Second Presidency Of Rómulo Betancourt
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Rómulo Betancourt Rómulo Ernesto Betancourt Bello (22 February 1908 – 28 September 1981; ), known as "The Father of Venezuelan Democracy", was a Venezuelan politician who served as the president of Venezuela, from and again from Second presidency of Rómulo ...
won the 1958 Venezuelan general elections for Democratic Action and held the Presidency of
Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...
from February 13, 1959, to March 13, 1964. Betancourt started his second presidency (his first had been under
El Trienio Adeco El Trienio Adeco was a three-year period in Venezuelan history, from 1945 to 1948, under the government of the popular party Democratic Action (Venezuela), Democratic Action (, its adherents ''adecos''). The party gained office via the 1945 Ven ...
) as a moderate, except on the issue of dictatorships, instituting the foreign policy (known as the
Betancourt Doctrine The Rómulo Betancourt Doctrine is a doctrine of foreign policy promoted by the president of Venezuela Rómulo Betancourt that requires the termination of diplomatic relations with governments without democratic legitimacy. History When he was sw ...
) that Venezuela would not recognize dictatorial government anywhere, particularly in Latin America, but including the USSR. One significant domestic policy was
land reform Land reform (also known as agrarian reform) involves the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership, land use, and land transfers. The reforms may be initiated by governments, by interested groups, or by revolution. Lan ...
, with land largely from expropriated private landholdings redistributed to around 200,000 families. Betancourt's term in office saw the split of the Revolutionary Left Movement from Democratic Action in 1960, several military rebellions, and the development of a guerrilla movement that included the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN). Betancourt survived an assassination attempt on June 24, 1960, blamed on
Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina ( ; ; 24 October 1891 – 30 May 1961), nicknamed ''El Jefe'' (; "the boss"), was a Dominican military officer and dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic from August 1930 until his assassination in May 1961 ...
, dictator of the
Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...
.


Domestic policy


Infrastructure policy

Pérez Jiménez had left in place the basic plans and projects for the further modernization and for the heavy industrialization of Venezuela. Guayana had large iron deposits as Cerro Bolivar and San Isidro. The infrastructure for exploiting them was laid by US Steel as well as the complementary huge steelworks by
Innocenti Innocenti () was an Italian machinery works, originally established by Ferdinando Innocenti in 1933 in Lambrate, a neighborhood on the eastern outskirts of Milan. Over the years, they produced Lambretta scooters as well as a range of automobiles, ...
. Communications had been a priority and Venezuela was endowed with a network of roads and bridges that covered the territory where over 90% of the population lived. Half or more of these were improved surface, and all they lacked was the asphalt paving. This system linked with the many blacktops that the oil companies had built in eastern and western Venezuela. These had been traced for exploration and exploitation, but they also served for the use of the general population and were now linked to the national highway system. Pérez Jiménez had built motorways from Caracas to Valencia and from Caracas to the port at La Guaira. By 1955, one could drive from one end to the other of Venezuela in a matter of days where before it would have taken weeks - months if the rainy season hampered travel. Also, Pérez Jiménez had begun the construction of a coherent railway system, although he had not had time to do more than the railroad from Puerto Cabello to Barquisimeto. Pérez Jiménez had also created government subsidiaries, called "''institutos autónomos''" (autonomous institutes) — the "autonomous" was supposed to mean non-political, but its real function was to allow them to negotiate foreign loans — that were to build waterworks and electric power plants in all important urban centers. He thus had started the construction of the huge
Macagua Dam The Macagua Dam, officially known as Antonio José de Sucre, is an embankment dam with concrete gravity sections on the Caroní River in Ciudad Guayana, Bolívar State, Venezuela. It is upstream from the confluence of the Caroni and Orinoco Rive ...
on
Caroni river The name Caroni may refer to: *Caroní River, one of the biggest rivers of the Orinoco basin in Venezuela *Caroni River (Trinidad and Tobago), a major river on the island of Trinidad and Tobago *Caroni Swamp, a major wetland on the west coast of th ...
, which in time was to provide the entire country with a reliable electric grid. Betancourt's government adopted the plans and the administrative system to carry them out that the dictatorship had left in place. But the politics of repudiation had to have its pound of flesh, and Betancourt and his cabinet also canceled some crucial public works merely because Pérez Jiménez had initiated them. The railroads were scrapped with the argument that Venezuela did not need them having so much asphalt it could expand the road network at a lower cost. Pérez Jiménez had built a large reservoir in the central llanos with the irrigation potential to make Venezuela an exporter of rice. The adecos in power built instead a small hydroelectric dam for Caracas upstream and effectively starved the rice-producing scheme which was only realized to a fraction of its planned area.


Economy

In time, most of the land that would have been irrigated was converted into cattle ranches, the traditional but at that point inessential llanos economic activity. In addition to the government–financed development projects, Pérez Jiménez was not averse to protectionism and incentives to local industries, but the Betancourt government made a fetish of import substitution and instead of allowing the free importation of industrial goods for which Venezuela did not have the training, it tried to force foreign suppliers to build plants in the country for the assembly or packaging of finished products that were allowed tariff-free into the country. The automobile "industry" was the import substitution model postulated by
CEPAL The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC, ECLAC or ''CEPAL'', in Spanish: ''Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe'') is a United Nations regional commission to encourage economic cooper ...
. Venezuela still does not manufacture car engines, and all that the Betancourt and successive governments achieved was to assemble cars, which did give some Venezuelans employment — some parts suppliers, like makers of windshields, also prospered —but made the cars more costly than if they had been imported whole from Detroit to feed Venezuela's car-mania. But economic nostrums and interventionism went beyond that. The government had opted for "guided planning", and what this meant was that businesses were strictly regulated through a system of controls that went from the permission to start one to limits on where and on how they should operate. The author of this "developmental strategy" was José Antonio Mayobre, a former communist and Betancourt's economic guru. All of this required more government employees and again, as after 1945, the Venezuelan bureaucracy bloomed, as it would go on doing with each new president until it reached its height under
Carlos Andres Pérez Carlos may refer to: Places ;Canada * Carlos, Alberta, a locality ;United States * Carlos, Indiana, an unincorporated community * Carlos, Maryland, a place in Allegany County * Carlos, Minnesota, a small city * Carlos, West Virginia ;Elsewhere ...
, Betancourt's personal secretary and future president. Another trusted Betancourt minister was
Leopoldo Sucre Figarella Leopoldo Sucre Figarella was a Venezuelan politician and engineer of Corsican ancestors. A member of the Sucre family Sucre Figarella served as governor, Minister (government), minister and senator during his long and eventful political career. He w ...
, who considered that a long bridge to complete the Caracas-Valencia motorway was unnecessarily expensive, so he had the six-lane highway constructed along the mountain contour.


Land reform

During the brief first period of democracy (''
El Trienio Adeco El Trienio Adeco was a three-year period in Venezuelan history, from 1945 to 1948, under the government of the popular party Democratic Action (Venezuela), Democratic Action (, its adherents ''adecos''). The party gained office via the 1945 Ven ...
'', 1945–48), the Democratic Action government had redistributed land which it said had been gained illicitly by members of previous governments,Alexander, Robert
"Nature and Progress of Agrarian Reform in Latin America."
''The Journal of Economic History''. Vol. 23, No. 4 (Dec., 1963), pp 559-573.
and in mid-1948 it enacted an agrarian reform law. However most of the land redistributed in this way was returned to its previous owners during the 1948-58 dictatorship of
Marcos Pérez Jiménez Marcos Evangelista Pérez Jiménez (25 April 1914 – 20 September 2001) was a Venezuelan military officer and the dictator of Venezuela from 1950 to 1958, ruling as member of the military junta from 1950 to 1952 and as president from 1952 t ...
. After the 1958 restoration of democracy brought Betancourt to office again, a new land reform law was enacted in March 1960, with reform in the early 1960s concentrated in the northeastern states of Miranda,
Aragua Aragua State (, ) is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. It is located in the north-central region of Venezuela. It has plains, jungles and Caribbean beaches. The most popular beaches are Cata and Choroni. It has Venezuela's first national par ...
and
Carabobo Carabobo State (, ) is one of the 23 states of Venezuela, located in the north of the country, about two hours by car from Caracas. The state capital city is Valencia, which is also the country's main industrial center. The state's area is and ...
, and coming largely from expropriated private landholdings. The reform was accompanied by a considerable increase in agricultural production. Ultimately the reform saw about 200,000 families receive transfers of land, largely in the early 1960s.


Foreign policy

Betancourt instituted the foreign policy that Venezuela would not recognize dictatorial government anywhere, particularly in Latin America, but including the
USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
, an interpretation that pleased the United States. The "Betancourt doctrine" proved unrealistic, for Venezuelan democratization occurred in the midst of a marked tendency in the rest of Latin America towards authoritarianism. He was also unrealistic in reviving Venezuela's claim on British Guiana up to the Essequibo river (which had been settled by international arbitration half a century earlier, following the
Venezuela Crisis of 1895 The Venezuelan crisis of 1895 occurred over Venezuela's longstanding dispute with Great Britain about the territory of Essequibo, which Britain believed was part of British Guiana and Venezuela recognized as its own Guayana Esequiba. The issue ...
) and he had all maps of Venezuela show this large territory as part of the country albeit as disputed. In other matters, Betancourt demonstrated a realistic approach. He respected the virtual autonomy of the armed forces and he worked to keep on the good side of Washington. Betancourt held two particular grudges: against ex-dictator
Marcos Pérez Jiménez Marcos Evangelista Pérez Jiménez (25 April 1914 – 20 September 2001) was a Venezuelan military officer and the dictator of Venezuela from 1950 to 1958, ruling as member of the military junta from 1950 to 1952 and as president from 1952 t ...
, for obvious reasons, and against
Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina ( ; ; 24 October 1891 – 30 May 1961), nicknamed ''El Jefe'' (; "the boss"), was a Dominican military officer and dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic from August 1930 until his assassination in May 1961 ...
, the Dominican dictator against whom in his youth, with
José Figueres José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced very differently in each of the two languages: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ). In French, the name ''José'', pronounced , ...
of Costa Rica, he had carried on an active subversive opposition. The first of these targets of his ire led him to undercut developmental projects which would have been beneficial to his country. His hatred for Trujillo almost cost him his life after a 1960 failed bombing attack, although in the end it was Trujillo who lost his life. Pérez Jiménez had gone from the Dominican Republic to
Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...
, but Betancourt had him accused of filching in the state treasury (justifiably, although only circumstantial evidence existed) and the Venezuelan supreme court convicted him. Venezuela asked the
John F. Kennedy administration John F. Kennedy's tenure as the 35th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 1961, and ended with his assassination on November 22, 1963. Kennedy, a Democrat from Massachusetts, took office following his ...
for the extradition of Pérez Jiménez, and the USA complied, betraying an unconditional ally it had once bestowed a
Medal Merit A medal or medallion is a small portable artistic object, a thin disc, normally of metal, carrying a design, usually on both sides. They typically have a commemorative purpose of some kind, and many are presented as awards. They may be in ...
in 1953. Pérez Jiménez was first held in the Miami county jail and was finally sent to Venezuela to finish the term in a prison. In all he spent five years in prison. Betancourt's mines and hydrocarbons minister,
Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso ''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of '' John''. The name is of Hebrew origin and has the meaning "God has been gracious." It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking countries around the world and in the Phili ...
, was responsible for conceiving and creating
OPEC The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC ) is an organization enabling the co-operation of leading oil-producing and oil-dependent countries in order to collectively influence the global oil market and maximize Profit (eco ...
and the Corporacion Venezolana del Petroleo (CVP).


"Alliance for Progress"

The
Kennedy administration John F. Kennedy's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 35th president of the United States began with Inauguration of John F. Kennedy, his inauguration on January 20, 1961, and ended with Assassination of John F. Kennedy, his ...
in the United States of America underwrote all the economic policies of the Betancourt government through the
Alliance for Progress The Alliance for Progress () was an initiative launched by U.S. President John F. Kennedy on March 13, 1961, that aimed to establish economic cooperation between the U.S. and Latin America. Governor Luis Muñoz Marín of Puerto Rico was a close ...
, which used Venezuela as the exemplar showcase for all of Latin America. The ideology behind this came in a package called "
development economics Development economics is a branch of economics that deals with economic aspects of the development process in low- and middle- income countries. Its focus is not only on methods of promoting economic development, economic growth and structural c ...
" expressed in a work by the economist W.W. Rostow, who described economic progress with the "take-off metaphor": A developing economy was like an airplane that got its motors running, taxied to the head of the runway, then sped along until it took off, which was the historical moment of self-sustaining growth. There were many other ideas of this sort. Another was "
trickle-down economics Trickle-down economics, also known as the horse-and-sparrow theory, is a pejorative term for government economic policies that disproportionately favor the upper tier of the economic spectrum (wealthy individuals and large corporations). The ...
", which posited that, as an economy developed, its lower social strata would benefit from the achievements of
free enterprise In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any ot ...
. But in Venezuela free enterprise was a very relative concept because of the proliferation of government regulations, not that Betancourt had anything like a "
command economy A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, ...
" in mind, for the rights of private property were never meddled with. The trickle-down effect took the form of political clientelism through which state hand-outs and local state-created posts, some purely nominal, were financed at the lower ''pardo'' levels. This was not only the rule in the Caracas shantytowns but also in the rural and semi-rural areas where adeco loyalties were firm. The Betancourt government expanded educational facilities of all sorts on a large scale. New universities were created; vocational and craft schools were founded. Pérez Jiménez's immigration policy was halted. Paradoxically, Venezuelans were not doing basic jobs, such as plumbing and carpentry, and a new and larger wave of immigration swept over the country mainly from Colombia, much of it illegal. Venezuela became for its neighbor what the USA was for Mexico. There was no ''pardo'' discrimination — as such this had never existed in Venezuela — but when it came to upper echelon positions in and out of the government, Venezuelan whites and foreigners were generally preferred to the average Venezuelan.


Relations with Cuba

Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and President of Cuba, president ...
occupied Havana in Cuba on January 1, 1959, in the
Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution () was the military and political movement that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who had ruled Cuba from 1952 to 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, in which Batista overthrew ...
, shortly before Betancourt took office on 13 February, overthrowing the dictatorship of
Fulgencio Batista Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (born Rubén Zaldívar; January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was a Cuban military officer and politician who played a dominant role in Cuban politics from his initial rise to power as part of the 1933 Revolt of t ...
, a man who as a sergeant had carried out his first coup in Cuba back in 1933. Castro ordered the public executions of over a hundred Batista soldiers and police officers, who had been found guilty of participation in the torture and mass killings of the Batista government. Betancourt wanted to back the American proposal at an
Organization of American States The Organization of American States (OAS or OEA; ; ; ) is an international organization founded on 30 April 1948 to promote cooperation among its member states within the Americas. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, the OAS is ...
conference in Costa Rica to expel Cuba from that body, which was achieved, but his own foreign minister, Ignacio Luis Arcaya, refused to obey and abstained in the final vote.


Internal unrest

But Betancourt in power primarily faced the problem of merely surviving, even in a personal sense. The underlying cause of the instability was that the 1958 elections had settled the issue of who had the right to govern democratically, but this was not as many disgruntled officers saw it because they still felt very strongly that it was the armed forces and not the "people" who had overthrown Pérez Jiménez. This created an indescribable mélange of partisans of Pérez Jiménez, rightists who were calling Betancourt a communist in disguise, and new insubordinate officers who were clamoring for a "real revolution". During his first year in power Betancourt was the object of an assassination attempt through a remote-control car bomb. He suffered minor lesions. The Dominican dictator Trujillo, who himself was assassinated by his own disaffected officers in 1961, was blamed, but the actual perpetrators were Venezuelans. Then, military insurrections in
Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...
(1961),
Carúpano Carúpano is a city in the eastern Venezuelan state of Sucre. It is located on the Venezuelan Caribbean coast at the opening of two valleys, some 120 km east of the capital of Sucre, Cumaná.Puerto Cabello Puerto Cabello () is a city on the north coast of Venezuela. It is located in Carabobo State, about 210 km west of Caracas. As of 2011, the city had a population of around 182,400. The city is home to the largest and busiest port in the count ...
, which were supposed to take place simultaneously in 1962, instead followed upon each other. The promoter among the military of these rebellious movements was a then little-known personage called
Manuel Quijada Manuel may refer to: People * Manuel (name), a given name and surname * Manuel (''Fawlty Towers''), a fictional character from the sitcom ''Fawlty Towers'' * Manuel I Komnenos, emperor of the Byzantine Empire * Manuel I of Portugal, king of Po ...
. The military held their part of the 1958 agreement with Betancourt and suppressed them. But the strangest of all the movements against Betancourt, and the least effectual — although '' El Carupanazo'' (
Carúpano Carúpano is a city in the eastern Venezuelan state of Sucre. It is located on the Venezuelan Caribbean coast at the opening of two valleys, some 120 km east of the capital of Sucre, Cumaná.El Porteñazo El Porteñazo (2 June 1962 – 6 June 1962) was a short-lived Communist military rebellion against the government of Rómulo Betancourt in Venezuela, in which rebels attempted to take over the city of Puerto Cabello, located ~ West of the capital ...
'' (
Puerto Cabello Puerto Cabello () is a city on the north coast of Venezuela. It is located in Carabobo State, about 210 km west of Caracas. As of 2011, the city had a population of around 182,400. The city is home to the largest and busiest port in the count ...
) can only be described as aberrations — came from the communist left. Venezuelan leftists, and especially the communists, were watching
Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and President of Cuba, president ...
in Cuba, and they came to the conclusion, not entirely unlike that of the rightist officers who had plotted against Betancourt, that the 1958 "revolution" had been hijacked at its most popular and effervescent and that they were going to attempt a repeat of Castro's
Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution () was the military and political movement that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who had ruled Cuba from 1952 to 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, in which Batista overthrew ...
.
Urban guerrilla Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include recruited children, use ambushes, sabotage, terrorism, ...
s were formed even as in Congress leftists were clamoring against Betancourt. The Revolutionary Left Movement split from Democratic Action in 1960 and later supported the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN). The subversive cells carried out some sensational acts, one being the daylight robbery of an exhibition of Impressionist painters sponsored by France at the Venezuelan art museum. In another more deadly action they shot and killed eight Venezuelan soldiers in the back to steal their weapons. Betancourt put his aide Pérez in charge of repression. The leftist deputies were arrested, and the urban insurrection was brought under control, but the communists and their leftist allies took to the hills with the intention of repeating the pattern of Castro's rural guerrillas.
Carlos Andrés Pérez Carlos Andrés Pérez Rodríguez (27 October 1922 – 25 December 2010) also known as CAP and often referred to as ''Venezuelan Spanish#Some examples of Spanish words common in Venezuela.2C including some native Venezuelanisms .28slang.29, El ...
, later twice President of Venezuela, was Minister of the Interior during this time (1959-1964)James D. Henderson, Helen Delpar, Maurice Philip Brungardt, Richard N. Weldon (2000), ''A reference guide to Latin American history'', M.E. Sharpe. p516 and played a key role in the early Venezuelan government response to the guerrilla movement.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Second Presidency of Romulo Betancourt 1960s in Venezuela Betancourt, Rómulo Rómulo Betancourt