by Todd Gordon
Chávez responded to the provocation from the Canadian government by criticizing the Conservatives for proroguing (that is, completely shutting down) parliament in Ottawa. In March, 2010, Kent would again target “the shrinking of democratic space in Venezuela,” and suggest that “the judiciary is being used to harass those who criticize the government,” following the arrest of Oswald Álvarez Paz, former state governor in Zulia in March, 2010.1060 Álvarez Paz was convicted and sentenced to two years of house arrest for “spreading false information” after claiming on television that Venezuela had “become a safe haven for drug trafficking and terrorism” and “subversive and terrorist groups [from] around the world,” with obvious implicit reference to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Basque Homeland and Freedom, or Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) during a time of tense relations between Venezuela and the Spanish and Colombian states. Álvarez Paz was found guilty of violating Article 296-A of Venezuela’s Penal Code, which prohibits “any individual, by way of print, radio, television, electronic mail, or written leaflets, from using false information to cause panic or a sustained anxiety in the general collective.”1061 During a January 2010 visit to Venezuela, Kent met with “representatives of civil society.”1062 The names of those with whom he met, however, have not been disclosed by the Canadian government. A Senior Special Assistant to Kent reported that FAIT will not disclose the groups or individuals with whom Kent met in order to protect their safety. “Unlike in Colombia where rights are protected,” he said—ignoring that country’s ignominious murder rate of trade unionists, which is the worst in the world, among other things—in Venezuela they are not.1063 And while the danger to the unnamed individuals is grossly overstated, it is nonetheless indicative that Kent was meeting with opposition forces. We will return to Canada’s relations with opposition groups in greater detail below.
Even the electoral basis of Chávez’s government—a key ingredient of the narrow standards of any liberal democracy—was insufficient to soften Canada’s repeated assertion that Venezuela was in the grips of authoritarianism. When Chávez was re-elected for the fourth time in the fall of 2012—by a significant margin over united opposition candidate Henrique Capriles—it was not interpreted as a sign of Chávez’s sustained commitment to democracy, or his enduring popularity among the Venezuelan public. None of the standard diplomatic gestures of congratulations were extended to Chávez as the recently re-elected head of state by the Harper government.
This reproach stands in stark contrast to Ottawa’s official relations with new Presidents of a different political hue throughout the region. Canada congratulated Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo on his election in Honduras in November 2009, for example, and extolled the return to democratic normalcy in the country, despite the increase of political murder that occurred immediately upon his assumption of the presidency; Otto Pérez Molina was likewise congratulated on his election victory in Guatemala, despite his high-ranking military position during the genocidal campaigns against Mayan peoples carried out at the height of his country’s civil war in the 1980s, or the increase in political repression that followed his election; and Álvaro Uribe and Juan Manuel Santos were congratulated for their respective presidential wins in Colombia, despite the systematic violation of the rights of social movement activists, individuals associated with the political Left, and trade unions in that country under their rule.
In other words, Canadian officials routinely congratulated state representatives with incomparably worse human rights records than Chávez, while the latter was shunned and shamed by Harper in front of the “international community” on a regular basis. Canada could not entirely ignore the fact of clean elections in 2012 in Venezuela, and thus an official felt obliged to note that the election, “demonstrates the commitment of the Venezuelan people to democracy.”1064 Somehow, though, Chávez’s name was conspicuously absent from that praise. Tellingly, when union activists are the target of bloody violence in Venezuela, such as the seven who were murdered in the state of Aragua between 2008 and 2010 by what the National Union of Workers (Unete) describe as hired killers working for a private multinational, Canada remained silent.1065 Right-wing violence is not cause for concern, nor seen as a source of instability.
In truth, the branding of Chávez as an authoritarian demagogue speaks more about the Canadian government than it does about Chávez himself. For Chávez’s Venezuela, as we have demonstrated, was clearly a democratic society, indeed more democratic than Canada’s narrowly liberal democracy, both on paper and in practice. Nonetheless, for the Harper government and FAIT, limits on the free market, criticism of imperialism and neoliberalism, and the push against the narrow parameters of liberalism (however uneven in the Venezuelan case) are, by definition, a clear indication of authoritarianism. This is clearly the logic animating Van Kesteren’s Cold War call to arms against Chávez’s purported influence in Central America, the comments from Harper conflating market reform and democracy, and FAIT sensibilities about Venezuela expressed in its various reports and communiqués between Ottawa and the Caracas embassy. Foreign investor rights, strong free markets, popular input rigidly circumscribed in elections every four years—this is what democracy is for imperialist Canada. Breaking from these narrow strictures—even if in the direction of greater popular participation in the political process, or rebalancing the rights of communities vis-à-vis foreign capital—therefore constitutes a rupture with democracy.
When you strip away Canada’s linguistic claims to selfless devotion to human rights, and dig below the rhetorical surface of Canadian foreign policy, what Canadian leaders and policymakers are really talking about is the threat to the rights of Canadian capital to invest where it chooses, use the environment as it pleases, and repatriate its profits without interference from the troublesome locals. As was mentioned in the chapter on Honduras, this preoccupation with the rights of Canadian multinationals, dressed up in liberal humanitarian dross, was captured during the hearings on Honduras in the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade’s Subcommittee on International Human Rights. In those proceedings, Conservative member Gary Schellenberger, together with a Gildan executive, argued that a free trade agreement would benefit Honduras because it would bring the rule of law to the country.1066 Such a statement is patently false if, by rule of law, one means equality before the law for all Hondurans—the ostensible premise of the rule of law under liberal democracy. In reality, what the FTA will do, what constitutes in fact its central purpose, is to establish the juridical foundations for Canadian capital’s freedom to invest and repatriate profits in a context where the rules for doing business, in the buzzwords of FAIT negotiators, are transparent and predictable. Canada’s preoccupations with Chávez are no different in motivation, except that in the case of Venezuela, Chávez’s perceived regional influence posed a significant threat to Canadian capital.
CANADIAN MEDIA AND VENEZUELA
While this book is not a study of mainstream media, the latter can and does play an important role in Canada in forging a popular perception of Canadian foreign policy as largely selfless and humanitarian. Occasional criticisms of particular incidents or aspects of Canadian foreign policy can be found in the media, but these are rarely integrated into investigations of the systematic driving forces underlying that policy, or the broader ambitions being pursued. As a result, particularly bad incidents that require media attention can be presented merely as mistakes or unrepresentative anomalies, rather than as natural expressions of the core priorities underpinning the Canadian state’s policy agenda abroad. Coverage of Venezuela under Chávez is perhaps one of the best examples of the obsequiousness of the mainstream media in Canada in this regard. With rare and partial exceptions, the Canadian media faithfully conformed to and uncritically regurgitated the official line on the Chávez government delivered to them by the Canadian and U.S. governments.
Canada’s national paper of record, the Glob
e and Mail, was in the vanguard of this servility masquerading as serious reporting. The Globe’s subservience to the cause of imperialism reached something of a fever pitch when Chávez died, with full coverage sparing no unsubstantiated accusation: one article accused him of using “brute force” to maintain power, and of being a “polarizing dictator.” It also celebrated his opponent in the last election, noting that Henrique Capriles “galvanized Mr. Chávez’s opponents like never before and led the party to an impressive 44-percent-finish”—apparently unaware of the fact that this observation implies, first, that the “dictator” actually won the presidency through election and, second, he did so in his fourth consecutive victory with 56 percent of the vote. That a Canadian party has only received more than 56 percent of the popular once—the Conservatives in 1917—or that Stephen Harper won the 2011 election with 39 percent of the popular vote but has total control over the federal political process is, of course, unmentionable as it undermines the official narrative of a Venezuelan president run amok.1067
The Globe also offered insight on the physical presence and pyschic make up of Chávez, describing him as, “physically imposing as he pointed his finger and gesticulated. You could sense a ruthlessness right below the surface.”1068 At 5ft, 8in in height, Chávez was hardly Goliath, but because of his Afro-Venezuelan heritage his physical features were a perennial target of derisive commentary by the racist opposition in Venezuela and abroad. The Globe acknowledged, his followers were “devoted,” if also simple and easily-manipulated. Chávez reportedly, “played on their insecurities and fed their nationalist passions.” Venezuelans were said to be suffering for their indiscretion, facing economic instability and the rise in violent crime during his tenure, in which “Caracas became one of the most dangerous places to live in Latin America.” 1069
Of course, the economic stagnation for the poor majority and the bloody repression in Honduras under the post-coup government is not subject to any similar reflections from Canada’s mainstream media, and the Globe conveniently ignores the fact that Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo’s Honduras had the worst murder rate in the world. Lobo was an ally, and thus, officially, a responsible president bringing democracy and stability to Hondurans. The Globe predictably endorsed his 2009 election despite it taking place in a state of siege with no candidate participating from the anti-coup movement—conditions without question far worse than anything experienced under Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.
Another posthumous reflection in the Globe repeats the idea that Venezuelans must have been duped into supporting Chávez, describing the “almost messianic hold” he had on his supporters. And if it begrudgingly acknowledges that he may have improved social indicators, it quotes professor of Latin American politics Max Cameron, who argues that “He eroded the quality of democracy in a country with a long history of democracy”1070—a remarkable assertion given the shallow character of Venezuela’s formal democracy prior to Chávez’s assumption to power, and the well-documented social and participatory deepening of democracy in the country under Chávez. The one Globe article that eschews the Chávez-as-authoritarian line nevertheless misleadingly, and against the easily obtainable facts to the contrary, claims that Chávez’s limits on the free market have left the economy in ruins and the poor ultimately more vulnerable going forward.1071 The Globe’s “Report on Business” section also offered its reflections after the death, seeing an opportunity for Canadian capital, noting excitedly that “the death of Hugo Chavez (sic) offers the promise of domestic oil market changes that could roil the energy world and place substantial opportunities at the feet of Canadian oil companies.”1072
The Toronto Star, the largest daily circulation newspaper in the country and a traditional supporter of the Liberal Party, also contributed to the systematic misinformation on the Chávez government—in fact, the Star was censured by the Ontario Press Council after a formal complaint for a series of inaccurate articles in 2006 by Tim Harper on the rise of violent crime and poverty as a result of Chávez, which relied exclusively on government opponents for sources.1073 Following Chávez’s death, the Star included opinion pieces contradicting the imperialist line about Chávez’s authoritarianism, but also ran an article by Oakland Ross that compared Chávez to Kim Jong Il, Francois Papa Doc Duvalier, and Rafael Trujillo. Chávez was “not in that class,” he notes, but he was nevertheless—so we have no illusions about him—“authoritarian, bombastic, and a lousy manager to boot.”1074
CANADA’S ENGAGEMENT WITH POST-CHÁVEZ VENEZUELA
Following the death of Chávez in March 2013, Canada, like the U.S., saw an opportunity to roll back the social gains of the Bolivarian revolution. In fact, two weeks before Chávez died Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, anticipating Chávez’s imminent demise, had made plans to meet with then-Vice President Nicolás Maduro, only to have the trip cancelled when Chávez returned unexpectedly from an extended convalescence in Cuba.
Whereas the Canadian government was quick to support Porifirio Lobo’s election in Honduras despite it taking place in the context of a military coup, a boycott by the anti-coup opposition, and widespread accusations of vote rigging, the Canadian government was publicly critical of Maduro’s narrow (1.8 percent) election victory over united opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, suggesting the legitimacy of the outcome was in question. Canada called for an audit of the vote to ensure democratic fairness, with Ablonczy asserting that “due process must take place in order for that to be achieved.”1075 Canada and the U.S. were the only countries of the Americas that challenged the legitimacy of the election, in a strategy designed to lend credibility to Capriles, who in turn used international criticism of the election to foment violent protests from his right-wing base and to continue calls for a recount.
This demand was described by Mark Weisbrot as “farcical,” given the fact that Venezuela has one of the most rigourous voting processes in the world, involving voting done by touch screen, with a receipt printed out to confirm the vote was recorded properly, which voters then put in a ballot box. When voting is closed it is followed by an audit of 53 percent of voting machines in front of witnesses from the different parties to compare their results to the paper results. Weisbrot suggests the chance of fraud occurring in this electoral system given the audit showed Maduro’s victory “would be far less than one in 25 thousand trillion.” Capriles’ claims regarding electoral fraud were a transparent façade for a political intervention designed to galvanize domestic and international opposition to Chavismo. In an indicative gesture, when the Electoral Council acceded to his initial demand for a full audit of all the paper receipts from the voting machines, Capriles introduced a new set of demands and said he would now boycott any such an audit as resolutely insufficient.1076
CONCLUSION
This chapter has demonstrated the intensity with which Canada’s leading geopolitical strategists have responded to what they see as the threat of Venezuela’s often successful opposition to neoliberalism under Chávez and Maduro spreading elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean—that is, the threat of a good example. Canadian capital has been directly involved in confrontations with the Venezuelan government, as indicated in our discussion of a series of lawsuits in the mining sector. More important than the protection of direct Canadian investments, however, has been the wider geopolitical concern on the part of the Canadian state that Venezuela under Chávez had become a strategic regional player within a wider turn to the Left in the region.
Containment of this kind of regional power has been a central motivation behind the campaign of demonization launched by the Canadian state and the Canadian mainstream media against Chávez and his successor. In this sense, the Canadians are mirroring a wider proliferation of disinformation and manipulation vis-à-vis Venezuelan politics in the mainstream international media. Our discussion above has systematically juxtaposed such claims of Venezuela’s turn to authoritarianism, clientelism, and institutional decay against th
e realities of Venezuelan political economy under Chávez and the opening period of Maduro’s administration. Above all, this chapter has demonstrated that Canadian capital and its supporters within the apparatus of the Canadian state will endure no deviation from neoliberal orthodoxy in Latin America if it can in any way, and by whatever means, be avoided.
CHAPTER 9
AN EXERCISE IN CYNICISM: “DEMOCRACY” AND “SECURITY” IN THE ANDES
Canadian democracy promotion and security policy offer two very important modes of intervention in the Andes geared at actively undermining democratic projects and movements of resistance. Given how under-analyzed these foreign policy strategies are, especially relative to their importance to Canadian foreign policy, we offer an extended examination of their dynamics in this chapter. While formally distinct strategies, in reality they are flip sides of the same interventionist coin: one funds “civil society” organizations in the nominal spirit of promoting political dialogue and greater civic engagement in the targeted country; the other offers back up, should the former fail, by building ties with and financially supporting trusted security apparatuses in the region. The growth of both security and democracy promotion in the Canadian arsenal of foreign policy tactics in Latin America clearly correspond to, on the one hand, the expansion of Canadian capital, and, on the other, the increasing electoral and social movement strength of the region’s left-wing forces over the last fifteen years. Canadian imperialism is both a cause of, and response to, movements of resistance: exploitation of Andean resources engenders resistance, which in turn necessitates political intervention to undermine that resistance.
