[NYTr] Colombian Elites Fear Chavez's Growing Influence

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Upside Down World via Venezuelanalysis  Sep 24, 2007 
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/904/1/
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2637

Colombian Elites Fear Chavez's Growing Influence

by Paul Haste - UpsideDownWorld

Not since his Colombian vice president, Francisco de Paula Santander,
conspired to assassinate Caracas born Simón Bolívar in Bogotá in
1828, has a Venezuelan so stirred political opinions and passions in its
neighbour as President Hugo Chávez has done.

Bolívar survived the infamous ‘Black September Night’ attempt
against his life, but Colombia’s continued opposition to his united
Latin America dream disillusioned him, until, dispirited and
disheartened, he resigned as president a short time after.

In 2007, Colombians are once again contesting and debating a Venezuelan
leader’s ideas - this time, President Chávez’s ‘Bolívarian
revolution’ and his hope to reprise the Liberator’s ‘one
America’ dream.

That these ideas come replete with new inspiration drawn from Marx,
Lenin, and even Trotsky, have sharpened the debate in conservative
Colombia and heightened the elite’s fear that Chávez’s influence
could upset their closed, privileged political order.

In several Colombian states, particularly on the Caribbean coast,
Bolivarian circles have been organised, taking after the barrio and
union organising committees in Venezuela, and Colombia’s leftist
opposition Polo Democrático coalition organises amongst the 2 million
Colombian immigrants in Venezuela, ensuring that the revolution’s
ideas are brought back into Colombia.

In Barranquilla, Colombia’s principal Caribbean port, barrio and
social activists, union organizers and some Polo Democrático members
have united in the Corriente Bolivariana Colombiana (Colombian
Bolivarian Current), a political organisation that claims almost 5,000
members and has 50 candidates standing in the October local elections.

Jorge Urueta, one of the Bolivarian candidates, explains that the
movement began among Colombian immigrants in Caracas, "at first in
response to President Ã_lvaro Uribe’s reelection" in 2006. Returning
immigrants then continued to organise in Colombia itself, "increasing
gradually in numbers," says Urueta, "until there are now Bolivarian
movements in at least 5 states."

"This is a social movement against poverty in Colombia," says Oscar
Manduca, a Bolivarian organiser and candidate in Atlántico state on the
Caribbean coast. "Venezuela’s revolution can help change things here
through solidarity and cooperation across the frontier."

In some communities near Bogotá, where Colombians have elected leftist
activists to local consejos and juntas, cooperation agreements have
been signed with Venezuela that grant scholarships to allow workers’
children to study in Caracas, and offer free medical care to the
poorest who cannot afford Colombia’s privatised health care.

Carlos Felipe Flórez organizes the Movimiento Bolivariano de Colombia S
A (sin armas) - the Bolivarian Movement of Colombia (without arms) -
that is presenting an electoral challenge to the rightist caudillos
that control politics on the Colombia frontier in Santander state. He
explains that no Bolivarian activist "receives even one peso from
Venezuela. Agreements are made to benefit workers and the poorest, not
politicians."

In the October elections, Colombia’s Bolivarian candidates hope to
gain at least 20,000 votes, and more positions on local consejos and
juntas. A national congress is planned to take place in December to
decide on issues such as the Bolivarian movement’s relation to the
Polo Democrático, and to elect candidates to contest future Senate and
Congressional elections.

These small steps taken to bring Venezuela’s Bolivarian ideas to
Colombia have now received encouragement from an extremely unlikely
source - far right Colombian President Ã_lvaro Uribe, who recently
invited President Chávez himself to negotiate with the Fuerzas Armadas
Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc), and try to make progress towards
ending their war against the state.

Colombia’s elite are incensed at the invitation to Chávez -
editorials and columnists have devoted unprecedented space to
criticising their own president, and to their fears about Chávez’s
"intervention" in Colombia’s politics.

"The president has given Chávez a golden opportunity to interfere in
our affairs," wrote columnist Rafael Nieto in the pre-eminent political
affairs magazine, Semana. "Now Chávez doesn’t need to explain if he
wants to say something about Colombia, and intervention in our politics
will be difficult to manage… Polo Democrático leaders going to
Caracas and Bolivarian officials in Bogotá could become a daily
occurrence."

Saúl Hernández, writing in the pro government newspaper, El Tiempo,
agrees. "Chávez will install himself in the heart of Colombian
politics," he wrote, questioning why "Uribe has invited him when there
exists such an abysmal ideological difference… this inconceivable act
is the equivalent of the intervention of a Soviet leader in the affairs
of the United States during the Cold War.’

Even the liberal El Espectador complains that the invitation "gives
Chávez an opportunity on a silver plate to intervene in politics… he
could obtain leadership in Colombia that hasn’t been possible until
now.’

Colombia’s media has been implacably hostile to Venezuela and its
Bolivarian revolution since Chávez was first elected president in 1998.
It is standard to use terms such as "dictator", "caudillo" and
"communist" in news coverage, and there is little attempt to learn what
is actually happening in Venezuela, or to try to understand why Chávez
is so popular.

Venezuelan commentator Gabriel Bustamante believes that Colombia’s
journalists "don’t know, and don’t want to know, anything positive"
about the changes in his country. "Revolutions threaten their
privileges, so there is a need to create ‘Chávezphobia’ - an
excessive and irrational fear about Chávez and even Bolívar to try to
stop Colombians being influenced."

"Chávez is a traditional, dictatorial caudillo, and he intends to
export his revolution with aggressive diplomacy," comments El Tiempo,
to prove Bustamante’s point. Curiously neglecting to mention any far
right military dictatorships, the editorial continues, "Caudillos like
Chávez have historically impeded the consolidation of liberal democracy
in Latin America."

Further comments in Colombia’s limited media have been even more
extreme, indicating that the elite would prefer that the war continues
rather than Chávez gain influence in Colombia through his efforts to
end it.

"Don’t forget that Chávez is an extremely active politician with
aspirations to unite the Americas," writes Alfredo Rangel in the
business magazine Cambio. "Peace in Colombia will advance his ideas,
and that would threaten our institutional stability and our
conservative political culture."

Ã_lvaro Forero Tascón, in El Espectador, is more explicit:

"Now Chávez is invited he won’t leave. It has been difficult for
Chávez to have influence in Colombia because it is a conservative
country, but he has been patiently waiting and his interference was
just a matter of time, but it is preferable that the war continues than
Chávez be involved in Colombia’s affairs."

This critical reception to the invitation to Chávez has had some effect
- Uribe curtailed Chávez’s visit to Colombia in August, and forced
the Venezuelan president to meet him at an isolated hacienda rather than
allow his presidential motorcade to travel through the capital. A
meeting with opposition Polo Democrático leaders had to be held after
midnight, in private at the Venezuelan Embassy, and even Chávez’s
request to visit Bolívar’s historic hacienda in central Bogotá was
denied lest he came into contact with ordinary Colombians.

The government has also responded to increasing cooperation between the
Colombian opposition and Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution. A
Corriente Bolivariana Colombiana political meeting in Baranoa on the
Caribbean coast was raided by the president’s DAS intelligence
service in May.

Fifteen agents arrested visiting Venezuelan Congressional deputy José
Luis Pirela, who had come to finalise an agreement offering
scholarships to children to study in Caracas, and forced him into a
military helicopter. Pirela was then unceremoniously deported on the La
Guajira desert frontier between the two countries.

A short time later Baranoa’s mayor, Carlos Zambrano, began to receive
death threats from the far right paramilitaries, but remained defiant.

"It is normal for movements with similar politics to have contact
across frontiers," said, Zambrano. "No one can deny that America is
involved in Colombia’s politics even to the point that the US sends
helicopters and guns to fuel the war. All that we are doing is
arranging scholarships for poor children to study."

"Colombia does not accept foreign interference from any country," a DAS
statement said after this incident, apparently without irony. "Colombia
does not accept attempts at destabilizing our democracy that respects
liberties," while El Tiempo justified the raid, claiming that contacts
between Colombians and Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution were
"contrary to the free determination of the people."

Constitutional experts disagreed. Lawyer Juan Manuel Charry said there
was no crime that an elected deputy from Venezuela visited an elected
mayor in Colombia, and legal expert Francisco José Sintura pointed out
that Colombia’s constitutional law "only prohibits rebellion,
sedition, asonada and conspiracy. A law prohibits foreigners from
participating in election campaigns, but that is not what is happening
here."

However, as Colombia is a highly militarised state, the Armed Forces
Commander, Freddy Padilla, thought it appropriate to comment too.

"I don’t think there is interference from the Venezuelan government on
the Caribbean coast," he stated, apparently disagreeing with the
intelligence service’s assessment. But he then said, "Bolivarian
circles are spreading all over Latin America, and particularly here in
Colombia we want to prevent this from happening."

This statement raises the question as to how the Colombian military,
while accepting that there is no "foreign interference", will then
"prevent" Colombians from organising political movements influenced by
Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution - particularly as the intelligence
service states that Colombia "respects liberties."

Colombia’s elite has never been so isolated in Latin America as they
are now - just Perú, México and some Central American states still
share their rightist economic liberalism and deference to the United
States. But now ordinary Colombians are beginning to gain confidence
and inspiration from President Chávez and Venezuela’s Bolivarian
revolution.


Sources:

La última esperanza, report in Semana, Bogotá, 3 de septiembre de 2007

Latinoamérica, en la mira chavista, Eduardo Posada Carbó, El Tiempo,
Bogotá, 1 de junio de 2007

Amenazas de muerte para alcalde, Alfonso Cervantes, El Tiempo, Bogotá,
junio de 2007

¿Qué sucede en Colombia y por qué su importancia para Venezuela?,
David Javier Medina, Aporrea.org, Caracas, 9 de septiembre de 2007

Diputado chavista habló de plan para ‘Presidencia bolivariana’ en
Colombia, Roberto Llanos Rodado, El Tiempo, Bogotá, 29 de mayo de 2007

Por el liderazgo en América Latina, Simón Consalvi, El Nacional,
Caracas, 2 de septiembre de 2007

¿Qué está cocinando Chávez?, Saúl Hernández, El Tiempo, Bogotá,
4 de septiembre de 2007

Ingreso inusual de funcionarios venezolanos a Colombia viene desde el
2005, según el DAS, report in El Tiempo, Bogotá, 29 de mayo de 2007

Contribución a la paz en Colombia, Vladimir Villegas, Aporrea.org,
Caracas, 7 de septiembre de 2007

El fenómeno Chávez en América Latina, report in El Tiempo, Bogotá,
20 de mayo de 2007

Chávez, el nuevo protagonista, editorial in El Espectador, Bogotá, 19
de agosto de 2007

La caja de Pandora, Rafael Nieto, Semana, 27 de agosto de 2007

La sin salida de Chávez, Ã_lvaro Forero Tascón, El Espectador,
Bogotá, 27 de agosto de 2007

Lógicas Paradójicas, Alfredo Rangel, Cambio, Bogotá, 25 de agosto de
2007