Venezuelan protest overrun by government forces.

[Judi Lynn]

121. February Traumas: The Third Insurrectionary Moment of the Venezuelan Right

Last edited Wed Mar 12, 2014, 09:37 PM - Edit history (1)

February Traumas: The Third Insurrectionary Moment of the Venezuelan Right
Written by Jeffrey R. Webber and Susan Spronk

Source: New Politics

“Today the counter-revolutionary Right is reactivating itself,” according to long-time Venezuelan revolutionary Roland Denis, “taking advantage of the profound deterioration that this slow revolutionary process is suffering. Its reappearance and interlacing with ‘democratic civil society’ is a clear signal to the popular movement that we either convert this moment into a creative and reactivating crisis of the collective revolutionary will, or we bid farewell to this beautiful and traumatic history that we have built over the last 25 years.”[1]

For seasoned observers of Venezuelan politics, the events of the past week are a disheartening repetition of opposition-led resistance efforts that have yet again sought to undermine political stability in the country. This is not the first time in recent history that the opposition has resorted to “extra-parliamentary” tactics, including violence, to push their political agenda. Nor is it the first time that the mainstream media has provided generous airtime to opposition demonstrations in Caracas, repeating the sob stories of upper class Venezuelans “repressed” by the government because they cannot find toilet paper on the store shelves, or in a more laughable episode, ingredients to bake a cake.[2]

As with most situations in which there has been a violent conflict over who controls the reins of the state, it is possible to find fault on both sides. As a February 22nd report by the Centre for Economic Policy Research notes, “the political allegiances” of the victims of the violence so far “and their causes of death are varied.” Of the eight deaths, two of the responsible assailants might be linked to the government, including a SEBIM agent (the Venezuelan intelligence service) who was not authorized to be at the protest. The head of SEBIM was subsequently fired and there is a warrant out for arrest of the agents who fired the shots.[3]

~snip~
The cartography of protest in Caracas has closely mirrored the socio-geographic divisions of the capital, featuring as it does a lighter-skinned and richer east, and a darker-skinned and poorer west. Middle class barricades were erected in the east, populated by the students of elite private universities, alongside students of the main state university – historically, a cordoned off stomping ground for kids of the rich.[21]

The west, on the other hand, was relatively free of unrest. In the days following the initial explosion of activity, the “peaceful” protests of the Right included attacks on 50 of the public buses from a new system that acts as affordable transport for the poor. The Bolivarian University, a new institutional network designed to incorporate the lower orders into the higher education system, was also besieged. And Cuban medical personnel working for the Barrio Adentro health program have been the targets of fierce physical offensives. According to numerous observers, paramilitary shock troops are operating behind the cannon fodder of right-wing students in the streets. In protests that are supposedly driven in part by the scarcity of foodstuffs and other basic commodities available to the population, rightist militants had the audacity to attack government vehicles delivering precisely such products.[22]

More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/venezuela-archives-35/4715-february-traumas-the-third-insurrectionary-moment-of-the-venezuelan-right