Once again, why does the "Opposition" in Venezuela so desperately want to trash the Bolivarian Constitution?

If we reflect about why the Venezuelan constitution of 1999 poses such a threat for the established national and international economic interests, that the representatives and former political power-holders of the latter have not hesitated to do away with it in one stroke of a pen when briefly and temporarily usurping political power in Venezuela via the April 11th, 2002 attempted coup d'état, we certainly have to understand the wider picture within which the Venezuelan "crisis" is developing, framed by some kind of "master plan" for the Americas, which is part and parcel of the New American Security Strategy of the current Bush administration, intended to fully insert Middle and South America and the Caribbean into the infamous globalization process under terms clearly detrimental to the region and favourable to the interests of the USA.

The name of this master plan is FTAA - Free Trade Area of the Americas (ALCA in Spanish), sold to the general public as a move to tackle the roots of terrorism and to "promote global security" by "igniting a new era of economic growth through free markets and free trade", with the USA "seizing the global initiative" and "pressing regional initiatives"! (1)

Under the FTAA project, if it ever should materialize, 34 countries will have to subscribe to an international legal framework for at least 50 years, with obligatory modifications of the member countries' constitutions regarding critical issues like firstly, the privatization of remnants of collective property of land (especially in indigenous areas); secondly, the acceptance of multilateral investment agreements allowing transnational corporations to sue the host State in case the latter should hinder optimum profit making in the form of environmental or social responsibility laws denounced as "trade barriers"; thirdly, the privatization and appropriation of natural, genetic and biological resources under the flag of corporate "intellectual property rights"; and fourthly, the private appropriation of the existing fossil energy resources of the Andean/Amazonia Belt by declaring them "global, human patrimony" open to the highest bidder and not necessarily property of a particular State under the soil of which these resources happen to be located. All these issues come down to a rather crude expropriation strategy better known as "neoliberalism".

A look into the Venezuelan Constitution of 1999, approved by 80% of the Venezuelan population by a national referendum, especially into articles 12, 119, 124, 127 and 129, will make us understand what the problem with Chávez is all about, and why the national economic elite in combination with foreign interests consider it not enough that the president be forced to resign, but that the entire constitution be trashed and for that end the country be lit up and burnt to ashes on all fronts!

Regarding FTAA agenda point "privatization of collective land", Article 119 of the Venezuelan constitution would have to be done away with, as it states the following:

"The State fully acknowledges the existence of the indigenous peoples and communities, their social, political and economic forms of organization, their cultures, customs and traditions, languages and religions, as well as their habitat and original rights over the lands they and their ancestors have traditionally occupied and which are necessary to develop and guarantee their ways of life. It therefore is the responsibility of the national government, with the participation of the indigenous peoples, to delimit and guarantee the right to collective property of their lands, which will be inalienable, inprescriptible, not confiscatable and not transferable according to what is established in this constitution and the law." (my translation / my emphasis)

Regarding FTAA agenda points "optimum profit making" and "privatization of genetic and biological resources", Articles 124, 127 and 129 of the Venezuelan constitution would have to be shredded to pieces, which declare the following:

Article 124: "The intellectual, collective property of knowledge, technologies and innovations of indigenous peoples is guaranteed and protected. All activity related to genetic resources and associated knowledge will pursue collective benefits. The registering of patents on these resources and ancestral knowledge is forbidden." (my translation / my emphasis)

Article 127: "It is the right and the duty of each generation to protect and maintain the environment for the benefit of itself and of the future world. Each person has the right to individually and collectively enjoy a sane, secure and ecologically balanced life and environment. The State will protect the environment, the biological and genetical diversity, the ecological processes, national parks and monuments and other areas of special ecological importance. The genome of living creatures cannot be patented and the corresponding law of bioethic principles will regulate this matter. It is a fundamental obligation of the State, together with the active participation of society, to guarantee that the population develops within an environment free of contamination, where the air, the water, the soils, the coasts, the climate, the ozone layer and the living species shall be protected in a special way according to the law."

Article 129, last paragraph: " ... In the treaties subscribed by the Republic with natural or juridical persons, national or international, or in permits granted which involve natural resources, the obligation to conserve the ecological equilibrium is considered to be an integral part of these, even if not expressly formulated, as well as to permit the access to technology and its transference in conditions of mutual agreement and to re-establish the environment to its natural condition in case of alteration, according to the law." (my translation /my emphasis).

Concerning FTAA agenda point "appropriation of existing fossil energy resources", Article 12 of the Venezuelan constitution is certainly a stumbling block and would have to be eliminated, as it declares all mine and hydrocarbon deposits under the national continental, insular and maritime territory exclusive property of the Republic and thus inalienable and inprescriptible goods of national, public dominion.

This is just a glimpse into the immediate problematic of what is "wrong" with Venezuela's Bolivarian Constitution in the eyes of the national and international economic, financial and energetic interest of the ruling elites and the big, transnational corporations. The magnitude of their combined and sustained attack on the democratically elected, legal and legitimate government presided by Hugo Chávez reveals the magnitude of the basically nationalistic yet not isolationist, humanistic project of the nation envisioned, outlined and enshrined in the 1999 constitution.

(1) (see introduction and point VI in: http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html )