Venezuelan Workers Reclaim the Streets
Venezuelan Workers Reclaim the Streets
By Harry Greatorex
May 4, 2014
A familiar sea of red shirts, large banners and a revolutionary sing-along soundtrack: at first glance this year’s march for the International Workers Day was business-as-usual in Mérida City, Venezuela. The celebratory atmosphere was due in part to the announcement by President Nicolas Maduro on 30th April of a 30% increase in the national minimum wage. A closer look, however, revealed a certain determination and a higher turnout as local activists reacted en mass to three months of blockades, violent attacks and assassinations by anti-government groups that are seen as representing the interests of the city’s other social class.
As the National Guard moved in and removed Merida’s last and deadliest barricades last week, the expected violent response in Las Americas and the surrounding areas did not materialise. It seemed even the middle class residents who had supported the groups barricading their communities for the last three months had had enough of life under siege. Celebrations were short-lived. Even as the helicopters left and shops and roads reopened, rumours were spreading of a second phase of anti-government violence based around targeted hit-and-run attacks on individuals and institutions.
The murder of former soldier and renowned revolutionary Eliecer Otaiza in Caracas on Tuesday 29th April and the deaths of two public sector workers in Guairico the following day were seen by some as confirmation of this new stage of political violence, and meant heightened tension for the thousands of Venezuelans taking to the streets in solidarity with international workers on 1ST of May. In Mérida City, I talked to some of those marching about why they were reclaiming the streets for the working classes.
Continuing a Rich History of Workers’ Movements
Luis Belisario, from the Frente Vanguardia de Hugo Chavez. (Harry Greatorex)
“We are here in defence of the Revolution, in one of the parts of the country most penetrated by North American imperialism. Today is a very special day, a day in commemoration of international workers, but particularly here in Venezuela we remember the oil workers who rebelled in the nineteen thirties, the peasant rebellion against the Spanish and the slave rebellions here- these are all part of the workers’ movement. The famous uprising here in 1989 known as the Caracazo was also part of the Venezuelan workers’ movement, a movement that saw Commandante Hugo Chavez arrive in power in 1999. And when that happened the world oligarchy, and the Venezuelan oligarchy and their people have tried to destroy this government of the workers.
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to Venezuelan workers and the workers of the whole world!
