US backs coup in oil-rich Venezuela, right-wing opposition plans mass privatization and hyper-capitalism
The
US has effectively declared a coup in Venezuela. Trump recognized
unelected right-wing opposition leader Juan Guaidó as new
“president,” who plans mass privatization and neoliberal
capitalist policies.
by
Ben Norton
Part
3 - Opposition Plans for Privatized ‘Free Market’ Economy
While
supporters of regime change in Venezuela insist this blatantly
undemocratic move is necessary to “defend democracy,” make no
mistake, the upheaval is clearly not motivated by resistance to
authoritarianism.
Venezuela,
which has the world’s largest oil reserves and has challenged the
hegemony of the US dollar, has long been a target of US aggression.
In 2002, the United States supported a military coup that briefly
ousted democratically elected President Hugo Chávez and replaced him
with the right-wing oligarch Pedro Carmona. US intervention,
including crippling economic sanctions, has only continued since
then.
Elements
of Venezeula’s opposition have portrayed themselves to credulous
foreign observers as “social democratic,” but their real
intentions are very clear: The opposition-controlled legislature has
demanded mass privatization of state assets and a return to a
capitalist oligarch-controlled economic system built on “property
rights and freedom of enterprise.”
In 2017,
the Venezuelan government declared the creation of the Constituent
Assembly, to rewrite the constitution. Venezuela’s opposition
refused to recognize this body and boycotted the elections. The
opposition instead remained in control of the National Assembly and
decided to run it as a separate parallel legislature.
The
opposition-controlled National Assembly drafted a “transition”
law that openly outlines what policies the opposition, led by Juan
Guaidó, would pursue in its illegitimate, US-recognized “government”
in Venezuela. Analyst Jorge Martín, explained what this means in an
article published by VenezuelaAnalysis:
|
The
“transition law” drafted by the Assembly National (in
contempt) is explicit about the central objectives of the coup in
the political and economic field:
“[C]entralized
controls, arbitrary measures of expropriation and other similar
measures will be abolished… For these purposes, the centralized
model of controls of the economy will be replaced by a model of
freedom and market based on the right of each Venezuelan to work
under the guarantees of property rights and freedom of
enterprise.”
In other
words, the nationalised companies will be returned to their former
private owners (including telecommunications, electrical, SIDOR,
cement, etc), as will expropriated landed estates. It is
noteworthy that there is a lot of talk of property and business
rights, but no mention is made of workers’ rights, which would
certainly be abolished. It continues:
“Public
companies will be subject to a restructuring process that ensures
their efficient and transparent management, including through
public-private agreements.”
What
this means, in plain language, is massive dismissal of workers
from state companies and the entry of private capital into them: a
policy of looting which has already proved to be a disaster in all
countries where it has been applied.
|
The
model of the opposition’s new coup regime in Venezuela — backed
by the US, Canada, and Brazil — is the reimposition of neoliberal
capitalism and the recolonization of Latin America. Any bluster about
restoring democracy is a mere pretense at this point.
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