BY RÓGER CALERO  
After being returned to power by a massive working-class mobilization April 13, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has taken a conciliatory stance towards the capitalist class and military that removed him in an April 11 U.S.-backed coup.

"Many people tell me--and they are right," Chávez said in a speech April 28, "don’t forget that you are the president of all Venezuelans, of the upper class, the middle class, the lower class." He promised to "make changes, and I’m starting with my economic team, revising economic policies."

The president announced the removal of Diosdado Cabello as vice president and the appointment of Defense Minister José Vicente Rangel to the post as a first step in complying with demands by the Venezuelan ruling class to change his cabinet and a number of laws adopted over the last year.

Following the defeat of the reactionary coup, Chávez appointed Rangel to meet with representatives of the opposition, including representatives of the country’s main bosses’s association, Fedecámaras, and officials from the Venezuelan Workers Federation (CTV), the main labor union federation.

CTV officials have restated their support for a demand by opposition political parties for a referendum to "accelerate" Chávez’s exit from the presidency. By calling for general strikes and denouncing policies of the regime, the union officials played a key role in giving popular cover to the bosses’s reactionary drive against the Chávez government.

Leading congressmen in Venezuela’s National Assembly, which is controlled by Chávez supporters, said they would act to change at least 17 of 49 laws passed last year which raised the hackles of the wealthy landlords and capitalists in the country, as well as of the U.S. imperialists.

One person identified as a "leading industrialist" by the New York Times said, "We have no choice but to give Chávez the benefit of the doubt right now. The question that remains is whether he is willing to redefine his revolution or not. We need to see actions, not words."  
 
Backs off appointments to oil company
From the moment he regained power Chávez backed off his appointment of a new president and seven new members to the executive board at Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). The bosses at PDVSA opposed Chávez’s appointments and a law aimed at getting more of the income for oil sales into the state treasury, calling these moves a threat to the "independence" of the state-owned company.

After announcing his appointees had resigned, Chávez gave the presidency to Alí Rodríguez, the secretary general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and someone considered an acceptable candidate by the bosses.

Although Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in the 1970s, steps to bring the industry under complete state control have never been carried out. When the operations of Royal Dutch/Shell and other foreign companies were made state property, the new company, Petróleos de Venezuela, left the entire structure of the imperialist-owned operations in the hands of the same bosses.

With 40,000 employees and $50 billion a year in sales, oil sales by PDVSA provide 80 percent of Venezuela’s export revenue.

The privileges and wealth that come with the positions help show why any moves to make the oil bosses accountable run into stiff resistance. For example, PDVSA’s president is believed to make up to $20,000 a month, a salary 10 times that of the minister of mines and energy who is supposed to be his superior.

Executives and top functionaries at the company also have access to chalets in the Andes that are maintained at PDSV’s expense with small contributions from the bosses’ salaries. The bosses make sure that the company, which is the third largest supplier of oil to the United States and owns Citco’s refineries and 13,000 gas stations, continues to be organized from the wellhead to the gas pump to meet the needs of the U.S. rulers rather than the interests of working people in Venezuela.  
 
Washington tries to cover its tracks
Since the coup, U.S. government officials and the big business press have been working to cover Washington’s tracks in connection with the military coup.

Rear Adm. Carlos Molina told the press, however, that despite U.S. denials, he believed he was acting with the support of the U.S. government when he helped lead the coup. The Pentagon has acknowledged having held meetings with Venezuelan generals in the months leading up to the coup. Among those who met with Pentagon officials was Gen. Lucas Romero Rincón, Venezuela’s chief of the high military command who announced Chávez’s "resignation" in the early hours of the coup. Among the U.S. officials who met with General Rincón was Rogelio Pardo-Maurer, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Western Hemisphere affairs, and Gen. Peter Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Contrary to statements made by U.S. State Department officials, denying the presence of U.S. military personnel at the Fort Tiuna military base during Chávez’s detention, Venezuelan government officials have asserted that two military officers were present at the base with high-ranking Venezuelan officers until it became evident that the coup had failed. State Department officials claim that the two U.S. officers drove near the base but never got out of their vehicle.

The State Department says it is carrying out an investigation into the propriety of the actions of the National Endowment for Democracy, an agency created and financed by the U.S. Congress, in handing funds to groups that participated in the coup. The press has maintained silence over the extent of CIA involvement in the events.  
 
Class divide
The coup and working-class mobilizations against it helped bring to light the deep class divisions in Venezuela, a country of 24 million people. Despite the country’s vast economic resources, 80 percent of its population live under the official poverty line, with half the workforce unemployed or underemployed.

"All of them are oligarchs," Ramón Rodríguez said of the coup leaders. Rod-ríguez, a street vendor in the Catia neighborhood in Caracas, added, "Couldn’t they have appointed one person like us? The rich people underestimated us. We are committed to him [Chávez] because he is committed to us."

The Spanish daily El País reported that during the working-class mobilizations against the coup, demonstrators went out in the streets, yelling, "The same thieves are back," and "the cream of the crop is back," mobilizing others to join the actions and showing their class hatred towards the capitalist elite.

The deep racial divisions that exist in Venezuela are a dominant feature of politics there. Economic and political power is concentrated in the hands of the capitalist class, which is white. Some 67 percent of Venezuela’s population is mestizo, 10 percent are Black, and 2 percent are indigenous.

Illustrating these class and racial divisions, the Times article quoted a worker at a psychiatric hospital who said that the rich looked down on him as "subhuman." A doctor, on the other hand, complained that poor people call the better-off layers the "squalid ones," associating them with corruption.

Meanwhile, Chávez has sought to secure support among the top military brass, replacing several high-ranking officers opposed to his government, including the head of the military academy and the chief of the unified armed forces command.

One of the newly appointed officers, Gen. Luis Acevedo, commander of the air force, died with three other Venezuelan generals on April 19 when the helicopter they were traveling in crashed into a mountain north of Caracas on what was supposed to be a routine flight over familiar terrain.

Acevedo and the other generals killed were known supporters of Chávez, and had taken his side during the military coup. "It is a blow because he has to find Chavista officers like them and perhaps now he does not find them very easily," said a retired vice admiral to the press.  
 
 
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