What’s Behind the Venezuelan University Strikes?

[Judi Lynn]

What’s Behind the Venezuelan University Strikes?
By TatuyTv

In this series of short interviews by Merida based community television station, TatuyTv, university teachers and students argue that the university strikes aren’t trying to fight for worker rights, but rather are part of the opposition’s destabilisation plan. Below is a translated transcription of the interviews that TatuyTv put together in the following news clip.

~snip~

Pedro Rivas: I think that the national government has had a few small weaknesses, we might say, in not having resolved this sooner. But currently, the national government is discussing, in a collective way with the whole university sector, their life conditions, which, I repeat, attend to the demands of the university sector.

The strike has some interests behind what it’s supposed to be about. That is, the strike isn’t a strike with labour character to it. It’s not a strike which is aiming to make demands for the teaching sector. It’s a strike which is linked to a plan to politically destabilise [the country], a plan which has been underway for a while. It is within the framework of a silent coup d’état, an economic coup, which aims to place the democratic system in a crisis situation. All the time this federation [FAPUV]... in 2002 it participated in the April coup d’état and in the petroleum strike, which generated for the country loses of over $20 billion and destruction of the petroleum industry,

Reynaldo Ortiz: The indefinite strike called by the FAPUV is simply a political manoeuvre which together with a series of other activities that the Venezuela opposition is carrying out, aims to destabilise the country and to take advantage of the current situation.

Pedro Rivas: For us, it’s a political decision that is related to the destabilisation plans and with coup-ism, the coup-ism that is established in Venezuela, and which the universities have used as a refuge to destabilise and place the country in a situation of chaos.

What we categorically reject is that the university becomes a national political party, just like Fedecameras [Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce], the Catholic Church, and the rightwing parties, the traditional ones like COPEI, or the newer ones like First Justice, and so on.

More:
http://www.zcommunications.org/what-s-behind-the-venezuelan-university-strikes-by-tatuytv

[Socialistlemur]

1. Sure sure

It's interesting to see the lack of simple facts in these pro-regime tidbits. The university budgets have been squeezed for years. Professors nor the staff have had raises. Inflation has been horrendous and in recent months it has accelerated. When there's labor action the pressure has to be kept on or the employer screws the workers, anybody who has been involved knows very well a strike doesn't stop because the bosses sit down to talk.

This tells me this guy being interviewed is a social parasite who never joined a union or did any organizing. If the regime has the money to buy weapons and give money away to other nations then it damn better be able to keep up with inflation. At 30 % inflation per year and not enough raises to cover it, it's simple common sense to stop working, get the signs out and go demonstrate for better wages. It seems to me these so called socialist regimes are just fronts for fascist mafias who want to squeeze the working class.

Or if they don't have the money and they are nearly broke, which is also what I think is happening, then they ought to get that big turkey Maduro on TV, explain why they are broke and what they plan to do about it. Instead he's in Europe touring and hobnobbing with the Pope, and rubbing with bankers to see if they lend him some more. I give him 90 days before hyperinflation kicks in and/or they start going hungry for real. Then what are they going to say, dust off the same standard baloney about the people not being happy with the government because they want destabilize it? What do they expect? To misrule and go broke and expect the population to cheer? If they keep doing the same thing they'll get destabilized alright. The barrios will have riots and I dont think they got enough army to stop them.

[Lugal Zaggesi]

2. Maduro doesn't want loans in Europe

Chavez was very explicit about getting out of the IMF and World Bank "game" that locks small countries into longterm debt:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/may/01/venezuela.imf

Maduro was meeting with executives of Total, Renault and Airbus in Paris - discussing things like purchasing a “large” number of airliners for the Venezuelan national carrier, Conviasa. He also met with people in Portugal, inking a deal to import 100,000 tonnes of frozen food and a joint project to complete a freeway between Caracas and the Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia.

Drumming up bilateral economic agreements is one important thing Presidents do.

In the Age of Peak Oil, Venezuela doesn't have to worry about "going broke". They just have to worry about foreign agents like Capriles destabilizing the country enough to encourage Rightwing Forces to stage another military coup d'etat, like in 2002.