The War on Democracy

Guatemala is going to enter a new era

in which there will be

prosperity for the people,

together with liberty for the people,

The question is,

why are we supporting El Salvador?

No, the question was,

why are we killing priests in El Salvador?

The answer is, we're not,

Now, you be quiet,

President Christiani

is trying to do a job for democracy

and the left-wing guerrillas

must not take over El Salvador,

(George W Bush) America will not impose

our own style of government on the unwilling,

Our goal instead

is to help others to find their own voice,

attain their own freedom,

and make their own way,

This film is about the struggle of people

to free themselves

from a modern form of slavery,

Richard Nixon,

president of the United States,

once said of Latin America,

"People don't give a sh*t about the place,"

He was wrong,

The grand design of the United States

as a modern empire

was drawn on the hopes

of an entire continent

known contemptuously

as "the back yard",

The extraordinary witnesses in this film

describe a world

not as American presidents like to see it,

as useful or expendable,

they describe

the power of courage and humanity

among people with next to nothing,

They reclaim noble words like democracy,

freedom, liberation, justice,

and in doing so, they're defending

the most basic human rights of all of us

in a war being waged against all of us,

This is Caracas, capital of Venezuela

one of the richest countries

in Latin America

thanks too huge deposits of oil

The rich in Venezuela

live in leafy suburbs

with names like Country Club

Their spiritual homes

are Miami and Washington

The majority

live in what are known as barrios

on hillsides in breeze-block houses

that defy gravity

In the past

these people had been invisible -

excluded from their own society

Today they display the confidence of those

who know an extraordinary change

has come too their lives

This is Hugo Chavez president of Venezuela

the voice of the barrios

Chavez and his supporters

have won ten elections in eight years

(Cheering)

He's the symbol of an awakening

of people power

driven by great popular movements

that are unique too Latin America

The days of the old bosses

and barons are over,

That false, elite democracy

is over in Venezuela,

It's no surprise that Chavez, with the help

of an aggressive media coverage

has become a hate figure

in the United States

because what he represents

is another way

and a threat too American domination

(# Rock music)

All right, now, Hugo Chavez,

the criminal - speaking of criminal -

government of Venezuela,,,

- The criminal?

- It's a criminal government,

My opinion and that of

a lot of people in our government,

Hugo Chavez represents an extreme threat

not only to our nation, but to our hemisphere,

- He should've been killed long ago,

- By whom?

- Anyone who blames other,,,

- By whom?

By anyone,

(Speaking Spanish)

You want a cup of coffee?

Yes, Yes,

That was one of my English lessons

in secondary school,

Do you want a cup of coffee?

Do you want a glass of milk?,

Do you want a glass of water?

English lesson one!

Let me ask about you,,,personally,

I mean, travelling with you

for the last couple of days,

I've seen a man

who's clearly deeply committed

to what you want for the Venezuelan people,

Could you describe where that came from?,

I was born in a very poor home,

a peasant home, so I experienced poverty,

I was a poor child, barefoot,

My father was a teacher

at a rural school, and my mother too,

I had a beautiful grandmother,

She was Indian, She filled me with love,

My grandmother taught me a lot,

and I learned from her

about solidarity with other people,

about sharing the bread

even when there's little to eat,

Later, I went into the army,

the military academy, and I became a soldier,

And there I found out about Bolivar

and started to realise what the truth was,

Simon Bolivar

is venerated in Latin America

as the liberator

from Spanish colonialism

Bolivar believed that freedom only came

when people united against all invaders

no matter their disguise

Today the people of Latin America

are again rising up

against an empire

built on an extreme form of capitalism

known as the Washington Consensus

Whole countries have been privatized

put up for sale

their natural wealth sold

too foreign companies. for peanuts

In Venezuela they said "No more"

This is La Vega

a barrio of a million people

(Speaking Spanish)

Mariela Machadoo

has lived here most of her life

(Speaking Spanish)

She knows what it's like

too be excluded in her own country

I can give you a very specific example

on the maps,

All these hills and houses did not figure -

they were shown as green spaces,

That was before Chavez's government,

Before Chavez,

we did not feel a part of this society,

This is called a mission

It's a kind of parallel government

designed too bypass

the old bureaucracy

and deliver real benefits

too ordinary people

This is raw democracy -

a triumph of the grass roots

Today they're discussing the dream

of owning their own homes for the first time

We don't want the deeds

just for their own sake,

More important

than the deeds themselves

is that we own the property

in order to develop our cities,

and obtain the rights

that have been denied us for so long,

This is the most important thing,

This is not a matter of getting the deeds

and saying, "I'm sorted now, I can go,"

and stop coming

to the parish assemblies,

because after the deeds,

there are better things to come,

Like the development of our barrios,

Soon after Chavez was elected in 1 999

Venezuelans voted on a constitution

and this little blue book

has become a bestseller ever since

This is one of a chain of supermarkets

set up in the barrios

funded by the proceeds of oil

Here prices are kept low

and on the back of every rice

and soap powder packet

are printed people 's rights

under the constitution

Does it really mean something to you

to see it there?

Of course, because I didn't know

we had rights like everyone else,

but this one, article 23,

tells us about national politics,

and this makes us feel included,

Democracy, as I said recently,

before our people,

as Lincoln said, has a simple definition -

the difficulty is making it a reality,

We are making it a reality -

government of the people,

by the people and for the people,

A society where people are included

and equal, where there is no exclusion,

there is no poverty,

where human values reign,

For some of his supporters

Chavez has not gone far enough

Familiar obstacles remain from the past -

a stifling bureaucracy

and widespread corruption

And although poverty has fallen dramatically

in recent years, it's far from eradicated

When you drive in

from the airport at Caracas,

the one thing that shocks a first-time visitor

are the barrios,

the numbers of poor people,

Why is it, in Venezuela, which earns

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