Venezuela - 2015 crisis: No to the military and the politicians. Self-management is the way!

El Libertario Editorial Collective - February 2015

The opinion and proposals of the people of El Libertario regarding the economic, social, political and moral crisis that plagues Venezuela today.

1) We reject the existing view in some sectors of Chavism and the opposition that the military is the solution to the crisis, or the belief that a messianic leader spawned from the barracks will resolve it. Always anti-military, we anarchists have condemned and will continue to condemn any coup, be it the traditional deployment of tanks in the streets and uniformed obese people in the presidential palace, or the XXI century kind hiding behind constitutional subterfuges and forced resignations. It is a fiction that the high and middle military classes, today opportunistically "socialist", guardians of large scale oil and food contraband, who benefit from access to dollars at preferred rates, involved with drug and strategic mineral trafficking, have the virtue to lead the country, via the coup, towards situations that benefit the majority. It would be like the "Fujimorazo" in Peru, a bombshell like Bordaberry in Uruguay or the sacking of Isabelita y Lopez Rega in Argentina in the 70's that didn't change the country's situation at all.

2) We reject the economic package promoted by Nicolas Maduro and Diosdado Cabello which puts the cost of the crisis on the backs of the community. While the bolibourgeois traffickers, recipients of more than 20 billion dollars for ghost enterprises enjoy impunity, the workers are punished with scarcity and hyper-inflation of foods and medicine, the brutal decay in basic services and the imposition of neo-liberal taxes such as the value-added tax.

3) We strongly condemn the emergence of a police state built upon an authoritarian judiciary system with the excuse of an economic and media war, but which in the short, medium or long term will be used to repress collective struggle and protest. This police state consists of: Popular System for the Protection of Peace, a law that forces citizens to become "cooperative patriots" (euphemism for informants and snitches); the security zones where the right to strike and demonstrate is prohibited; the "fighting groups"; the Hugo Chavez Battalions ; the Ministry of Defense resolution # 8610; and the use of the para-military against the population. The Supreme Court has ruled that public protest depends upon governmental authorization and is not regarded as a right.

4) We absolutely reproach the "Bolivarian" hierarchy's business dealings with transnational capital based upon the creation of mixed enterprises and the so-called Special Economic Zones, colonized territories for maquiladoras and investments by Russian and Chinese imperialism, fully protected. Likewise we point to the process of capital legitimization for the bourgeoisie who, faced with the possibility of losing political hegemony, make fabulous secret investments, such as the acquisition of the media, real estate and sport teams, to say nothing of their hiding places in fiscal paradises such as Switzerland, Panama and some Caribbean islands.

5) We denounce the existence of the state's communication hegemony after acquiring private media using anonymous front men who act as the voice of the bolibourgeois and the military in power. Those affected are not the political opposition parties which have access to the internet and international media, but the popular sectors in struggle.

6) We qualify the opposition political parties as a false alternative, heirs to the exclusion and injustices of the past, who negotiate with the principles they claim to defend and are harbingers of a populist oil development project which differs little from Chavism- Madurism. It suffices to review the oil program of Leopoldo Lopez to understand it is the same old extractive profiteerism. As far as the Mesa de Unidad Democratica (MUD, a coalition of opposition right wing and social-democratic parties) their almost total silence on these topics is eloquent, since their pretensions are not very different from what we have today. In this electoral year they will promise castles and villas, we insist they deserve only scorn and abstention.

As anti-authoritarian activists we will work towards deepening the representation difficulties of the political parties, the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) as well as the MUD and its derivatives, taking up the struggle in the street as the way to reclaim public spaces, autonomy and direct action, pushing for the expansion of solidarity and mutual aid outside and against politicians' control. We will promote cooperative economic initiatives and self-management as the immediate answer to the crisis, as well as experiments to exercise direct assembly democracy. We will take collaborate with communication platforms and social networks where freedom of expression and information exist, backing the people's struggle against the established authoritarian powers.

Finally, we call for the fight against this political and economic model, rotted to the core with corruption, authoritarianism and militarism.

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[See the original text in Spanish in http://periodicoellibertario.blogspot.com/2015/02/2015-en-crisis-ni-con-militares-ni-con.html.]