A Decade Under Chávez

Just over a fortnight ago, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a 230-page report entitled, ‘A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela.’ It immediately shot to the headlines as the Chávez regime responded to criticisms contained within it by expelling two members of the organization from Venezuela. As Human Rights Watch astutely responded, the action only provided “further evidence of Venezuela’s descent into intolerance,” providing justifications for the regime’s strongest critics. “Chávez may have kicked out the messenger, but he has only reinforced the message,” it said.

The furore over the expulsions has obscured a nuanced report from HRW, criticising the political climate in Venezuela but calling upon President Hugo Chávez to reform it. Reading the whole report gives a picture of political intolerance that differs both from the unconditional exoneration provided by many left-wing apologists for Chávez’s regime, and the blanket condemnations that come so often from the right, especially in the United States.

Its subtitle element – ‘lost opportunities’ – suggests the degree to which the report holds the regime accountable largely according to the exacting standards established in the constitution Chávez himself signed into law in 1999. And the detailed accounts of specific complaints against the regime reveal how the problems are as much a continuation of Venezuela’s long history of political intolerance as they are unique results of Chávez’s rise to power. Indeed, the great disappointment of Chávez’s regime is that it seems so little improved from the regimes that came before it.

At the centre of the problems experienced in Venezuela since 2004 are deep patterns stemming from a troubled society. The intense polarisation between Venezuelan classes and groups, which has accelerated under the Chávez regime but has been a persistent problem for decades, is not something that can be solely placed at the President's door. The most intense examples of state repression found in the HRW report all followed the 2002 coup attempt, in which Chávez was temporarily ousted from power; the subsequent dispute with the national oil company PDVSA, when its owners tried to destroy Chávez by engineering a national economic collapse; and the 2003-2004 recall effort, which ultimately failed to remove Chávez by electoral means.

In such a climate, Chávez has depicted his enemies as ‘traitors’ to the nation, a claim aided by the strong links they have with the United States (and Florida and the Republican party in particular), and the equally hateful rhetoric coming from the anti-Chávez forces. Amongst many other things, this tendency to delegitimize dissent and intimidate people into silence, especially through the use of patronage, partisan appointments, and blacklisting - rather than resorting to old-fashioned arrest and torture - shows Venezuela’s politicised intolerance to be more like an extreme form of McCarthyism than the repressive authoritarianism of a regime like Pinochet’s, for instance.

The Chávez regime’s worst examples of political intolerance, then, are driven by a desire to retain power in order to perpetuate the Bolívarian revolution. Attempts to remove Chávez have seen him only accelerate his efforts to bring about revolutionary changes in the structure of Venezuelan society. They have also seen far tighter control from the centre. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that this dynamic will end well, for Chávez’s regime is increasingly unable to distinguish the need for its perpetuation from the moral needs of the nation. As dissent grows, which is already happening, its attempts to hold power are likely to become more extreme.

This may turn out to be the real ‘lost opportunity’. The danger of revolutionary changes in political structures is always the same one. Even the youngest revolutionary cannot stay alive for ever. So, after destroying the traditional method for political succession, revolutionaries are forced to find a new way for rule to change hands. They can do that well (George Washington or Nelson Mandela refusing to stand in perpetuity and insisting upon democratic elections spring to mind) or they can do it badly (Lenin dying in power and Stalin taking control through realpolitik and patronage/corruption).

In Venezuela, the old methods of political succession – a straightforward trade amongst different elite groups – has gone, but there is no evidence that democratic methods of regime change will persist; indeed, despite the fact that Chávez has so far fought and won all his power through democratic triumphs, it seems that the odds may ultimately be against it.

If Chávez ultimately wants to secure the fruits of the Bolívarian revolution against the future, the best thing he can do, when the time comes and he is defeated electorally, is to go quietly. More than the failed coup of 1992 or the failed coup of 2002, that will be the real test of Hugo Chávez’s character.

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