CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING MY ARTICLE
"PLEASE HAND THE OPPOSITION THE SILVER BULLET ... SO IT MAY FINALLY REST IN PEACE"
1. Too Bad / Thoughts On Venezuela
From: Antonio Chusho
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2004 10:56 AM
Subject: too bad
Jutta, as I read your bitter comments
on the final results of the Referendum in your country (?) Venezuela, I
could see you must be a really overwhelming lecturer, but at the same
time, un implacable contender to any one who might dare disagreeing
with your own point of view. You're probably right in your reasoning,
but you are definitely missing a great opportunity to intelligently
lead the minds of your countrymen towards an effective, peaceful start
in their social and political recovery.
Sorry, for the comments, but I think we, as philosophers, have a higher and more responsible place in our societies.
Best wishes,
Antonio Chusho
Peru.
******************
From: Jutta Schmitt
To: Antonio Chusho
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2004 10:30 PM
Subject: Re: too bad / thoughts on Venezuela
Dear Antonio,
thank you for your sincere comments,
which I take as a constructive critique! You are right; in my article,
I have definitely failed in making an effort to include those, who are
on the other side of the political spectrum, and who reject president
Chávez, the new constitution and the project for the nation.
Having witnessed and lived through
April 2002's brief and ugly coup d'état, the lock-out and
sabotage of the petroleum industry from December 2002 to January 2003,
and many another unconstitutional and brutal effort of the "opposition"
to oust a democratically elected and perfectly legitimate president,
and having witnessed the 24-hour-a-day relentless, merciless media
campaign which has caused a psychological damage of unsuspected
proportions (and yet to be analysed in its magnitude and range) to its
viewers and audience, I must admit I have been forced by these very
factors to categorically take sides, without consideration for the
other part that makes up Venezuela's "opposition".
For the past forty years, the vast,
impoverished majority of Venezuelans have been trampled upon, been
economically exploited, politically oppressed and socially
discriminated, and have never been given a chance of recovery, neither
as far as their integrity as human beings was concerned, nor as active
participants in the economic and political decisions that affected
their very lives. The coming to political power of Hugo Chávez
is but an expression of these circumstances, and the country's economic
and political elite (today's "opposition"), backed by the private,
national and international media, has not woken up to this reality
until today. A reality, that constitutes a proper time bomb -
deactivated in Venezuela through the new, Bolivarian constitution and
the inclusive model of political participation (yet with the economic
model still waiting to be truly humanized) and still ticking in all of
Latin America and much of the world, for that matter.
I don't ignore the fact, that many of
the supporters of the Venezuelan "opposition" have been misled by their
"leadership" with lies and deceit, but when the moment of the falling
masks had come in the form of April 2002's coup d'état, their
"innocence" and "ignorance" was gone with one stroke - just as was the
Bolivarian constitution, the president, the attorney general, the
ministers, the parliamentarians, the governors, the justice court, the
electoral power, the moral power and the democratic rights of the
people - that vast majority of humble folks who never had a voice and
face before they elected Chávez their president, and who would
come to his rescue, defeating the very coup.
Can you, in the name of freedom,
reconcile with exploitation? Can you, in the name of equality,
reconcile with oppression? Can you, in the name of justice, reconcile
with discrimination?
If we want to give ourselves, in
Venezuela and hopefully else- and everywhere in the world, a peaceful
and effective start for our social, political and human recovery, we
have to go well beyond Chávez and the "opposition", we have to
go to the very roots that have brought them both about: a world, where
economic interests and profit walk over human beings - dead and alive.
By the way, my Spanish teacher at
Frankfurt University in Germany, was Juan Gamarra, from Chiclayo/Peru.
An outstanding personality, combining sharp critique of our
contemporary society with a warm and open character and a good deal of
humour, he lived for some years in an apartment of a four story
building, in one of the best quarters of Frankfurt city. The owner of
the building, a very old lady, decided to devise the building to him in
her testament, because of all the persons she knew, including her own
family, Juan was the most human, humane to her. Juan rejected the
offer, because he felt that going back to Peru, teaching his countrymen
about his experiences in the "First World" for the equivalent of a
couple of dollars monthly, was a fortune worthier than anything else in
this world.
This is the true Peruvian, the
Venezuelan, the Latin American spirit, the ALBA of which president
Chávez likes to speak, that we need to come closer to a truly
human horizon.
Warm regards,
Jutta Schmitt
Mérida / Venezuela
**********
2. Elections
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2004 8:44 AM
Subject: Elections
Hello Jutta,
I have read your
article in Vheadline. As someone who has traveled to Venezuela and was
actually in Caracas during the attempted coup in the early 90's I
continue to be surprised by the bitter divide between the two factions
in the country and the way this divide has grown over the years. Your
article implies that the current opposition gets its support from
international institutions as well as some of the local media.
What is the main cause of the animosity and how can some of it be reconciled?
Farhan Sharaff
New York.
*********************
From: Jutta Schmitt
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, August 23, 2004 2:12 PM
Subject: Re: Elections
Dear Farhan,
thank you for your interest in my
article. The roots of the division of Venezuelan society into two
radically different factions - those who support president
Chávez and those who fiercly oppose him -, can be found in the
dire reality imposed by a model of economical, political and social
exclusion, that had been operating here for decades, leading to the
impoverishment of the vast majority of Venezuelan people, that
constitute today´s supporters of president Chávez. It is,
in one word, a division along class lines, with the current
"opposition" mainly embodying the interests of Venezuela´s former
politically corrupt elite, backed by and intertwined with the
country´s economic elite.
The new, Bolivarian constitution,
written and approved in 1999, enshrines a politically protagonic and
economically more inclusive model for all social classes of Venezuelan
society, especially addressing and assisting the formerly excluded as
were the poor, the landless and the indigenous peoples, and has
therewith provoked the wrath and ire of the former political elites and
the powerful economic interest-holders of this country, who have showed
themselves to be unwilling to even cede a minimum of their obscene
economic and social privileges.
Unfortunately, the private media in
Venezuela have taken on the role of the political "opposition" and have
contributed a lot to stir up feelings of fear, hate and animosity among
their audience, directed (often in openly racist and degrading terms)
against president Chávez and the millions of mainly poor and
humble people, who support him in their common quest for social
justice. In turn, president Chávez has not been moderate in his
discourse either, given the ferocity of attacks against his government
and his project for the nation, which has been villified by his
opponents.
I think if the media refrained from
painting a completely distorted picture of the president, the
constitution and the millions of people who have approved, with their
vote, the new course of the country, the level of conflict could be
considerably lowered. The true eradication of the conflict, however,
can only be achieved through true, social justice, which is a thorny
path to go, conflictive per se, because it is the very path of class
struggle.
Kind regards,
Jutta.
For more, please listen to my interview with Len Osanic on:
http://www.blackopradio.com. Go to
Archived Shows - The Archived 2004 Shows - Show Nr. 184, "Jutta
Schmitt; Venezuela Situation Update".
***********************
3. Stand firm
From: Robert Van Guelder Waring
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2004 10:19 AM
Subject: Stand firm
Dear Jutta,
Please know that as far away as
California we are in fact watching the process of democracy in
Venezuela. In fact, your "Silver Bullet" editorial was on the top
of the Google News, a good sign. It is indeed a cynical time when
communication is hijacked by powerful media, and turned into very
self-serving propaganda that incites large groups to riot or worse.
History has shown us that when enough
people are tired of lies and self-aggrandizing elites, the masses will
prevail. Obviously, the media elite in Venezuela did not
prevail. Now it is time for the opposition to begin to question
their own leaders. Some probably will, since they didn't deliver
on their promise to overthrow Chavez.
There is no chance that Bush will tell
the opposition to shut up and take their medicine (which, as you point
out, they asked for) because he has no respect for free and independent
democracies in the the western Hemisphere, or anywhere else in the
world beyond the G-7 countries. Of course, that has been
consistently US policy since the Monroe Doctrine. We can safely
predict that Bush will begin some sort of ruthless plan to economically
isolate Venezuela, perhaps along the lines of Chile and Allende.
What will make it difficult, however, is that we have that model to
refer to and we can take steps to protect Venezuela if and when it
happens.
Anyway, I am keeping my hopes alive
for Venezuela's bold path toward economic and social justice.
Fortunately for Venezuela, Bush's plans for world hegemony are
faltering.
¡Arriba con Chavez y arriba con
el pueblo venezueleño! Les tengo en mis esperanzas mas
profundas. ¡Que siguen adelante!
Thank you for your editorial,
Robert
3rd grade teacher, northern California
Robert V. Waring
"If an administration of whatever
political persuasion ignores scientific reality, they do so at great
risk to the country," said Stanford University physicist W.H.K.
Panofsky, who served on scientific advisory councils in the Eisenhower,
Johnson and Carter administrations. "There is no clear understanding in
the (Bush) administration that you cannot bend science and technology
to policy."
**************************
From: Jutta Schmitt
To: Robert Van Guelder Waring
Sent: Monday, August 23, 2004 12:17 PM
Subject: Re: Stand firm
Dear Robert,
thank you for your encouraging words!
It is good to know that there are people in the USA who resist to
subscribe to the unilateralist world view as imposed by the political
ruling elite that has hijacked the White House, and as hammered into
the brains of millions of North Americans through the most letal of
weapons of mass destruction, that are the world´s big media
corporations.
Fortunately and thanks to president
Chávez and his conscious political leadership, the vast majority
of Venezuelans is well aware, that it is not the North American people
as such, who have been meddling in Venezuela´s internal affairs,
but the political caste married to economic, geostrategic and energy
interests in Latin America and the world.
The hearts of the Venezuelan people go
out to the people of North America, with hopes and aspirations that
they will be able to retake their destiny into their own hands, and to
dare walk a path beyond the two political faces of Corporate
America!
¡Los pueblos, unidos, jamás serán vencidos!
Un saludo caluroso,
Jutta
Mérida / Venezuela
**************************
4. Thanks for your Report
From: Richard Mellor
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2004 10:50 AM
Subject: thanks you for your report
Thanks for your informative report on
the Venezuelan elections, "Please hand the opposition the silver bullet
... so it may finally rest in peace" I forwarded it to many of
the lists I monitor as well as to an e mail list of my former
co-workers. The media here in the U.S. is perhaps the worst in the
so-called free world. I am thankful for the internet.
Richard Mellor.
Check out our website at: http://www.laborsmilitantvoice.com
"The ones who are most prone to lose their identity in the opportunistic milieu are yesterday's ultimatists" Leon Trotsky
Richard Mellor
Member, AFSCME Local 444
Oakland CA
**************************
From: Jutta Schmitt
To: Richard Mellor
Sent: Monday, August 23, 2004 11:48 AM
Subject: Re: thanks you for your report
Richard,
thanks for your kind words. As far as
the Venezuelan "opposition" is concerned, an international observer
from Uruguay sharply remarked, that (s)he, who is uncapable of losing,
will never be capable to win.
Visit our website at: http://www.franz-lee.org/venezuela00001.html
Best regards,
Jutta Schmitt
Mérida / Venezuela
***********
5. Regarding your opinion article
From: R. Michael Humiston
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2004 10:22 AM
Subject: Regarding your opinion article.
Dear Jutta,
I've just finished reading your
article entitled " Please hand the opposition the silver
bullet ... so it may finally rest in peace" . My
question for you is this: What are the details of the
allegation? You state that the major news outlets are claiming
fraud yet I cannot find (in your article) the basis for their
charge. Was it intimidation at the polls? Was it tampering
with the results? Otherwise I do find your
piece interesting.
Thank-you, and have a great day,
R. Michael Humiston
Maine, USA
*****************
From: Jutta Schmitt
To: R. Michael Humiston
Sent: Monday, August 23, 2004 11:39 AM
Subject: Re: opinion article / allegations of fraud
Dear friend,
thanks for your interest in my
article. The allegations of fraud brought forward by the Venezuelan
"opposition" consisted of pointing to the exit polls conducted by
organizations supportive of the opposition during referendum day (Penn,
Schoen & Berland in cooperation with Sumate), that showed a 59
percent in favour of withdrawing the mandate of Chávez, and
only a 41 percent favouring his ratification. The actual
referendum outcome showed these figures in reverse, that is, the
no-vote in the lead with 59 percent.
(For more details: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4433912,00.html)
Furthermore, the "opposition" claimed
that voting machines were secretly programmed in order to establish a
ceiling for the yes-to-the-recall votes, beyond which all "yes" votes
got converted into "no" votes. (For more details:
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1259)
Thanks again for your interest,
kind regards,
Jutta Schmitt.
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