MIA > Archive > Harman > Venezuela
From International Socialism (2nd series), No. 111, Summer 2006.
Copyright © 2006 International Socialism.
Downloaded with thanks from the International Socialism Website.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
We are at a crucial moment in the revolutionary process in Venezuela. We face the challenge of a frontal fight against the imperialist governments, led by that murderer of the people, George Bush. We confront in our own country the leaders of the coupist opposition, who are continuing to look for new opportunities to attack the people and their most precious political, social and economic conquests. But we are also faced with the responsibility of leading the fight against internal enemies, those who bureaucratise and corrupt the process and want to make us believe we have already achieved our supreme revolutionary aims. No. The struggle has only started. The people are determined to put an end to the capitalist system of exploitation of man by man, of discrimination and of poverty. We have to do the following things:
In order to confront George Bush and the other imperialist governments we must press for the immediate withdrawal of the multinationals, for the total nationalisation of the banking and financial system, and for total control of external trade, so that imperialism can no longer continue to profit from our resources and the sweat of the workers and the people. We cannot go backwards or make concessions to the great petroleum multinationals through a policy of mixed enterprises which weakens our sovereignty over our own resources and can be used to initiate privatisation.
Neither can we support methods like exempting motor and autoparts multinationals from paying VAT and favouring the presence of great consortiums in the food sector.
We have to demand non-payment of the external debt, which has been converted into a perverse mechanism for pillage by the international financial organisms. The people can observe around 5 billion dollars leaving the country every year, resources that could be used to satisfy the urgent needs of the population. The fight against imperialism is intimately linked to the continual denunciation of its domestic partners – the businessmen, the landowners, the media and their political parties.
Domestically, innumerable labour conflicts prove that the workers and the people demand the cancellation of the enormous social debt and, above all, demand respect for workers’ rights. These are not only not recognized by the owners, but also by government, mayors, ministers and other functionaries who are committed to preserving the essence of the capitalist system. The owners continue to make enormous profits while wages and bonuses continue to be frozen. There are arbitrary sackings while administrative rules which order re-employment are ignored.
It is sickening to see various governors pushing the privatisation of health services, and functionaries undertaking administrative restructuring that violates the rights of the public administration employees – or even worse, refusing to respect the rights of the workers to collective negotiation of contracts.
We have to work out a National Plan of Struggle for concrete mobilizations in defence of the interests of the workers and the people. We have to follow the example of the UNTs in the states of Aragua, Yaracuy, Carabobo and Tachira that have developed such mobilisations.
On the organisational terrain, delegates have the mission of adopting statutes which assure the democratisation of the union centre, give decision-making power to the rank and file, and respect the rights of minorities and ensure full autonomy in the face of the bosses, their parties and the government. The UNT is not and will not be an appendage of anyone and has the task of defending the rights of the Venezuelan workers above any other consideration. Those who are representatives of the government cannot at the same time be part of the union leadership.
One of the most important decisions to be taken by the congress is to lay down procedures for an electoral process this year that will legitimise the leadership of the UNT. This is the feeling of the workers, and the argument about the priority of the presidential re-election process cannot be used as a smokescreen to stop its implementation. We do not want to repeat the sad history of the CTV, which was converted in the course of years into a bureaucratic structure where the leading group held on to their positions and never respected the right of free union elections.
Last updated on 26.11.2011