August 1st., 2005

Fidel Castro, Patriarch of the Region

Summary:

• Castro was the key piece in the mediation for an agreement between Chavez and Uribe

• Lula had recommended to lower the tone, but Chavez did not embrace the suggestion

• Fidel Castro acted with a surprising efficiency and speed, serving as an intermediary for the dialogue between the Presidents

• A rupture in the relations between Colombia and Venezuela is not convenient for Castro

• The Granda case unveiled the walls that separate Colombia and Venezuela

• The Colombian Government declared to hold evidence that Granda received protection from the Venezuelan government, as well as other guerrilla heads that freely entered and left Venezuela

• FARC camps in national territory

• Venezuelan General in charge of safeguarding the border, acknowledges that this is an open space for guerrilla activity due to the lack of State policy

• International opinion turns its head towards Venezuela

• The international media attest to the sequester of political institutions, imprisonment of opponents, human rights violations and precariousness of the rule of law

• “Chavez may be a demolition factor, not only to democracy in Venezuela but to democracy in the entire continent” (Mario Vargas Llosa)

• Chavez performance in the Porto Alegre Forum is analyzed in and out of Venezuela

The country is news again.  The international media paid attention to the conflict with Colombia, originated by the Granda case.  The Agreement between Ministers Carolina Barco and Ali Rodriguez was reported from Lima, which in appearance brings an end to the diplomatic crisis.  Pursuant to El Tiempo of Bogota, Fidel Castro was the key piece in such mediation.  Chavez so declared at Porto Alegre.  As such, the forecast from Venezuela Hoy is confirmed.  In our past January 17 Report we stated:  “Fidel is the one who may convince Chavez that common interests impose to privilege the relationship with Uribe.  The Cuban leader does not hide his conviction that the armed struggle in Colombia is exhausted”.  We anticipated that if Lula did not succeed in its conciliation actions, Fidel would interfere.  Lula met with Uribe in Leticia and offered his mediation. 

According to a spokesperson from Planalto, Lula telephoned Chavez requesting his efforts to overcome the crisis and announcing the visit from his advisor Marco Aurelio Garcia.  According to the latter, Lula’s message was to “lower the tone”.  Evidently, the message was not embraced by Chavez.  In his Sunday January 23 speech, before an aroused crowd of “red shirts” (the new uniform of the Revolution), he threatened Uribe´s government with a deadlock in the relations and rated as “ill mannered” the replies from Bogotá to his demand for an apology.

According to the El Tiempo version (January 29), Uribe had informed of the situation to almost all his colleagues in the Continent, amongst others, Fidel Castro.  Returning from his interview with Lula, he decided to request from Fidel his best efforts. Pursuant to the Bogota newspaper sources, “Castro responded with a surprising efficiency and speed”.  El Tiempo, traditionally well informed, offered the details.  Castro sent his Chancellor, Pérez Roque to talk with Chavez.  At Roque´s return to Havana, Castro telephoned Uribe.  During the two-hour conference, they agreed that Cuban Vice-chancellor Abelardo Moreno would be sent to Colombia, with a letter comprising the conversation held by Perez Roque with Chavez.  President Uribe found that, according to Castro’s report, there was a favorable disposition on the part of Chavez to reach an agreement.  Uribe delivered to the Cuban emissary a manuscript expressing Fidel, and because of his intermediation with Chavez, his points of view.  “With these letters, the solution was practically resolved.  It was thereby resolved to take advantage of the meeting between the Chancellors in Lima to define details”.  In the news coverage regarding Fidel’s intervention, El Tiempo includes the opinion that the Cuban leader “was the least favored in a breakage of relations between Colombia and Venezuela”.

Chavez And The Guerilla

The crisis is apparently resolved, but the deeper issues are the difficulties of reconciliation.  Additionally, there is a lack of personal empathy between Chavez and Uribe and the Granda case unveiled the walls that separated two incompatible projects.  The Colombian President is betting on the defeat of a subversive terrorist movement, openly inspired in Marxism, financed by drug traffic.

This movement had and maintains the Venezuelan President’s sympathy.  Uribe conceives Colombia’s development through the impulse of an open economy program, fuelled by private investment, in as much as Chavez highlights the nationalization of the economy and rehearses an endogenous growth plan.  Uribe´s foreign policy consolidates in tight alliance with that of Washington; and Chavez´ with a systematic confrontation with the United States.  The communication from the FARC denouncing that the guerrilla had been kidnapped in Caracas and the declaration agreed in Lima surfaced the differences between the two governments and defined them neatly to place them in opposite sides of the road.

Regarding the characteristics of the relationship with Chavez and the Guerrilla, the Colombian government officially declared to hold evidence that Granda received protection from Venezuelan Officials, as well as several of the most well known Heads of the FARC and ELN, who entered and left freely from Venezuela.  Uribe delivered to Caracas, by way of diplomatic bag, a document allegedly comprising evidence regarding FARC camps in national territory, from which its officials operated before the authorities´ indifference.  Such evidence, as stated, included highly compromising testimony from guerrilla now gone peaceful.  The Venezuelan government dismissed such claims. 

Apart from what my be construed as polemic between the two governments, analysts attribute of importance a declaration from Antonio Navarro Wolf, a friend of Chavez, founder of the M-19, currently a congressman for the Opposition, and a strong critic of Uribe in the Granda case.  Navarro is of the opinion that an illegal operation did take place, only to confirm the presence of guerrilla in Venezuelan territory.  Chavez- as declared by Navarro- has sworn that there is no relationship between the FARC and his government, but this affirmation remains doubtful with the occurrence of such cases as Granda´s.  This is the value judgment of any analyst in the animus of being impartial.

The testimonial judgement was made by Venezuelan General Oswaldo Bracho, current Head of the Theatre of Operations in charge of safeguarding the vast south western frontier.  According to him, the border zone is an open space for FARC, ELN and FBL activity, not accountable to the FAN, but due to a lack of State policy.  He manifested that the Theatre of Operations is not adequately equipped to combat guerrilla.  Pursuant to Bracho, the commanders of the FBL (guerrilla group that declares itself as Venezuelan) affirm to be sided with Chavez and recruit youngsters who are offered to be taken to Cuba for due training.  In truth, all this has been denounced by union leaders and frontier journalists.  What is significant is that right now such denounces are made by a high ranking military Head, alleging that this is the true sovereignty problem.

Effects Of The Granda Case

The Granda case determined that once again foreign opinion turns its head towards Venezuela, attesting to the fact that Chavez is rapidly advancing towards the consolidation of his project.  International reading was given to the political sequester of the Supreme Court, the National Electoral Council, the State oil enterprise, the Central Bank; approval of such legislation that attempts to silence the media, prevent exercise of civil liberties and penalize dissidence. Political trials are in the news on a day-to-day basis, imprisonment of opponents, state (official) encouragement of violet occupation of urban and rural lands, grave human rights violations and precariousness of the rule of law. 

The failure of the recall and of the past October regional elections was assumed by the international community as a fresh start from what had occurred in Venezuela ever since Chavez took power.

Mario Vargas Llosa, with his naked language as his personal trademark, declared to La Nacion of Buenos Aires, that Chavez may be a demolition factor, not only to democracy in Venezuela but to democracy in all of the continent.  The most important communication means in the western world make the same affirmation or present the former in terms of concern.  Analysis and declarations on Chavez speech in Porto Alegre will be available, wherein he was subject of impressive acclamation, contrary to that of Lula, a victim of booing when he intervened upon the installation of the Forum.  Chavez was introduced by Ramonet as the new Simon Bolivar, and started by saluting Fidel Castro as a guide and counsellor, and one who coincides, according to Chavez, with the proposal to change the nature of the Forum, up to now a space for reflection, to turn it into an activists organization that globally assumes the offensive against capitalism, vindicating socialism as the thesis.  He offered to dedicate efforts to the purpose that the Forum, to meet in Caracas in 2006, will approve a world social agenda for a combative unit of the people that adverse North American imperialism.

As it is common in Chavez, the main verbal artillery was directed against Bush and Mrs. Rice, with a renewed confidence that a “deaf ear” thesis will prevail in Washington as a guarantee of the Venezuelan oil supply. On occasions, the lewdness of the discourse imposes silence as its only answer.  A case on point was the unrepeatable references made to the sexuality of Mrs. Rice on January 23 from the tribune posted at the Gates of the Miraflores Palace.  Notwithstanding, the Granda Case and Porto Alegre will not fail to be analyzed with some interest.

The Granda case influences the Venezuelan reality.  The excess of power concentrated by Chavez seems to generate obstacles that were once unpredictable. The national and international dynamics of the case have raised the spirits of millions of Venezuelans that seemed to be in hibernation, after having amazed the world for years by their iron resistance to a revolution.  It will be a matter of analysis in the next Venezuela Hoy report.