Venezuela: BBC forced to apologise
It seems that the
‘objective’, ‘unbiased’ BBC is not quite as objective and unbiased as its
masters in Britain’s imperialist bourgeoisie would have us – and the rest of
the world – believe. The broadcaster has just been forced to apologise to the
Venezuelan embassy for statements made by the well-known television historian
Simon Schama in the course of an edition of Question Time dedicated to
the British general election and broader questions of democracy.
Schama gratuitously opined that the workers and
peasants of Venezuela, who are helping to spearhead a world-historic resurgence
in the progressive, anti-imperialist aspirations of nearly the entire Latin
American continent, would in fact “give their eyes to have a real democratic
verdict of the people”.
But, oh dear, Question Time’s executive
director then had to go on record as saying that “Simon Schama’s comments
were inaccurate.
“I apologise,” he choked, “if they caused
offence… [H]e was wrong to suggest that Venezuela does not offer its
citizens a real democratic choice.”
The very fact that this veteran spin doctor for
imperialism referred to Venezuelan “citizens”, as distinct from the ‘subjects’
that those of us with British passports remain, is particularly poignant
at a time when Venezuela is marking her bicentennial as an independent republic
free of the Spanish colonial yoke.
The recent celebrations held to commemorate this
200th anniversary turned the capital, Caracas, into a veritable sea of people.
There was a spectacular march by the Venezuelan army and the armed civilian
militia, a fly-past by the air force and a procession by thousands upon
thousands of the ordinary working people who are standing up against US
imperialism and pushing forward the national-democratic Bolivarian revolution.
What upset Washington and Whitehall even more than
this display of resistance, solidarity and national unity must have been the
presence on the reviewing stand not just of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, but
also of his leading anti-imperialist allies, presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and – especially – Raúl Castro of socialist Cuba.
The resoundingly loud message from Venezuela is
that never again will the peoples of Latin America be cowed into colonial and
neo-colonial submission by forces intent on robbing them of their resources and
their dignity in the interests of superprofits for the rich few based first in
Madrid and then later in Wall Street.
This comes against the backdrop of a well-orchestrated
campaign of vilification, led of course by US imperialism, of president Chávez
and his Movimiento Al Socialismo [Movement Towards Socialism] party. The
short-term dream of the imperialists is that they can destabilise the process
leading up to key parliamentary elections scheduled for September of this year.
Failing that, an international campaign of slander against the Bolivarian
republic might just succeed in convincing world public opinion that, if the
forces of social progress and anti-imperialism do win that election, as they
are fully expected to, the poll was clearly rigged.
There are demonstrable lies being told on the
economic front as well. Coups d’état don’t work in Venezuela, as evidenced by the short-lived ousting of Hugo Chávez in 2002. The Venezuelan
masses, in whose interests his government was and is operating, merely
reinstalled him.
In its attempt to remove Chávez and reverse the
Bolivarian process, imperialism claims that putting the interests of the
Venezuelan people before the obscene profits of US-based multinationals has led
to near economic collapse. In fact, the reverse is true. In 2003, less than a
year after being restored to office by his country’s workers and peasants, the
president nationalised the oil industry. Result? The country’s economy has
since grown by some 95 per cent.
However, the Washington lie machine represents just
one of two prongs of an imperialist pincer movement. The other is a systematic
and escalating militarisation of northern Latin America, aimed at encircling
and intimidating Venezuela.
Washington’s main remaining client state in the
region, Colombia, has proven as willing as usual to oblige. That country’s
despicable and murderous puppet regime has now granted US forces the use of
seven new military bases – all under cover of the campaign against drug
trafficking, of course.
The newly-installed reactionary clique running
Panamá has followed suit, offering US imperialism four bases. And the warships
and aircraft carriers of the 4th fleet have been aided no end by the supine
collaboration of the Dutch government. With its help, the US navy has been able to use the Netherlands Antilles – and particularly the island of Aruba – to facilitate its sabre-rattling patrols only just outside Venezuelan territorial
waters.
The imperialists’ goal is clear: Chávez must go and
the process he represents, one of empowering working people at the expense of
multinational superprofits, must be stopped in its tracks.
The problem is that there is a growing
international campaign which has quite a different agenda, that of exposing US
threats against Venezuela and maximizing solidarity with Hugo Chávez and his
Bolivarian project.
That initiative is represented in Britain by the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign, which has been working hard to bring the reality of
what Venezuela’s working masses are seeking to achieve to a wider public. All
anti-imperialists should embrace this effort and seek to publicise Venezuela – its achievements and the threats it faces – among friends and workmates up and down Britain.
Long
live Hugo Chávez and the people of Venezuela!
Down
with US and British imperialism!