12-21-05, 9:01 am

Editor’s note: Carolys Pérez is a local leader in the Communist Party of Venezuela, a youth organizer and educator. She is the president of the Ferdinand De Miranda Organization of youth volunteers. Political Affairsspoke with her in Los Teques, Venezuela near Caracas in August 2005 at the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students. Pérez was a leader of Venezuela’s preparatory committee for the festival. This interview was translated and transcribed by Owen Williamson.

PA: Please tell us about yourself.

CP: I am a Young Communist “militant” (activist), and my work is to get trained in order to organize party clubs and to train other youth. I am responsible for organizing university youth activities and political education. My job as a Communist is to get all those who turn 18 to join the party, to teach them and explain to them why we need to support Chávez.

PA: Can you give some background on the history of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV)?

CP: The PCV is 74 years old and was founded by Pedro Ortega Díaz. During its first decades, it was underground and organized guerrilla activity and street resistance against the dictatorship. Later, there was a strong guerrilla movement in the mountains. In the 1970s, the Party got involved in labor union work at the pan-South American level, working in Allende’s Chile.

At this time, Communists in Venezuela were persecuted, and many were murdered. So the Party went to underground again. In the 1980s, Party work involved building Party clubs in the various communities. The clubs recruited individuals to the Party and worked in opposition to the oppressive capitalist government of the time. In 1989, there was something in Venezuela called “el Caracazo” (the Caracas Uprising). The president at the time, Carlos Andrés Pérez, decreed some economic measures, ordered by the IMF, that caused a jump in gasoline prices which affected the majority of the marginal and impoverished population. So, the people came out into the streets to protest. In Caracas, many people came out against the president, who had been in office only one month. People began to loot businesses, to steal things. They opened up the supermarkets and looted the food. So the president sent the Guard and the police into the street, and very many people were killed. There were five days of street protests during which the people did not go home, but stood firm.

The protests ceased only because of the repression against the people. The president suspended constitutional guarantees and allowed the police free rein. Many PCV leaders were assassinated. Many among the students were also persecuted, and they went after our families as well. We had to hide, even kids. In 1989, I was 14 years old. Nonetheless, that demonstration sowed discontent within the armed forces, because of what they had to do against their people. There was one section of the armed forces that opposed what had been done and made contact with the country’s left forces, including the Communist Party.

PA: Where does Chávez come into the picture?

CP: Hugo Chávez was a leader of this movement in the armed forces. On February 4, 1992, Chávez headed a coup d’etat against President Carlos Andrés Pérez. This coup failed, and he was imprisoned. But, out on the streets, we Communists kept on doing our work. The Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement (MBR) emerged on November 27th of that year, during a second coup against Carlos Andrés Pérez, headed by four military associates of Chávez. One group of military officers was captured, but others escaped.

This actually made the situation better, because now all the revolutionary military officers were together in one prison. The Communists were in the streets working, and the military leaders that supported the process were together in prison. Pérez was impeached for corruption. He was tried and removed from office. A provisional president was installed, as provided in the Constitution. And Carlos Andrés Pérez was thrown in prison. New presidential elections were called.

The Communists, the left and Marxist political parties came out with a common candidate, Andrés Velásquez. Everyone on the right backed Rafael Caldera, a former president on the ultra-right. Everyone came out to vote. History says Velásquez won, but he negotiated with the right wing and gave the victory to Rafael Caldera, who was proclaimed the true president of the Republic.

Caldera pardoned all the military officers who were taken prisoner in the coup. Chávez immediately began to campaign for the presidency for the next election. When he got out of prison, we were there waiting. We didn’t have any money, just a little old car. And in that little car, Chávez went around the entire country, visiting all the villages and towns, staying in the houses of our friends that had been arranged for him.

We criticized the government that we had at that time, but we understood that that the path to victory was not by armed struggle or violence. In 1998, the presidential term ended, and once again we went to the polls. Chávez was a candidate and on December 6, 1998 everyone came out to vote once again. Chávez had the support of the Communist Party and the other left parties and won with four million votes. This was the first time in history that any president had gained that many votes. Voter turnout was 80 percent. The people remained in the streets waiting for the results. And when they declared Chávez president, the whole people came out in Caracas. They came down from all the mountains, the poorest of the poor, and all the people stayed out until the wee hours, waiting for Chávez to speak to them.

PA: What were some early reforms the Chávez administration undertook?

CP: The first thing that Chávez did was to amend the Constitution. He called for a process that is known as a “constituent assembly.” The people went back to the polls to choose representatives from each community to revise the Constitution together with Chávez. This assembly met for several months and produced a document known as the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Once again there were elections called, to accept the constitution. Once this happened, Congress was dissolved, and the people chose new members of Congress. Eighty percent of those who won were with Chávez and included the Communist Party. Following the establishment of the new Congress, there were mayoral elections for each municipality, and of the 300 mayors, 280 were of Chávez’ movement.

The Constitution established, for the first time, rights for the indigenous peoples and two seats in Congress were given to indigenous representatives. It was also established that 50 percent of the candidates must be women. Thus began the transformation of society, and the Fifth Republic was founded.

The Communist Party grew, because it began to be accepted by the government and was no longer in hiding. From then to now, we have people from the Communist Party as government ministers and officials.

PA: How did the opposition respond?

CP: The Constitution, for the first time, established that when the president gets to the middle of his or her term, the people can call for a “recall referendum.” So the opposition was already talking about asking for a recall, and the media went along with it. The people who are against Chávez are the ones who have economic power in the country, and they are the ones who control the private media. The opposition started putting out false news, and, in response, Chávez began to speak on the state channel, telling the truth. Being that the people did not believe the media, big business groups also began to attack Chávez and the government.

They also begin to organize together with the upper management of the Petroléos de Venezuela (PDVSA). They got together with big business and called for a shutdown [business strike] against Chávez. And in December 2001 all the big businesses of the country shut down, putting everyone around the country out of work. The petroleum was sabotaged and the oil industry shut down, the industry that provides the resources that the country needs. Private industry around the country followed suit.

Since the oil industry was shut down, there was no gasoline, no natural gas, no way to cook at home and cars could not run. And since the private sector was not working, there was no food. People were in line for up to three days to buy food, gasoline or bottled gas. In the poorest areas, people started taking their beds and furniture apart to use the wood for cooking-fires. The media blamed everything on Chávez, and the solution would be for Chávez to go. We, the people, suffered through three months of this. But they, big business, failed. The oil was sabotaged, and people didn’t go to work. But people who knew how the industry runs, those of us who were professionals, went to our workplaces without pay in order to get the industry working again. Other countries like Brazil sent food, so the people would not lack food. The shutdown ended a failure.

So, the opposition started to organize a coup. For the 11th – 12th of April 2002, they called for a street demonstration against Chávez. The demonstration was going to a certain point in Caracas far from the Government Palace. This place was called Choao, and was far from Chávez’s home. Chávez’s supporters had called for a demonstration at the presidential palace so that Chávez could see us outside his door. The two marches were not supposed to meet, because one was going one way and one the other. We had no intention of meeting, but the opposition detoured their march to cause a confrontation.

When the marches crossed and clashed, Chávez did not let the police or the armed forces get involved, and there was violence and many were killed. But there was a group of anti-Chávez military personnel and police that came out against us. Chávez was removed in a coup, and the oligarchy installed itself as the government. During the coup, the private media stopped broadcasting what was happening, and began to broadcast kid’s cartoons and movies. Then they broadcast the “news,” read by a military official, that Chávez had resigned. The people who had not previously come out to protest came out to the streets. And all of us, including the Communist Party, massed ourselves outside the Government Palace. We began to shout. We wanted Chávez to tell us himself that he resigned. A day passed, and Chávez did not appear. The people slept-in at the gates of the palace. Then Chávez’s daughter came on a foreign TV channel that transmits to Venezuela and warned that Chávez had been kidnapped and may be killed. Meanwhile, in the Government Palace, all the anti-Chávez oligarchs who led the coup appointed Pedro Carmona Estana as the new “president.” The church leaders, the bankers, the owners of the media were all there. The military officers who had turned against Chávez were there.

And the people were outside, making it clear that they didn’t want any of it.

PA: What part did the Communist Party play in the popular mobilization to overturn the coup?

CP: The Communist Party, with all of its activists, was there at the gates, and was organizing the people in the communities to come out. So the Party, together with the other parties who support Chávez, began to search for him. We hid government ministers and officials who were wanted by the anti-Chávez forces. All of the parties were also hiding their own leaders to protect them. We organized into two groups: one to protect the leaders and the other in the street agitating the people in support of Chávez.

There was a group of military officers who supported Chávez, and they found him in an island called La Orchila and brought him in a helicopter to the Palace. When he got to the Palace, at about 3 a.m., we kicked out the oligarchs who had installed themselves there. The people brought Chávez in and ran out those who opposed him.

After this, Chávez spoke to the people, who had a “fiesta” and shouted with excitement in his support. He apologized to the people for the events of the past few days, and said he would never abandon them. He told the opposition that the solution is in the Constitution. He says that in the constitution there is provision for a “referendum,” and he calls for elections to see if the people want him or not. The article establishes that 51 percent of the voters must ask for this referendum.

PA: What was the opposition’s next move?

CP: They met the requirement for a recall referendum, and we went to the polls. The Communist Party, together with the other parties that support Chávez, organized ourselves for these elections.

Chávez symbolically called this event “The Battle of Santa Inez,” because this was one of the most important battles in the history of our independence. The people in every community and barrio organized themselves through the Communist Party and other parties, in something we called “Electoral Battle Units,” or UBE. So we did not go around as parties, but together as UBE. Each person who belonged to UBE had to look for 10 more people to vote for Chávez. The referendum question was whether we wanted Chávez to go. Those of us who supported Chávez had to vote “no.” Those who were against Chávez had to vote “yes.” August 15th of last year, the elections were held, and 10 million people came out to vote, lining up as early as 3 a.m. And each one of us in the UBE, we had to go to the houses of each of the 10 people we had on our lists. The political parties, including the Communist Party, brought out all their resources for this. The elections, which lasted all that day, with much scrutiny and many international observers, were held very carefully and officially. The US government, through a US government-financed organization called “Sumate,” promoted sabotage, saying that the elections were fixed. All that day there were random electricity blackouts. In the private sectors, the bosses put stickers on workers’ ID cards, and before they voted they had to go by a Sumate computer, located close to the voting places, so the bosses could verify that they had voted against Chávez. Many private industry workers wished to support Chávez, but who were forced to vote against him. The Communist Party decided to knockout these Sumate computers, so that people could vote freely.

PA: How else did the Communists participate in this referendum?

CP: Communist youth in this area (Miranda) set up a campaign office with many computers where we had names and addresses of everyone registered in the UBE. We checked everyone on the list to find out who was missing and who had voted. We would then call the Young Communists who were in the street to go contact those who were missing. There were two groups of Young Communists: one was knocking out the Sumate computers, the other was helping the UBE get out the vote.

That’s the way the whole day went. At 6 a.m. the next morning, many people were still waiting to vote. Young Communists in this area stayed in our campaign office receiving information from our poll-watchers in each voting place counting whether we were winning or losing. We kept in contact with Young Communist campaign offices all around the country. The older Communist activists were in the streets.

So, when the elections were over, we won. Out of 10 million votes cast we had 6 million voting for Chávez. Just imagine, when Chávez was first elected, he won with 4 million votes, and then with all this work on the referendum we were 6 million.