CARACAS, Venezuela -- In the early hours of Aug. 16, President Hugo Chavez announced his smashing victory in a recall referendum from the balcony of the presidential palace to thousands of red-bereted supporters. "Tremble, oligarchs tremble," he sang to the delight of the crowd below.
It didn't augur well for Venezuela's business establishment, which has tried by means legitimate and otherwise to unhorse the fiery leader. Mr. Chavez's self-styled "revolution" for the poor has devastated private companies and has sharply divided this country.
Not every oligarch, however, is trembling. Alberto Vollmer, 36 years old, scion of one of Venezuela's oldest families and head of a century-old rum distiller, has learned to do what few of his wealthy peers have managed: adapt and even thrive under Mr. Chavez's hostile regime. He has become an example of how this deeply polarized nation can find common ground and move ahead after years of debilitating political violence.
Mr. Vollmer's formula for survival in today's Venezuela is a shrewd mix of altruism and self-interest. When some 450 pro-Chavez families invaded his lands to take them over, Mr. Vollmer didn't call the police but opted instead to negotiate. By reaching out to the other side of Venezuela's class chasm, he fostered a social peace that has permitted his rum company, C.A. Ron Santa Teresa, to function. He has made some surprising alliances along the way: The leader of the land invaders -- a former comrade in arms to Mr. Chavez -- asked Mr. Vollmer to be his son's godfather.
Calling himself the black sheep of his patrician family, Mr. Vollmer has thrown himself into social projects in the barrios that sit close to his family's eclectically decorated hacienda in the Aragua valley, about 47 miles west of Caracas. One program, named "Alcatraz" after the prison, rehabilitates gang members. He recently flew one of them first class to Sarajevo to attend a World Bank conference on social programs.
"If you have growth and well being in the company but not in the community outside, then you are dead meat," says Mr. Vollmer.
In a region with the world's biggest divide between rich and poor, few of Latin America's elite have concerned themselves with those outside their mansion walls. But with relentless poverty and the growing class abyss driving a rising tide of populism, some business leaders are slowly pursuing strategies similar to Mr. Vollmer's. Mexican telecommunications magnate Carlos Slim last year held a retreat with fellow billionaires to argue that governments should pursue growth-oriented economic policies to ease poverty. And he forged an alliance with the leftist mayor of Mexico City to redevelop the central historic district.
Mr. Vollmer has stoked resentment from some peers who regard him as an opportunist and class traitor. Many were furious when Mr. Vollmer appeared on television with Mr. Chavez just weeks before August's recall election, saying Mr. Vollmer aided an implacable and dangerous enemy.
Others, however, are starting to see his approach as a blueprint for the future. "I want to do the same thing," says Alexander Degwitz, a Venezuelan who helps manage a family conglomerate of cattle ranches, coffee farms and financial-services companies. "You can't be rich and turn your back on society."
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has conferred with Mr. Vollmer for tips on how to peacefully reintegrate former combatants in Colombia's civil war back into society. Harvard Business School and 10 other business schools in Latin America and Spain are using Mr. Vollmer's experience as a case study.
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On the night of Feb. 26, 2000, some 457 families seized a large swath of land belonging to Mr. Vollmer across from his hacienda. "It was literally a wake-up call," Mr. Vollmer told a group of young Venezuelan business leaders over a recent breakfast of scrambled eggs. His guests, heirs to some of Venezuela's largest family businesses, face the same social pressures and came to his hacienda seeking his advice.
That night, Mr. Vollmer told his guests, he had three choices. He could let the takeover stand, creating a precedent for further invasions. He could call the police to oust the invaders by force, a solution that didn't seem advisable or even possible, given the angry mood in Venezuela. ("I called the governor who said, 'Are you crazy? That's my political base,' " remembered Mr. Vollmer.) Or, he could negotiate.
Using techniques learned at a Harvard Law School conflict-resolution course for executives, Mr. Vollmer set out to parlay with the squatters' leader, Jose Omar Rodriguez, a former Air Force sergeant and veteran of Mr. Chavez's failed 1992 coup.
A deceptively meek looking man with wire-rim glasses and a balding pate, Mr. Rodriguez recalls that the meeting was like the first round of a boxing match. "We were like two fighters, each probing to find the other's weak spot."
Mr. Rodriguez told Mr. Vollmer the latter had a lot of land, and the squatters needed housing. Mr. Vollmer said he didn't want a chaotic Venezuelan barrio on the front gates of Santa Teresa. But Mr. Vollmer had some sympathy, too. As a college student in Caracas, he lived for a while in a barrio, helping a local priest improve the neighborhood. The squatter leader and the young oligarch soon found they had common ground. "Our shared weak spot was that we both had social sensitivity," says Mr. Rodriguez.
Over the following weeks, Messrs. Vollmer and Rodriguez brought the state governor into the negotiations. Mr. Vollmer agreed to donate 60 acres as well as plans for a 100-house model community. Mr. Rodriguez agreed that the families would pay mortgages, held by a government housing agency, and provide the labor to build the houses. He also agreed to winnow the number of families down to a more manageable 100 from 457. The state and federal governments agreed to provide financing to build the proposed neighborhood. The result is the tidy urban development of Camino Real, inaugurated this year.
Meanwhile, Mr. Vollmer and Mr. Rodriguez drew closer. Mr. Vollmer became the godfather of Mr. Rodriguez's son, named Hugo Rafael, after President Chavez. Mr. Vollmer invited Mr. Rodriguez to management courses for Santa Teresa executives. Last year, Mr. Vollmer sent Mr. Rodriguez to a conflict-resolution course at Harvard, working his contacts at the U.S. embassy to get a visa for Mr. Rodriguez, who, as a participant in Mr. Chavez's failed coup, had been barred from entering the U.S.
For Mr. Rodriguez, the trip was an eye-opener. "Drivers stopped at red lights," marvels Mr. Rodriguez. "There's no reason we can't do that."
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