From International Media reports and hysterical blogs on the internet, you could be forgiven for thinking that all the students in Venezuela are engaged in a struggle for free speech and against repression from the Chavez “dictatorship”. However, last Friday 12 February, in celebration of “the Day of Youth” tens of thousands of revolutionary students marched in support of the Bolivarian Revolution with a new focus on campaigning for the National Assembly elections this September.

The 10km march departed from the National Experimental University of the Armed Forces (UNEFA), through the opposition controlled wealthy eastern suburbs of Caracas to the Bolivarian University, past the revolutionary barrio of San Agustin (now served by the new metrocable connecting them to the city centre) and arriving at 5pm at the Miraflores Presidential Palace.

Here Chavez called on students and young people to take a leading role, highlighting that the future of Venezuela is in their hands. The Day of Youth celebrations came one week after the creation of the new Bicentenary Youth Front which aims to unite all the pro-revolution youth organizations including the JPSUV (youth wing of the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela) the JCV (Communist Party Youth) the youth section of the Homeland for All Party (PPT) and other smaller youth organizations.

Opposition Students vs. Revolutionary Students:

In recent months there has been a series of opposition student protests and marches under the banner of “Manos Blancos” (white hands). On the 4 February “Day of Dignity” several hundred opposition students launched a counter-protest in Brion Plaza in eastern Caracas. The “non violent protests” culminated in throwing rocks and bottles at police, leaving one officer injured. It seems the tactic is to hold demonstrations without permission, provoke and attack the police, then cry repression, holding up their painted white hands in front of waiting media cameras when the police inevitably react. A similar situation occurred in Merida at the end of January where violent protests against sanctions on RCTV left 2 students dead.  Despite false International media claims of state security violence (the Chavez government strictly prohibits the use of live ammunition against protests) unidentified gunmen shot one Chavista student (the circumstances regarding the other death remain unclear) and armed opposition groups also fired at police, leaving 8 officers with bullet wounds.

While the opposition student movement undoubtedly exists, they rarely mobilise more than a few hundred protestors at any one demonstration. Their base is mainly from Venezuela’s autonomous and private universities like the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV). These elite institutions, founded well before the Bolivarian Revolution, enroll around 300,000 students from the upper and middle-classes.

Rather than confronting these well established institutions, the Chavez government has established new alternative universities through the Mission Sucre programme which provides free university education to any Venezuelan regardless of income or resources. Currently the Bolivarian University of Venezuela (UBV) has 9 established universities in 9 different states, as well as more than 190 Satellite classrooms across the country.

Now the Bolivarian Universities boast approximately 1.5 million students with another 3.8 million enrolled in other educational missions. This means that the majority of university students are from a working class and poor background, giving a strong student basis of support for the Bolivarian Revolution.

However, more and more participants from the education projects of Mission Robinson and Mission Ribas are demanding to also be recognized as part of the student movement, adding to the tens of thousands Chavista university students prepared to defend their Bolivarian Revolution. (Mission Robinson teaches reading, writing and arithmetic to adults in local communities and Mission Ribas is a night school project providing high school level classes to Venezuelans who did not complete high school). Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of students are supportive, the international private media gives an unprecedented amount of attention to the few hundreds of opposition students who participate in press stunt protests. There are hardly any mentions of the thousands strong marches of pro-Chavez students, if only to distort and underestimate the numbers participating in an attempt to prove a decline in support.

So who’s behind the opposition students?

The “Manos blancos” counter-revolutionary student protests receive well documented funding from US government-linked organizations. Funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Albert Einstein Institute (AEI) in 2003 held a 9 day intensive course for the Venezuelan opposition on “how to restore democracy” and “how to overthrow a dictator”. The result was a year of street violence, economic destabilization and a recall referendum which failed to get more than 40% of the votes. In 2005 the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID funding to Venezuela reached $9 million and Freedom House set up an institution for training the opposition. Their aim was to undermine the Presidential elections in 2006, which Chavez won with 64%. In 2007 select students were given funding for training in Belgrade and over summer 2009, the US State department financed 8 student leaders for a 3 week training and speaking tour programme where they visited several US cities to denounce the Venezuela government and muster support in the US for the anti-Chavez movement.

This tactic goes hand in hand with manipulation from the private media of Venezuela. After their role in the failed 2002 coup, the strategy has been a “soft coup” tactic of “spontaneous” protests fronted by opposition students. Despite claiming that the student movement is independent of the old parties, a spokesperson of the student movement, Yon Goicochea is a member of Primero Justica ( a far right party) and Leopoldo Lopez, mayor of Chacao (an opposition stronghold) and prominent member of the “Un Nuevo Tiempo” opposition party, has attended several of the protests in recent years. Closer links between opposition student press stunts and the private media were revealed in 2007 when, during the battle over the license renewal of RCTV, opposition students demanded to be received at the National Assembly and given the opportunity to address the National Parliament. The Assembly president, Cilia Flores, accepted this proposal and organized for a debate at the Assembly with a group of pro-revolutionary students. Dressed in red (the colour of the Chavistas) Douglas Barrios (the first spokesperson from the private Metropolitan University UNIMET) declared in his speech "I dream of a country in which we can be taken into account without having to wear a uniform." At this point, he and the opposition students in the chamber removed their red t-shirts, revealing a variety of pro-RCTV messages. Then they withdrew from the National Assembly, ensuring that they did not have to engage in open political debate.

However, after this spectacle, Chavista student leader Héctor Rodríguez of the UCV found and presented to the National Assembly, a sheet of paper that the opposition students had mistakenly left behind. It was the last page of the opposition's scripted performance, laying out the text of the speech and the exact moment at which Barrios was to remove his red shirt. This was signed by ARS Publicity, a company owned by the Globovisión media empire. Together with Globovisión (as well as all other private media outlets), ARS was directly implicated in the planning and execution of the 2002 media coup against the constitutional order. The slick media campaigns and distorted amount of press coverage the Manos Blancos receive today is undoubtedly a product of this self same relationship.

The struggle for elections:

2010 is likely to be characterized by violent opposition protests, media wars, press stunts and destabilizing economic sabotage attempts. This will take place in the run up to the National Assembly elections on 26 September. In order to prevent a split vote, the PSUV will have unitary candidates for the elections. However there are more than 40 registered opposition parties which are fractured in competing for votes. In the best case scenario for the opposition they could gain 50 seats of the 167 seats in the National Assembly; however this would leave just over 70% for the pro-revolution candidates. As the National Assembly requires 66.67% of the deputies to pass a law (two thirds), this means that even if 50 seats were gained by the opposition, they would still have very little chance of rolling back laws and gains already made. In addition to this situation, PSUV has recently announced that their candidates will be nominated by internal elections of the rank and file, rather than being proposed from the leadership. This aims to undermine the bureaucracy that until now has been consolidated within the PSUV, an issue that Chavez is keen to address. In addition to this, the recent expropriations and nationalisations of companies found to be engaging in speculation and mal-treatment of workers (including EXITO a supermarket chain, La Francia Gold Market, and MATESI a brick producer) have been received with enthusiasm by revolutionary Venezuelans who want to see the Bolivarian Revolution confront the fact that economic power is still largely in the hands of the bourgeoisie. This was evidenced in chants of “Expropriation, confiscation, the means of production for the people” at the student march last Friday.  Further developments in the PDVSA missions and  subsidized food provision through the Corporation of Socialist Markets (COMERSO) which has been replacing expropriated food stores, mean that more and more Venezuelans are benefiting from measurements taken by the Chavez government, gains which they are prepared to fight for at the ballot box and on the street.