REVIEWS : Demystifying Chávez, Comparing Post-Cold War Strategies, New & Noteworthy
Thornton, Christopher hewlett, Christy
Demystifying Chávez
by Christopher hewlett
THE ASSASSINATIoN oF HUGo CHAvEz a film by Greg Palast (DVD, 2007, 24 minutes, www. gregpalast.com) PUEDo HABLAR?/MAy I SPEAK? a film by...
...This was likely a smart move, since it lessened the number of enemies Chávez had at his doorstep at a time when many were still calling for his removal from office...
...The fact that Chávez has continued to sell oil to the United States, and has even increased trade deals with certain U.S...
...These and other factors, which are thoroughly documented in this book, resulted in the U.S...
...The opening sequence captures criticisms of Chávez set to ominous music: The New York Times calls him a “ruinous demagogue,” Colin Powell questions his “understanding of what democracy is all about,” and Pat Robertson calls him a “dangerous leader to our south” 0 who should be “taken out...
...and “democracy promotion” is used to justify the political and economic undermining of democratically elected leaders who are no longer friendly to U.S...
...Over there [pointing to her brother’s house] are a bunch of fanatics...
...org) two recent films, puedo hablar?/may I Speak...
...presence came more racialized politics, only fuelling labor organizations and pro-independence organizations like the CLC...
...and The Assassination of Hugo Chavez exemplify a growing body of alternative media sources that offer a more balanced view of Chávez’s presidency than that of the corporate media...
...I don’t blame just him, but also those around him...
...concerns in this new world would include “access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil...
...The interviews are linked by brief narratives of Chávez’s presidency, set to Venezuelan folk music...
...Although economic policy and promoting free markets were of great importance to U.S.–Latin American relations after the fall of the Soviet Union, they were far from the only considerations...
...This is the subject of Gary Prevost and Carlos Oliva Campos’s new volume, The Bush Doctrine in Latin America...
...dictates deserve to be critically examined, as they are in these films...
...The sister, who supports Rosales, says, “I dare to ask him to look at how Venezuela is...
...Toward the end of the film, the filmmakers interview a passionate young opposition mayor who lays out a strategy for taking back power...
...oil provider, behind only Canada, played a role in propelling the coup forward...
...citizens from terrorism or regional or local conflict...
...These outcomes are attributable, Palmer says, to a failure of U.S...
...women’s groups have struggled for, and won, grudging gains in an impressive array of areas...
...Palast’s short answer is both simple and predictable: oil...
...The eventual lead Chávez challenger, Manuel Rosaldo, says Venezuela has “potential [but is] poorly administered, poorly governed, up until today...
...The deceptive appeal of anti-free market populism must not be allowed to erode political freedoms and trap the Hemisphere’s poorest in cycles of poverty...
...As a precursor to the FTAA, the EAI had as its ultimate objective, in Bush’s words, the promotion of a free-trade zone “stretching from the port of Anchorage to Tierra del Fuego...
...This is also emphasized by presidential candidate Teodoro Petkoff, who says his goal is break the country’s polarization, “this pathological division...
...The second film, Puedo Hablar?, makes another fitting contribution to the alternative coverage of Venezuelan politics, this time by documenting the 2006 presidential election, which Chávez won by almost 60...
...Tuto’s enthusiasm for Bush was no accident...
...In addition, he concedes that “the major increases in U.S...
...When asked about how he survived the coup, Chávez replies coolly, paraphrasing Montesquieu: “A leader should be able to see a wave of events coming, and ride it, ride the wave...
...The authors also set out the “articulation of a compelling and sustainable development strategy” as an alternative to the one initiated under NAFTA in 1994, which they call an “institutionalist framework...
...In the two decades plus since 1979 [the international year of women],” she notes, “when the Brazilian feminist antiviolence project began in earnest, women’s status has changed in staggering ways...
...The Sol Productions team—Maureen Masterson, Magee McIlvaine, and ChristopherMoore,whopreviouslyproduced Democracy in Dakar, a film documenting the role of musicians in Senegalese politics—travel through Venezuela asking citizens on both sides of the political divide two questions: What is Venezuela to you...
...anti-Chávez coverage and political sentiment in Assassination...
...military installations in Paraguay have been quietly strengthened and increasingly used as bases for private security corporations...
...The Clinton administration also responded effectively, Palmer argues, to events that occurred in the region during his tenure, particularly the Mexican peso crisis of 1994 and the Ecuador-Peru border dispute in 1995...
...President Bolivia ever had” was instrumental in promoting and consolidating the policies that led to the massive mobilizations that have changed the course of Bolivian, and perhaps Latin American, history...
...In fact, Chávez had been warned ahead of time by Rodríguez...
...Ambassador Charles Shapiro’s role, Carmona replied simply that “he was only there to collect information...
...The Bolivian case is emblematic of the early post–Cold War U.S...
...The application of the Bush doctrine in Latin America, the authors argue, has prioritized security, MARCH/APRIL 2008 reviews so-called economic freedom, and access to natural resources, including not only oil but water...
...Clinton, Palmer argues, took office during a “felicitous convergence of forces” in the region, with “Latin American governments . . . on the same page as their U.S...
...Bush] was the best U.S...
...economic aid and social spending increased...
...Sol Productions’ self-proclaimed mission is “to make a personal contribution to democracy and to inspire others to pursue their own questions...
...Three boys, no work, no nothing...
...An extremely rich and thick ethnography, Violence in the City of Women delves deep into theories of identity formation and feminism to tease out the lived realities of domestic violence, focusing on the unique response of the delegaçias in the largely Afro-Brazilian communities of Salvador, Bahia...
...Both films follow the trail blazed by The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, in which two Irish filmmakers captured the brief 2002 coup against Chávez...
...What do they have...
...Plan Colombia, for example, which was conceived and implemented under the Clinton administration, and is discussed in a chapter by German Rodas Chavez, has given way under Bush to the Andean Regional Initiative, in which “security assistance” and creating an Andean free-trade pact are priorities...
...His film sets out the longer answer through a well-researched narrative of the chain of events leading up to the coup...
...nonetheless, with the recent increase in oil prices, Venezuela is poised to cash in on the black-gold rush...
...CoLDWARINAHoTzoNE:THE UNITEDSTATES CoNFRoNTSLABoR ANDINDEPENDENCE STRUGGLESINTHE BRITISHWEST INDIES byGerald Horne, Temple University Press, 2007, 272 pp., $25.95 paperback the transition from british colonialism to U.S...
...DrawingonU.S.governmentdocuments and interviews with key actors surrounding the coup—including Chávez himself, coup leader Pedro Carmona, and OPEC president Ali Rodríguez—the film examines how a potential oil shortage that would enable Venezuela to become the second-largest U.S...
...The films trace the story of Venezuela’s charismatic leader and his agenda in the years since the coup...
...This raises the obvious question: Why is the U.S...
...MARCH/APRIL 2008 reviews Comparing Post–Cold War Strategies by Christy Thornton U.S...
...Most important in Palmer’s assessment, however, was the administration’s inability to make tangible progress on the four policy objectives of the Summit of the Americas process: promoting democracy, liberalizing economies, reducing poverty, and protecting the environment...
...Hautzinger discusses connections between the establishment of the women’s police stations (there were 339 stations by 2004) and the many other victories in Brazil made toward securing women’s rights, while highlighting the link between violence against women and larger political and economic disparities...
...But it is also far more expensive to extract...
...The brother, who is waiting for a government-subsidized home, supports Chávez and says he is happy...
...a film by Sol Productions (DVD, 2007, 73 minutes, www...
...I don’t think we can accommodate two George Bush Presidential Libraries on campus, but I sure think we can try...
...policy toward the region: strengthening democracy and instituting market reforms...
...So why, the film asks, has Venezuela only recently begun flexing its oil muscle...
...But Palmer concentrates on what he sees as failures, including the administration’s foot-dragging during the restoration of democracy to Haiti and its attendant refugee crisis...
...Cold War in a Hot Zone pays close attention to the Caribbean Labour Congress (CLC), which, “propelled in 1945 by a wave of labor unrest, sought to organize the working class” and form a labor federation, with the goal of independence and socio-economic equality...
...oil companies, is less important than the fact that this presidency is perceived as a threat to U.S...
...Bill Clinton inherited this free-trade mission, and as David Scott Palmer notes in his short book on Clinton’s policies toward the region, he “had no basic partisan or policy disagreements with his predecessor...
...national security and to that of U.S...
...establishment so hostile toward Chávez...
...What the film captures in these interviews is that the Venezuelan right is set on depicting Chávez as a divisive force for the country, while many on the left see him as the heroic leader they have been waiting for...
...trade with Latin America and direct investment the region were also insufficient to have any material effect on the number in poverty or income distribution...
...gregpalast.com) PUEDo HABLAR?/MAy I SPEAK...
...RELATIoNS WITH LATIN AMERICA DURING THE CLINToN yEARS by David Scott Palmer, University Press of Florida, 2006, 144 pp., $24.95 paperback THE BUSH DoCTRINE IN LATIN AMERICA edited by Gary Prevost and Carlos Oliva Campos, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, 272 pp., $22.95 paperback in a 1998 commencement speech at Texas A&M University, Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, an alumnus of the school and then the vice president of Bolivia under the former dictator General Hugo Banzer, told the graduates, “I can tell you that [George H.W...
...One of the ironies of U.S...
...Although Chávez lost a national referendum in December aimed at instituting various constitutional changes, he successfully ratified the Bank of the South in October 2007 and has signed many trade deals with important U.S...
...vIoLENCE IN THE CITy oF WoMEN: PoLICE AND BATTERERS IN BAHIA, BRAzIL by Sarah J. Hautzinger, University of California Press, 2007, 364 pp., $21.95 paperback in 1985, são paulo, brazil, established the country’s first all-women police stations, known as the delegaçias da mulher, “expressly for the purpose of registering, investigating, and prosecuting diverse forms of male violence against women...
...Christy Thornton is NACLA’s director and publisher...
...It is this latter group, the wealthy, who have the most to lose under Chávez...
...policies in the region—that are the most striking in a comparison of post–Cold War strategies toward Latin America...
...When the DPG was leaked to the media in 1992, it caused such an outcry that the White House immediately distanced itself and insisted that it be rewritten...
...Of course, this statement demonstrates a staggering ignorance of the ways in which pro-free market forces have trapped the peoples of the Americas in poverty and inequality...
...president Bolivia ever had” lives on throughout the region...
...It would find its ultimate expression after September 11, 2001, in what has come to be known as the Bush doctrine...
...The increase in FDI by multinationals was coupled with a decrease in government support of Mexican industry, which led to little “seep-down...
...Palmer points out that during the Clinton years, the overall quality of democracy in the region declined, while the number of people living in poverty in Latin America increased (despite a decline in the proportion of people living below the poverty line), as did the unemployment rate, the overall level of inequality, and the rate of deforestation and carbon dioxide emissions...
...But taking back power remains a faraway goal for the Venezuelan right...
...2000 presidential race...
...He is NACLA’s editorial assistant...
...One caption states that Chávez’s ascension “has led to a more deeply socially divided country, where before it might have only been characterized as an economically divided one...
...Whereas Palmer sets out to identify constraints on the pursuit of U.S...
...Early in the first Bush’s presidency, he set out to create, as he said in a September 11, 1990, speech to a joint session of Congress, a “new world order...
...Christopher Hewlett is an anthropologist living in New York City...
...policy toward Latin America, but Bolivia was far from the only nation to experiment with Washington Consensus neoliberalism in the 1990s, or the only target of Bush’s EAI...
...Meanwhile, elites mobilized fear in El Salvador to ensure the passage of CAFTA in that country...
...So it is perhaps the continuities— the sustained insistence on economic liberalizations and structural adjustments, the militarization of the Drug War, and the treatment of nations unwilling to conform to U.S...
...The interviewees include professors at the University of Caracas, students at the larger but more peripheral University of the Andes located in Mérida, indigenous people, barrio dwellers, middle-class venezolanos, the two opposition candidates, and finally, Chávez himself...
...Palast also highlights what the oil revenues under Chávez have meant for many ordinary Venezuelans, examining the government-supported community programs and income taxes imposed on the wealthiest segments of Venezuelan society...
...intervention was that with a stronger U.S...
...interests...
...spending exorbitant amounts of time, energy, and funding on creating and maintaining a strong presence in the region...
...and the War on Drugs’ detriment to democracy in the region...
...Palast, while flying over oil fields and tankers, giving us a view of “U.S...
...threats to U.S...
...We can hope that the massive political changes that have taken place in Latin America in recent years will give our next president pause in pursuing the same agenda, but the legacy of the “best U.S...
...When asked about U.S...
...Much of Venezuela’s oil is heavy crude found in reserves deep in the ground...
...New & Noteworthy THE ENCLAvE ECoNoMy: FoREIGN INvESTMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEvELoPMENT IN MExICo’S SILICoN vALLEy by Kevin P. Gallagher and Lyuba Zarskyby, MIT Press, 2007, 232 pp., $21 paperback this study focuses on the adverse effects that the dotcom bubble had on Mexico’s “silicon valley” in Guadalajara, offering an insightful view of the political economy of globalization...
...As noted above, in many ways these policies can be seen as a continuation—and an escalation—of U.S...
...interests in the region without questioning those interests, this collection sets an anti-imperialist tone at the outset...
...A logical conclusion might be, therefore, that the policies of economic liberalization and trade promotion advanced under the Washington Consensus don’t work—the tools are wrong for the job at hand...
...Demystifying Chávez by Christopher hewlett THE ASSASSINATIoN oF HUGo CHAvEz a film by Greg Palast (DVD, 2007, 24 minutes, www...
...These two films undermine the biased portrayals of Chávez put forth by major media outlets—while also avoiding the trap of romanticizing Chávez as the answer to Latin America’s problems...
...assistance in improving Latin Americans’ well-being, even as U.S...
...But the unilateralist thrust of the document—which, according to excerpts published in The New York Times, sought to “retain the pre-eminent responsibility for addressing selectively those wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but those of our allies or friends, or which could seriously unsettle international relations”—remained prized by the neoconservatives who would go on to dominate the Bush II administration...
...interests...
...allies...
...interests,” does an excellent job of laying out the calculus of associated costs and benefits...
...Set against the backdrop of the 2006 election campaign, the book examines the implications of foreign direct investment, particularly in the Mexican information technology sector, which after the dotcom crash became an enclave economy...
...Using a “bureaucratic politics” approach, which attempts to identify the constraints that the government bureaucracy places on policy making, Palmer sets out to determine why Clinton was unable to take full advantage of this convergence and bring the elder Bush’s plans to fruition...
...In the 18 years since Bush I took office, these concerns have grown markedly stronger—particularly during his son’s presidency, with the implementation of many of the recommendations made in the classified 1992 draft Defense Planning Guidance, a document produced by the Defense Department under Dick Cheney and written by, among others, I. Lewis Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, and Zalmay Khalilzad...
...When Chávez came into office in 1998, Venezuela was the biggest supplier of oil to the United States, but by 1999 he had slashed oil production and doubled the royalties taken by the government on oil company profits...
...intervention in the British West Indies and wider Caribbean during the mid-20th century was a defining moment for both local and transnational activists of the region...
...however, with the economy growing at above-average MARCH/APRIL 2008 reviews rates (the CIA country profile puts growth in 2007 at 8.3%) and the oil still pumping, it seems that what the wealthy are most upset about is losing their grip on political power...
...Looking forward to another Bush presidency, he added: “As Bolivian vice president, I cannot make predictions on the U.S...
...At on point we see a frenzied white woman screaming, “Chávez is a killer...
...Instead, Palmer concludes that bureaucratic constraints placed on Clinton, particularly by domestic political considerations, kept him from sufficiently following through on his predecessor’s policy goals and taking advantage of the “opportunity” presented by the Cold War’s end...
...U.S...
...The Harvard graduate’s vision entails setting new goals and not opposing Chávez, since “to oppose is one thing, to present an alternative is another...
...The political programs pursued by leaders like Chávez, and now Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador, that break with U.S...
...By prioritizing security, the Bush administration has been able to couch old struggles, particularly against narco-trafficking and insurgencies, armed and otherwise, in terms of the terrorist threat to U.S...
...In politics, this is huge...
...Carmona is then shown appearing before the Venezuelan National Assembly to answer for his actions, describe any U.S...
...This division is not, however, always the case...
...The empirical evidence, the authors argue, demonstrates that FDI results in sustainable growth only when the government takes an active role in assisting local firms to adapt and compete...
...As the 2006 National Security Strategy, as cited in a chapter by Patrice Elizabeth Olsen, states: “Countries in the Western Hemisphere must be helped to the path of sustained political and economic development...
...These reserves are five times greater than those found in the Middle East...
...And why do you like or dislike Chávez...
...The EAI’s conditionality, which included massive privatizations, consolidated the neoliberal reforms in Bolivia that were first promoted in the early1980s by Northern economists like Jeffrey Sachs and implemented in 1985 by the government’s planning minister, Gonzalo “Goni” Sánchez de Lozada...
...So, prior to the coup, Chávez hid troops loyal to him inside the palace, and when Carmona took power, they appeared with their guns raised and demanded that Chávez be returned to power...
...Among his many programs and agreements the Bank of the South will be the most interesting to watch, since its primary mission is to replace the IMF and World Bank...
...In one scene, we see a brother and sister, each with their own family, but living next door to one another in a barrio, holding signs in support of different candidates...
...The history is now familiar—the privatizations that led to the Water War in Cochabamba were negotiated and announced almost exactly one year after Tuto’s speech in Texas—and the consequences of these policies are now clear...
...Migrants from the British West Indies poured into Harlem particularly,” Horne writes, “where they organized the Jamaica Progressive League, the West Indies National Council, and other groups that took a decided interest in their old homeland...
...It is hard to believe that if Rosaldo were elected president he would continue to distribute goods and services, let alone housing, to barrios of Caracas, but it is clear that Chávez has already shifted the political discourse in such a way that it would be quite difficult for the right to move things back to the way they were before 1998 without profound resistance...
...For Palmer, there are a few ”successes,” most notably the ratification of NAFTA, which was mostly negotiated during the first Bush administration, and the initiation of the Summit of the Americas, which was to finally establish the FTAA...
...involvement in the plot, and help the country understand why the private media—particularly Venevisión, the TV station run by staunch Chávez opponent Gustavo Cisneros—fed the public misinformation in the days leading up to the coup...
...Chávez is a killer...
...Bush’s Enterprise of the Americas Initiative (EAI), a set of policies designed to encourage trade, private investment and structural adjustment in Latin America...
...As an Aggie I am truly concerned...
...Since then, Brazilian feminist groups have taken a leadership role in both the representation and protection of women worldwide...
...and threats to U.S...
...The answer lies in the costs of extraction and the rising price of oil...
...For reasons unknown, Chávez let Carmona slip out of Venezuela without a fight...
...counterparts” when it came to the pillars of U.S...
...That’s my brother...
...The opposition rallies featured in the film seem to include few Venezuelans of color...
...Although the NAFTA model led to increased FDI, it also led to many Mexican firms being displaced by large multinationals, particularly in the IT sector, that rely heavily on a “flexible” workforce...
...sol-productions...
...Meanwhile, stateside Afro-Caribbean mobilization was on the rise, mostly rooted in Harlem, which was strongly influenced by West Indian intellectuals and activists...
...allies...
...society from narcotics trafficking...
...policies as defined at the end of the Cold War, what Raúl Moreno characterizes in his chapter on free trade as a turn from “corporate neoliberal globalization” to “war neoliberalism...
...the passage of the Helms-Burton Act, further escalating tensions with Cuba...
...president Bolivia has ever had...
...When the IT bubble burst, the multinationals simply pulled back, leaving behind little opportunity...
...In 1991, Bolivia became one of the first countries to accept the conditional aid and debt relief of George H.W...
...The film leads us back and forth from barrios to middle-class neighborhoods and back again, highlighting the vast difference in living standards between Chávez’s supporters and his opponents...
...The “best U.S...
...Gumshoed muckraker Greg Palast directly confronts U.S...
...proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles...
Vol. 41 • March 2008 • No. 2
