Article - Military radicalism in Venezuela: lessons for Philippines

Walden Bello, professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, and executive director of the research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South based in Bangkok, recently visited Venezuela.

In this article he examines the role of military radicalism in the Venezuelan Army and compares its experience to that of the Phillipine military in order to investigate the broader question of whether the Army can be part of a coalition for progressive social transformation. To read the article press here.

Comments

[Henry Georget]

I can answer the question for Mr. Bello. No, the Army cannot be part of a coalition for progressive social transformation. The Venezuelan army is a bourgeois institution in a capitalist country. Regardless of the number of poor people in its ranks (is that different from other Latin American countries?) it is a bourgeois institution. Ironically, Gott forgets that the Andrés Bello program was instituted by "puntofijismo" (by the way, does Gott and other "experts" on Venezuela know how inappropriate this term is? Do they know when "puntofijismo" began and when it ended? Hint: it was not when Chávez took power).