Council on Hemispheric Affairs

In the interest of furthering an open debate about the current events in Venezuela, COHA is publishing a sampling of incoming letters from its readers on the Chávez administration’s position on Jewish issues and the sensitivity of some of its statements. The COHA staff has received these letters in response to two of its recent articles; “Venezuelan Synagogue Vandalizing Takes New Turn,” and “Venezuela’s New Constitutional Reform 2009.”
-COHA Staff

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February 12, 2009

Dear Council on Hemispheric Affairs,

I am writing to express my concern about the illegitimate anti-Semitism charges against the Venezuelan government. I expect better from COHA, a supposedly progressive and prestigious Latin America foreign policy organization.

President Hugo Chavez, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, and other government officials promptly and forcefully condemned the vandalism of the synagogue and specifically condemned anti-Semitism. President Chavez has repeatedly condemned anti-Semitism and met with Venezuelan Jewish leaders in the past.

Law enforcement officials aggressively investigated the crime and have arrested and charged 15 people to date including several municipal policemen and the synagogue’s own security guard.

Venezuela expelled the Israeli Ambassador during Israel’s horrific ground and air assault against the civilian population of Palestinians living in Gaza. Gaza is the most densely populated area on earth and its people are held in a virtual open-air prison by Israel’s control of their borders and blockade of food and medical supplies. The VSN would have liked to see countries in addition to Bolivia and Mauritania join Venezuela in its principled condemnation of Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It is simply not legitimate to equate criticism of the government of Israel with anti-Semitism. I am very disappointed in your organization.

Sincerely,
Vera Leone

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February 12, 2009

Dear COHA Directors and Editors,

It was very disappointing and extremely frustrating to see the use of COHA’s publication space for an article that is based on lies and misdirection.

People who know how things work in Venezuela knew from DAY ONE that the attack on the synagogue was a black op by the so-called opposition. Street vandals are not going to be able to get into this facility – and any cursory check of this situation would have made that perfectly clear to you. It had all of the classic signs of being a U.S.-backed operation, as have the many “tear gas” attacks on “Opposition” leaders. You fell for it and you are supposed to be one of the sophisticated voices on matters related to Latin America. Amazing.

You should not only retract the article but you should apologize to the Venezuelan People, the Venezuelan Government, and your readers.

Of course, much of the damage is done – and the lies have been added to the pile that has been building up as the referendum approaches. Nevertheless, the truth will set you free. So, please do the right thing.

Gunnar Gundersen
Salem, Oregon

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February 12, 2009

I think you somewhat over played the attack on the synagogue. After all, there was a recent attack on synagogues in Chicago and New York City. These are regret-able as are attacks on mosques and churches. However, I do not believe that in any of these cases the attacks are with even tacit government approval.

I belong to a number of Jewish peace groups. They are not in any way approving the violence of the IDF. There are any number of Jews who see the behavior of the Israeli Government of the Palestinians in a similar light to the shoah.

Rightly you point out how Chavez’ style is counter productive. Although given his background, it is not surprising.

Please keep up your good work.

Sincerely,
Dr. Art Donart

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February 12, 2009

COHA wrote that the Chavez denunciations of Israeli aggression in Gaza “revealingly transcends the intensity of almost every Arabic nation..”

True, but mainly because key Arab states (Eygpt, Soudi Arabia, Jordan) are corrupt pro-US dictatorships. It is remarkable that COHA could miss this fact even if the the Middle East is not its area of focus.

COHA makes the completely unsubstanciated claim that most people who criticize “zionism” don’t know what it is and insinuate that criticism of zionism is linked to anti-Semitism (“smacks of anti-semitism” in 9 out of 10 cases” COHA said). No reference was provided of course for this bold and vague claim.

There were benign forms of zionism as Noam Chomsky has sometimes pointed out. However, the variant which become dominant since at least 1948 is rooted in murderous racism towards Palestinans and massive (and ongoing) ethnic cleansing.

COHA says that Chávez once said, “Some minorities, descendants of the same ones who crucified Christ…took all the world’s wealth for themselves.”

The full quote was the following

“The world has an offer for everybody but it turned out that a few minorities–the descendants of those who crucified Christ, the descendants of those who expelled Bolivar from here and also those who in a certain way crucified him in Santa Marta, there in Colombia–they took possession of the riches of the world, a minority took possession of the planet’s gold, the silver, the minerals, the water, the good lands, the oil, and they have concentrated all the riches in the hands of a few; less than 10 percent of the world population owns more than half of the riches of the world.”

Clearly Chavez was not singling out any ethnic group. FAIR exposed this distortion in 2006. It is surprising that COHA appears unaware of it.

Most sadly, COHA reveals itself completely unaware of the facts about what Israel did in Gaza when it wrote that

“But the Gaza matter was something else. “Proportional” response in military matters is a legal matter even if it is a fairly tame argument to fall back on when Hamas, at its discretion, daily launches missiles at civilian populations in Israel. ”

Richard Falk, the Jewish American who is Special Raportteur to the Occupied terrirtoires, stated that

1) Israel broke a truce with Hamas on November 4, 2007.
2) Until the truce was broken, rocket fire into Israel was negigable and casued no casualties.
3) It was far from clear that Hamas was responsoible for the small number of rockets fired into Israel during the truce.
4) Israel ignored calls by Hamas to extend the truce
5) Israel did not abide by terms of the truce that called for an end to a devastatinf seige on Gaza. The economic blockagde has reduced th e80% of th epeople of Gaza to live of less than $2 per day

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/20150

If COHA has more relaible sources of information than Richard Falk it certainly has not provided them. Given the facts, the stance Chavez has taken against Israeli aggression does not look at all rash or ill advised – never mind anti-Semitic. On the contray it is a principled stance that could revive the reputation and fortunes of the secular Left in the Arab world in the long run. Regardless, it is a stance to be applauded.

Joe Emersberger

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February 13, 2009

Recently, on Feb. 11, you released an article claiming Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was guilty of anti-Semitism because of an incident of vandalism at a Caracas synagogue, and some statements that President Chavez made regarding the nature of Israel’s military attacks on the people of Gaza.

First off, as I am sure you are aware, there were lots of incidents of vandalism at Jewish sites all over the world, especially in Europe, after Israel began another of its massacres of Palestinians, this time in Gaza. As you can expect, people all over the world have drawn their own conclusions about the justness of Israel’s violent expulsion and sixty (60) years of repression of the Palestinians in their own lands that now make up Israel and the occupied territories. So, it is illogical to attribute to comments made by Chavez, or Venezuela’s expelling of its Israeli ambassador, as being the cause of the vandalism that occurred in Caracas. Bolivia did the latter and no incidents took place there. Plus, no statement made by Chavez called specifically for such an action in Venezuela. Thus, the acts on the surface look like independent acts with no causal relation to anything President Chavez did or said.

Nor do I think it is it fair to say that all these incidents are anti-Semitic if those who acted out did so to voice their anger and outrage over the horrible destruction and deaths caused by Israel, and to show their support for the plight of the Palestinians. You just can not just presume such prejudice, especially when both parties to the conflict are Semitic. Certainly, it appears that given the slaughter of Palestinians that the Zionist cause inflicted and continues to inflict on the Palestinians that people worldwide will react and show their anger and disgust with any new occurrence. Whereas, a true anti-Semite does not need such an incidence to show where he or she stands with regards to Semites (Jews if you wish).

Moreover, an anti-Semite would not try to hold those responsible for acts of vandalism criminally responsible. Law enforcement officials in Venezuela have aggressively investigated the crime and have arrested and charged 15 people to date including several municipal policemen and the synagogue’s own security guard. Therefore, it is simply not legitimate to equate Venezuela’s criticism of the government of Israel for its Gaza invasion with anti-Semitisim.

And you must acknowledge that President Hugo Chavez, and his Foreign Minister, Nicolas Maduro, and other government officials promptly and forcefully condemned the vandalism of the synagogue and specifically condemned anti-Semitism. President Chavez has repeatedly condemned anti-Semitism and met with Venezuelan Jewish leaders in the past. Again, these are not the actions of an anti-Semite.

Apparently, you disagree with his stand with regards to Israel’s assault on practically harmless Gaza. However, his position is shared by many, if not most of the world. Just because you disagree with him on the issure does not make him anti-Semitic. Maybe, the Palestinian cause is a just one after all, and the world is beginning to realize that. If so, you can not deflect such criticism by calling those critics anti-Semites. I am sorry, but it just doesn’t fly.

It appears to me that you owe President Chavez an apology for your rather quick judgement of him as an anti-Semite on such flimsy grounds. He is not an anti-Semite nor does he foment such activity. He is outspoken, but his people love him for that.

Thank you,
Vincent Ruiz

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February 13, 2009

Your response to the Wilpert complaint, at least parts of which are valid, is embarrasing. I was embarrassed for you. There is no need for self flagellation – criticism of a public political figure is part of an open society and no one is or should be exempt. The Chavez regime -and its notoriously vague claims of a socialism for the XXI century-is open to much valid criticism and it is a refreshing change to see COHA air some of it.

Daniel Levine

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We are placing the full text of Greg Wilpert’s letter on Venezuela on our website before we closely examine the textual reservations he has regarding our article “Venezuela’s New Constitutional Reform 2009: If Not Chávez, then Whom?” by Research Fellows Alex Sánchez and Raylsiyaly Rivero, as well as the piece on Chávez that I co-authored with COHA Research Associate David Felson (“Venezuelan Synagogue Vandalizing Takes New Turn.”) At that point, we will decide whether to take down our pieces and correct any errors, distortions or faulty interpretations, or whether we will operate on them while they remain on site. We have great respect for brother Wilpert’s acumen in all things Venezuela, which is why we are proceeding in this manner.

As for some of the large number of other readers who took exception or expressed disappointment or dismay with our pieces on some of President Chávez’s shortcomings, they might want to reflect upon the fact that our articles were very difficult for us to write because at no time did we intend to question Chávez’s political or economic vision, which we have strongly supported for a long time, but only intended to point out that for the Venezuelan leader to be victorious, he has to personally fully evolve into being the “21st Century socialist” man that he talks so often about. What we tried to emphasize here was how costly his errors have been and how much damage he is needlessly causing to everything dear to him by his self-destructive lack of discipline. His vision is too important to be shot down by the derelictions of his well armed critics, whose list genuinely doesn’t include any of ourselves here at COHA. This, of course, doesn’t mean we will ever be silent on such matters.
- L.B.

February 11, 2009

Dear Larry and friends at COHA,

I am writing to express my disappointment with the two latest articles on Venezuela, both of which were weighed down with generalities and inaccuracies, which, I believe, led to misguided conclusions.

Let me start with the first one (Venezuela’s New Constitutional Reform 2009), which was riddled with factual errors and poor reasoning.

1. The article gives the false impression that the amendment referendum is just about eliminating the two-term limit on the presidency. However, it eliminates this two-term limit on all elected offices (this does get mentioned at the end of the article, but why not from the start?).

2. Ezequiel Zamora was not an independence fighter as the article claims, but fought against the oligarchy 40 years after Venezuelan independence.

3. Where did the authors get the idea that Bolivarian ideology has anything to do with the ideas of Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche? This is the first time I have ever heard such a claim and I have studied the movement quite a bit. Would be good if the article provided some reference for that.

4. President Caldera was not a member of Copei when he pardoned Chávez for the coup, even though he did found the party. Copei was in the opposition at the time and Caldera had founded a new political movement to bring him to the presidency.

5. Chávez won the presidency in the elections of 1998, not in 1999 (he took office then).

6. “Many Venezuelan academics would argue that the Chávez’s Revolution is in constant change, with no specific route to guide it, other than the pursuit of power and the implementation of a socialist state and, theoretically, a high degree of participatory politics. In the beginning, Chávez did not have the opportunity to adequately express his vision. This rhetoric, combined with his view of a strong, central core of beliefs somehow was to mystically reach the country’s lower class, which always has been the cornerstone of Chavista support.” – This is such a terrible mish-mash of claims, I don’t even know where to start. For one thing, Chávez did not embrace socialism until 2005. For another, he did expound on his ideas quite a bit before running for office, publishing an important pamphlet that was implemented in the first years of his presidency, known as the “Bolivarian Alternative.” Where in the world do the authors get the idea that the core to Chávez’s beliefs was to “mystically reach the lower class”??

7. The authors get the sequence reversed when talking about Chávez’s 2005 win in the National Assembly (Venezuela has not had a Senate, as the article falsely claims, since 2000). They write that due to the opposition’s boycott in 2005 chavistas went on take “control of most major positions in the cities.” I’m not sure what is being referred to, but Chávez supporters won most mayor’s and governor’s positions in October 2004, a full year before the December 2005 boycott. If the reference is to national assembly positions, Chavistas won practically all of them because of the boycott, not just in the cities.

8. The authors refer to the “middle class opposition leadership” – again, not sure who they mean, but it would be safe to argue that most of the opposition leadership belongs to the upper class.

9. The authors write: “At the time, Chávez stressed the need for a single, united Bolivarian party, which would be named the PSUV. However, outside of Venezuela, not much was known about some of the key individuals who made up the highest levels of Chávez’s party, whether it was known as the MBR-200, MVR or the PSUV.” How is that for a non-sequitur? What does the need for a united party have to do with people outside of Venezuela not knowing the leadership?

10. “many [military officers] did so [join] in order to obtain more personal benefits from supporting the “National Cause.” The current vice-president of the PSUV is a retired army officer, General Alberto Müller.” this makes it sound like Müller Rojas is one of the officers who is in it for personal gain. Actually, Rojas retired from the military long before he joined Chávez. Not only that, until recently Muller Rojas was a leader of the Causa R party and then of the PPT, only joining the PSUV when it was formed last year (he never was a member of the MVR). Also, he is one of Venezuela’s most highly regarded politicians, which is probably why he was elected by the PSUV membership to be the party’s vice-president.

11. the whole section headed, “the Rise of Chávez-style politics” – it is never said what is meant by this. The implication, though, is that the formation of the PSUV meant the entrenchment of Chavista cronyism. Actually, the opposite is true, that establishing the PSUV was a decisive step towards democratizing the Bolivarian movement, since the MVR almost never had internal elections, but the PSUV does.

12. The authors write that the appointment of Maduro as Foreign Minister meant “turning one’s back on any sustained effort to build a respectable and professional practice of foreign-policy making, represented by such major figures like Rómulo Betancourt, Manuel Pérez Guerrero, Ramón Escovar Salom, among others.” Indeed, Chávez wanted to turn his back on such a foreign service because this “professional” foreign service is at the service of the country’s old elite. It takes time to create new professionals and Venezuela is working on this now. To imply that a subway union activist has no business in the foreign ministry is nothing short of classism. If the authors believe that Maduro is not up to the job, then they should refer to specific things he has said or done, not to his union background.

13. Oddly, in the listing of Venezuela’s vice-presidents, the authors leave out Chávez’s second vice-president, Adina Bastidas, the country’s first ever female vice-president.

14. Mario Silva ran for governor of Carabobo state, not Tachira. The authors say that he was rejected by both Chavistas and opposition supporters – this is exaggeration. He would have won, if the ex-Chavista Acosta Carlez hadn’t run for reelection, who split the Chavista vote. Acosta Carlez got a mere 6.5% of the pro-Chavez vote to Silva’s 44.5%.

15. The PSUV platform is still being discussed and a draft of that platform is available to party members. Presumably during the next party congress they will approve of it, at which point it should be posted.

16. According to the article, the 2007 constitutional reform had “existence hedgings of the right of private property. “ I’m not sure what that means. In any case, the reform did not cast any doubt on the legitimacy of private property.

17. Supposedly the reason the opposition made gains in the regional elections was because “there are shortages of food staples, high inflation and an elevated unemployment rate (up to 7.2% in June 2008, 6.1% in December 2008).” Actually, during that vote there were hardly any shortages. Inflation, while high, was no where near as high as during previous presidencies (an average of 50% in each of the two prior presidencies, compared to 30% for Chavez). Third, unemployment is at one of its lowest levels in Venezuelan history. I believe the main reasons for the losses ought to be sought elsewhere, such as the high crime rate.

18. To use anti-government talk shows such as La Entrevista and programs on Globovision as indicators of anything is ludicrous. These talk shows can always find poor people to voice their discontent about Chavez and they always have (I have been watching these programs since 2000).

19. The authors buy the opposition argument that Simon Bolivar would not have supported getting rid of the two-term limit. However, Bolivar was writing in a time when there were no elections for President. In the full quote Bolivar speaks about the importance of having “repeated elections” and contrasts this with a presidency for life, not with the lack of a limit on running for office again.

20. What is “The world gas crisis “? And what are Chávez’s “domestic oil politics”?

21. That Chávez says he needs until 2019 to complete the Bolivarian Revolution and that he therefore “would have to remain in office indefinitely in order to perpetuate his vision.” makes no sense at all. Where is the logic?

22. Finally, the conclusion that if Chávez cannot run for president again in 2012 his movement would fragment shows that the authors really don’t know Venezuela. As long as Chávez is leader of his party, such a scenario is exceedingly unlikely.

Given this truly enormous number of errors and poor reasoning, I think it would be good for COHA’s reputation to remove the article from its website and to thoroughly revise it before reposting it.

Sincerely,
Greg Wilpert
Editor, venezuelanalysis.com

COHA received the following letter from Max Ajl in response to its February 10 article ‘Venezuela’s New Constitutional Reform 2009: If Not Chávez, then Whom? PSUV May Not Survive if Chávez Loses the Presidency’, written by Research Fellows Alex Sánchez and Raylsiyaly Rivero. Below, the COHA Staff responds to Mr Ajl’s criticisms and encourages further thoughtful contributions to the debate from its readership.
-COHA Staff

February 10, 2009

Dear COHA,

I rely on COHA for incisive analysis on Latin America. I might disagree with a nuance here, have a quibble there, but on the whole, the reports are reliably right. So COHA’s recent research report on the referendum over indefinite re-elections in Venezuela was a surprise—and not a good one.
Let me start off by saying what I’m not saying, because these letters are often taken the wrong way. One can ask legitimate questions about indefinite re-election’s place in a constitutional democracy. One can wonder if there are sectors of Venezuelan society that resemble a Chávez personality cult. People concerned about Venezuelan society may legitimately criticize aspects of it. But get your facts right, first!

It might seem school-teacherly to find fault in form. But in this case sloppy writing is a symptom of shoddy thinking. From the introduction, and setting the analytical register within which the piece proceeds, we hear of Chávez’s “sneering style of communication,” and his “bizarre references targeting various political foes.” We lack for examples, so I’m forced to guess. But it behooves a non-Venezuelan audience to know that Chávez has faced an opposition that has called for his assassination, and nearly murdered him in a 2002 military coup. It’s quite dandy to call for Habermasian rhetorical norms from Washington, DC; rather less so in a country in which large sectors of the population believe they are fighting a class war.

Moving on, the analysts note that a victory for the referendum followed by a victory in 2013 would result in a “twenty year monopoly of power;” I do not know what that means, since surely the opposition could win a majority of seats in the legislative branch and blockade Chávez’s agenda. Moreover, Chávez, win or lose, will contend with powerful economic sectors of Venezuelan society that despise him. Perchance, they shall have “power” too in that “twenty year” interval, seriously eroding his “monopoly.”

In turn, the authors assert that “Many Venezuelan academics would argue that the Chávez’s Revolution [sic] is in constant change, with no specific route to guide it, other than the pursuit of power and the implementation of a socialist state and, theoretically, a high degree of participatory politics.” This is non-sense. Much to my dismay, Chávez has moved slowly to nationalize the Venezuelan economy (perhaps nationalization is what the authors mean by a “socialist state?”), and agrarian reform has been seriously stymied.

Venezuelan academics are a heterogeneous lot. Some oppose the process. Some support it. Some criticize it. Some don’t. It’s impossible to fence the argument that “many…argue” something, since one hardly knows who the opponent one is dueling with is. (The authors show their hand early, asserting that it is “Chávez’s Revolution,” and cannot mean to so casually insult the sectors of Venezuelan society agitating to deepen the process. The members of the National Peasant Front Ezequiel Zamora I met while down in Venezuela last spring would be shocked to learn that the revolution they fight for—the revolution that over 200 peasant leaders have been gunned down while defending in Western Venezuela—is solely Chávez’s.)

Anyway, the authors assert that “his rhetoric, combined with his view of a strong, central core of beliefs somehow was to mystically reach the country’s lower class.” This is utter condescension—an array of missions, educational programs, and attempts to spread this message exist, whether successful or not. If the authors had been to Venezuela, they would see state-subsidized book-stores and book-fairs wherein revolutionary literature is widely distributed.

The authors go on to write of the “nation’s middle class opposition leadership,” a sociological point they underline when they write of “The fact that many university students are looked upon as the children of the middle-class opposition.” Since it is a widespread delusion that there is no upper-class in America, it’s understandable that the authors neglect to imagine the possibility of an upper-class in Venezuela. Understandable, but wrong. Some of the opposition’s leadership is “middle-class” and some is upper-class. But even the Venezuelan middle-class structurally identifies with the upper-class, since (a) their incomes still dwarf the lower and lower-middle classes and (b) some members of the middle classes used to be upper-class.

Indeed, some quick numbers on Venezuelan income distribution prove the point: in 2006, the bottom income group, class E, 58 percent of the population, earned an average of 830bF a month; the next group, class D, 23 percent of the population, earned 1,171bF a month; the next, C-, 15 percent of the population, 1,929bF a month. The remaining 4 percent, divided into classes C, B, and A, earned an average of over 3,700 bF a month. Those middle-class folk are not sociologically equivalent to Americans driving Toyota Camrys. They are powerful members of the ancien regime.

There are other issues, too: their analysis of the 2008 Venezuelan regional elections is surreally wrong-headed. I shall quote them at length:

More recently, in November 2008, Venezuelans were called on once again to cast their ballots, this time to choose regional governors and mayors. Chávez’s PSUV party turned out a winning performance, but the victory was not as decisive as in past elections. The opposition scored victories in some of the country’s largest cities, including Caracas and Maracaibo. A partial explanation for these important losses to the opposition is that, currently, throughout the country there are shortages of food staples, high inflation and an elevated unemployment rate (up to 7.2% in June 2008, 6.1% in December 2008). These handicaps generated tinder box conditions that could pose dangers to the “Bolivarian government” placing the PSUV candidates in a difficult position. As a result, the poorer stratum of Venezuelan society are beginning to voice discontent over their deteriorating situation in talk-shows such as “La Entrevista” on RCTV, or “Aló Ciudadano” on Globovisión, both of which are anti-government channels. The ineffective measures taken by the authorities to address the current situation in the country up to now seem to render the allure of the PSUV candidates less appealing to voters.

I am unclear on a number of points.
One, the authors compare the victory to “past elections.” Yet the PSUV candidates garnered 53 percent of the vote, and opposition candidates 43 percent. This was a yanking turn-around from the Dec. 2, 2007, election, in which the referendum on economic reconstruction and the elimination of presidential term limits lost by 2 percent. Clearly, that is the relevant benchmark for assessing the results of the most recent electoral cycle. As Venezuelan sociologist Javier Biardeau, surely situated further left than many PSUVistas, comments, “the Venezuelan revolution has recovered significantly from the electoral setback of December 2, 2007 (the day of the failed referendum). As he continues, the elections could have amplified that setback, or they could have “directed the electoral trajectory toward the recovery of the level of support reached in the 2006 electoral cycle,” which is what happened.

Two, the authors note that throughout “the country there are shortages of food staples, high inflation and an elevated unemployment rate (up to 7.2% in June 2008, 6.1% in December 2008)” as explaining part of the losses in Venezuela’s urban centers. They get it dead-wrong. The cities are violent and dirty, due to inadequate sanitation and ineffectual policing. Place the blame for that where you will—inflation did not seem to be a major issue. “Shortages of food staples” is a strange locution to obliquely allude to the Venezuelan poor’s vastly increased purchasing power, and the Venezuelan privately-owned agrarian system’s refusal to disburse food supplies within Venezuela. When poor people have more money and rich food producers are less willing to sell their goods in country, you get food shortages. There have been several cases of trucks laden with supplies heading to Colombia to evade price controls on basic foodstuffs.

Three, a Center for Economic and Policy Research report, comprising the freshest, most definitive, most careful compilation of statistics concerning the economy and social indicators, suggests that “Average caloric intake has risen from 91.0 percent of the recommended levels in 1998 to 101.6 percent in 2007. Even more importantly, malnutrition-related deaths have fallen by more than 50 percent, from 4.9 to 2.3 deaths per 100,000 in population between 1998 and 2006.”

Four, the unemployment statistic is off. A percentage that runs in a trend-line from 7.2 percent in June 2008 to 6.1 percent in December 2008 could not possibly explain decreased chavista/lower-class support for the PSUV in that time-span—positing that there was decreased chavista/lower-class support for the PSUV in that interim, which there was not. The statistic is taken from a month-by-month timeline put out by the Venezuela Statistical Office. They correctly repeat the numbers, but the numbers are useless for understanding the Venezuelan employment rate. Unemployment numbers shift rapidly from month-to-month without necessarily reflecting substantive underlying economic changes. Moreover, according to CEPR, the December numbers, in particular, should be handled carefully. They often reflect a seasonal up-tick in employment numbers. Again, the CEPR report is illuminating: it gives an unemployment rate of 10.6 percent in 2006, 9.2 percent in 2007, and 7.8 percent in 2008. Still, these numbers explain little—particularly since Chávez was arguably at the apogee of his power in 2006, when he won his campaign for re-election with 62.87 percent of the votes.

So five, there has been some decline in support since 2006, and an increase in support since 2007. The prevailing explanations are, as I’ve suggested, terrible violence in the cities and utterly inadequate systems to collect garbage.

Closing in on the end of the article, the authors write of “The world gas crisis has also profoundly affected Venezuela, and Chávez may be forced to cut back on his ‘domestic oil politics’ that have helped him and his party to remain so popular for so long.” Did anyone vet this piece before COHA published it? What could the “world gas crisis” possibly be? What are his “domestic oil politics”? The programs offering subsidized food and free medical care to the Venezuelan poor?

And finally, the authors get to their conclusion: “Arguably, it makes sense that Chávez wishes to remain in power, as no apparent or suitable successor exists from within his party’s ranks or, for that matter, the opposition.” All that piece-by-piece marshalling of information, statistics, biographical details on powerful figures within the PSUV, all for a milquetoast explanation of the drive for indefinite re-election—which is incidentally supported by radical chavistas, for example, anarchist journalist Jose Roberto Duque, who suggests that Chávez’s presidency is merely a bulwark for the project—one Duque conceives of as revolutionary, but not statist. Under the Chávez government, writes Duque, the population “has conquered space to organize and self-govern. So I prefer a democrat like Chávez for 20 years in Miraflores” to the old two-party system of alternating COPEI and AD malgoverance.

Let me re-iterate my point, in the clearest terms possible: I do not dissent from the suggestion that the PSUV has leadership problems. And I do not tar COHA as some US government mouthpiece. It is precisely for that reason that COHA should be making sure to get it right, and not issuing tawdry, third-rate analyses of Bolivarian Venezuela (how about a serious criticism of chavista economic development strategy from a sympathetic perspective?).

I will add that I know that COHA will respond to this letter, which is fine. I know that COHA produces its analyses using unpaid students. That’s fine too. What isn’t fine is disseminating factually incorrect analyses of Bolivarian Venezuela, rife with sociological misinterpretations, condescension to the Venezuelan people, economic errors, and sundry other items that altogether taint the report immeasurably. Leave that kind of stuff to Foreign Policy magazine.

Max Ajl
Brooklyn, NY

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COHA Responds:

We thank Max Ajl for an extremely thoughtful letter and take note of his corrections and his reservations, all of which we respect and many of which we accept. However, he should be made aware of the fact that the average 45 researchers who make up COHA’s staff come from a variety of backgrounds, including graduate and undergraduate students, as well as young professional researchers, retirees, and academics on sabbatical, many of whom have gone to distinguish themselves in many fields. COHA has always been a qualified admirer of President Chávez, however, we feel that it does him no disrespect to challenge him when we feel this is necessary. This approach is based on the belief that his revolution is more important than the man and that he is neither imperial nor above criticism.