A Conversation with President Hugo

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M: Let's put this in a broader historical context, because it leads to another question. In 1954, the US overthrew the elected President of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz. In '64, the US was apparently involved in the events leading to the military coup against President Goulart of Brazil. The following year the US marines invaded the Dominican Republic, another intervention against a democratic government. The Sandinistas were elected in '84, and the US spent the next six years destroying the country through warfare and sabotage, and even intervened in the 1990 election.

H: You skipped Allende. [The U.S. was involved in the 1973 destabilization and overthrow of President Salvador Allende in Chile].

M: Yes...

H: And Panama, and Grenada.

M: Yes. The question is, the United States has gotten rid of most Latin American presidents that it didn't like. Why do you think you will be different?

H: You have to look at each of these cases of intervention individually, in their historical context. Each case is unique. The overthrow of Arbenz in 1954 was done through an invasion. But it did not end there. It started a war that lasted for more than 40 years. The Dominican Republic, Panama, Grenada -- those were also invasions.

Venezuela also has to be looked at within a certain historical context. We have a strength that cannot be disregarded -- a level of consciousness and mobilization that did not exist in these other countries. If you add up all the people who have participated in demonstrations since 1999 [on our side], counting each person as many times as they participated, the total is in the hundreds of millions. There were more than 8 million people who came out the day of the coup.

Also Venezuela has armed forces that are very solid, united, and capable of counteracting any faction that could threaten democracy.

M: Let's go back to the economy for a bit, and look at the region.

H: It's time for a new political and economic era. The old model has failed. It's self-evident: this new era will be characterized by a struggle in between two competing political forces. Your question was if tension with creditors and international agencies will increase in during this period. They will certainly be feeling the political and economic tensions, driven primarily by the poor countries, the people in those countries. We will feel these pressures within our own countries as well -- in the parliaments, the peasant movements, the student movements, the indigenous movements, the alternative movements, even within the militaries of these countries. Various pressures will be at play.

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