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PAUL JAY: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay. When President Zelaya--and of
course he's now former president of Honduras, but many people think he still should be president
because he was removed in what most of the world at the time said was an illegal coup.
But a couple of weeks ago, when he returned to Honduras in a deal brokered by President
Santos of Colombia and President Chavez of Venezuela, it was met with mixed reaction.
Thousands of people greeted him in Honduras, happy that he was back. But the deal itself
was open to question because the Honduran government that came to power in an election
after the coup, an election not recognized by most of Latin America and not by most members
of the OAS, but after this deal, Honduras rejoined the OAS with all states voting in
favor, with the exception of Ecuador. Now joining us to make sense of all of this is
Greg Wilpert. He's the founder of Venezuelanalysis. He now joins us from New York City. Thanks
for joining us, Greg.
GREGORY WILPERT: Hi. Thanks for having me.
JAY: So, first of all, why does Chavez make this deal with Colombia after taking such
a strong stand against this new Honduran regime?
WILPERT: I think the main reason is that he was subordinating his previous policy, basically,
to his new policy of warming relations with President Santos's Colombia. That is, in the
name of improving relations with Colombia, he agreed to be drawn into this deal of brokering
an agreement on the return of President Manuel Zelaya to Honduras. I think he felt that even
though it didn't satisfy all of the requirements that had been set up by Zelaya and his movement,
it was good enough, and if it was going to help also improve his relation with Colombia,
it would be worth it. Of course, as a result Chavez has received some criticism from his
own ranks, from the left of his own ranks, that this was a mistake, especially because
the human rights abuses are continuing in Honduras, and also because the coup plotters
are continuing in office or are not being punished at all for what they had done.
JAY: Right. And for people who have not followed this story--but, of course, if you're watching
The Real News you would know this--human rights violations in Honduras continue almost unabated.
Dozens of people have been killed, many, many more wounded, many arrested. The repression
against journalists--Honduras is considered one of the most dangerous places on earth
to be a journalist right now. So given all that, has Chavez not received criticism within
Venezuela for this deal?
WILPERT: Yes, he has certainly received some criticism for that. But as I said, he's really
doing it in the name of improving relations with Colombia, and he feels to some extent
he can take this criticism, even though he is running for office again for president
in 2012, because he knows that he's the only option that the left has for Venezuela, and
right now he's more concerned with improving relations with Colombia because of the economic
benefits and security benefits that might bring.
JAY: And in Venezuela, how is this warming relationship with Colombia being greeted?
My understanding is he's been going after some people that have been at least accused
of being FARC supporters in Venezuela.
WILPERT: Yes, actually, a number of people have been captured in Venezuela, people who
are accused by the Colombian government of being FARC members or FARC leaders, and there
were three last year and two this year. One of them actually was a prominent journalist
who had sought political asylum in Sweden because his wife was murdered in 1993 and he was being
persecuted in Colombia. So that was a very controversial case. His name was Joaquin Perez
Becerra, where it's not at all clear that he was actually a member of the FARC leadership
or anything like that. Colombia simply launched that accusation against him, and Chavez responded
almost immediately, arresting him when he arrived in Venezuela and deporting him to
Colombia within two days. That really caused a lot of consternation among the left in Venezuela.
And then another case recently of a musician, whether he was considered to be the FARC musician,
so to speak. He was arrested in Venezuela as well and is about to be deported or extradited
to Colombia. So those cases have caused probably a lot more consternation amongst the pro-Chavez
ranks than the brokered Honduras deal did.
JAY: Now, when Santos was running in the election campaign in Colombia, one of the critiques
that was coming is that he was actually upping the intensity of the anti-Venezuela rhetoric.
His background in terms of when he was minister of justice, I guess it was, or head of the
Ministry of Defense was pretty shady. A lot of the disappeared people--he was involved
in a scandal where, to up the body count, he was charged with being involved with--where
they were killing peasants and calling them FARC activists just to get the body count
up. So people were kind of expecting the worst from Santos, if you were--in terms of relationships
with Venezuela. How do you account for the fact that he seems to actually be warming
up more to Venezuela than his predecessor, Uribe?
WILPERT: I think it was partly his electoral strategy that he saw that with Uribe, that
attacking Venezuela worked. But later on he became more of an economic realist and realized
that Colombia had $6 billion of trade with Venezuela, which had dropped to less than
$1 billion within a matter of two years. And so it's a tremendous loss for Colombian businesses,
which had been exporting their products to Venezuela. In return, Venezuela had only been
exporting something like $1 billion worth to Colombia. So there was a tremendous trade
imbalance in favor of Colombia, actually. And so I think Santos is somebody who represents
the business class more than Uribe does, and therefore become more of an economic pragmatist
in that sense and saw that improved relations was good for business, good for the Colombian
economy. The other factor which I mentioned earlier is also the security aspect, that
he probably calculated, I think, correctly that having good relations with Venezuela
would actually improve the security situation with regard to the Venezuelan-Colombian border
rather than worsen it, because as we can see now, Chavez has been turning over FARC combatants,
and according to Santos himself, there are no more FARC encampments in Venezuela, which
was a longstanding claim by the Colombians for a long time.
JAY: It's kind of ironic. You had the United States actually upping some of the rhetoric
against Venezuela, especially with sanctions against the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA because
of its trade relationship with Iran. And then you have Colombia, which has usually been
seen as the closest American ally in South America to the US warming up to Chavez. On
the other hand, Uribe, the former president's not too happy about all this.
WILPERT: Yeah. So the former president is constantly criticizing Santos, especially
on his security policies. And what he means, basically, is his soft approach towards Venezuela
or his cozy relationship to Chavez. And that's a sign, of course, that the Santos camp is
conflicted itself. And, of course, the United States is constantly trying to keep Venezuela
and Colombia apart. That's something they've been trying for a long time, and sometimes
it succeeds and sometimes it doesn't. And I think right now the United States is becoming
more and more isolated, even with its own allies, in that regard.
JAY: Yeah. I mean, one of the central pillars of US recent policy in Latin America is to
try to isolate Chavez. But that's--if Colombia's warming up, then who wouldn't warm up?
WILPERT: Right. There's a very strong sense of integration right now within Latin America.
Next month, on July 5, there will be a major summit where the Central American and Caribbean
countries are going to get together to form a new regional organization which basically
aims to replace the OAS, the Organization of American States. It's going to include
all of the Caribbean countries and all of Latin American countries and will not include
United States or Canada, which is what the OAS has. And so this is really a new approach
to--or a new attempt to forge an independent path for these countries.
JAY: Now, let's look at Honduras now, the return of Zelaya sort of a mixed message,
I suppose, to Honduras. People were very happy when he arrived and came out in the tens of
thousands. On the other hand, it sort of normalizes things with a government that they say continues
to violently repress people's democratic rights.
WILPERT: Yes. I think there--in Honduras there's a bit of disagreement, I would say, perhaps,
between Zelaya and his supporters as to what might be the best approach to try to reverse
the coup that happened, and with Zelaya saying that we need to engage politically, basically,
and he sees his role as being very pivotal for that. And that's why his main demand was
that the government, the coup government, essentially, and then subsequently elected
government, remove all charges against Zelaya, which they've done, so that he could participate
politically, and his organization, which is called the Organization for--or the National
Resistance Movement, would be legalized. And so that does indeed provide an opening for
changing the system from within, although, like you said, the human rights abuses are
continuing, and none of the perpetrators of the coup are in any way being touched. They
are basically free to act, continue to act with impunity.
JAY: So it serves Zelaya's interests to go back and kind of get normalized himself. But
does it do more than that in terms of the struggle of the Honduran people?
WILPERT: Well, Zelaya has promised that he will keep their struggle for fundamental changes
in Honduras, he will keep that as his main target, as his main objective, and will try
to work towards a constitutional assembly, just like he wanted to do towards the end
of his presidency, before he was ousted in the coup. So it remains to be seen. I mean,
what the evolution is, it's possible that his strategy might work in the end, depending
on whether or not his organization and he will have enough freedom and enough freedom
of movement to actually challenge the new power structure there.
JAY: In terms of Chavez supporters in Venezuela, and Latin America more broadly, are they in
agreement with Chavez's role in this? Or is there--are they mostly--are they critical?
WILPERT: There has been substantial criticism from Chavez's left, but I think the attention
hasn't been that focused on that particular issue and that it's rather the accumulation
of issues, the arrests of people who are accused of being FARC members. And of course the support
of this agreement for bringing back Zelaya just adds on to the criticisms that people
have on the left of Chavez right now, who of course is gearing up for his own presidential
campaign in 2012. So it has to be seen in that context. So it's a tricky situation that
Chavez is in, because he's obviously constantly being attacked from the right, and now he's
got some mounting discontent on the left as well.
JAY: Which is a big deal in Venezuela in politics. The left is big, and it's what's elected him
in the past.
WILPERT: Yes, but they're sticking by him, despite all criticism. I think Chavez, he
has to be careful in the sense that he can't take the left fringe for granted. But on the
other hand, he is the only alternative, the only choice that they have. I mean, they're
not--.
JAY: But isn't it a danger for him not so much that, you know, his supporters will vote
for opposition candidates? The danger for him is his supporters might just stay home.
WILPERT: Yes, exactly. That is certainly a risk. But, actually, the left, the far left
is much more committed, so they actually are less likely to stay home. More likely to stay
home are these--the kind of discontented center that is frustrated that many of the policies
haven't been working out or haven't been implemented as well as they would like to see. That I
think is actually the greater danger for Chavez right now.
JAY: Well, we'll cover more of this as we get closer to the presidential election. Thanks
for joining us, Greg.
WILPERT: My pleasure.
JAY: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.