The US-engineered ouster of Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide sent nervous tremors throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Especially, perhaps, in Venezuela, where the government of President Chavez continues to face long-running US backed destabilization efforts.

James Petras, speaking in Quito, Ecuador at a preliminary meeting of the first Social Forum of the Americas said that "Haiti has the same relation in the attack on Venezuela that Afghanistan had with Iraq, the test, the preparation." He said that Haiti is meant to legitimize the idea of ousting a President who had, in the words of Condoleezza rice "forfeited his ability to govern." Rice was referring to the democratically elected President Aristide, who she said had lost his chance by failing to govern "democratically," at least according to the specifications of the Bush administration.

Aristide's downfall came when, after years of US led economic sanctions, US armed "rebels," composed of US-trained former Tonton Macoute death squad members and army members, crossed from the Dominican Republic. The ensuing crisis made it difficult for Aristide to govern and when he asked the US for help, the Bush administration said that his failed democracy wasn't worth the beffort. The US ambassador offered Aristide two choices: he could "resign" and be flown out of the country, or the US would leave him to the mercy's of his US-backed enemies.

By failing to support Aristide, the US broke with its obligations to the Organization of American States (OAS) to come to the defense of a member democracy faced with extraconstitutional threats to its existence.

While this sort of duplicity from America can hardly be surprising to anybody, the comments of Ms. Rice make a significant break with the soothing pro-democracy rhetoric that the Bush Administration has so far been using to sell its hemispheric initiatives like the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Perhaps the obvious failure of that phony diplomacy has encouraged the Bush Administration to change its tone and step up its more direct efforts to impose its will.

Hugo Chavez has been twice elected President, by wider margins than any other candidate in Venezuelan history, and he unseated the long-ruling, US-backed oligarchy in the process. Promoting his "Bolivarian Revolution" both at home and throughout South America, he is a driving force of a more unified southern stand against the North American colossus. He is as vociferous an opponent of Neoliberal programs like the FTAA as can be found in any tear gas-drenched street; responding to the anti-Aristide coup, he called George Bush, among other things, an "asshole" (pendejo). He said if the US was going to try similar things in Venezuela, the USA's number three oil supplier, he would shut off the spigots. Assuring the US that he was not going to be another Aristide, he challenged Bush to who would be in office the longest. Chavez's term expires in 2006.

The US State Department and its fellow travellers have been working to bring about the same conditions in Venezuela that in Haiti brought the excuse for ousting Aristide. Target of a coup in April 2002, Chavez was kidnapped by opposition leaders and their supporters in the military and taken to an army base on an island off the Venezuelan coast. Just as they have insisted in the case of Aristide, the US government announced that Chavez had resigned. Chavez's supporters quickly surrounded the Presidential Palace in Caracas while loyal military officers ousted the coup plotters. The former army colonel Chavez returned to the Presidential palace and shortly thereafter, reorganized the army to prevent a reoccurance.

In the winter of 2002, Venezuela was crippled by "strikes," primarily in the economically vital oil industry. The strikes were conducted by the executives and tanker captains of the state-run oil company; they withheld access codes and otherwise impeded the petroleum export process. Throughout the course of the strike, constant demonstrations, originating in the more affluent parts of Caracas, called on Chavez to resign to restore stability to the country. The US government echoed this call for Chavez's resignation. And while the strike had never been a serious threat to Chavez's government, the US press, with close ties to the formerly ruling oligarchy, breathlessly predicted Chavez's forthcoming demise on a daily basis. Following the strike, Chavez reorganized the oil industry along largely the same idea as he had earlier the army.

The opposition to Chavez includes the parties who have traditionally run Venezuela, the TV stations, and the country's wealthy. Documents obtained by reporter Jeremy Bigwood indicate that the US government gave $1 million to these groups in 2002 alone, ostensibly to promote "democracy." Chavez has implicated both the opposition and the US in assassination plots against him. Gunmen paid by the opposition have likewise fired into crowds at several demonstrations, events which the opposition and foreign press pick up on to reinforce the idea of instability in Venezuela.

The opposition's current campaign is based upon the ill-fated "recall referendum" that has been a point of contention for many months. After the first attempt was thrown out for a host of irregularities, the opposition collected and submitted what it said were more than three million signatures, far more than the 2.45 million (20% of the electorate) necessary for the recall. After posturing by both sides, the theoretically neutral Federal Elections Commission rejected several hundred thousand signatures as fraudulent and said about q million more needed to be verified. The Organization of American States and the Carter Center are involved in the negotiations meant to achieve a satisfactory resolution.

The process has been punctuated with demonstrations and violence. while the US has maintained a steady call for Chavez to submit to the recall, long before any petitions had been counted.

Even if it takes place, the recall seems to have little chance of succeeding--Chavez continues to be widely and deeply popular outside of the upper classes. The Venezuelan opposition and their US backers won't be satisfied with anything but putting an end to Chavez and his reforms. There isn't much mystery about where things will go from here.

James Petras suggests that Colombia is being groomed as the USA's military partner in the forthcoming intervention. There have already been incidents along the border where Colombian revolutionaries, paramilitaries, and regular military pursue each other back and forth across the border into Venezuela.

The US will increase its rhetoric about Chavez's failure to govern democratically, and organizations like the bipartisanly supported National Endowment of Democracy will continue to fund the destabilization efforts of the opposition. The US and the opposition will use the ensuing chaos to insist that Chavez's government has failed. If they get a chance, they'll kill him, or get him to "resign" and this time make sure he is flown well out of the country. The media will play its role, repeating the official line from Washington and Venezuela's opposition that Chavez has already failed, implying that when he actually leaves office is only a matter of time. It's little wonder Haiti is seen as a blueprint.