https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14543
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Edgar Perez, better known as “Gordo Edgar,” participated in the most important events in recent Venezuelan history, from the Caracazo to the 4F insurrection to the anti‐coup mobilization that brought Chavez back to office in April 2002. A well-known personality in the popular movement, Edgar grew up in the 23 de Enero barrio in Caracas, but most of his activism took place in La Vega, a very poor barrio that, like 23 de Enero, takes pride in its history of rebellion and grassroots organization. Growing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s, Edgar calls La Vega, where we interviewed him, “a school for revolutionaries.” In this conversation, “Gordo Edgar” reflects on the vicissitudes of the popular movement while analyzing the role of Hugo Chavez in the Venezuelan revolution.
It would seem, in some mainstream narratives, that prior to Chavez emerging, there were no struggles. You yourself had a rich experience of activism, joining the urban resistance, working with insurgent movements, participating in counter‐hegemonic cultural production, and you were active during the insurrections of 1989 [Caracazo] and 1992 [4F insurrection]. What can you tell us about the popular movement before Chavez?
First, I should say that the popular movement, with its struggles, has periods of peaks – moments when society has come to the boiling point – and periods when it recedes somewhat.
Let’s take a look at our history. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, during the [guerrilla] insurgency, the popular movement in the city, in Caracas, and particularly in La Vega, was very active. Here, in La Vega, Bandera Roja [a revolutionary party at that time] developed a legal front, the CLP [Popular Struggle Committees], whereas the PRV [Party of the Venezuelan Revolution] had a mass front here as well, which was Ruptura. Finally, there was another organization which was the OR [Revolutionary Organization party] with the Socialist League as its legal front. By the ‘70s in La Vega, in addition to these organizations and a widespread environment of rebelliousness in the barrio, we had the grassroots Christian movement in its most radical and popular form, doing work in the community based on the premises of liberation theology.
One key figure here was Francisco Wuytack, a Belgian priest who arrived around 1965, was expelled from the country during the first Rafael Caldera government [1969-1974], and came back in clandestinely a few years later only to be expelled once again during Carlos Andres Perez presidency [1974-1979]. He truly shook our community because he brought in sectors that were lukewarm to the struggle, by linking their beliefs with the struggle.
So the ‘60s and ‘70s were impressive decades, decades of mobilization and action, when the barrio was boiling, and when the popular movement was the epicenter of daily life – a very rebellious popular movement!
Then the ‘80s came, and there was a falling off of popular organization. The ‘80s were not as effervescent as the ‘70s, but the general stupor was broken by the events of February 1989 – what is known as the “Caracazo” but should really be called the “Guarenazo” to do justice to the people who sparked the popular insurrection, which began in Guarenas.
So the Caracazo breaks with a sleepy decade. Basically, the dam broke on February 27, just weeks after Carlos Andres Perez entered his second presidency [1989-1993]. The economic situation then was tremendously difficult. It was extreme.
Carlos Andres Perez had been elected by an ample majority of people who held the memory of the economic boom of the ‘70s. The basis of his victory was the prior bonanza. It was a false promise because his government implemented neoliberal adjustment policies just days after taking power. That, on top of the deteriorated economic situation, was the trigger for a popular uprising that began in Guarenas and shook Caracas.
During those days, people, humble people, took over the streets – we made them our own. We affirmed our existence in a process of expropriation of the expropriators. It was a totally spontaneous insurrection. There was no party or vanguard leading it… the vanguard was the people. It was us, the people from the barrios, doing justice, taking what should be ours. The old organizations, the parties associated with the left, they were immobilized by the rush of events.
We are talking about two or three days where the people were centerstage and corralled the political class and the rich. Those days were followed, of course, by a brutal repression that left us angry, having lost four to five thousand people, but it didn’t leave us numb, whereas it left the rich quaking in their boots.
Twenty years later, when we reflect on that rebellious outburst, we may ask ourselves about the conditions for insurrection today. The fact is that, for a variety of reasons and policies, both internal and foreign, our material conditions are worse than those in 1989… But the truth is that, with all the suffering and all the contradictions that we are facing today, we haven’t lost hope. We have a collective project which may be nebulous when it comes to the policies that are implemented from above, but we have a project that maintains our hope.