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05.24.2008 10:00 am
Venezuela and Chavez - An editorial notebook by Gilbert Bailon
By Gilbert Bailon
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chavez.jpgCARACAS, VENEZUELA Americans might well marginalize President
Hugo Chávez of Venezuela as the megalomaniac who denounced President
George W. Bush as "the devil" who left the smell of sulfur in the air
after he spoke to the United Nations in 2006. Chávez derides
"imperialists,
Belarus, Russia, Ecuador and Nicaragua - much to the dismay of U.S.
officials. Indeed, he revels in the disdain cast upon him as a divisive
antagonist. But the role of fiery champion of the downtrodden plays well
to his political base. His social programs and bellicose rhetoric only
reinforce his support among the poor and underemployed majority that
dwarfs his country's small elite class. Chávez's vitriol seems more
befitting a professional wrestler than a head of state, and, in fact, he
operates deftly behind the curtain of his political theater. Other
leaders may dismiss him as a crank - or worse - but this makes the
mistake of underestimating him and overlooks the importance of a South
American country of 28 million people best known for two exports: crude
oil and Major League Baseball players, including Cesar Izturis of the
St. Louis Cardinals. Modern Venezuela fuses a quasi-free-market economy
with Cuban-like socialist social programs and economics. Chávez
passionately promotes what he has called 21st-century socialism. His
administration funds and operates social programs and subsidizes
nationalized industries including oil, electricity, cement and
telecommunications. With the price of crude oil rising past $130 a
barrel, Venezuelans still pay about 10 cents a gallon at the pump.
Whether a ranting radical or a bold reformer - or a calculated blend of
both - Chávez recently drew back the theatrical curtain and offered a
more intimate look at his complex country and its contradictory leader
to a visiting delegation of journalists from the American Society of
Newspapers Editors. "I beg for a pardon from them [the American
people]," he told us in a private 90-minute briefing at the historic
Palacio de Miraflores, the Venezuelan White House. "I beg for
forgiveness if in my speech I've hurt any feelings back in the States. I
ask for forgiveness. . . . When I speak about the United States, I do
not speak of the people, to the citizens. I refer to the elite ruling
the United States, not even referring to all of the elite governing the
United States." Chávez is a political survivor. He ran for president in
1992 and lost, ran and won in 1998, survived a coup attempt in 2002 (in
which he was ousted from office briefly) and then won a resounding
reelection victory in 2006. "I would love, for instance, to be able to
work with the United States, together - and other countries as well,
regardless of the ideology - to work in the field of health, for
instance, infant mortality, food production. In Latin America, we have
19 million malnourished people," he said.
Chávez spoke of the eight combative years of the Bush administration and
said he hoped that the new U.S. president elected this fall would be
more collaborative. His incendiary comments about Bush and other leaders
aside, Chávez is well aware of how deeply Venezuela and the United
States are linked economically. This reciprocal relationship often gets
lost in the media's fascination with outrageous sound bites. The fact
is, more than 50 percent of Venezuela's gross domestic product comes
from exports to the United States, the biggest chunk of which is oil. At
least 10 percent of the oil consumed in the United States originates in
Venezuela, home to the largest petroleum reserves outside the Middle
East. Chávez told us that Venezuela is producing about 3.3 million
barrels of oil per day now, about half its ultimate capacity. He plans
to increase that to 5.5 million barrels daily over the next three to
four years. That would mean more oil for the United States at prevailing
prices - and more U.S. dollars pumped into the Venezuelan economy. The
point: Venezuela relies on the United States much more than the reverse.
Severing relations would be cataclysmic for Venezuela's economy, and
there is no doubt that Chávez knows it. But Chávez, a former lieutenant
colonel in the Venezuelan army, also spoke to us of his concerns that
the United States might invade Venezuela in pursuit of oil, which, he
insisted, was the main motivation for the Iraq war. The idea might seem
ludicrous to Americans, but defending Venezuela's national honor plays
well with his core constituency. Just after our group arrived in the
country, for example, he spoke defiantly about protecting Venezuelan
sovereignty after his government accused a U.S. military fighter jet of
violating its air space on May 17. He vowed to protect his people from
any imperialist invaders. At our briefing several days later, Chávez
asked, "Have we invaded anyone? Do we have plans to invade any other
country? We are not a power. We do not have atomic bombs. We do not have
missiles that destroy people, to attack other people."
Venezuela is the sixth-largest nation in Latin America. It has been
under civilian leadership for 50 years. Chávez, 53, will finish his
second six-year term in 2012. He has plenty of time left to act as a
significant player in his country and abroad. Chavez waxed eloquently
and profusely about fighting poverty in Venezuela and the world,
something he has discussed at length with former U.S. presidents Bill
Clinton and Jimmy Carter. In 2003, the Chávez government started an
extensive anti-poverty program called Misión Barrio Adentro (Mission
Inside the Neighborhood)
medical, eye and dental care. Doctors refer patients to hospitals for
serious ailments. Subsidized food staples such as rice, beans, chicken,
cooking oil and bread are sold at reduced prices. Government officials
say that more than 1,500 Barrio Adentro centers operate nationally,
including in the most remote areas where doctors from Cuba work out of
new hexagonal two-story brick buildings that provide shelter and a
medical clinic.
Despite Venezuela's striking inequality of wealth, the country has
remained remarkably stable compared to other countries in the region. On
that basis, Venezuela might seem like a natural U.S. ally in the
hemispheric economy and in the battle against illegal drugs. But its
socialist economic and social agendas have clashed with U.S. policies
since 1999. Most recently, computer files discovered in March at a rebel
camp in Colombia purportedly revealed that Venezuela has been supplying
millions of dollars to assist the efforts of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia to overthrow that country's government, a U.S. ally.
At a televised news conference that preceded our private briefing,
Chŕvez vehemently denied the conclusion of the international police
agency, Interpol, that the computer files were authentic. Chávez
dismissed the files as frauds and condemned Interpol as a "show of
clowns" headed by Ronald Noble of the United States, whom he derided as
a "gringo policeman."
"We have made mistakes," he acknowledged to us. "We have many problems
in this country. But to say we have a dictatorship in this country?
There is no evidence no evidence whatsoever of a dictatorship in this
country." If a dictator is someone who possesses absolute and supreme
authority, Chávez is not one. He is, rather, an authoritarian. He also
is a democratically elected president who changed his country's name to
the Bolivarian Republic de Venezuela in honor of the revered liberator
of several South American countries, Simón Bolivar. Venezuela is not a
one-party state like Cuba. Wide-ranging politics are lively and reported
in detail in the media, especially among the non-government, independent
media that Chávez accuses of being aligned with his political
opposition. That opposition, although fragmented across multiple
parties, includes many wealthy Venezuelans who vilify him for leading a
failed "revolution,
They condemn him for squandering the riches of an oil boom by frittering
away money on pet projects and political cronyism. After voters
reelected Chávez in 2006, they handed him a major setback in December
when they rejected constitutional reforms that would have allowed him to
be president without term limits, among other measures. His opponents
are preparing for electoral battle this fall in which many local and
regional elections nationwide will define the contemporary support for
Chávismo.
Venezuela is layered with contradictions beyond blips of Chávez's
televised rants. In some districts, tony shopping malls tout logos such
as TGIF, McDonald's, Wendy's, Papa John's and KFC, along with consumer
brands like Fendi and Gucci. These stand in stark contrast with the
daily life of 4 million Caraqueńos who endure traffic jams, buses
bursting with passengers and hard-scrabble lives in the mountainside
slums where, on some weekends, more than 50 men - mostly young - have
been murdered.
Venezuela - like its mercurial leader Hugo Chávez - is complex and
contradictory. But whatever the politics of the moment, the economy and
fortunes of this tropical South American nation will remain intertwined
with those of the United States.
- Gilbert Bailon Editorial page editor
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