Lessons from Latin America (The Morning Star)
It might have been the longest ever public speech in London but Chavez held an audience of a thousand people for nearly five hours on Sunday afternoon in Camden Town Hall. Those lucky enough to fit into the hall heard a feast of literature, analysis, mathematics, anecdotes, self criticism and unity of peoples seeking something better.
After he had completed this marathon, sustained only by sweet coffee from a tiny cup, Chavez went to nearby Grafton Way and Warren Street to see the house where Bolivar met Miranda, where the liberation of South America from the Spanish Empire was planned, and where hope was born for millions.
However, as Chavez pointed out, Bolivar died a sad and almost broken man. True his amazing physical feats of travelling tens of thousands of miles to promote revolution had brought independence from Spain. What it had barely brought was liberation for the poorest and mostly indigenous people. The landowners ran Venezuela and the rest of Latin America for at least the extent century, and in some cases still do.
Bolivar had a nurse in his comfortable upbringing In Venezuela. A black woman called Hippolata, who never forgot this little boy. When he finally arrived in triumph in Caracas she was there to greet him. It is poignant that the Venezuelan Government recognises that there are still many desperately poor and dispossessed people in their country and have launched the Hippolata programme to try and alleviate this poverty.
Listening to Chavez it is easy to forget the serious threats to the whole process of change that is sweeping Latin America, and the dangers of isolation of Bolivia and Venezuela. The reaction of neighbouring governments to Bolivia’s public ownership plans of oil and gas has hardly been and example of solidarity in action.
On Monday night I realised with a big thump exactly how powerful the forces against Venezuela really are. I was a guest on the World Report programme on Sky TV hosted by James Rubin, former (under Clinton) Under Secretary of State. Rubin was joined by a former Under Secretary for Defence and they denounced Venezuela for instability, not fighting terrorism, wasting oil revenues and being a dictatorship. I pointed to the election of Chavez and the Parliament, the (failed) coup attempt and the process of change in Latin America from a continent of military dictatorships in the late 1970’s to the elected civilian Government’s of today. Rubin showed his true colours by claiming this was all the success of Reagan and Clinton and that there had been no interference in internal politics for the last 25 years. My mention of the shameful Contra war in Nicaragua and Kissinger’s complicity in the murder of Allende in Chile had them fulminating with righteous indignation. As if I really needed the lesson but I realised that when it comes to foreign policy there is nothing to put between the two parties in the USA.
The strategy of trying to isolate Venezuela is a carefully thought out one and will be pursued relentlessly in the world’s media in the next few months.
Chavez did come to Parliament and ironically met the Labour Friends of Venezuela in the Churchill Room with the grand old man’s grim bust staring at him he reminded MPs in one of his shortest speeches, a mere twenty minutes, that socialism represented hope and the human spirit. Capitalism was essentially barbaric. The Third Way was not an alternative and he hoped that all countries would travel their own road. It is a long time since Labour MPs hear speeches like that in Parliament. One Minister wandered in to the meeting carrying his red Ministerial briefing case and looked bemused. I don’t think Tony Blair and Hugo Chavez are on quite the same wave-length.
The Council elections in London, with the exceptions of Islington and Lambeth, produced very poor results for Labour as tens of thousands of supporters stayed home and allowed the resurgent Tories to gain control of eight more of London’s thirty two Boroughs.
Housing was a major concern on the doorstep and a debate in Westminster last week showed the reason why.
Despite the obvious need for new housing for rent, ie Council housing, the statistics of the past fifteen years show a disturbing trend. In 1990/1 in England 14,575 Housing Association and 12,958 Council dwellings were constructed, in London the figures were 2,279 and 1,745 respectively. In 1997/8 21,00 Housing Association and 300 Council dwelling were built in England. Last year the figure was 16,637 Housing Association and only 100 Council homes. In London there were just 6,000 new dwellings for people in desperate housing need.
The chronic housing shortage affects everybody. In London prices are so high that in most boroughs three quarters of the people cannot afford to buy anything. Anyone working at even the London average wage has no hope of being able to buy so they need Council places. Many Council’s now routinely house those in desperate housing need in private leased flats. These are often of very poor quality and very expensive with rents often topping £300 per week. This rent is mostly paid by Housing Benefit to enable the family to survive. Obviously everyone in need should get all the benefits to which they are entitled. There is however a big issue her.
Anyone living in one of these leased flats who goes back to work has to pay the full rent, thus coming off benefit and into work starts with a £15,000 rent bill plus Council Tax. A new benefit trap has been created that keeps families in misery and pays enormous and totally unjustified sums to private landlords. The Tories abolished rent controls and set housing benefit at market levels.
In her reply to the debate the Minister, Yvette Cooper, did concede that many more houses for rent had to be built, and that housing was a big problem. It seems that current policies are simply pouring public money into the pockets of private landlords and property companies – much better to invest in bricks and mortar and use planning powers to intervene. The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, wants half of all major developments to be for “affordable” homes. We need to go a bit further and stop using loose words like “affordable” and encourage Council’s to build. Where any application for private development takes place, whatever the size half ought to be for those who are simply unable to buy.
The current policies are simply not strong enough to deal with the free market which is consigning families to a lifetime of overcrowding and stress, and exporting the poorest out of London.
