Washington pressures Venezuela as crisis deepens

BY NAOMI CRAINE

As workers and farmers in Venezuela face a deepening economic crisis, the U.S. ruling class and pro-imperialist forces in Venezuela are ratcheting up pressure against the government of President Nicolás Maduro. Behind their feigned concern over food shortages and “human rights” is their desire to install a regime more to Washington’s liking. They are moving deliberately with the aim, they hope, of doing so without provoking a social explosion. It’s in the interests of working people throughout the Americas to oppose Washington’s intervention.

Venezuela’s economy is expected to contract by about 10 percent in 2016. Oil production, which accounts for 95 percent of export earnings, is at its lowest level in 13 years. Annual inflation is on course to hit 700 percent.

The food situation is especially sharp, with long lines for basic staples, such as milk, corn flour, sugar and cooking oil that are sold cheaply at government-regulated prices. “When oil was $100 a barrel, these items were abundant,” said Carolina Alvarez, a writer and editor who lives in the city of Cagua, west of Caracas, in a phone interview Aug. 6. “Other foods, such as meat, are readily available but the prices have soared,” she said.

“Many people are changing their habits, though they’re not happy about it,” Alvarez added. “We’re eating a lot of vegetables and fruit, but not much bread. I used to eat meat every day, now it’s maybe once a week.”

The collapse in world oil prices over the last two years has had a deep impact in a country that has the world’s largest proven oil reserves. The government of President Hugo Chávez, first elected in 1998, used oil revenue to fund a range of social programs and price controls that improved conditions for working people. It also sold oil at preferential prices to Cuba and other countries in the Caribbean — one reason for Washington’s implacable hostility. These policies have continued under Maduro, who took office following Chávez’s death in 2013.

At the same time, most industry and agriculture remain in the hands of the capitalist class. Many of these bosses claim the government’s policies prevent them from buying raw materials and producing at a profit.

The U.S.-based company Kimberly-Clark closed its Venezuelan factory July 9, claiming it lacked raw materials, and laid off more than 900 workers. The government took over the plant, which produces toilet paper, diapers and sanitary pads, and says workers have resumed production.

Many government-subsidized goods are bought up by speculators, who resell them at 10 times the price or more. “This has become a way of life for some people,” said Ana Barrios by phone from Caracas Aug. 9. Barrios is a member of the Colectivo Surgentes, a community organization that functions in the working-class San Augustín del Sur area of the city.

Besides the drop in oil prices and “economic war” by the bosses, “there’s undoubtedly corruption in the distribution of food and other goods, like soap,” Barrios said. To deal with the situation, some neighborhood groups are taking initiatives to contact rural cooperatives to sell produce directly to the residents, without middlemen, she said.

A year ago the Venezuelan government closed its border with Colombia, in an attempt to block the smuggling out of subsidized food and gasoline. Facing growing shortages, officials temporarily reopened the border to foot traffic in July, and tens of thousands crossed to shop. “But the prices in Colombia are too high for most people to afford,” Alvarez said.

The squeeze on working people is exacerbated by Venezuela’s $120 billion foreign debt. Another $4.7 billion in debt payments are coming due this fall. The government’s cash reserves have fallen from $30 billion in 2011 to $12 billion today, making it harder to import food, medicine and other necessities.

Opposition push recall vote

In face of these worsening conditions, Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela lost its majority in the National Assembly in December elections. Since then the opposition coalition Democratic Unity Roundtable has campaigned to hold a referendum to recall Maduro. On Aug. 1 the National Election Council approved the first of two petitions needed to hold such a vote. Opposition groups want a referendum to happen this year, which could force new presidential elections. If Maduro were recalled after Jan. 10, the vice president would finish his term, which runs to April 2019.

During a visit to Argentina Aug. 4, Secretary of State John Kerry demanded the Venezuelan government “embrace the recall referendum, not in a delayed way that pushes it into next year.”

As part of ramping up the pressure, U.S. prosecutors announced Aug. 1 the indictment of Venezuelan Gen. Néstor Reverol on U.S. charges of drug smuggling. The next day, Maduro appointed Reverol minister of interior and justice.

In July, Citibank said it would close the accounts of the Venezuela Central Bank and Bank of Venezuela within 30 days — a move Maduro denounced as a “financial blockade.”

‘Protest US threats, intervention’

“The Socialist Workers Party stands in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Venezuela,” Alyson Kennedy, the SWP’s candidate for U.S. president, told the Militant Aug. 9. “Working people all over the world should protest Washington’s threats and intervention there.”

In one example of solidarity, the Jamaican government announced July 29 it will send food, medicine and fertilizer to Venezuela, as payment for oil received at preferential rates through PetroCaribe. That initiative, taken by the Chávez government in 2005, has been a lifeline for Cuba, and many other Caribbean countries.

The crisis in Venezuela has reduced petroleum shipments to Cuba by about 20 percent so far this year. But Cuba’s solidarity with Venezuela “will not be weakened in the slightest,” said President Raúl Castro, speaking to the National Assembly July 8 about the challenges confronting the revolution.

Some 46,000 Cuban volunteers are working in Venezuela today. Best known internationally is Cuba’s medical cooperation, which has made health care available to millions of workers and farmers in Venezuela, but the internationalist solidarity is much broader. On July 31, a celebration in Caracas marked the 12th anniversary of collaboration in sports and recreation, which more than 3,000 Cubans are helping promote in Venezuela today.

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