THREE ANTI-CHAVEZ SOCIALIST UNION LEADERS KILLED BY A HITMAN IN ARAGUA STATE, VENEZUELA

[Omaha Steve]

http://gangbox.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/three-anti-chavez-socialist-union-leaders-killed-by-a-hitman-in-aragua-state-venezuela/

Organize Workers Self-Defense Guards! For Workers Control of Production!

Leftist Union Leaders Assassinated in Venezuela

On the afternoon of November 27, some 400 workers at the Alpina milk plant in the Venezuelan state of Aragua occupied their plant demanding full payment of money owed them by the Colombian-owned company. At first, the bosses tried to get the workers to abandon their leaders in the UNT (National Workers Union). When that failed, state police swarmed onto the grounds, brutally beating the workers and seriously injuring four. But the union alerted workers in the industrial area, and according to a report by UNT state leader Luis Hernández, “within minutes, the plant was surrounded by workers of the Unión Nacional de Trabajadores. Thanks to this act of solidarity, it was possible to retake the plant, and the workers reoccupied it.”

Yet a few hours later, as they were heading home, Hernández and two other UNT leaders who had led the Alpina workers’ struggle that day, Richard Gallardo and Carlos Requena, were gunned down at a shopping center in the nearby town of Cagua by an assassin on a motorbike. The three were also cadres of the Unidad Socialista de Izquierda (USI, Left Socialist Unity), which has opposed the bourgeois populist government of Hugo Chávez and its attempts to impose state domination of labor. Whatever sinister force ordered the assassination, the blow was aimed at one of the most combative sectors of the Venezuelan workers movement. Despite Chávez’ socialist rhetoric, this is the reality of the Bolivarian “revolution” in Venezuela today: leftist unionists are murdered while the forces of bourgeois state repression back up the bosses.


Venezuelan workers shut down highways across state of
Aragua, December 2 to protest murder of leftist labor leaders. (Photos: El Siglo )


For the last year, Venezuela has been stuck in a stand-off between the leftist nationalist Chávez regime and the right-wing pro-imperialist opposition. In the November 23 regional elections, a pro-government “patriotic coalition” won back about 1.5 million votes Chávez lost in the constitutional referendum last year, while the opposition vote was lower this year. Yet the right elected several key governors and mayors, including the mayor of metropolitan Caracas. Significantly, the PSUV lost Petare, a working-class suburb of the capital which was long a chavista stronghold, as former Chávez supporters stayed home massively. In recent years, the government financed extensive social programs with superprofits from the high price of oil. But as oil prices plummet, Venezuela’s bourgeois “petrosocialism” is running into trouble. Still, Chávez has relaunched a drive for a constitutional amendment to allow him to be reelected.

Internationally, U.S. imperialism has kept the heat on the Venezuelan regime, reviled in Washington because of Chávez’ support for Cuba. This pressure will probably be more intense under Obama than under the widely hated Bush administration, as many in Latin America have illusions in a “kinder, gentler” Yankee imperialism, just as they had in John F. Kennedy. But then came JFK’s Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba while “Alliance for Progress” counterinsurgency programs killed hundreds of leftist insurgents. Earlier this year, the U.S. announced the revival of the Fourth Fleet (which hasn’t existed since 1950) to patrol the Caribbean. (During the 2002 coup, U.S. Navy ships stood offshore to aid the plotters.) Chávez effectively countered by inviting the Russian Navy to hold joint maneuvers this past week, to Washington’s great consternation. Trotskyists defend nationalist Venezuela and the Cuban deformed workers state against imperialism.


Richard Gallardo (left) and Luis Hernández, leaders of the UNT union federation in the state of Aragua and candidates of the Left Socialist Unity in recent elections, were gunned down November 27. (Photos: Aporrea)


This standoff cannot last indefinitely. Either Chávez will submit to “the empire,” or it will come to a showdown in which the alternative will ultimately be between workers revolution or bloody counterrevolution. Whether the murder of three leftist union leaders is part of a rightist plan for destabilization or another government attack on workers, it indicates that the day of reckoning is approaching sooner rather than later. The key question then will be, as it already is today, that of proletarian revolutionary leadership.

FULL story at link.

[Taverner]

1. Fuuuuck here we go again...

Take power, get mandate, eliminate opposition, then go insane

That's how it usually goes with dictators

[EFerrari]

2. I hope I get to be the first to say "I told you so" when it turns out AGAIN

that the Chavez government had nothing to do with this assassination. Chavez is not perfect but he doesn't do THIS.

[The Magistrate]

3. Hard To say Who Killed These Men, Sir

The tag-line "Build a Leninist-Trotskyist Workers Party!" sprinkled through the article does not inspire confidence in the analysis it presents....

[blindpig]

4. Trots have never seen an actual revolution that they liked.

Don't know why them don't have one themselves and show us how it's done.

Wankers.

[NoPasaran]

5. When I was a Trot we were quite fond of the one the Bolsheviks staged

Also the Cuban and (at that time) Nicaraguan. Although the reference to Cuba as a "deformerd" workers state makes me think that these particular folk are of the Schachtmanite variety.

[NoPasaran]

9. Oops, on reflection

When I said Schachtmanite I probably should have said Spartacist.

Many are the varieties of Trotskyist heresies. Almost as many as the actual number of Trotskyists!

[anigbrowl]

6. Filthy capitalist, or something!

I have to agree. while I admire Trotsky, my advice to the Trotskyist movement is 'get your shit together and produce some results'. Of course, any movement based on permanent revolution is rather hobbled by the fact that most people want a quiet life and a degree of stability in which to raise families, have affairs, and so on. We hear a lot about the need to smash bourgeois institutions, some of which I am in sympathy with, but little or nothing about what's going to get built in their place, more specifically, how.

At the most basic level, practically every enterprise I have ever been involved with that includes more than 3 people involves someone making or implementing decisions and thus the opportunity for someone else to feel oppressed thereon. I've yet to see what the revolutionary proposal for dispute resolution between competing but equally legitimate points of view is.

As for Venezuela and this specific story, I really don't know. I am not a big fan of Chavez.

[Mika]

7. That is true.

The part that is most worrisome about the article is that it mentions that Chavez is a friend of ...... wait for it .... take a dEEp breath .... CASTRO! _ (((gaSP)))_


:sarcasm:

[Regret My New Name]

8. *scratches head*