AFL-CIO and Venezuela

The AFL-CIO (there, I resisted the attempt to change the last letter of the 
acronym in a way with which many of you are familiar) has issued a mushy 
apologia for its conniving with the coup-plotters in Venezuela:

http://www.aflcio.org/news/2002/0426_venezuela.htm

Meanwhile, there's Christopher Marquis's article in The New York Times a 
few days ago, talking about the NED's funding of anti-Chavez groups:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/25/international/americas/25VENE.html

And over on Portside (the news listserv of my group, the Committees of 
Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism -- I encourage you to join 
Portside; you'll get about 5 messages a day, and nearly all of them are 
full of useful information) Kim Scipes takes to task an obscure apologist 
for the AFL-CIO (and a staffer for the UFT) named Leo Casey for actually 
praising what the AFL-CIO did in Venezuela.  Scipes's post has much useful 
information and can be accessed at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/portside/message/2367

And finally, I reproduce below an article from the latest issue of Labor 
Notes.

John Lacny



**********
http://www.labornotes.org/archives/2002/05/b.html

Labor Notes, May 2002

CONCERNS OVER POSSIBLE AFL-CIO INVOLVEMENT IN VENEZUELA COUP LED TO 
FEBRUARY PICKET

by Katherine Hoyt


Could the bad old days be returning to the AFL-CIO?s operations in other 
countries? Fear that in Venezuela the AFL-CIO was supporting both a 
right-wing union federation and a U.S.-backed coup led some solidarity 
activists to mount a picket line at AFL-CIO headquarters in February.

The coup arrived in the early morning hours of April 19, when top military 
officers confronted President Hugo Chavez and demanded his resignation. 
Chavez? position had eroded rapidly after 13 people were killed April 18 
during a massive march on the presidential palace. Opposition to Chavez was 
led by top business leaders, along with leaders of the Venezuelan Labor 
Federation, the CTV. As part of a ?general strike? organized by this 
coalition, executives of the state-owned oil company had cut production by 
half at the country?s main refinery and nearly halted oil exports.

Pedro Carmona, leader of Venezuela?s largest business federation, was named 
head of a provisional government after Chavez resigned.

COUP SUPPORT SOUGHT?

Throughout the Cold War the AFL-CIO?s international work was funded by the 
U.S. government and served to further the government?s goals. The AFL 
supported ?good unions? or tried to undermine ?bad unions? based on their 
enthusiasm for U. S. corporations. It labeled as ?not free? or ?communist? 
those unions that challenged U.S. domination of their countries.

When John Sweeney was elected in 1995, the federation seemed to be turning 
over a new leaf.

But on February 12 the AFL-CIO sponsored, with the National Endowment for 
Democracy, a closed forum featuring representatives of the CTV. The NED is 
an organization created by the Reagan administration to ?promote democracy? 
abroad; the AFL-CIO?s Solidarity Center receives much of its funding from 
NED.

The forum was part of a tour funded by NED, and included meetings with 
several AFL-CIO leaders. According to one union member who participated in 
the meetings, the CTV representatives noted that they were here to discuss 
the chances for a coup in Venezuela.

As President of Venezuela, Chavez infuriated Washington by attempting to 
restructure the oil industry to achieve greater national control of 
Venezuelan oil resources, criticizing the Bush administration?s war on 
terrorism, opposing the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and calling for an 
end to the Cuban embargo. Venezuela is the third most important source of 
oil for the United States.

Chavez was immensely popular with poor Venezuelans, but he aroused the ire 
of the better-off.

Rumors of a coup first arose after a November inter-agency meeting at which 
the National Security Agency, the Pentagon, and the State Department talked 
for two days about U.S. policy toward Venezuela. Similar meetings had been 
held before previous U.S.-organized coups in Iran, Guatemala, South 
Vietnam, Chile, and elsewhere.

Speaking before Congress in early February, CIA director William Tenet 
signaled Venezuela as one of the main concerns for U.S. foreign policy and 
noted that ?measures? must be taken to rectify the volatile situation 
there.

In December business owners called a strike, sending millions of workers 
home, to protest the Chavez government. The invitation to the forum sent 
out by the AFL-CIO and NED proudly stated that the CTV played ?a key role 
in the national strike on December 10? and joined with business and other 
groups in ?a massive demonstration against the government on January 23.?

OIL AT THE ROOTS

The crisis was based on the government?s efforts to change management at 
the Venezuelan state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (Pvsa). Management 
orchestrated slow-downs and called for strikes in protest, with the support 
of the CTV union. Chavez had threatened to use the army to regain control 
of the company if workers carried out their strike threats.

Rhett Doumitt, the AFL-CIO?s representative in the Andean region, met with 
activists from the Nicaragua Network, hoping to dissuade them from 
picketing the forum. Doumitt acknowledged that the CTV was dominated by the 
two traditional (and corrupt) Venezuelan political parties opposed to 
Chavez, but insisted that the CTV was reforming. Chavez was not interested 
in renovation of the CTV, Doumitt said, ?he wants to demolish it.?

The old guard unionists had opposed a December 2000 referendum that was 
passed by 67 percent of those who voted, and resulted in direct election of 
union leaders. But when the union elections were held, the old guard won -- 
and the Chavez government refused to recognize the results. Supporters of 
Chavez instead formed a new confederation, the Bolivarian Workers? Force 
(FBT), which gained some limited support among workers.

FBT representatives were not allowed to attend the AFL-CIO forum. The CTV, 
say the Bolivarians, was part of a plan to destabilize the country.

Last year, unions on the West Coast passed resolutions calling on the 
AFL-CIO to open its books and come clean on its history of intervention in 
Latin America and elsewhere. It was to prevent adding another chapter to 
that sordid history that activists carried their ?No U.S. Intervention in 
Venezuela!? signs in front of the AFL-CIO.

Katherine Hoyt is Co-coordinator of the Nicaragua Network. 

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