Castro Wannabe Chavez Wrecks Venezuela
Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Tuesday, March 26, 2002
Just about everybody in Venezuela wants to get rid of Castro wannabe Hugo Chavez, the nation's far-left president, but no two people seem to be able to figure out how to dump him, who'll replace him and what to do after he's gone.
Chavez, who once said that Cuba and Venezuela were "swimming together toward the same sea of happiness," is fast sinking into irrelevance. He's taking Venezuela down with him into a sea of red ink, massive unemployment and nationwide discord.
The army, failing to act like a real Latin American military whose principal occupation is staging coups, wants nothing to do with saddling up and overthrowing Chavez.
Luis Enrique Marius, who for three years has been adjunct secretary-general of Latin American Workers Confederation and a union leader, told the Vatican agency Fides that "Chavez's decline began in mid-2001 when the people were tired of hoping and seeing no solution to social problems.
"The year 2002 began with unemployment at 23 percent, but it is expected to rise to 30 percent by the end of the year," Marius added. "A large part of the opposition calls on the president to resign. This group grows daily and there could be confrontations between the political opposition and the government."
But the most serious problem is that the opposition group proposes only the resignation of the president. "It has no program or national idea, it has no leader to head the opposition," Marius explained. "For this reason we think the government will continue, although it is weaker every day and this year we can only expect a situation that worsens daily."
According to Rome's unofficial Vatican news agency Zenet, Archbishop Ovidio Perez Morales, president of Plenary Council of Venezuela, told Fides that over the last few months the situation in Venezuela has worsened following economic measures, including reduction in income and interest rates, new taxes and the falling bolivar, the nation's currency.
As far as a coup to unseat Chavez, something speculated about in the media almost daily, the archbishop said one was not expected yet.
"Positions have been taken by certain army officials," he said. "However, they do not call for a coup. They call for support for the civil society which at present is gathering force and, along with traditional parties, constitutes a certain majority, although without any precise political direction.
"Many think the only solution is for the president to resign. The possibility that Chavez continues to lead the country is subject to serious revision, frank dialogue and reformulation of government policies. Unless this happens the situation of conflict will become more acute. And then ...?"
The tragedy of Chavez's wrecking once-prosperous Venezuela's economy and destroying its republican traditions should come as no surprise to NewsMax.com readers. We have repeatedly reported on his efforts to turn his nation into a communist dictatorship allied with Cuba and China, which is supplying him with arms and financial aid.
On Sept. 21, we reported that The National Emergency Coalition, a group seeking to restore republican institutions in Venezuela, was warning Americans about the threat of terrorism posed by Chavez.
The coalition reported that less than one month after taking office in 1999, Chavez wrote letters, on official stationery, to the world's most notorious terrorist, Carlos "The Jackal" (Illich Ramirez Sanchez) addressing him as "Distinguished Compatriot."
In 2000, Chavez met with Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, called him a "hero" and referred to the West as "criminal" for its actions against Gadhafi. He called terrorist-sponsoring Libya a "model of participatory democracy . ... Our struggles are the same, as well as our ideals, he said.
He is the only Western head of state to embrace Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi regime. While visiting Baghdad, Chavez praised Saddam's totalitarian dictatorship as a "model" for Venezuela and promised close cooperation and increased cultural exchange. According to the U.S. government, Iraq's intelligence services were in close contact with terrorists involved in the horrific attacks on New York City and the Pentagon.
He also met with the fundamentalist dictatorship of Iran, where he referred to the Iranian hostilities against the West as a "worthy" so-called holy war. Later, he declared to the Venezuelan people that Iran and Venezuela were in the throes of "sister revolutions" with equal struggles and the same destiny.
Chavez and his government have funneled weapons, intelligence and funding to the terrorist guerrillas of Colombia: both the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN).
He has played host to these Colombian terrorists in Venezuela and invited the public spokesman of the FARC terrorist group to speak on the floor of Venezuela's National Assembly. Colombia's government has documented the use of Venezuelan military equipment by the terrorist death squads in Colombia, including the seizure of standard-issue weaponry of the Venezuelan army at a checkpoint 30 miles from the Colombian border.
Colombia's bloody civil war has killed some 200,000 people, mostly civilians. Yet Chavez declared, "The Colombian guerrillas are not the enemies of Venezuela." He blamed Colombian civil society for the war in that country.
Chavez has heaped praise on Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and his island prison and hailed numerous unlawful economic and military accords. "Now we can talk of a single team. This isn't two teams any more, this is a single Cuban-Venezuelan, Venezuelan-Cuban team."
In living his dream of converting Venezuela into a communist paradise, Chavez has gutted its economy, introduced a police state, intimidated the media and turned the nation into a basket case.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Castro/Cuba
China/Taiwan
Latin America
Saddam Hussein/Iraq
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