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Chavez win could
yield a 2nd Cuba 594529
By Myriam Marquez. Orlando
(FL) Sentinel. Omaha
World-Herald, August 20, 2004.
Venezuela's firebrand President Hugo Chavez
survived the recall effort against him.
I have no crystal ball, no tarot cards or
shells to divine the future, but I predicted
as much more than a year ago.
It didn't take a Cuban santero to know
that Chavez's act of class-baiting would
bring out the poor en masse to him.
And in a country where about four in every
five residents are poor, the surprising
thing is that 42 percent of Venezuela's
voters saw through Chavez's class-division
rhetoric and ed his ouster.
Certainly, Chavez has mastered the art
of propaganda, thanks to Cuba's own comandante,
Fidel Castro, who has installed at least
10,000 doctors and thousands of teachers
in Venezuela's barrios to serve the long-neglected
poor.
Fix a kid's knee and proselytize in favor
of Chavez. Teach an illiterate worker to
read and sing the praises of Chavez. That's
what Cuba's propaganda machine has accomplished
for Chavez. No one should be surprised by
the outcome, even if the vote involved fraud
and chicanery, which may well turn out to
be true.
No doubt Chavez hopes to install a one-party
state like Cuba's dictatorship and call
that a "democracy." He's already
talking up disbanding city and state police
forces to create a national police force.
Gee, you think there will be a political
litmus test for the job?
Chavez also wants to control the news media,
just as Cuba does, thereby quashing any
dissenting voices.
And the Venezuelan Congress, already controlled
by Chavez backers, has ed a measure
that would allow the Congress to remove
judges and appoint others to the Supreme
Court.
Justice for all, or only justice for Chavez
lovers? Cuban exiles know that answer. We
saw it up close and personal.
The truth is that Venezuela's a rich nation,
yet Chavez's divisive style has succeeded
in growing the ranks of the poor.
He has turned off foreign investors, blasted
the Catholic Church as he sought to re-educate
kids in his own image and gone so far as
to attack the middle class as "oligarchs,"
making it harder for even small-business
owners to exchange currency for U.S. dollars
needed to buy goods abroad to grow.
In other words, Chavez wants a Cuban-style,
top-down economy controlled by his government.
It's no wonder labor unions are part of
the opposition. In a one-party, communist-style
state, labor has no right to negotiate pay
and business owners have no rights to own
anything.
Which might explain why Venezuela's most
prestigious business association, Fedecamaras,
called for dialogue with the Chavez government
after this week's vote. Better to negotiate
with the devil you know than to let the
devil strip you of your livelihood, your
future, your country.
With the United States counting on Venezuela
to provide about 15 percent of petroleum
imports, it's no wonder the Bush istration
and American companies don't want to risk
Chavez's ire.
Not after more than two years of mayhem,
including national labor strikes, violent
protests (Chavez's Bolivarian Circles didn't
hesitate to shoot at peaceful protesters)
and the short- lived coup that failed against
him. Not when gasoline prices need to stabilize.
The opposition has plenty of very good
reasons to want to get rid of Chavez. What
opponents have yet to crystallize is an
agenda that can show Venezuela's majority,
the poor, that they will be part of the
solution - that they won't be shut out as
they have been again and again with each
new president who has promised paradise,
only to deliver more of the same nothing.
Venezuelans need a leader willing to tackle
race and class issues - not to divide the
country, as Chavez has sought to do, but
to unite everyone behind an agenda that
seeks justice without revenge, education
for all and true rewards for those who work
hard.
Unless that leader emerges before the next
election, Venezuela will keep sinking in
the name of "revolutionary equality."
Copyright
2004 Omaha World-Herald. All
rights reserved.
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