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By Peter Lackowski
I was in Venezuela from April 26 to May 5, 2019. It was the fifth time I have been there in a span of 14 years, so I was able to put things I saw on this trip in that context.
My first visit was in 2005. I saw people begging, sleeping in doorways, street venders filling not just sidewalks, even whole streets in some areas.
But I also saw bundles of books being distributed house to house, following a campaign to teach everyone to read. I visited clinics in poor neighborhoods staffed by Cuban medical personnel. I saw independent radio stations run by people in their communities, broadcasting local news, and providing a platform for commentary on current events. Stores had basic foods at affordable, subsidized prices. “Missions,” funded directly by oil revenues so as to bypass government ministries, were addressing social problems that bureaucracies from the pre-Chávez government failed to resolve.
In 2005, people eagerly told me stories of recent years. On April 11, 2002, a coup led by generals and business leaders had kidnapped President Chávez for two days. Massive demonstrations restored him to power. Soon after that, the owners of big businesses and the top management of the nationally owned oil company staged a “lock-out,” closing their own factories and stores and intimidating smaller businesses to join them. They shut down oil production. Their tactics didn’t work; people improvised and eventually the “lock-out” collapsed. All this did great damage to the economy in 2003 and 2004 and was one of the causes of poverty in 2005.
I returned to Venezuela in 2008, 2014, and 2015. By the end of that ten- year period the country had been transformed. There was no one begging. I saw no one sleeping in doorways, and I saw construction happening everywhere—a massive housing program, building literally millions of urban and rural dwellings. Going around the country I saw countless signs of positive efforts that were enriching and improving the lives of people living in less affluent areas. Laptop computers were being distributed to schoolchildren for free. Community gardens, sports facilities, neighborhood clinics, price controls that kept food affordable, infrastructure improvements of all kinds.
Sabotage, coup plots and riots by the upper classes have been endemic throughout the 20 years of Chavismo. They made normal life in Caracas especially difficult for working people in the city in 2014, when corporate media gave the riots intense coverage, misrepresenting them as peaceful protests. Financial manipulation brought about hyperinflation. And now, after years of working behind the scenes to help the opposition undermine the country, the United States has begun a series of overt attacks—seizing Venezuela’s assets, threatening military action, and attempting to install Guaidó in the presidency….
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