Hugo Chavez applauds OWS protesters, condemns police violence

October 15, 2011
Issue 

Venezuela’s socialist president Hugo Chavez has likened the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States to Venezuela’s February 1989 Caracazo riots against neoliberal policies that are widely seen as the start of Venezuela's revolutionary process.

Chavez made the comments by phone on the television program Dando y Dando on October 5.

Chavez also expressed solidarity with the protesters and condemned police repression of peaceful protest. “This movement of popular outrage is expanding ... and the repression is horrible, I don’t know how many are in prison now,” he said.

Discussing the roots of the popular explosion, he said: “Poverty’s growing. The misery is getting worse”.

The Caracazo broke out across Venezuela after a “shock package” of neoliberal reforms was introduced by then-president Carlos Andres Perez involving drastic price hikes in fuel and transport costs.

It was a popular explosion of anger by Venezuela’s working people and destitute masses. It marked the beginning of the end of the rule of Venezuela’s capitalist oligarchy.

Three years later, Chavez lead a failed military rebellion aimed at toppling the Andres Perez regime and establishing a popular revolutionary government. The attempt failed, but it earned Chavez and his military comrades immense respect among Venezuela’s poor majority.

On the back of this mass support, Chavez was elected president in December 1998.

In his comments, Chavez characterized the Caracazo as “a forerunner to what we are seeing in Europe, and in North America, huge protests” against neoliberalism. In the Caracazo, “the Venezuelan people struck out against neoliberalism, against the Washington consensus, and here a revolution broke out”.

Venezuela has provided an example of an alternative approach to neoliberialism. The Chavez government has continued to nationalise more and more of Venezuela’s productive forces, starting with the biggest monopoly corporations in areas such as steel, electricity and telecommunications, to benefit Venezuela as a whole, not just the rich.

Venezuelanalysis.com said on October 11 that Chavez announced that houses built illegally on the Los Roques islands would be nationalised and turned into holiday resorts for workers and the poor. Until now, the archepelago has been frequented by Venezuela’s rich and international tourists.

Commenting on the nationalisation, Chavez said: “The upper class bourgeoisie privatised all of that, and that’s what we are going to expropriate.”

He also announced that yachts appropriated from fugitive bankers would be used for sight-seeing tours in the region.

Comments

"Caracazo broke out across Venezuela after a “shock package” of neoliberal reforms..." It was really just because they put the price of gasoline up. They still need to put the price of gasoline up and Chavez knows it (showing he's not 100% clown).
Long live President Hugo Chavez! Long live the Bolivarian Revolution! Long live the unity of the great continent of Latin America! The event horizon of the capitalist mode of production, which is a historical mode according to Marx, is visible at last. It has become an anachronism and has grown old and senile. It is only a matter of time when it will pass into the dustbin of history!
I would like people support Hugo Chavez, going to Venezuela and living at least 2 month with a minimal salary, for sure you cant be there even 1 week. Chavez support corruption, murders, fight between Venezuelan people. He and all around Chavez are living safety with bodyguards and a lot of money, but the people are die on the street malnourished and poor. The revolution should be a Bolivarian revolution, no a Marx revolution, Marx thought than Bolivar was Garbage, so it is crazy follow Marx advices and reading.
How would Gaddafi's friend, Chavez, react to demonstrations in his own streets, for example against his own corrupt regime?

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