1957 The year that Venezuelans lost their fears

Lots of words had been written about the government of Marcos Pérez Jiménez. Many people believe that this administration was the last dictatorship in Venezuelan history. Others consider it as one of the richest and prosperous periods in the country’s record. Putting in one side both points of view there’s something that can’t be denied: January 23 of 1958.

This date marks the end of Perez Jiménez’s regime. At a first glance, we can fall into temptation by simplifying things and convert “January 23” into a merely propagandistic issue. “Democracy triumphed, it was a victory of the people” is the common comment made by the analysts.

But, have we been truly involved in the real meaning of this date in Venezuelan history? This question, according to my judgment, is the one that allows the development of Simon Alberto Consalvi’s “1957 El año en que los venezolanos perdieron el miedo”. This book studies the factors that conducted Venezuela to the date that we all know as “23 de enero de 1958”.

1957 was a year of pronouncements and definitions. Just in the moment when the government modified the Venezuelan oil policies, favoring with new concessions the foreign companies and investors, just in the moment when the government seems to have everything under control, there was a little bird out of cage that represented a huge obstacle: presidential reelection.

According to the Constitution of 1953, Perez Jimenez couldn’t run again for office. Therefore, he prepared a plebiscite that was totally illegal. Suddenly, the society started to wake up from a large period of silence that generated an amazing democratic wall. This democratic spirit is collected by Consalvi in his book.

The author offers a recompilation that shows the most important documents that conducted to “el 23 de enero”. Thus, you may find manifestos of “la Junta Patriótica” together with articles published by Luis Herrera Campíns and Rómulo Gallegos in the exile. Finally the book contains the statements made by several of the principal professional associations that gathered lawyers, doctors, intellectuals and woman from Venezuela, among with the crucial pastoral chart written by Monseñor Arias Blanco.

Inevitably this situation has a kind of parallelism with the year 2007 that Venezuela recently experienced. The constitutional reform would have conducted the country towards a socialist system filled with a doubtful democratic condition. Many people asked if the Venezuelans will loose their fear once again as a consequence of the violation of their freedoms and democracy.

Recent fact seems to forecast a favorable wind to this issue. However, this is a process that is only beginning and it would be risky to establish final conclusions. When we read Consalvi’s book we can find out that there’s always the possibility to learn, and most of all, to understand an event that functions as a motivator of all the believers in freedom and democracy from Venezuela and Latin America.

Venezuela’s 2008 political prognostic

Venezuela’s 2008 political prognostic

By Andrés F. Guevara B. (Tupi)

When we talk about the year 2007 we can say anything but that it wasn’t a relevant period for Venezuela. If we study closely the facts that the country faced during the last year we can conclude that there are several events that were developed such as the start of Chavez’s second presidential period, the closure of the oldest Venezuelan TV channel RCTV, the appearance of new forces in the political field (specially the student movement) and finally we should make reference to the constitutional amendment project that was refused by the people in a voting procedure.

In one statement, we’re in front of a burden year. The big question that follows is: What should we wait from 2008? Taking as base the past image we can say that this year will be a direct consequence of what we lived during 2007. Perhaps, such idea may sound obvious, but isn’t. 2008 will be a year based in a two way path that leads towards democracy or dictatorship, the same conflict that Venezuela is facing for more than a decade.

Without doubt, the biggest loser in this battle is “el chavismo”. After the constitutional reform was rejected (even when the government tries to make us believe that such defeat wasn’t that great) two forces emerged. The defeated was no other than the radical socialism, the Marxist-Leninist extreme left-wing follower, the socialist proposal that threats human rights, the individual being, property.

When more than a half of the country (according to the results given by the National Electoral Council until this date) refuses a “vision of nation” by democratic ways, the ones who gave life to that proposal are in a great hurry. “How we can push forward this project?” is the question that now the government leaders make to themselves in order to consecrate a new way of life for Venezuela.

Thus, the only way to establish socialism in Venezuela is through the violation of the State of Law, still more shamelessly than the project of constitutional reform presented in 2007.

That will be the main axis on which it will turn the 2008: to implant the socialism of century XXI in a “de facto” way. It is not that in the last years the government hasn’t been doing this, but this year will be more obvious. There’s now a necessity of political survival that didn’t exist in the past, and if there is something certain is that the Venezuelan government can deal with anything but not with democracy, because it constitutes the greatest venom for authoritarian desires. Remember: the government has the sun to his backs.

The 2008 will come accompanied by the flagrant violation of the 1999 Constitution. This chart will be molded like a piece of kindergartens plastiline to create deformed figures. The evils well-known will extend: greater corruption, increase of the fiscal expenditure, missed oil policies… In one phrase: economic chaos. Like a watchmaker who knows exactly when the second marker approaches the completed hour, within some months the government will lament the policy of monetary reconversion, false proposal that masks the inflation that will come.

We shouldn’t talk about the foreign policy. The tense relations with countries that traditional and necessarily are strategic partners will bring terrible consequences. The “freezing” (neologism in the terminology of diplomacy) of relations with Colombia and Spain cannot bring worse auguries. The isolation, as it’s has been demonstrated through out history, does not take to anything but to desolation. The civilizations that were opened to commerce and to the world are those that have been most prosperous: Phoenicians, Romans, Carthaginians, English, Americans. It is not just luck that the Asian countries (traditionally isolated societies against the Barbarians of the West) have become wide open to the world, generating power and growth.

In the matter of recovering spaces of participation, the 2008 will be a crucial year for the opposition as a result of the municipal and regional elections. The key of success will be in the respect of leaderships and not their imposition. Most of all the unity sense.

If the opposition goes divided to the elections will be defeated. The governmental machinery, still debilitated, does not have to be taken lightly, because limitless resources of the State are behind, watching and waiting to take advantage of the smallest mistake.

What comes appears, as minimum, interesting. Those who think that this year in Venezuela will be filled by linearity are wrong. If 2007 was characterized by democratic conquers, 2008 shows up as stage of consolidation. Therefore, the battle will be taken to new spaces. The government, however, blindly focused in the imposition of the process based in socialism will not rest and will not give easily that power that pretends to keep everlastingly. Will this desire surpass the democratic and libertarian wall made by the society? The answer we will live it in the next months.