Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

Folha de S. Paulo, March 22th 1989

As the grim days of the March rioting and looting in Venezuela sink into the past it becomes easier to analyze several aspects of that upheaval. This is so despite a fact that still confronts us: Since the conditions in most of the Latin American capitals are analogous to those in Caracas, we might see a repetition of the same drama. Thus, it is plausible that a series of revolts could break out in Latin America like a chain reaction of boils on a body undermined by furunculosis. An explosion of pus could occur from one moment to the next wherever there are tumor cities, as has been amply foreseen by both the Brazilian media and that of other countries.

Since it is impossible to cite them all, let it suffice to mention, above all, the media of the United States, the country where the principal creditors of Brazil's foreign debt are based, and those of both Madrid and Lisbon, the mother cities of Latin America, which are giving very special attention to the course of events in the Latin American nations.

The New York Times prophetically warned that the drama in Caracas signals an economic crisis, which, fermenting in the various nations of South America because of the foreign debt, threatens to shake the stability of all of Latin America.

Quite expressively, the Times editorial notes: "Caracas Seethes, Washington Snoozes." It points out that, stifled by the weight of the foreign debt, the Latin American democracies that will have elections this year could choose populist governments that would preach debt repudiation and a systematic anti Americanism.

Another article, "Debt Crisis Sets Off a Latin Time Bomb," appeared in that same newspaper's important Sunday section The Week in Review. And so forth.

In its turn, the Madrid press did not lag far behind. The entire front page of the well known daily ABC of March 4 was a picture of a fireman trying to put out a fire, headed by the title, "Foreign Debt Ignites the Latin American Volcano." The article examines the case of Caracas and ponders whether the same could be repeated in Colombia as a consequence of drug trafficking; in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina because of the foreign debt; and in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Panama because of the guerrillas.

It is not my intention to comment here on the harmful effect of the foreign debt upon the general conditions of Latin America. But it surprises me that in Brazil, as in the sister nations of South America, and even in Spain and the United States, so much attention is focused on the foreign debt that the other possible causes of the economic malaise, (whose resolution is the responsibility of our governments), are either considered insignificant or completely overlooked.

Brazil's government inexplicably refrains from eliminating the first of these causes, which its creditors point out as one way of at least partially escaping the disastrous effects of the foreign debt and of beginning a whole stratagem to remedy its economy. So, I don't understand, I absolutely don't understand, why Brazil has not already reinstituted private enterprise for state owned businesses whose deficits devour its resources. I also do not understand why an authentic national and non partisan uproar has not forced the adoption of this measure.

On the other hand, I don't understand how the world and the Latin American press have not reported the obvious existence of an agile, vigorous and cunning communist operation in the Venezuelan ordeal without which, everything leads one to believe, the Caracas rioting would have been far less grave, or even might not have occurred.

Some indications of the conspiratorial nature of the revolt are:

1) The tragic insurrection began in all the slums of Caracas simultaneously. Precisely at midnight, all the slum dwellers descended en masse toward the wealthy and middle class neighborhoods. This immense offensive could not have taken place with out a powerful underground organization coordinating it.

2) The methods were identical. The attacks were unleashed almost exclusively against supermarkets and shopping centers, while much more elegant targets such as jewelry and other luxury shops were left alone. This reveals a disciplined, albeit frenzied, uniformity of mass action. This uniformity also suggests the idea of a powerful directive central committee stimulating popular indignation and organizing it with well defined attack tactics.

Who was responsible? Obviously the ideologues standing to gain from the whole drama, and the ring of systematic agitators of popular passions who are always at their service.

Still it surprises me that this national and international media effort omitted any serious reference to the dynamic and ill omened collaboration of the so-called Catholic left.

Lack of space prevents me from dealing with another aspect of the matter. If the glorious TFP standard had not been the object of furious measures unjustly and arbitrarily taken by the Lusinchi government, how would the TFP have influenced the Venezuelan scene before the turmoil, as well as during it? Why there has been such an odd silence about this point is also beyond my understanding.

I merely note that all this has caused a general movement of antipathy toward the U.S. from which only Moscow can gain. It seems that President Bush also realized this, and, in an expressive gesture of continental solidarity, recently proposed reducing the debt of the Latin American countries.

It is not enough that this gesture be expressive; it is also necessary that it really be something useful to these countries. Is it really useful?

I will not expound upon this point, for it far transgresses the habitual sphere of my thoughts.