” Chavez, who has been backed at the polls consistently since his first electoral victory in 1998, has denied such intentions. Though not garnering as much attention, other constitutional reforms announced include a proposal to shorten the work day from eight to six hours. If critics decry the abolition of term limits as undemocratic, President Chavez has also outlined “popular power,” reforms which he says will further democratize Venezuela. According to Chavez, all changes, which must come about through a national referendum, are said to be “essential for continuing the process of revolutionary transition.”

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT

Thenmozhi Soundararajan: Joining us to discuss Venezuela in depth is Eva Golinger, author of The Chavez Codes: Cracking U.S. Intervention in Venezuela. Welcome, Eva.

Eva Golinger: Thank you.

Thenmozhi: Well, Eva, let’s take a step back and actually, go beyond the media blitz about focusing on the term limits issue. Can we just take a step back and focus on the larger reform. And, what is your assessment of the constitutional revisions that he introduced?

Eva: Actually there are 33 proposed revisions, well, to 33 articles in the constitution. That’s what President Chavez presented on August 15, last Wednesday, which is actually a historical day in Venezuela: one, because it was the day that the liberator, Simon Bolivar, swore to uphold his, well, his work for independence and sovereignty of Venezuela and also the day, about 3 years ago in 2004, that Chavez won a recall referendum against his mandate with a 60/40 landslide vote. So, it was a historical day that reforms were proposed. And, you know, what’s kind of funny is that the only one that’s been sort of blasted all over the international media is the one that you named, of course at first, which is about extending the presidential term to seven years – from six to seven – and to allow for continuous reelections, not indefinite and actually, as it’s proposed in what Chavez presented, immediate reelection. So, you know, there are actually 33 proposed reforms and the majority of them focus on socioeconomic issues which is incredibly important because we are talking about: one, a constitution (it’s important to put into perspective) that was drafted by the people of Venezuela in one of the most participatory processes in the world, in history, in 1999, done by a national constitutional convention and, you know, everybody, not just scholars or academics or politicians or lawyers were allowed to participate in the writing of the constitution and then it was voted on in a national referendum. So, the idea is that the same type of process take place now, not to rewrite the constitution, but, as the constitution itself actually stipulates, reforms can be made as long as they’re not structural, in essence, in terms of changing the first nine articles, which are the principals of the constitution. So, the 33 changes are not with the first nine articles. They’re primarily, one of the changes has to do with the, sort of, geo-strategic or geopolitical structure of the country, to, one: recreate a federal district in the capital city of Caracas or the surrounding areas. Right now, it’s considered a federal district, however, it functions as this just giant mass of five municipalities of which two states are involved as well as the center, the federal district itself, and so there are all these different mayors and it’s just very chaotic, so the idea is just to, sort of, center it again in one area and that this is going to help people and help the city in terms of its socioeconomic development as well, and included in that sort of geo-strategic reform is a notion, which is, I think, very interesting, which is the right to a city. So, cities will not just be, for example, Caracas. Venezuela is incredibly centralizing Caracas in its capital but there are, you know, populations throughout the whole country – it’s a very widespread population. And, so the idea is to create city structures and to allow for the same types of, sort of, regulations and rights that are accorded in Caracas to be given in other parts of the country. You mentioned the reform relating to the six-hour a day change to the workweek so, you know, we’re talking 35 hours a week or 36 hours a week workweek and the idea is to create a more productive cycle. Now, Chavez was talking about this yesterday on his Sunday program that, you know, some could say, wait a minute, he’s reducing the workweek and that’s going to create laziness or less productivity but the idea, in fact is, one: it’ll incorporate another work turn, so there will be a whole other area opened up for more jobs, I mean, and, two: the idea is that the people will be more productive. That, you know, you have the sufficient amount of time you need to engage in education or, you know, to spend time with your family or whatever other things people do in their social life and so when you’re working you dedicate the time to your work. I mean, we’ll have to see how this all develops.

Thenmozhi: Well, and there are other countries that have successful 35-hour workweeks including France…

Eva: Right, France, and there are many other nations that have continuous, or actually, no term limits. I mean, you know, Chavez was saying, oh, it’s kind of ironic that Spain, for example, and all the Spanish press which is primarily conservative is so heavily criticizing these reforms and primarily focusing on that one in particular, about the term limits, when Spain is still a monarchy and where the people don’t even elect their, I mean you know, they don’t have term limits, I mean, the prime ministers are primarily, it’s hereditary, the same as the kings and queens. So, and that’s the same for a lot of countries throughout Europe, is that they have this status of their head of state is being a prime minister and there’s no term limits. So, why is Venezuela, Chavez, being criticized? Because a couple years ago, in Columbia, neighboring Columbia, they had one term limit allowed in their constitution, and when President Alberto Uribe decided he wanted to run again – he’s a right wing conservative, a very close ally of Bush, the President of Columbia – he decides he wants to run again, he calls for an amendment to be made to the constitution to allow for a second term and now may be doing it again for a third term and there was absolutely no uproar in any media anywhere around the world and no other countries criticizing Columbia as being anti-democratic. So it’s, you know, it seems to be that it’s really just focused on the fact that this is Hugo Chavez and that the U.S., particularly, and a few other of its allies have been trying to portray Venezuela as a dictatorship, which is absolutely false. I mean, one of the other reforms that’s important in the area of socioeconomic and relating to work is the proposed reform to the constitution will include, for example, pension and health care and other kinds of benefits and rights to, sort of, independent workers. So, for example, if you’re a taxicab driver or you’re a hairdresser or you’re a lawyer, like myself, you work for yourself, that there will be a fund created, a social fund created and we’ll contribute to it and later that will provide the same benefits, for example, as if you worked for a company. And, they provide you with vacation time and, you know, all those different benefits, insurance and things like that. So, that’s another step forward in terms of respecting also the different types of work and workers in a society. You don’t just have to be an employee of a company to get benefits. Your work contributes to the development of the country and so, therefore, you know, the country will contribute to your social and human development. And, of course, the new reforms are supposed to create new types of property. In addition to private property, state property, republic property, there will also be social property and communal property…

Thenmozhi: And, could you actually talk a little bit about the communal property and the proposition for support for micro-financing communal orgs? I thought that was a very interesting concept to introduce.

Eva: Yeah, I mean, well, we’ve been sort of on this path now for the past year or two years to the concept of social production companies and, you know, communal power, things like that. And that’s one of the major reforms also introduced in the constitution. It’s not been discussed at all in any media but it’s huge. It’s that the proposed reforms will create a sixth government power, or a sixth power in the country. Because, right now, we have five branches of government so, you know, we have executive, judicial and legislative and the electoral and the citizen power and this reform will create the communal power or the people’s power. So, the idea is that, you know, communities come together. And, this also relates into the geo-strategic or the geopolitical changes that are introduced in the reforms, that each community will be able to create a, you know, depending on its size, sort of communes. I mean, that’s the term that’s being used right now but the idea is that we find our own term to use here. And, you know, that those local, community-based organizations are going to have an equal level of power, for example, as the executive or as, you know, the legislative, in terms of deciding, you know, what are the needs for their communities. If they want to have, for example, community businesses, community property, you know, things like that where the government will then be required (I mean there are funds that we already have for this but more will be created) you know, to provide credits, as you mentioned, very low-interest, if any interest, credits to start up community businesses that will be owned by that particular commune or community. And, so the idea is that, you know, whatever it is that that invests back into its community, and so the structure or the building or whatever it operates or the factory, whatever, is owned by the members of the community as is what they produce. And so, the profits from it will go back into the community. I mean, you know, these are all concepts that we’ve been developing over the past two years as community councils, local and sort of grassroots-based groups, and then cooperatives. And so the idea is to, sort of, bring those two concepts further together, even though both will still exist separately, to create this idea of community property. I mean, you know, it’s another alternative of property, it’s not doing away with private property, which was one of the, sort of, scandalous ways that the opposition media and groups here in Venezuela and internationally were trying to portray this constitutional reform and they turned out to be wrong was that it was going to do away with private property, which is not correct at all. In fact, yesterday on Chavez’s Sunday show, he had a bunch of Venezuelan business people on the program and he was talking with them about how important it is that we have, you know, private investors, and particularly Venezuelan, national companies that are now given priority over internationals. It wasn’t that way before. So, you know, I think what’s important for listeners also to understand is that these are Chavez’s proposals and what has now initiated – and today, for example, there’s a big meeting taking place with a couple thousand people here in Caracas – are debates. You know, meetings will be taking place all over the country from now until the decision is made to present a, sort of, final draft to the congress that the, you know, different communities have put together their own suggestions for the reform or changes to what Chavez presented and then a final draft will be presented for a national referendum. So, this is not the, sort of, definitive proposal for constitutional reform. This is Chavez’s, sort of, suggested reform to the constitution and others will be made over the next few months. So, it’s important for people outside of Venezuela to understand that this is a very participatory process. It’s not that this is it…

Thenmozhi: This is not the dictator decree, that’s right.

Eva: Right.

Thenmozhi: I want to remind our listeners that I am speaking with Eva Golinger, author of The Chavez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela. We are talking today about some of President Hugo Chavez’s numerous proposals for reform of the constitution of Venezuela. And, Eva, I wanted to actually go towards some of the reforms President Chavez mentioned about the military. Can you speak a little bit about that?

Eva: Yeah, that’s also very important, I, in fact, think that the most important, sort of, reforms that he has suggested are, precisely, the one relating to the military and, you know, the socioeconomic reforms. The military, the changes that he has proposed are quite drastic – one being changing the name of the Armed Forces of Venezuela to the Bolivarian Armed Forces, invoking the name of Simon Bolivar. And also what we’ve been using, I mean, the country’s name changed to that with this same constitution when it was passed in 1999, now the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. So, they’ll be the Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela. And, that one of the, sort of, language semantic changes made in Chavez’s proposal is that the armed forces be popular, meaning, you know, that they come from and relate to the people, the populace, that they be patriotic and that they be anti-imperialist. This is controversial because, you know, some are going to say, wait, that’s imposing a political view on the armed forces which are supposed to be apolitical and are supposed to serve any government in the country at the same time. The idea is that while, you know, Venezuela, just like many countries in Latin America or the so-called developing world, you know, if they’re not imperialist then they’re subordinate to the Empire, led by the United States and multi-nationals. So, this is a major change, that the armed forces be considered anti-imperialist and that they be independent, obviously, working for the independence and sovereignty of Venezuela, always with the people. The other thing that changes are the components. We will still keep the army, the navy and the air force, but the national guard changes to a territorial guard and will change in terms of its duties, in fact, will now be instead of just – we have major problems with that component because the national guard is what primarily guards the borders and works with, for example, other countries or groups to combat drug trafficking and so, unfortunately, there’s a tremendous amount of corruption in the national guard. So, the idea is that it now not just focus on those areas, it’ll be a territorial guard so it’ll expand to work under the supervision of the other components. That’s a major change for them. And, then, that the reserve forces which were created about two years ago, civilian reserves, be given a new name which are the popular militias, And, that could be also considered a little bit controversial to many, you know, but the idea is that well, that they’re not reserved in the sense of, you know, reserved forces for something, but that they’re popular militias – they are going to be civilians that are trained in combat and that will not just work for wartime, but also, obviously, I mean, Venezuela’s a country where, in its preamble, that this is a nation that promotes peace where this is not a country that will ever send its armed forces to fight in any war. That’s in the constitution, that Venezuela’s a territory of peace and that it cannot be used as an object of war against any nation or internally. So, the idea behind the popular militias is not maybe as scary as it sounds to some but it’s more sort of, you know, that people need to prepare. I mean, you have to understand that Venezuela’s a country that now has, it’s been about 7 years, 8 years that it’s been under, and at least 5 since the time of the coup in April, 2002, it’s been under a very severe aggression from the United States which is precisely the subject of my work which is about U.S. intervention in Venezuela and, you know, it’s something that’s actually escalated over the past few years. People can see that evidence by reading their media, you know, in the United States, the fact that, one, Venezuela wasn’t really even on the map before. Today, you know, it’s almost talked about at least if not daily, on a weekly basis in most media, and internationally. Chavez, you know – now, it’s sort of the standard, the status quo to refer to Chavez as a dictator, which is absolutely false. He’s been elected three times and, you know, legitimate elections with at least a 60% majority.

Thenmozhi: We’re going to have to leave it right there, Eva, but I want to thank you for joining us to definitely give a more nuanced discussion about these reforms and even the process of these reforms.

Special thanks to Julie Svendsen for transcribing this interview.