Why Venezuela's protests show Maduro is no Hugo Chávez

Venezuela has experienced a progressive criminalization of protests since President Nicolás Maduro took office nearly a year ago.

|
Esteban Felix/AP
Bolivarian National Guards patrol Plaza Altamira in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, March 17, 2014. Security forces on Monday took control of the plaza that has been at the heart of antigovernment protests that have shaken Venezuela for a month.

 David Smilde is the moderator of WOLA's blog: Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights. The views expressed are the author's own.

In the early morning hours [Monday], the National Guard occupied the Plaza Altamira and other parts of the Chacao Municipality (watch state television coverage here). This followed President Nicolás Maduro’s ultimatum on Saturday for protestors to leave the plaza.

It is interesting to think how different this is from Hugo Chávez’s approach to the same plaza 11-12 years ago. Starting in late 2002 it was declared a “liberated zone” by dissenting military officers and served as the center of the opposition movement for months on end. [The political opposition] had monuments, a stage, and even held daily mass there.

People close to the Chávez government tell that when cabinet members suggested he remove the protesters by force he responded that they would instead let them “cook in their own sauce.” The story might be apocryphal, but former President Chávez in fact did not seek to dislodge the occupation and simply let it burn out.

However, Venezuela has been experiencing a progressive criminalization of protest over the past year, and during the past month has denied permits and repressed protests in a way it rarely did a decade ago (see, for example, human rights group Provea’s relatively positive assessment of the government’s respect for the right to protest in 2004, the first time “guarimba” tactics were used).

As the government struggles to keep the Chavista project on track – not only because of President Maduro’s lack of charisma, but because of the inherent flaws of the economic and political model it inherited – it seems to be more willing to address protest with force.

Incredibly, the Maduro government tends to frame its actions in terms of pacification. When Maduro gave his ultimatum to protesters on Saturday he did so to the tune of John Lennon’s Give Peace a Chance. One government official said the occupation of Chacao would allow it to be declared a “territory of peace.” The National Guard officer heading up the operation said it amounted to “a call for humanistic dialogue.”

–  David Smilde is the moderator of WOLA's blog: Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Why Venezuela's protests show Maduro is no Hugo Chávez
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2014/0318/Why-Venezuela-s-protests-show-Maduro-is-no-Hugo-Chavez
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe