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Venezuela President
Hugo Chávez |
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Diaspora Report:
With Aristide's Ouster, Chávez
Opponents Hit the Streets; TransAfrica Meets With Chavez
By Karen Juanita Carrillo
SeeingBlack.com Contributing Writer
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about the Black diaspora! Click here.
| Forging
Links Between Blacks In the U.S. and Colombia
An increasing number of efforts are in the
works to promote stronger alliances between African Americans
and Afro-Colombians.
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Child Dancers from Grupo Pasos por Colombia. Photo by
Karen Juanita Carillo.
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Among them, list the Feb. 24-25 series of panels,
performances, and discussions sponsored by the Afro-Latino
Development Alliance (ALDA)—a new group founded in January
2003 by Luis Gilberto Murillo, the former governor of the
predominately-Black state of Chocó, Colombia.
"It's one of our first efforts to generate
discussion around Afro-Colombians," Murillo said about
the ALDA events, which were held at Howard University, Georgetown
University, the Colombian embassy and on Capitol Hill in Washington,
D.C., "because, so far, we're not even on the radar here."
The Feb. 24 daylong symposium on Capitol Hill
was meant to advance the idea of coalition building among
Afro-Colombians and members of Congress— in particular,
members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Testimony from
invited activists, politicians, athletes, and celebrities
focused on the daily challenges Blacks still face in Colombia.
Afro-Colombians still suffer the psychological
terrorism of anti-Black images and sayings, Hugo Tovar, director
of the Afro-Colombian Student Network noted during one panel
discussion. Tovar recalled that during a conversation he had
with an eight year old, the child proudly told him that when
he grows up, he wants to be white.
Even at such young ages, Black Colombians
know that they could live more prosperous lives if they had
white skin, Rosa Carlina Garcia of the National Association
of Afro-Colombian Women said. Garcia gave the known statistics:
Blacks comprise 70 percent of the displaced from Colombia's
on-going war; most Blacks don't have access to education;
birth mortality rates are high and Afro-Colombians die from
everyday diseases because they have limited access to health
care.
In August 1993, "Law 70 (Law of the Blacks/Ley
de Negritudes)" finally granted Afro-Colombians legal
recognition as a distinct ethnicity and community title to
the lands they have lived on since enslavement. But Garcia
pointed out that Black title to the territory is proving of
no use when there aren't any real plans to develop the lands
for the benefit of the people.
In fact, government plans for Afro-Colombia's
lands lean toward their development for international business
purposes. Benedict College's Dr. Norma Jackson spoke of how
similar this situation is to what happened to African Americans
who held title to lands throughout the U.S. yet had their
land stolen, as was documented in the December 2001 Associated
Press series "Torn from the Land." "There's
a phrase we have in English: 'Follow the money,'" Lisa
Hugaard, the executive director of the Latin America Working
Group remarked: "With regard to Afro-Colombians, I would
say, 'Follow the land.' People are being forced off the land
because somebody wants it. We should look into who's getting
it, after [Blacks] have been run off."
-- By Karen Juanita Carillo
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It didn't take long for people to begin drawing parallels between
the overthrow of Haitian Pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the April
2002 attempted coup against Venezuela's Pres. Hugo Chávez.
Even Chávez himself connected the dots and—according
to the government-owned Venpres media service—on Friday,
March 5 he invited local and international media in Venezuela to
a press conference where he screened The Revolution Will Not
Be Televised, the 2003 documentary by Irish directors Kim Bartley
and Donnacha O'Briain. The documentary shows how the Venezuelan
media (who are owned by pro-U.S. oil companies) and the Bush administration
supported the Chávez coup.
Chávez recalled that, like Aristide, he was kidnapped by
coup plotters: "There was a plane there on April 2002 and
there are recorded conversations that indicate that it was there
to take me away," Venpres reports he told the press
conference. "I did not know where [they were taking me] and
once this situation was known, the National Armed Forces were sent
there and when they saw that the situation was getting difficult,
the plane took off."
The Bush administration and CIA have denied complicity in the
2002 coup. Those who want to see Chavez removed have had difficulty
getting rid of Chávez because he remains extremely popular
among the more than 67 percent of Venezuelans who live below the
poverty line.
Lucas Gil Ibarguen, an activist with the group Comité Afro
contra la discriminación y xenofobia/Blacks against discrimination
and xenophobia, charged in an email that, "Pres. Chávez
is governing for poor people without [favoring the] imperialist
line. For that reason the Bush government and native oligarchy are
trying to destroy his government."
Chávez, Ibarguen argued, "has done some missions against
[illiteracy] and for solving the education problem for people who
want to finish high school… Here there is real democracy because
most of the people are participating in the decisions."
But those decisions are, according to middle and upper class groups
of anti-Chávistas, socialist-based. Chávez opponents
have claimed that his Movimiento Quinta Republica (Fifth Republic
Movement) political party is dividing the nation along class and
racial lines – leading the majority of poor African and/or
Indian descendant Venezuelans, who are 80 percent of the population,
to counter Chávez opponents, who are of European descent
and more likely to have investments or earn their income from the
country's petroleum sector, which dominates the economy.
"Most of the anti-Chávistas think that the only way
for the poor to progress is if they lose some of what they have,"
Esther Madrid, a journalist with the pro-government newspaper Diario
VEA noted. Most Afro-Venezuelans support Chávez, she
said, "because the Afro-descendent population form a large
part of Venezuela's poor and the programs he has instituted are
helping us. The people who have tended to be poor and among the
excluded for so many years now. The small number of people who oppose
him have high and sometimes very high social positions; they are
mainly from the middle-class."
Since the failure of the 2002 coup, anti-Chávistas have
been attempting to stage a referendum on the Chávez presidency.
But, as of last week, Venezuela's National Elections Council (CNE)
ruled they had still not collected the required 2.4 million valid
signatures needed for a recall vote.
To protest the CNE's ruling, anti-Chávistas recently took
to the street. During riots and clashes with the army, marchers
reportedly carried signs that read "Bye-bye Aristide; Chavez
you're next!" Nine people were killed, 200 were injured and
300 were arrested during the demonstrations.
"I have no doubt" Chávez said about the demonstrations,
"that we have experienced organized subversion groups armed
with military weapons and supported by the Metropolitan Police as
a private army. Their strategy was designed in Washington: Made
in the USA!"
Chávez has threatened to thwart any Bush administration involvement
in future coups against him by cutting of oil flow to the U.S. Venezuela
is the world's fourth largest oil exporter to the United States.
"Each country must decide its destiny by itself without Bush
or any similar government" dictating what's right, the Comité
Afro's Ibarguen said. "People must live in peace without war,
massacres or political crimes. Black communities, indigenous people
and [rural people] are displaced because of these imperialist policies
that are killing not only people but also the environment, animals,
plants, and rivers. We are being affected by this criminal conduct."
TransAfrica Forum Meets
Venezuela's Chávez
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U.S. Representative Rangel (left) meets Rep. Edgar Torres
Martha Chaverra and former Choco Governor Luis Murillo. Photo
by Karen Juanita Carillo.
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Just as the film actor/activist Danny Glover—who serves as
chair of the TransAfrica Forum's board of directors—and a
delegation of African Americans arrived in Venezuela in early January
to take part in a nine-day visit of meetings with that nation's
President Hugo Chávez Frías, the two most prominent
Republican-party Blacks in the U.S. administration spoke of their
disappointment with the on-going rule of Chávez.
Although most of the Venezuelan press only briefly noted the presence
of the Hollywood film actor and other prominent Blacks from the
U.S., others, like the newspaper El Universal, delighted
in noting that National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice had criticized
Chávez' administration for not allowing "democratic
reforms" and because of his continued friendly relationship
with Cuba's Fidel Castro.
The day before, Secretary of State Colin Powell was quoted talking
about chances for another referendum from Chávez opponents,
which might be able to oust him.
TransAfrica's President Bill Fletcher was developing an interest
in the situation of Chávez in Venezuela even before he'd
accepted his position at TransAfrica. The D.C.-based TransAfrica
Forum is an activist, research, and educational organization that
works for global justice, particularly on African and African Diaspora
issues.
While he was still interviewing for the TransAfrica job, Fletcher
says he and Glover spoke about how critical it would be for the
group to become better versed on Afro-Latino issues. But without
many Spanish-speaking TransAfrica members, they had no immediate
means, or reasons, to contact Afro-Latino activists – so their
plans were pretty much on hold.
That is, until April 12, 2002. When Venezuela's President
Hugo Chávez Frías was overthrown during a temporary
coup from April 12-14, 2002, and the U.S. government loudly applauded
the coup, TransAfrica found a reason and a country to get involved
with.
"My interest was peaked after the demonstrations began,"
Fletcher says. "What struck me at the time was that I noticed
a definite demographic difference among the Chávez supporters
and his opponents." Many Chávez opponents have claimed
that his Movimiento Quinta Republica (Fifth Republic Movement/MVR)
political party is dividing the nation along class and racial lines
– leading the majority of poor Venezuelans, who are 80 percent
of the population and of African and/or Indian descent, to counter
Chávez opponents, who are of European descent and own most
of the nation's businesses.
"You know, it was like Arsenio Hall used to say, 'Hmm…!'
I don't mean that there was a total difference, but it's
just that Chávez' supporters tended to be a lot more
diverse."
Chávez's six-year term presidency officially ends
in 2007, but his opponents have held mass demonstrations, labor
strikes and have been trying to hold a referendum to oust him for
the past two years.
When Fletcher wrote a letter to the Washington Post criticizing
their portrayals of Chávez as a dictator, he said he was
"deluged with emails from right-wing Venezuelans" who
asked how he could dare criticize their opposition to Chávez
and who continually asserted that Venezuelans don't have any
racial problems like in the U.S.
"Anytime I hear something like that," Fletcher noted,
"since I didn't just drop in from outer space, my interests
are automatically peaked."
African American activists and members of the TransAfrica Forum's
board of directors traveled in Venezuela for nine days, visiting
local Black communities, helping to rename a public school as "Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr's Bolivarian School" in the Afro-Venezuelan
town of Naiguatá on January 9th ("Bolivarian"
schools are part of the "Bolivarian Movement," instituted
by Chávez's MVR party. They offer children three free meals
and a new revolutionary educational curriculum), helping to celebrate
the 150th anniversary of African emancipation from slavery in that
country, and attending official and unofficial meetings with government
representatives – including Pres. Chávez himself.
The delegation traveled to the country alongside Bernardo Alvarez,
the Washington, D.C-based ambassador of Venezuela. Besides Glover
and Fletcher, the group included Patricia Ford, vice president of
the Service Employees International Union; Massachusetts Institute
of Technology economist/writer Julianne Malveaux; James Early, director
of Cultural Studies and Communication at the Smithsonian's
Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies; Sylvia Hill,
professor of Criminology and director of the Department of Urban
Studies in Washington, D.C.; TransAfrica Forum Vice President Selena
Mendy Singleton, and Executive Director of the 21st Century Youth
Movement Malika Asha Sanders.
Fletcher acknowledges that TransAfrica doesn't agree with
all of Chávez' programs, but he said, "We have
differences of opinion with Chávez, but intelligent people
can disagree."
The government-run Radio Nacional de Venezuela (RNV) reported
that Glover termed his presence in Venezuela an opportunity "to
listen and learn, not only from government and opposition politicians,
but to share with the people, those who are promoting the changes
in this country…."
"This isn't Danny Glover the artist," he proclaimed.
"I'm here as a citizen, not only of the US, but a citizen
of the world."
Venezuela's Pres. Chávez identifies as a pardo,
which means he acknowledges both his African and Native Indian roots.
Like other Latin American nations, Venezuela had a long history
of claiming to be a proud mixed-blood nation, while its everyday
reality saw only white Venezuelans, called mantuanos, rise
to become the nations' landowners, business owners and members
of government.
Chávez claims that his social reforms are in the spirit
of Simón Bolívar, South America's liberator
from Spanish colonialism, and that his spiritual leader and confidante
is Cuba's Fidel Castro. In Venezuela Chávez has used
the popular vote to win more political power for the nation's
poor, instituted land reforms, and used his weekly call-in radio
program "Hello President" to encourage popular participation
in politics.
Fletcher said his delegation witnessed the power of Chávez
first-hand, when they were special guests at the Jan. 11 broadcast
of "Hello President."
"It was like a concert—a phenomena," Fletcher
mused. The radio show was to be broadcast from one of the nation's
remote villages, so the delegation was flown to the area and then
driven in a van to the site. "When we were about three kilometers
away we started to see people walking in the direction we were going.
And the further we drove, their numbers just increased. People were
in groups, bringing food, bringing large Styrofoam containers for
drinks, bringing their children. We finally got to a part where
we couldn't move because there were so many people—thousands
of people. Guards had to get out in front of the van and make a
way for us to pass through."
When they arrived and Education, Culture and Sports Minister Aristóbulo
Istúriz (the first black man to hold that post) exited the
van, the crowd cheered wildly and had to be held back. When the
actor/activist Danny Glover left the van, there was a cheer, but
not as many people recognized Glover the way they'd recognized
Istúriz.
"'Hello President' was like a late-night talk show,"
Fletcher said: "It was the most unusual thing I've ever seen."
For some two hours, Chávez alternately talked, interviewed
his cabinet ministers, and even sang to explain his political positions
to the people. "Like, the president of Dominica, Pierre Charles,
had died [on January 6]. In order to explain why he would be attending
the funeral, he pulled out a map showing Venezuela and then showed
where Dominica was, and then he talked about the relationship between
these two countries and why it was important."
Besides the relationship it has established with Chávez'
government, Fletcher says TransAfrica met with Afro-Venezuelans
activists who were interested in developing a dialogue— hemispherically—among
African descendants. Some of those local activists had obviously
been influenced by the discussions that took place at the U.N.'s
World Conference Against Racism in 2001. But the visit from the
TransAfrica Forum delegation also helped launch a badly needed discussion.
The TransAfrica Forum will issue an official report about its
trip to Venezuela in the next few weeks. And Fletcher says that
TransAfrica will be sponsoring more trips to Venezuela in the future,
and begin pushing for less U.S. interference in the internal affairs
of Venezuela.
-- March 15, 2004
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