In Venezuela, a Popular Uprising, or Class Warfare? [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

In Venezuela, a Popular Uprising, or Class Warfare?
By Kanya D'Almeida

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 27 2014 (IPS)

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Targeting the poor

Some sources say the above analysis is borne out by protesters’ systematic targeting of public welfare institutions, utilised by the country’s most destitute and marginalised groups, in a deliberate attempt to weaken the nerve center of the Socialist state.

“There have been attacks on government supermarkets that sell food at subsidised prices, on clinics where Cuban doctors provide free medical care, and on educational facilities,” James Petras, professor emeritus of sociology at the Binghamton University in New York, told IPS.

A few nights ago demonstrators torched an experimental university in the western city of San Cristobal, cradle of the protest movement, where several hundred low-income Venezuelan students were receiving subsidised education. Over the last 12 weeks, Petras says, protesters have also targeted “many centres of social gathering and recreational activities, electrical grids – especially those that supply areas where support for Chavez is strong – municipal buildings, local banks that supply microcredit loans to small-scale enterprises, and the list goes on.”

Fire bombings, arson and other acts of sabotage have cost the country about 10 billion dollars in damages, the government said last Friday in a statement that lambasted such tactics as “vandalism” and “terrorism”.
“These are not random acts, this is a deliberate campaign to cut social links between the government and its mass base by blocking the delivery of social services,” Petras said.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/03/venezuela-popular-uprising-class-warfare/